Environmental Factors Affecting Military Operations in the Littoral Battlespace
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CHARLES H. SINEX and ROBERT S. WINOKUR ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AFFECTING MILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE LITTORAL BATTLESPACE The changing world situation is causing the Navy to shift from open-ocean warfighting to joint operations conducted in the littoral battlespace. This battlespace encompasses a complex coastal environment with highly dynamic oceanographic and meteorological processes that can affect military operations in ways not seen in the open ocean. The coastal environment and its effects on the military can be described as a complex series of interactions between bathymetry, oceanography, meteorology, and man-made influences. Specific examples are given of important features and their effect on the various phases of an amphibious operation. The article concludes with a discussion of several new methods of measuring and predicting these features that are being developed and applied by the Navy. INTRODUCTION The world is rapidly changing, forcing the Navy and by enemy submarines. Special warfare operations before other services to rethink their roles and missions. The the landing could also be part of the activity. strategic direction envisioned for the Navy is a shift away The coastal environment will be discussed in four from open-ocean warfighting toward joint operations major sections, each limited to a few key, representative conducted from the sea with the Marines, Air Force, processes and the influence of those processes on am Army, and Coast Guard. The new littoral battlespace has phibious operations. The first section examines coastal two regional components: a seaward segment, comprising bathymetry, followed by sections on some significant the area from the open ocean to the shore, that must be oceanographic and meteorological features unique to the controlled to support operations ashore; and a landward coastal regime. The fourth section considers anthropo segment, comprising the area inland from the shore, that genic or man-made influences. We conclude the article can be supported and directly defended from the sea.! by examining means of measuring and predicting impor This littoral battlespace encompasses an extremely tant features of the coastal environment. complex coastal environment. In coastal regions, the proximity of the land, the shallow water depths, and the BATHYMETRY influence of rivers and weather systems combine to pro The presence of land and shallow water depths near the duce significant environmental changes in both the coast are directly responsible for much of the environ oceanography and meteorology. These changes occur mental variability occurring in the coastal region. The over much shorter spatial and temporal scales than those extent of this region is best seen in Figure 1, which shows seen in the open ocean. The interaction between the land the worldwide coverage of the continental shelf in red, and the ocean also creates features in the coastal environ extending out from the coast to a depth of 200 m. The ment that have no counterpart in the open sea. yellow region shows the area of the adjacent continental Coastal variability can both help and hinder military slope where the ocean depths then rapidly fall to 2400 m, operations. The purpose of this article is to provide an leading into the deep ocean basins. overview of the complexity of these environmental inter In many areas (e.g., off the coast of China), the con actions in the littoral zone and their potential effect on tinental shelf can extend hundreds of miles offshore. In military operations. Our intent is not to provide a detailed such areas, the littoral battlespace could be confined en treatment of the physics of the coastal environment; in tirely to shallow water. A more typical littoral battlespace, stead, we emphasize representative coastal features and however, has both shallow- and deep-water areas, such as processes and their consequences on military operations. the northern Arabian Sea and the entrance to the Persian We will further restrict attention to Navy support of Gulf, shown in the expanded view of Figure 2. A task amphibious operations rather than address the full range force could easily be sited in the deep water of the north of important military actions that might occur in the lit ern Arabian Sea to support mine-clearing operations in toral battlespace. Key components of this amphibious the shallow entrances of the Persian Gulf. assault would be preliminary data gathering, mine clear In general, the coastal ocean floor is not a gently slop ing, the amphibious landings, and maintenance of air and ing, homogeneous surface but often shows a rapid change sea superiority in the battlespace surrounding the oper from one type of material to another with a wide variety ation. Maintaining sea superiority also includes antisub of relief. Figure 3 shows the range of bottom types that marine warfare (ASW) to prevent attack of the support fleet occur in the Strait of Sicily, with regions characterized by 112 Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, Volume 14, Number 2 (1993) Figure 1. Worldwide distribution of ocean depth regimes. The continental shelf is shown in red, corresponding to depths shallower than 200 m. The continental slope covers the depth band from 200 to 2400 m and is shown in yellow. Areas with depths greater than 2400 m are shown in blue. 26 01 Q) ~ Q) -c .a 24 ~ :5 z0 56' 58' 60' 62 64 East longitude (deg) Figure 2. Bathymetric chart of the Gulf of Oman and the northern Arabian Sea. Depth contours are in meters. This region encompasses both deep-water areas and extensive shallow areas in the Strait of Hormuz (upper left). Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, Volume 14, Number 2 (1993) 113 C. H. Sinex and R. S. Winokur 38 .-----------~~ __--- __~ ~----------,.~------~~E7~~rr_----~ 37 Ol Q) :s Q) "0 2 § £ 0 z 36 o Mud Rock 0 Mud, rock • Mud/sand 0 Rock, coral D Mud/sand, rock o Sand 0 Coral tSl Sand, gravel • Gravel Shell ~ Sand, rock 35~----------~----------~------------~------- 8 9 10 11 12 13 East longitude (deg) Figure 3. Bottom composition and distribution in the Strait of Sicily (courtesy of the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office). a mud composition rapidly changing to regions charac scattering in active sonars, and the acoustic loss associ terized by sand or sand and gravel. Similar variability in ated with bottom-interacting paths will cause high trans composition is frequently seen in many other coastal mission loss in both active and passive sonar systems. areas around the world, with soft, muddy bottoms adja The variable composition of the bottom can also cause cent to sandy, gravelly, or rocky regions. large changes in sonar performance in only short distanc Such bottom variability can complicate mine-hunting es. In addition, the proximity of the bottom to the surface operations, which are a necessary prelude to amphibious creates a sound channel that results in an optimum fre operations. Bottom mines can easily sink into soft, quency for acoustic propagation (see the article by Boyles muddy bottoms, concealing them from mine-hunting sys and Biondo, this issue). Examples of shallow-water ef tems that rely on optical detection. Conversely, on rocky fects on sonar performance are shown in Figures 4 and bottoms, variable bottom scattering can significantly de 5. Figure 4 illustrates the differences in transmission loss grade the performance of mine-hunting sonars. In shal that can occur over short distances. Differences of 10 to low, sandy areas, wave motion and currents may cover 20 dB are evident for paths separated by only 10° or 20° many bottom mines with a layer of sand, again reducing in the southwest quadrant. Similar variability occurs with the effectiveness of optical mine-hunting systems. An bottom scattering. Figure 5 shows bottom-scattering lev additional complication in shallow, sandy areas is wave els at a single location (400N, 72°W) in 57 m of water. breaking on the beach, which may suspend enough sand Each trace is the composite of four separate acoustic and fine sediment in the water column to significantly beams emitted in the directions shown. Differences of 15 reduce visibility, further degrading the performance of to 20 dB in scattering level between the two sets of beams optical mine-detection systems for both bottom and are clearly evident, associated with a change in average moored mines. In regions with a highly variable bottom look direction of only 45 °. With this kind of variability composition, a single mine-hunting technique or system in transmission loss and bottom scattering, accurate pre may be inadequate to provide a mine-free route from deep diction of sonar performance is extremely difficult, re water to the landing zone. A detailed knowledge of quiring large amounts of detailed geoacoustic data. bottom composition and a depiction of the bottom would The shallow-water bathymetry also affects nonacoustic be essential in identifying optimum routes to clear and systems. The presence of magnetic anomalies in the in determining the best bottom mine-hunting systems to Earth's crust generally results in much higher noise levels use. in MAD (magnetic anomaly detection) sensor systems in The shallow water depth and highly variable bottom shallow water. These MAD noise levels can also vary composition also complicate the ASW problem of protect significantly from one shallow-water area to another. ing the battleforce from enemy submarines, and degrade Current flowing past bottom features that extend near the the performance of weapons systems such as torpedoes. surface (e.g., underwater hills) can also produce hydro Shallow water depth can cause high levels of bottom dynamic disturbances such as internal waves, which may 11 4 Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, Volume 14, Number 2 (1993) Environmental Factors Affecting Littoral Military Operations 38 37 82 OJ 88 Q) ~ Figure 4. Shallow-water transmission Q) 94 "0 loss (TL) from source to target south- .a 36 § east of Sicily in the Mediterranean dur- 100 ing January using historical oceano- £; 0 graphic data.