Naval Intelligence: Delivering Power from the Sea II

Part one of this trilogy [95/2, p. 136] examined some historical perspectives based upon control of the sea – using the definitions of such classic naval strategic writers as Mahan and Corbett, and from studies of key naval engagements. Part two reflects on the evolution of naval strategy towards delivering effects from the sea to the land. It draws upon the Royal Navy’s Future Maritime Operational Concept (FMOC) and the vision of a Versatile Maritime Force (VMF) operating in the 21st century that is capable of achieving the following Core Maritime Roles (CMR):

• Maritime Force Projection (MFP): exemplified by the Falklands and recent operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Gulf Wars I and II.

• Theatre Entry (TE): exemplified by the Falklands and the run-up to the major landings at San Carlos Bay.

• Flexible Global Reach (FGR): exemplified by the RN’s participation operations off the Horn of Africa (TF150) by the Atlantic Patrol Task (APT) North and South, countering illegal drug smuggling activities and the protection of the Falkland Islands and its dependencies.

• UK Maritime Security (UKMS): exemplified by support to the nuclear deterrent and Maritime Counter Terrorism (MCT) in UK coastal waters.

In the VMF vision all this is supported by C4ISR provided by organic capabilities, such as early warning of attacks by small craft or by surface-to-surface missiles.[1] The paper examines how intelligence can contribute to the commander’s understanding, and successful completion, of his mission. In creating the VMF and developing its agility, flexibility and adaptability, it is easy to imagine the role that could be played by properly harnessed, timely and accurate intelligence. It would allow naval commanders quickly to appreciate a situation in depth, and use their resources to good effect at the required tempo of operations to maintain the initiative. The aim is to select which of a wide range of strategic, operational and tactical effects (including prevention, stabilisation, containment, deterrence, coercion, disruption and, if required, destruction) might best be used to achieve the desired campaign outcomes. Equally, it is easy to imagine what might happen in any theatre of operations should information and intelligence not be put to good use.

To analyse the role played by intelligence in contributing to the naval commander’s overall situational assessment we shall study a number of specific examples that provide helpful perspectives. These are drawn from both historical and recent maritime operations. The examples are:

• The Dieppe Raid and its failure to make good use of available strategic sources of intelligence and to harness tactical intelligence sources due to their being overwhelmed. An example of Maritime Force Projection (MFP).

• The Falklands War[2] – paying specific attention to the build-up to the delivery of land forces ashore at San Carlos Bay, not the actual land campaign. An example of two of the Core Maritime Roles (CMR), Theatre Entry (TE) and MFP.

• The APT North, South and TF150 missions to interdict drugs smuggling from South America and the need to liaise with other Government Departments (OGD) and international agencies. An example of Flexible Global Reach (FGR).

• Operation HIGHBROW – the recent work of the Royal Navy in evacuating UK citizens from the Lebanon, which is another excellent example of FGR.

• The operation to board the MV Nisha in UK coastal waters, an example of UK Maritime Security operations in support of the Maritime Counter Terrorism (MCT) in the Future Maritime Operational Concept (FMOC).

This range of historical and current operations provides us with a broad range of perspectives in a number of theatres and covers a number of the Contingent Operations Overseas that have been defined by the MoD at the heart of our future planning and operations.

The Dieppe Raid

The raid on Dieppe is seen by many historians to have been a total failure. Today it would have been an example of the use of a Versatile Maritime Force (VMF) to undertake the MFP element of the CMR. Some claim that the lessons learnt from the raid allowed due preparations to be made for the D-Day landings in 1944. Clearly some of the lessons did improve the tactics used on D-Day, so with hindsight it is possible to claim some benefits from the raid. But from an intelligence viewpoint the raid was nothing less than a total disaster – failing at all points in the planning and execution to take any account of the benefits of intelligence sources. It is worth analysing this statement.

The Dieppe Raid was planned in almost total secrecy and withheld from senior commanders in UK forces. Through that secrecy the leaders of the raid were denied access to the highly classified sources of intelligence that were available at the strategic and tactical levels, for example on the use of a coastal convoy system by the Germans to move transports around the French coast. This resulted in the raiding forces’ approach being compromised in the early hours of the morning as a major fire fight took place out at sea.

Tactical intelligence sources also failed. Deployments by the German defenders of Dieppe harbour of a number of guns and tank traps were not detected through air reconnaissance. On the day, tactical SIGINT, deployed with the vessels accompanying the raid, was available but it was swamped by the intercepts of German radio traffic – contributing little to the appreciation of the evolving situation and of how the defenders were reacting to the attack.

The most important lesson of the Dieppe Raid from an intelligence viewpoint was the need for the ability to assemble or fuse the information and intelligence available in a timely way, as close to the seaborne commander as possible without compromising security, so that he has the evolving picture and, where needed, some idea of the sources and reliability of the information. In other words, there is an audit trail of all the information provided. This is important since intelligence information devalues with time, and so the commander needs to appreciate, for example, its age, the likely accuracy of the material, reliability of the source and so on.[3]

In the absence of such a fused capability, the Task Force commander had to make decisions based upon his appreciation of the situation gained through his binoculars, his own forces’ radio chatter[4] and the occasional piece of tactical COMINT that might concur with his own view of how things were developing. It must also be said that the picture he could form through the smoke screens laid down to protect the naval vessels did not help – creating their very own fog of war. This led to the commander developing an inaccurate mental assessment of the progress of the landings which resulted in his committing his reserve forces into an area where the Germans could concentrate their fire. Disaster was avoided through the prompt action of Lt Col Picton-Phillips.[5]

It is clear that one lesson to learn from this is that operations must be capable of drawing upon all available strategic, operational and tactical intelligence. This, of course, is the basis of what a Naval Operational Intelligence Support Group should be about, but it must be done with the right staffing levels to make sense of the information that is being received – which on occasions may be a great deal.

The Falklands War

Perhaps the most insightful book published about the Falklands War from a naval command perspective is that of Admiral Sandy Woodward. This book is written from the perspective of the commander of the Battle Group – his worries and concerns, drawn from his daily diary. It provides important clues as to how a commander develops from an appreciation of the situation to an understanding of how best to approach a specific campaign. The narrative shows a commander constantly developing and revising hypotheses about the ways the enemy was approaching the battle and then looking for ways in which he could retain the advantage through trying to optimise the deployment of his vessels (reducing, inter alia, the time that Argentinian pilots had to line up a bombing run on a specific target).[6]

The Falklands campaign falls into several stages, each with its own specific challenges. These were the initial assembly of the Task Force at Ascension Island, its passage to the Falkland Islands, the creation and imposition of the Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) – delivering control over part of the sea – and finally the landings in San Carlos Bay.

As the Task Force sailed south, with a route chosen as a feint against the Argentinian mainland, it was occasionally tracked by enemy reconnaissance and intelligence collection aircraft. The commander was also alert to the possibilities of a sub-surface or surface attack being made pre-emptively by the Argentinian Navy. So, whilst trying to work up his Battle Group, he had constantly to reflect on the possibility that he might come under sudden attack. He also had to bear in mind all the political activity occurring on the international stage. The fact that the UK had launched a Task Force towards the Falkland Islands did not necessarily mean that they would be ordered to fight to recover the islands.

To understand the commander’s situational awareness and the potential contribution of intelligence in developing his understanding, it is worth looking at the key points that he constantly returned to in his diaries. When he established the TEZ his mind returned frequently to the following set of issues, as he constantly reworked his assessment:

• The threats to his Battle Group and the enemy’s likely ORBAT and intentions. On more than one occasion he expressed his concerns about the specific threat posed by the Argentinian Super Etendards’ Exocet Paramount in his thinking was the protection of the two aircraft carriers at his disposal, HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible.

• How best to deploy his forces to counter these threats[7] – with the specific dangers faced in what has become known as ‘Bomb Alley’ in San Carlos Water during the landing phase.

• What lessons he could draw, day-by-day, from the encounters that had occurred. Specifically, he concerned himself with the performance of some of the missile systems that were deployed with the Battle Group and their effectiveness against the tactics developed by the enemy’s air force.

• How his own force was functioning – with specific concerns developing about key aspects of serviceability of some of his ships. Operating in challenging weather conditions for a long period was taking its toll on the capabilities of the Battle Group, salt erosion being a specific concern.

• How the overall campaign was evolving against some key deadlines he had set himself before he left Ascension Island, drawn up on a bar chart looking at the constraints he was under in terms of, inter alia, the arrival of the winter.

Above all, there was always the issue of the weather and the impact this had day-to-day on flying operations both by the Battle Group, and by the Argentinian Air Force. By looking at these issues day-by-day he formulated an evolving appreciation of the enemy’s capabilities and intent, and of his own ability to deny them their objectives. Uppermost in his mind in the latter stages of the campaign, in the immediate period after the landings and up until the surrender of the enemy forces in Port Stanley, was the attrition being suffered by both sides.

Admiral Woodward returned to this last issue on several occasions in his narrative, and to his estimate of the remaining enemy capabilities, as part of developing his situational awareness. It seems that there was a failure of strategic and operational intelligence resources to provide insights into this balance of the equation. Clearly, accurate information existed where an enemy plane had been shot down, this had been clearly witnessed, and Argentinian pilots had been captured.[8] But overall, our limited ability to assess the serviceability and actual numbers of aircraft available to the Argentinian forces highlighted gaps in our intelligence coverage.

What it did not provide was information on damage suffered by Argentinian aircraft during air raids, and to what extent it removed them from the battle. It is probably fair to say that as much as 20% of the Argentinian Air Force was either grounded by this or for other serviceability reasons. The apparent failure to provide the commander with concrete evidence of the actual attrition being suffered by the enemy air force did not help him in his appreciation of the situation – which it is now clear was very finely balanced.

It can be said that the Royal Navy really bore the brunt of the overall campaign to retake the Falkland Islands. Its loss of major warships and men, and the enemy’s ability to continue to attack, was a constant concern in the equation Admiral Woodward was trying to balance. It seems generally accepted today, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was a very close-run thing – especially when any analysis is carried out of the precarious logistical position of the UK forces. The question is ‘to what extent might we have created a better intelligence environment that might have given Admiral Woodward more assistance as he grappled daily with this range of concerns?’

In the third paper of this series [95/4, p. 334] we will return to this question by looking at the Commander’s Critical Intelligence Requirements, the sources he did have available to him and where there were intelligence gaps, as part of the process of developing the requirements for a 21st century naval intelligence architecture. In that he was operating many miles from land-based aviation support and intelligence collection assets, the cards were stacked against him and the contribution that could be made by strategic and operational intelligence sources was limited. A great deal of his situational assessment work therefore had to rely upon his own tactical information sources, such as his ships’ radars, his submarines (employed in looking for major surface units) and the organic Sea Harriers and Sea Kings.

One major issue was the lack of Airborne Early Warning (AEW) capability. Operating so remotely from the UK, the lack of an indigenous AEW capability seriously limited the warning time of incoming enemy air attacks. The absence of this tactical awareness gave the Admiral some really difficult choices, especially as the enemy adapted his tactics in the latter stages of the campaign – using air-to-air refuelling to enable the Super Etendard bombers to attack from a much wider sector. The positioning of the radar picket ships was developed to address as best they could this absence of AEW – HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry paid a heavy price for providing this much needed service.

Another consideration in the era of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is the degree to which today’s ability to share surface pictures developed by each element of the force may have helped the formation of the tactical situational awareness when under attack. The captain of each element of the Task Force had to keep in his head a rapidly evolving picture when under attack and on two occasions ships were manoeuvred to reduce their cross-section presentation to the radar, using the classic tactics for such situations to the detriment of the overall engagement. This requires a great deal of collaboration and training, which was simply not available to Admiral Woodward as he was always short of time.

The ability of collaborating vessels to operate against guidelines for individual unit protection – the aim of every captain in the first instance – in the interests of the collective good of the fleet is one that we shall have to ponder in the days of NCW. Just sharing a common surface and air picture is not enough; the tactics have to be there not only for one’s own vessel but also for the way in which the whole fleet can react to an attack, for example deploying chaff in ways that benefit the whole fleet’s dispositions. There is evidence that forward based vessels were able to do some tactical COMINT intercepts and listen in to the enemy working up a raid, stating that they were going after a specific ship – this was clear before the raid that saw the loss of HMS Coventry and the attack on HMS Broadsword, which were being operated as a tandem pair using their respective Sea Dart and Sea Wolf missile systems in a complementary way.

The commander did have a very good appreciation from strategic intelligence sources of the number of Exocet missiles that were available to the Argentinian Air Force and the efforts they were making to obtain more. Two of these destroyed Atlantic Conveyor and one accounted for HMS Sheffield. Given the inexperience of the Argentinian Air Force with these systems this ratio of two major capital ships accounted for by three missiles, if extrapolated on a wider basis (if they had been able to get more missile systems), might well have tipped the battle in their favour.

Working only from Admiral Woodward’s narrative it is difficult to find any hard evidence of the contribution that strategic intelligence assets – such as those provided through SIGINT and COMINT – made any significant contribution to the overall appreciation of the situation. It must be remembered that in 1982 the Cold War was still very much in people’s minds and that a great deal of our strategic collection capabilities and focus was on the Soviet Union. If we consider the Falklands War against today’s VMF and the need to operate two of the CMRs, MFP and TE, we can see that AEW is a key element of any future VMF capabilities. We can also see the great advantages in being able to harness strategic intelligence sources derived from SIGINT, COMINT, HUMINT and IMINT sources on board the main elements of the Battle Group. Indeed, it is fair to suggest that a modern-day Admiral Woodward would benefit from anything that enables him to gain a rapid and accurate view of the enemy’s strategic, operational and tactical intentions.

Contemporary FGR operations: APT North, APT South and TF150

The operations mounted by the Royal Navy in the Caribbean are a good example of the FGR aspect of the CMR. In December 2006, RFA Wave Ruler completed her third drug interdiction mission with a seizure of 2.9 tons of cocaine, more than 11 tons of cocaine in a period of 11 months, making her the most successful British counternarcotics ship in recent years. Last year the Royal Navy intercepted over 17 tons of cocaine with a street value of over £1 bn. Intelligence plays a vital role in providing the material to allow commanders to position their vessels in the right place to make intercepts. The sea, after all, covers a large area and smugglers use it to great effect to hide their activities.

Essential to all three drug interdiction operations was the ability not only to work with other government departments in the UK, who may hold vital pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but also with international law enforcement bodies such as Interpol and with coalitions such as TF150 off the Horn of Africa.[9] In this case intelligence sharing with other countries bordering the region can provide crucial insights into the operations of vessels thought to be engaged in smuggling. Likely routes, times of sailing, and any plausible means of identifying a target vessel (dhows in the region of the Gulf do look very alike and can be around in large numbers) are crucial. A key part of this analysis is the pattern of activity over time, something directly relevant to UK MSO. Understanding the areas of operations of fishing fleets, where local commerce and trading boats sail, the movement of ferries etc., all helps to build up a picture of legitimate operations and where people might choose to hide their operations. This form of situational awareness takes a long time to build and, given the sheer size of the areas to be covered, requires specific tactical intelligence to cue operations. Collaboration with overseas partners and major organisations such as Interpol are a vital part of this ability to develop understanding based upon the material collected over a period of many years about the patterns of behaviour in a specific area.

Operation HIGHBROW

Whilst focusing on projection of power from the sea to the land requires us to study major campaigns like the Falklands and the early phases of Operation TELIC, it is important to see to what extent any emerging naval intelligence architecture might need to meet other military tasks. Operation HIGHBROW – the evacuation of some 5,000 UK citizens from the Lebanon in July 2006 – provides us with just such an opportunity to look at how naval intelligence helped to deliver a successful outcome to this operation. This is an example of FGR.

Military tasks, such as evacuating citizens, are often not telegraphed. The rapid deterioration of the situation in the Lebanon to an all-out war, following the initial capture of two Israeli soldiers, took people by surprise. But the key in today’s world is to be agile and flexible. You may not have control of events but you can pick up the pace of things and respond to them, hoping to get ahead if you maintain operational tempo. In such situations the build-up has to be quick and the need to provide deploying units with all the information you can is self-evident. Commanders on the spot want to assess the risks to their Task Group and they want, as Admiral Woodward repeatedly emphasised, to deal in facts. Intelligence unfortunately does not come in such a readily consumable form – it is often uncertain, ambiguous, complex and equivocal.

HMS Illustrious and HMS Bulwark had been on their way home from a deployment east of Suez before turning round and heading back to Beirut. The challenge for the commanders on the spot on Operation HIGHBROW was to know what was happening in the areas in which they would have to operate. The picture was complicated by an Israeli sea blockade, with the potential for an unfortunate accident, and the presence of Hezbollah fighters in and around Beirut, some 27 local Lebanese naval patrol craft, and also other factions – who might take the chance to attack UK forces in the area. Deploying six major warships of the Royal Navy against such a backdrop was no light matter. The operating picture against which the commander would have to form his mental images and develop situational awareness and understanding was multidimensional. Intelligence was clearly essential to enable that picture to be seen as clearly as it could be to help command decision-making. The attack which occurred on an Israeli destroyer[10] was a major concern since Hezbollah had not been credited with this capability.

Once a clear identification of the missile system had been made (and this took time to verify), countering the missile system was uppermost in the UK commanders’ minds. Equally, would the Royal Navy force come under attack from suicide bombers whilst in Beirut? What other forms of attack could take place, such as using Katyusha rockets?[11] These questions all formed part of the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace (IPB) that had to be put together, rapidly, to brief the commanders on the spot. Where would this material come from?

At the heart of this operation was the N2 Cell on board HMS Illustrious whose task was to brief the local commanders on the threat. Safe passage in and out of Beirut had to be negotiated with representatives of the Lebanese Government, with the Israelis, Hezbollah and any other player.

The news of the impending arrival of UK naval units had to be shared with these parties, with the possibility that this might be passed on to fanatics who might wish to attack RN units. Through this means, all efforts were made to ensure that no attack on the RN happened by accident simply because the local belligerents were not aware of the identity and flag of the ship arriving in Beirut. To create the operational picture (covering all local factions in the Lebanon – not an easy task) many sources of information were used: diplomatic sources, using the local Foreign Office team in the Embassy; strategic intelligence collection assets; open sources, such as Jane’s and BBC Monitoring; and local tactical intelligence collected by the ships themselves.

In pulling all this together, a relationship had to be developed between UK-based staff working on collecting and analysing intelligence and those on the spot making assessments. In our historical analysis of these situations, we must remember that assessments made in the UK may differ somewhat from those on the spot in theatre. Reconciling these views is a vital key to effective use of information. In forming an integrated approach to future naval intelligence architectures, it is vital to create the means by which the two assessments, both valid in their own terms, can be discussed, compared and contrasted, and not just when they have been completed. The whole assessment process must be a dynamic and living thing, where all sources are shared and made available. This might require, for example, deployed units to have the specific skills to understand and interpret HUMINT and SIGINT. IMINT also needs local interpretation.

The skill to be able to interpret imagery is not widely available. HUMINT can be confusing if its context is not properly understood, and understanding raw signals intelligence also requires an understanding of the limitations of the equipment that has collected the material. The appropriate expertise must be available to understand and assess the material collected. History is replete with examples of intelligence material being misunderstood and therefore not properly exploited. The use of intelligence material in the Battle of Jutland, and the subsequent loss of opportunities for further potentially decisive engagements between the fleets, highlights this point graphically. We have to be able ‘to know what we know and be clear of what we do not know’ allowing us to direct intelligence collection assets to address the gaps.

The MV Nisha incident

In the wake of the attacks on 11 September 2001, UK security forces were on high alert for follow-up attacks on the UK. Intelligence became available on the movements of the MV Nisha indicating that she might be involved in some attack on the UK, possibly London. As she steamed into UK coastal waters and moved up the English Channel, the Royal Navy were alerted to mount an operation to seize and search the vessel. Indications were that she was carrying some form of WMD, biological, chemical or possibly nuclear. The operation to seize Nisha therefore had to be mounted with some care, but also at speed. This is a classic example of the type of UK counter-terrorism operation that might form part of the UKMSO element of the CMR. The questions for the commander of the boarding party were typical of those needed for any military operation, but set in the context of the specific nature of this activity:

• What is the intention of the possible terrorists on board the MV Nisha? If they have a device would they detonate it as soon as they were boarded?

• Has the vessel behaved unusually since entering the English Channel?

• Is it making any radio broadcasts to any controlling authority, such as a terrorist group, looking for decisions?

• What arms and training do these people have? Where do they come from? How prepared are they for what we might do? How many are there and what are their motivations? Might they have charges on board ready to scuttle the vessel if boarded?

• What is the best approach, including timing, to make an attempt to board the vessel? Where shall we board and what approach might we use after boarding it? The deck layout of the vessel became a vital piece of information that was needed.

• How can we reduce the risks to the boarding party?

Of course, a great deal of this material could have been sourced from intelligence. Had it been available the boarding party would have been able to make their approach with greater certainty as to what they would be facing when they got aboard. But much of what they would have liked to know was not immediately available to the local commander.

It is worth noting here that local command, in such situations, initially rests with the police. If they decide to board the vessel then this becomes a Royal Navy responsibility. So initially the commander was a UK senior policeman. In the background however the Royal Navy team tasked with planning an operation to seize the Nisha made their preparations in case they were called to action. Once again the intelligence material that could be collected on the vessel was limited and fragmentary. Reports from overseas indicated that it had called at a number of destinations that might have enabled it to take on some form of device or a person appearing to be carrying the plague.

Open sources were also used to determine that it was supposed to be carrying a cargo of sugar cane. This unfortunately complicated the threat analysis as it was thought that sugar could be an excellent catalyst for a major attack. The commander of the boarding party therefore, in forming his own tactical appreciation of the situation, had to allow his force to react to what they saw evolve in front of them.

As the boarding party boarded Nisha, they were unsure what they might find, and it is a tribute to their approach to the incident that no one was shot or killed. As it turned out the vessel was not carrying anything harmful, but it did show what might happen if a vessel was used to transport a device into our coastal waters. In terms of lessons learnt, it was clear that a single all-source intelligence cell was formed quickly, based around the boarding party, to give them all appropriate available intelligence. This provided a single point of integration for the intelligence material and associated information, such as the layout of the vessel. For a specific operation such as this, the single all-source cell clearly provided the means to collect material and a single location for its analysis and for the subsequent planning activity. This offers a model from which to build some analysis of the future N2 architectures. For some organisations within the MoD this is a matter of routine, and is certainly the focus for MSO in UK coastal waters, as forces are operating closer to home. However, when forces are deployed in a theatre thousands of miles away the location of that all source intelligence fusion activity[12] is something to which we shall turn in Part 3 of this trilogy.

Summary and conclusions

Commanders, whether conducting UK Maritime Security Operations or operating overseas, will always want answers to questions whose relevance and priority may be unclear to people back in the UK. The man on the spot does his own situation assessment, develops his own mental map of what is happening and determines his priorities. To form those maps, commanders will generally want to know more than the answers to questions that have been worked out by others. What factors came into the assessment, what was missing, if you had more time what else might you conclude? These are all matters for the commander in theatre to assess.

It is also vital to understand that any local assessment has to be made against a backdrop of the situation in theatre. The author has reviewed this backdrop and developed a classification scheme for theatres that reflects the difficulties under which situational awareness, understanding and decision-making has to be carried out. He develops four types of theatres, reflecting the degree of difficulty that underlies the problems of creating situational awareness. These types are: Recognised, Complex, Chaotic, and Anarchic. They reflect the degrees of difficulty in understanding cause and effect relationships in the theatre. In a Recognised situation it is possible to predict with some certainty what the behaviour of an adversary might be when presented with our Course of Action. At the other end of the spectrum there is no discernable pattern of behaviour that can be influenced. This sets the context against which commanders must form their situational awareness, develop understanding and take decisions.

It is important, in developing awareness of the maritime situation, to invest sufficient time and effort in understanding the full range of sources, including anecdotal and empirical intelligence, which importantly can help develop awareness of the patterns of behaviour of vessels operating in our theatre of operations. It is vital to maritime security at home or abroad to recognise the value of these sources which may allow us to recognise quickly abnormal situations. Every piece of knowledge may be part of the jigsaw puzzle which intelligence analysis is trying to assemble for the commander. In part three of this trilogy, I shall discuss how intelligence can support this creation of situational awareness and the necessary understanding. I shall explore the lessons we can draw from the first two parts of the series and develop a proposal for an agile future naval intelligence architecture that is responsive to all the tasks envisaged for the RN in the Future Maritime Operational Concept.

References

[1] Examples are the recent strike on an Israeli destroyer by a Hezbollah missile system fired from on shore in the Lebanon and the shoot down of a Silkworm missile by HMS Gloucester towards the end of Gulf War I.

[2] The author takes the view that Operation CORPORATE (the Falklands Task Force operations) has parallels with the early phases of Operation TELIC (the Iraq War), albeit under different circumstances – where the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace (IPB) process had provided a wealth of intelligence on the ground in Iraq over many years. For this reason the TELIC activities are not discussed in detail as the Falklands campaign posed severe difficulties for the development and exploitation of intelligence and hence provides more insights into the problems arising for the commander.

[3] It is worth reflecting that during Operation MARKET GARDEN the Dutch Resistance offered a great deal of valuable intelligence information only for it to be ignored by the forces on the ground as they had not built any trust in the source.

[4] Overall radio communications were very confused and broke down in part because the German snipers were told to target anyone carrying a radio set, which they identified from the antenna. This is an example of enemy action taken against the communications systems, disrupting the commander’s ability to create good situational awareness.

[5] He stood up in the front of his landing craft and waved away his troops from the beaches using white gloves to act as a semaphore. He was killed and for this action he won a Victoria Cross.

[6] It has often been commented that the Argentinian pilots, whilst showing great bravery, did not appear to target the troop-carrying transports – a lesson learnt rapidly by the Japanese in World War II when they attacked US landings in the Pacific Ocean.

[7] One specific decision taken by Admiral Woodward saw him commit HMS Alacrity to a sweep up the Falkland Sound to see if there were any enemy mines in the area due to him not having any indigenous mine-sweeping support in the Battle Group. This was a reconnaissance mission ahead of sending in the main landing force with its associated ships such as the Canberra.

[8] Reports have subsequently suggested that the attrition suffered by the Argentinian Air Force was so bad as to require them to send planes from one airbase and land at another in order to hide the scale of the losses and maintain morale.

[9] Noting particularly the current operations being carried out by the USN to catch any fleeing members of the Islamic Courts movement that had seized power in Somalia.

[10] The missile was reported as a radar-guided C802, allegedly of Iranian origin. The strike injured three and one fatality was confirmed at the time. Some sources claim that two missiles were fired at the Israeli corvette and that one missed. It was also reported that it was the lighter, portable version of the C802, the C701with a smaller warhead, that was used in the attack. The fact that such confusion reigns serves to illustrate the ways in which intelligence material can have its weaknesses, when a commander wishes to deal in facts. The main issue here is that the lighter version was TV-guided and not radar-guided. So the tactics used to defeat the radar attack, deploying chaff for example, might not have been as effective against a TV-guided missile.

[11] Used more to terrorise than attack a specific ship tied up alongside in Beirut harbour.

[12] Seeking where possible to reduce the footprint in theatre of intelligence staff and make the best use of reachback into the UK to provide insights and other commentary on the intelligence assessments being produced.