17:56 Jun 21, 2011 

My Google mining shows that littoral/surface/subsurface is not about sea zoning like the one in the original. Surface operations means действия надводных кораблей, subsurface operations means подводные действия, and littoral operations means, according to Wikipedia, "Littoral combat is a term in military and naval warfare. It refers to operations in and around the littoral zone, within a certain distance of shore, including surveillance, mine-clearing and support for landing operations and other types of combat shifting from water to ground, and back." So littoral operations are operations in the littoral zone proper, which is литоральная зона (or intertidal zone), plust nearest offshore plus adjacet onshore zone.

"Inshore area", "inshore operations" are extensively used in US naval and NATO context. "Inner maritime" is encountered in naval context, but not frequently.

10:04 Jun 21, 2011 

Dear colleagues, please keep to the Rules for answering and making peer comments. I'd like to remind you some of them:
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Based on the site rules some of the discussion entries will be removed.

15:46 Jun 20, 2011 

Littoral? Let us see. Так, очевидно, что для действий в прибрежной зоне может быть задействовано 100% боевого состава и боевого потенциала китайского флота. Но уже для оперирования в ближнеморской зоне может быть привлечено меньше половины (45.6%) боевых самолетов и исключает возможность применения до 20% БНК. А для действий в морской операционной зоне могут быть задействованы до ? боевого корабельного состава и 14% боевых самолетов.

It's pretty obvious that прибрежная зона is closest to the shore, then comes ближнеморской зоне and finally, морская зона (open sea). For those who know what "littoral" means (and it means the strip between the lowest and the highest tide, or in other words, just next to the beach).

So. How come the (practically) beach zone is placed BETWEEN ближнеморская зона (inner maritime zone = OPEN SEA!) and морская зона (OPEN SEA!)?

Tell me how it is possible to find the intertidal zone (littoral) far offshore.

US navy may operate in the littoral zone, who argues, but this has NOTHING to do with the INSHORE, whish is MARITIME (also OPEN SEA) zone!

04:02 Jun 18, 2011 

I agree totally. Translating doctrinal terms is always like walking through a minefield. If there is no direct equivalent, it's usually best to be literal.

And speaking of "literal," russtran09, I'm afraid "littoral zone" won't work because the original differentiates between two different terms that would be subcategories of "littoral." So I can't very well translate both as "littoral."

00:47 Jun 18, 2011 

you have to translate it somehow, so take your pick. However, keep it in mind that this seems to be different from the US Navy dichotomy that differentiates between littoral, surface and subsurface operations. From this standpoint, both pribrezhnaya and blizhnemorskaya zones would fall under littoral operations. Also, I'd tread very carefully using Russian-compiled resources when translating into English since as a rule they tell you more about the professional qualifications of their authors than anything else. I just did a brief google search, and none of the translations proposed so far actually show up in any original US or NATO naval context

21:38 Jun 17, 2011 

Obviously I think James' should go with your answer given the existence of the glossary.
I was just poking fun at the concepts.
It's not straightforward vocabulary in English and usage is loose and ambiguous, maybe something to do with living on an island. After all, "offshore" can be near the shore cf "just offshore"; out to sea, but not especially far cf "offshore fishery"; or just about anywhere overseas (another islander word) cf "offshore banking".
To make things worse the geological/oceanographical terminology ("littoral", "shelf" etc) is not commonly understood (even in the navy). I mean, who says "pelagic"? To make it worse James has to deal (implicitly) with aircraft ranges which have nothing to do with ocean depth.
Yes, definitely stick with the glossary and blame NATO/Russian navies.

20:39 Jun 17, 2011 

AGI Glossary of Geology gives the following for "inshore": In the narrow sense, inshore zone is said of the zone corresponding to the term shoreface (smth. facing the shore) - in my lame translation of the Russian-language edition of the Glossary.
Plus, the term is seen as partly synonymous to "offshore" and "nearshore" - so no wonder they might have been "Paddling on the beach".

20:15 Jun 17, 2011 

Well found by Igor! ... but this is a funny glossary.
Both "inshore" and "offshore" are given as "прибрежная"!
The other problem is that if ближнеморская is inshore (with just 45% of planes reaching it), прибрежная has to be more accessible (100% of forces). What's inshore of inshore?! Paddling on the beach?
I hate to think how the joint exercise worked out.

20:11 Jun 17, 2011 

I'm glad my post may be of help.

20:09 Jun 17, 2011 

I'm just glad you included the link. I had not seen that glossary or the others posted on the NATO side before. They'll prove to be very useful, I'm sure.

19:27 Jun 17, 2011 

Sorry for giving only the English-Russian section; I opened the whole glossary and found the Russian-English part, which gave me the English terms I posted - that's why I was 100% confident.