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Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention

 
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Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/27/2022 11:21:28 PM   
Craigkn

 

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Given current events, I have enjoyed playing Al “Beirutdude” Sandrik's "Black Sea, 2019" scenario, and it got me thinking. Russia has a substantial Naval presence in the Black Sea, how far could a hypothetical NATO SAG grow to present a possible counter? My understanding of the Montreux Convention is that Turkey restricts Naval access to the Black Sea by any nation outside of the region to the following - 30,000 ton maximum per nation, and a total aggregate warship tonnage of 45,000 for all non-regional nations. Given this restriction - 45,000 tons total, no more than 30,000 tons for one Nation, this is what I came up with:

1 x Ticonderoga-class CG (9,466 tons)
2 x Arleigh Burke Block IIA-class DDG (9,217 tons)
Total: 27,900 total tons.

This leaves 16,400 tons left over, which must be from another nation. Here is what I picked:

1 x UK Type 45-class Batch 2 DDG (8,000 tons)
1 x Spanish Modified Alvaro De Bazan (F100)-class FFG (6,041 tons)
Total: 14,041

Total SAG tonnage: 41,941

This leaves 3,059 tons left over. Per Beirutdude's original scenario, you could fit a USN LCS into this role, however you exceed the 30,000 tons per individual Nation rule. Are there any similar naval combatants in other NATO countries that could fill this role? You could also drop the UK Type 45 and double up on the Spanish F100, which gives you an additional 1,958 tons, for a total of 5,017 tons.

A FREMM ASW (like F 591 Virginio Fasan) would be great, but is overweight by a little bit. A ASW specialist unit would be handy to have to help with the Russian Kilo threat, so that is what I might lean towards when looking at alternatives, however the SAG as formed as a whole fleet of ASW helos (6 x MH-60R), which could handle that role as well.

I think the optimal path may be to keep the USN component, and the UK Type 45 and Spanish F100, but I am sure I am overlooking many points.



< Message edited by Craigkn -- 1/27/2022 11:22:57 PM >
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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/28/2022 5:17:05 AM   
JFS737

 

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Romania ordered 4 GoWind corvettes a while ago, but not sure if the deal is still on. They are nice Corvettes and the displacement is near or about 2500 tons. Otherwise, the French GoWind 1000 are about 1100 tons so you can get a few. There is also the German K130 Braunschweig at about 1900 tons. All are decent corvettes. It's possible Romainia ordered the SIGMA 10514 Martadinata type Corvette in place of the Gowind 2500.... these ships are excellent as well... about 2400 tons.

Regards,
John

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/28/2022 10:41:08 AM   
dcpollay


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How about a submarine presence?


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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/28/2022 4:10:35 PM   
thewood1

 

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What if NATO does what Germany did in WW1 by transferring ships to Ukraine? Is that a feasible strategy? Or does that just make things worse? They already have a couple patrol ships that were "sold" to them.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/28/2022 4:47:36 PM   
JFS737

 

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I'd go with 2 F100 vs F100 + Type 45 as most T45's have only 48 missiles.... (New CAMM variant has 72 though, but at a higher displacement penalty with F101 having 64 or 66. )
T45 has better sensors but I think 2x F101 is a better bet. Then with the extra weight and ASW needs, a FREMM or Type 23 (updated with CAMM) might be good. Both have good or very good sensors. FREMM has properties in CMO of "advanced quieting". But it's signatures only show an advantage in Active Sonar... so not sure if that's all you get. Adding a FREMM to 2xF101 is better than T45 + F101 + Corvette in most cases.

Regards,
John

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/28/2022 8:19:35 PM   
HalfLifeExpert


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It is unfortunate for NATO forces since one could argue that Tonnage is no longer a good measurement of Naval 'Weight' from Warships.

That said, given the Russian home advantage in the Black Sea, in terms of actual Combat operations, it may actually be wiser to not try and get Warships in any major number into the Black Sea until air power has attrited the Russian Black Sea fleet.

I just get the feeling that if shooting starts, any SAG in the Black sea would find itself relatively isolated geographically given the limited size and depth of the Black Sea.

The real key is to prevent the Russians from closing down the Bosphorous, for those follow on operations.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/28/2022 8:53:45 PM   
Gunner98

 

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I tend to agree with HLE, the Black Sea is a bit of a fish tank in that anything in it is already likely detected by all players at all times. Although tonnage isn't a good measure it is the rule in place.

I would not put a Tyco in there at all, but a Block 2A Arleigh Burk and a Type 45 do make a good combo. An F100 and a FREMM of some type would also be useful but I think that would be enough to keep the Black Sea Fleet busy and not allow a free amphibious hand to the Russians. I think the passage of submarines from non Black Sea countries goes against Montrose, so you need to rely on Turkish Type 209s.

I really don't think anybody is too interested in transferring ships to Ukraine, it a big investment and the Goeben was a special case without any reasonable chance of getting home, or even surviving in the Med.

The real player in the BS is airpower, its worth a lot more these days than ship tonnage.

B


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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/29/2022 10:34:30 AM   
eleos


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quote:

ORIGINAL: dcpollay

How about a submarine presence?


According to Montreux Treaty submarine presence is limited to countries of Black Sea. No other country can bring submarines there

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/29/2022 5:39:52 PM   
Craigkn

 

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Playing with an updated "Black Sea, 2019" scenario, I deployed a 5 ship SAG, and found a huge issue of a lack of ASuW missiles on the NATO side. I added a ton of units, and to balance, I deployed most of the current Russian Navy OOB; 7 x Kilos (assigned to a Black Sea-wide patrol zone), a 4 ship Russian SAG based around the Moskva, 4 additional FFG's, and a swarm of Missile boats. Each Russian controlled airport had a SA-17 "Buk" site. All Russian ships were placed on patrol orders, similar to the original scenario, however the Moskva SAG was placed in the eastern Black Sea.

This is my SAG:
1 x Tico
2 x Block IIA Burkes
1 x Type 45
1 x F100 class

Aircraft played a large role. I decided that this was a secondary theater, and that NATO would have most of its forces deployed elsewhere, so I picked a group of effective, but small in number, aircraft. My air component is:

3 x E-3G (From the original scenario)
6 x F-22A
6 x F-35A (2019 model)
3 x RQ-180 UAV
3 x RQ-170 UAV
6 x XQ-222 UCAV
6 x F-16CM Block 52
3 x EA-18G (in offensive ECM, short range loadout)
2 x Tankers

The drones proved fun to utilize, the RQ-170 and RQ-180 provided SIGINT coverage and identified the S-400 sites, and helped track the Russian SAG. The EF-18G, XQ-222's and the F-35A's provided SEAD coverage, and I managed to eliminate two of the four S-400 sites total. The EA-18G's were crucial to protect the inbound GBU-39/B SDB's launched from the F-35A's, and the SDB II's from the XQ-222's were effective at ASuW. I screwed up though, the 2019 F-35A's could not carry the SDB II's, which have ASuW capabilities - the original SDB's do not.

My novice-skilled notes:

- Stealth aircraft are nearly a requirement in a high threat area. The original scenario has four S-400 sites on the Crimean peninsula with interlocking ranges; F-16's that did not immediately dive for the deck were quickly shot down, while the F-22, F-35, XQ-222, and RQ-170/180 could operate mostly normally.
- Getting close to the S-400s was important, to limit the flight time of the SDB's, ideally impacting the target before the other three S-400 sites missiles could reach them. EW from the EF-18G proved critical to that.
- I did not employ HARM/AARGM, I had so few aircraft, I decided that saturating the target with SDB's would be more effective than a handful of HARMs.
- I ran out of ASuW weapons and could not engage the Moskva SAG operating in the eastern Black Sea. I think I had about 24 Harpoons total between the five ships, and those were expended defeating the Russian ships in the western Black Sea. The Moskva was covered by the two remaining two S-400 sites, requiring careful planning to attack. If I had selected the 2021 version of the F-35A, which can carry SDBII, I could have made an attack.
- Stealth drones were crucial to keep tabs on the various Russian naval units. As long as they were not overflown by Mig's, they remained undetected. Strikes by the XQ-222's did catch the attention of the S-400's, but my only drone losses were due to operator error - keeping them too close to a S-400 after a weapon launch.
- The only non-stealth aircraft that could safely fly over the Black Sea was the EF-18G, with jamming on. Everything else was at very high risk.


< Message edited by Craigkn -- 1/29/2022 5:48:12 PM >

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/29/2022 8:29:52 PM   
JFS737

 

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The lack of ASuW weapons has been an issue with US ships and now British for a while. With the end of liberal hedgemony... ASuW is back in vogue. I'd expect the VLS tube weapon mix to change if it has not already... .. a change from massive Land attack cruise missile loads to the newer multi mission weapons. So you'd see fewer Tomahawk LACM and more multi mission Block V and Va Tomahawks and also in nearer term, more SM-6 1A and 1B variants for ASuW strike. Might be time to update the VLS loadouts of 2022 ships a bit.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/29/2022 8:39:34 PM   
Gunner98

 

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quote:

So you'd see fewer Tomahawk LACM and more multi mission Block V and Va Tomahawks and also in nearer term, more SM-6 1A and 1B variants for ASuW strike.


That makes good sense, but the will need a lot of airborne SEAD support to get through to the Moskva.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/29/2022 11:17:05 PM   
thewood1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: JFS737

The lack of ASuW weapons has been an issue with US ships and now British for a while. With the end of liberal hedgemony... ASuW is back in vogue. I'd expect the VLS tube weapon mix to change if it has not already... .. a change from massive Land attack cruise missile loads to the newer multi mission weapons. So you'd see fewer Tomahawk LACM and more multi mission Block V and Va Tomahawks and also in nearer term, more SM-6 1A and 1B variants for ASuW strike. Might be time to update the VLS loadouts of 2022 ships a bit.


That's the firts thing I do in modern scenarios. I pull half the tomahawks and load SM-6s. Of course the production rate of SM-6s is an issue in real life.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/30/2022 3:19:39 AM   
Craigkn

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1


quote:

ORIGINAL: JFS737

The lack of ASuW weapons has been an issue with US ships and now British for a while. With the end of liberal hedgemony... ASuW is back in vogue. I'd expect the VLS tube weapon mix to change if it has not already... .. a change from massive Land attack cruise missile loads to the newer multi mission weapons. So you'd see fewer Tomahawk LACM and more multi mission Block V and Va Tomahawks and also in nearer term, more SM-6 1A and 1B variants for ASuW strike. Might be time to update the VLS loadouts of 2022 ships a bit.


That's the firts thing I do in modern scenarios. I pull half the tomahawks and load SM-6s. Of course the production rate of SM-6s is an issue in real life.


I decided to do that as well. Seemed crazy to have to hide my huge SAG due to a lack of ASuW weapons. We shall see how the SM-6's do in my next playthrough. There is also a dual-mission (ground/ASuW) Tomahawk, RGM-109I Block IV MMT, I loaded a few of those to see how they work.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/30/2022 4:37:01 AM   
JFS737

 

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That's one of the reasons I love this sim and why I think it's got a timeless quality... the ability to experiment and change things and scenarios to "what if". Small changes in a scenario will sometimes make the balance of power tilt in a big way, interesting and possibly illuminating. Plus, I just think it's awesome how much developer support and effort is going into this thing.

Regards,

John

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/30/2022 5:01:30 AM   
Craigkn

 

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Not SAG related, but a point to make is that the S-400 (and S-300, to a lesser extent) seem to have changed warfare. Playing scenarios with air components, you can see the difference between SERIOUS SAM's and not. The push for 5th gen fighters and UAV's make total sense. The original "Black Sea 2019" scenario gave you a squadron of F-15's, which were completely useless while the S-400's remained active.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/30/2022 1:30:33 PM   
SeaQueen


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Wow... putting a big multinational SAG like that would certainly be a very strong signal. I'm not sure there'd be any other advantage to it, though. The thing is, with TLAM, they don't need to enter the Black Sea to hold at risk targets in the Black Sea, except as signaling. They can do it from the Aegean. So... here's my thought, leave the TLAM capable units out. Put at most one American DDG in there, just for the sake of presence and strategic communication. Anything else TLAM capable are your shooters and they can roll around in the Aegean. For them, you want to form wall of SAMs and radars that will protect them. Those are what you want to put forward. Anything else isn't worth the risk.


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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 1/30/2022 3:55:57 PM   
BDukes

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

Wow... putting a big multinational SAG like that would certainly be a very strong signal. I'm not sure there'd be any other advantage to it, though. The thing is, with TLAM, they don't need to enter the Black Sea to hold at risk targets in the Black Sea, except as signaling. They can do it from the Aegean. So... here's my thought, leave the TLAM capable units out. Put at most one American DDG in there, just for the sake of presence and strategic communication. Anything else TLAM capable are your shooters and they can roll around in the Aegean. For them, you want to form wall of SAMs and radars that will protect them. Those are what you want to put forward. Anything else isn't worth the risk.




Agreed and give those Kilos in Syria something to do!

Mike

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 2/2/2022 1:47:13 AM   
SeaQueen


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quote:


Agreed and give those Kilos in Syria something to do!


The good news is that a small number of MPA could probably patrol the mouth of the Aegean Sea and make it difficult for the kilos to get near their OP box undetected. Their best chance would be to chuck ASCMs at them from a long way away, but they don't have a lot of missiles to fire, and Aegis will probably knock them down.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 2/4/2022 9:55:16 AM   
maverick3320

 

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What's the operational upside of putting a SAG in the Black sea? Would definitely nullify some of the primary advantage of major surface assets - mobility and stealth. They would be highly exposed to all sorts of missile/sub threats.

If NATO really wanted to play hardball, they would start building up assets around Kaliningrad. Signal to Russia that any taking of territory in Ukraine would involve the potential loss of territory in Eastern Europe.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 2/4/2022 6:03:00 PM   
Craigkn

 

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My original question came from playing the "Black Sea 2019" scenario, where U.S. Navy forces deploy to the Black Sea on a Freedom of Navigation operation, and then a regional conflict erupts between NATO and Russia. This is a plausible scenario, as NATO ships have been reported to be in the Black Sea at present day (Feb 2022).

Its a fun hypothetical scenario for me at least, as it allows the Russian side to play to their strengths (most notably in area denial weapons like the S-400), and creates a sandbox where modern NATO platforms like the F-35, F-22, EF-18G, RQ-170, and RQ-180 can show their value.

I am working on a expanded version of Black Sea 2019, bringing the OOB up to 2022, and including modern equipment on both sides - including Russian S-70 UCAV's as well as a few SU-57's, to see how this may play out.

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RE: Optimal Black Sea NATO SAG and the Montreux Convention - 2/6/2022 12:05:31 AM   
SeaQueen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: maverick3320
What's the operational upside of putting a SAG in the Black sea? Would definitely nullify some of the primary advantage of major surface assets - mobility and stealth. They would be highly exposed to all sorts of missile/sub threats.


Putting at least one surface combatant in the Black Sea would add radars to help provide a picture of what's going on in the vicinity of Crimea. It would add SAMs, which could be used to protect high value airborne assets attempting to monitor what's going on near Crimea. It might add TLAM closer in, potentially reducing the warning time for a missile raid. I would bring ASCMs which could be used to strike Russian surface combatants in the Black Sea. There's lots of reasons to want to have some kind of forward surface presence in the Black Sea.

quote:


If NATO really wanted to play hardball, they would start building up assets around Kaliningrad. Signal to Russia that any taking of territory in Ukraine would involve the potential loss of territory in Eastern Europe.


NATO is a defensive alliance, so I think doing something actively escalatory and setting out to CONQUER portions of Russia in a retaliatory fashion would be a hard sell. The fact that compromising the territorial integrity of Russia would likely get you nuked more than likely also provides a sufficient disincentive that they'd be discouraged from attempting it.


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