Irish trawler 'given order to move on' by Royal Navy frigate

[DeV]

We should not underestimate the difficulty of any form of ASW operations, we were onlookers during the First Cold War in which NATO expended a large amount of resources just on ASW in the North Atlantic. When we look at the waters around our island we find it is great for subs to operate, plenty of hiding places thanks to 2 World Wars littering the sea floor with metal boxes. And the task of finding and tracking underwater targets has only become harder with the introduction of long range AUVs. These AUVs are small compered with a full size sub and slow and quiet making them extremely difficult to detect.

And where do we want to conduct these operations the entire EEZ? Despite what some fishermen think the EEZ is not part of the State, we merely have rights over the commercial exploitation. So we are limited to the 12miles zone? To protecting the infrastructure located within those limits? Those are questions that need to be asked. With the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline we see the issue, the attacks were inside the EEZ zone but outside territorial waters. So ASW yes, but do it properly.

Absolutely

also requires legal opinion on UNCLOS as they are under the Irish Continental Shelf claim

could be intelligence led as we have “friends”, could be general random / targeted maritime security patrols

of course we should know more or less exactly where the cables are

[DeV]

Finland has equipped their 268 tonne, 167 foot Hamina / Rauma 2000 class with (among other upgrades) Kongsberg ST-2400 variable-depth sonar.

https://www.kongsberg.com/globalassets/maritime/km-products/product-documents/anti-submarine-warfare-sonar-st-2400/