Mobile offshore base (MOB), sometimes called a joint mobile offshore base (JMOB), is a concept for supporting

military operations A military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operations may ...

beyond the home shores, where conventional land bases are not available, by deploying on the high seas or in coastal waters, in-

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

multipurpose floating base assembled from individual platforms. In essence, a MOB is a multipurpose modular self-propelled floating platform, or several interconnected platforms, that can perform multiple functions of a sea base including

strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

deployment Deployment may refer to: Engineering and software Concepts * Blue-green deployment, a method of installing changes to a web, app, or database server by swapping alternating production and staging servers * Continuous deployment, a software en ...

and

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

. An ocean-wise

semi-submersible Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as: * Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport *Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface * ...

wave and wind resistant platform capable of moving at one-half the speed of conventional prepositioning

monohull image:monohull.svg, right A monohull is a type of boat having only one hull (watercraft), hull, unlike multihulled boats which can have two or more individual hulls connected to one another. Fundamental concept Among the earliest hulls were simple ...

cargo ship has been researched and proposed, but never built.

Concept

The Mobile offshore base concept emerged during a search for a more cost effective option of sustaining in-theater strike, flight, maintenance, supply and other forward logistics support needs compared with utilizing traditional joint logistics approaches including

nuclear-powered Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

aircraft carriers An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a n ...

and ''large medium speed

roll-on/roll-off Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using ...

'' (LMSR)

sealift Sealift is a term used predominantly in military logistics and refers to the use of cargo ships for the deployment of military assets, such as weaponry, vehicles, military personnel, and supplies. It complements other means of transport, such as ...

ships. MOB modules were projected as

units having significantly smaller wave-induced motions compared to conventional hulls. The MOB would be constructed out of a series of semi-submersible modules (traditionally envisioned as between 300 and 500 metres long and between 120 to 170 metres wide) that could join together to form a full length runway. Each module would, via support columns, be atop two pontoons which would contain ballasts. When travelling, the module would sail along the surface of the water via its pontoons. When stationary, the ballasts are filled and the pontoons are submerged, leaving the platform still above the waterline. This helps keep the module stable. In theory, the modularity of a MOB allows the full spectrum of

air support In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movemen ...

, ranging from vertical/short takeoff and landing (

VSTOL A vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft is an airplane able to take-off or land vertically or on short runways. Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft are a subset of V/STOL craft that do not require runways at al ...

) aircraft using a single platform to conventional takeoff and landing (

CTOL A conventional take-off and landing (CTOL), also known as horizontal take-off and landing (HTOL) is the process whereby conventional fixed-wing aircraft (such as passenger aircraft) take off and land, involving the use of runways. During takeoff ...

) aircraft utilizing several serially aligned modules approaching 2 km (6,000 feet) in length. The cluster could have an air strip that could hold a large aircraft such as

C-130 The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally desig ...

or C-17. In addition, a MOB accepts ship-borne cargo, provides nominally 280,000 m² (3 million square feet) for equipment storage and maintenance, stores 40 million litres (10 million gallons) of fuel, houses up to 3,000 troops (an Army heavy

brigade A brigade is a major tactical military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute a division. Br ...

), and discharges resources to the shore via a variety of

landing craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. Pr ...

. It was argued, that once positioned, the MOB would operate as a sea base for an extended period, so it would need to have port-like facilities for unloading and loading conventional container and

ships.

History

The idea of the MOB was first seriously considered when the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

entered

Operation Desert Shield The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

(1990–91). The U.S. was forced to request the use of allied bases, which, besides strictly military considerations, proved to be politically sensitive in the case of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. With the MOB concept the U.S. could have a base anywhere in the world in as little as a month. The base as conceived would have had virtually unlimited capabilities, and most of its creators did not envision just a floating air strip, but a town-sized base. The ''joint mobile offshore base'' (JMOB) was a MOB concept for

expeditionary warfare Expeditionary warfare is a military invasion of a foreign territory, especially away from established bases. Expeditionary forces were in part the antecedent of the modern concept of rapid deployment forces. Traditionally, expeditionary forces w ...

and humanitarian and commercial operations developed in the 1990s by McDermott International, Inc. of

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...

. The JMOB was to be composed of five self-propelled units creating a one-mile long runway that could accommodate a fully loaded C-17.

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

was thought to be interested in the concept at the time. A technical report presented to the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

in April 2000 identified that such a base was technologically feasible and could be built by the

defense industry The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servi ...

of the

. It was estimated that each 300m long module would cost around $1.5 billion and a full, 2km long MOB would cost between $5-8 billion. However, a 2001 feasibility study for the United States Department of Defense concluded that a MOB would have lower cost effectiveness compared to alternatives such as aircraft carriers and LMSR cargo ships. Smaller versions of the MOB have also been proposed - in 2017, the Malaysian Marine Technology Company proposed a Mobile Offshore Base Station, a 62m long self-propelled barge. It would be fully air-conditioned and feature a galley, a mess room, meeting room, prayer room, recreation room and control room. It can accommodate 40 sailors for one month at sea. It possessed a rear-mounted slipway to recover small boats (such as the Swedish CB-90) and a large, front-mounted helicopter pad. A smaller, 44.8m long "8-point mooring barge) variant was also proposed. In 2019, another Malaysian company, Muhibbah Engineering, proposed its own design, which had four legs, each 135m long, which it could deploy to raise it above the sea surface and swell. It could normally accommodate 150 military personnel and up to 420 people during disaster relief operations.

Criticism

In December 1999, the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

(ONR) in response to a congressional mandate issued a report which delineated the impracticality of MOBs, "the largest floating offshore structure ever conceived by maritime engineers",Paul Nagy
Setting the Record Straight On Mobile Offshore Bases
''National Defense'', August 2001. on the grounds of high cost and vulnerability to threats such as missile attack. In January 2001, the

Institute for Defense Analyses The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), the Science and Technology Policy Institute ...

(IDA) stated that MOB "would not be capable of effectively replacing conventional sealift" because it provides an inferior delivery capability to the existing ''joint logistics over the shore'' (JLOTS) system. The report concluded that the estimated US$5 billion to US$8 billion MOB project was less cost effective than other existing at the time solutions.

References

{{reflist

External links

''GlobalSecurity.org'' Military equipment of the United States Military logistics Military technology

Concept

History

Criticism

See also

References

Further reading

External links