Defence Business: The LHDs: turning a tool into a capability | ADM November 2011
Gregor Ferguson | Canberra
It’s a truism that a platform is not a capability: the Fundamental Inputs to Capability (FIC) so far as amphibious warfare is concerned go far beyond placing hulls in the water or troops on the beach. With the first of two Canberra-class Landing ships Helicopter Dock (LHD) due to enter service in 2014, The Williams Foundation used a seminar at the Australian Defence College to explore how far the ADF had progressed in turning these platforms into an effective and usable capability.
The seminar addressed several (though not all) aspects of the ADF’s evolving amphibious capability and will be covered in more detail in the December-January 2012 edition of ADM. This edition examines one specific component of that capability: Command and Control (C2).
The C2 challenge is endemic to all amphibious and joint operations. In Australia much attention has been focused on the interface between Navy – the platform owner and operator – and Army, the platform’s principal ‘customer’ or, seen differently, its main armament. But the integration of air assets into what is now a truly Joint environment demands the ADF and the various amphibious stakeholders embrace more closely the air element of amphibious warfare and the massive compounding effect this has on C2.
The Chairman of the Williams Foundation board, former Chief of Air Force AM (Retired) Errol McCormack set the context for the seminar by asking where on the amphibious operations continuum the ADF should seek to place itself. At one end is simple Sealift, with little or no intent to achieve tactical effects from the sea. The other end, represented by the might of the US Marine Corps, is the full-spectrum strategic amphibious capability, including organic tactical air power and the ability to undertake a large-scale assault landing on a strongly defended shore.
Somewhere short of this ultimate capability lie operators such as the UK Royal Marines and their French, Spanish and Dutch counterparts who are probably the most appropriate models and examples for Australia. These forces are all constrained by numbers and budgets but embody massive amounts of contemporary operational experience and procedural knowledge maintained within the framework of a joint approach to warfare which has been refined over generations, if not centuries.
The more you try to do, in an operational sense, the greater the C2 challenge becomes – especially if the platform serves as an operational HQ for a task group or landing force commander. The more you try to do, the more you need a fully integrated air component, and the more complex the air and battlespace management challenge becomes – hence the seminar’s title: “Australia’s LHDs and ADF Aviation”
Rear Admiral Alan Du Toit, head of Navy People and Reputation, asked the hard questions: “Do we understand the full aviation requirement to support an ADF amphibious operation? Have we got the foundation ASW, ASuW and AAW capabilities and skills which are mandatory components of conducting an amphibious operation?”
He added, “We are introducing significant new capabilities and concepts and the scale of air control and joint fires coordination will require constant practice if we are to become proficient in these skills.”
Group Captain Mike Kitcher of HQ Air Combat Group (ACG) highlighted the effects that airpower (or the RAAF itself) can deliver, and whose command and control must be integrated with that of the Amphibious Ready Group (ARG):
- Airspace control
- ISR
- Strike/Close Air Support (CAS)
- ASW/ASuW
- Combat Control
- C2
Above all, he said, Battlespace Management is an imperative, and this amounts to more than just Air Traffic Control (ATC) which can be exercised in its most basic form by a couple of embarked air traffic controllers. Most of these effects are controlled and managed by the RAAF. Their relative importance depends on the mission scenario: a Permissive Environment, such as a humanitarian assistance operation, requires a massive logistics and medical effort to which the RAAF can contribute a range of capabilities: airlift, ISR (to measure and map the affected area), air space control and the establishment of an Aerial Port of Debarkation (APOD) suitable for fixed and rotary wing aircraft.
This would require a significant embarked C2 capability resident in the Air Component Commander (ACCE) and his staff, with a robust high-bandwidth rear link to enable real time planning in transit.
A non-Permissive Environment complicates air command and control by several orders of magnitude, along with the material resources required to exercise it, Kitcher said. An enemy with submarines, fast patrol boats, fighter/strike aircraft, ISR aircraft with or without armament of some kind, and a regular army demands a full-spectrum ADF response – including maritime patrol aircraft, fighters, tankers and Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C).
If the Area of Operations (AO) is more than about 600nm away, then a Forward operating Base (FOB) will also be needed, adding to the logistical and C2 complexities; and to complicate things still further there are some locations within the southern pacific which lie as much as 1,500nm from anywhere that could be used as a FOB, he added.
The embarked ACCE and Air Operations Centre (AOC) necessary to control these resources will need reach-back – robust broadband links within an effective command support architecture – to critical capabilities in Australia to fulfil its role. And as the complexity of the operation grows, even in a Permissive Environment, the scale of this air C2 ‘overhead’ increases rapidly.
According to Air Commodore Bill Henman, DG Air Command Operations, when this happens centralised air C2 is necessary to ensure optimally coordinated air effects. For example, ISR requires specialist targeting, prioritisation and apportionment, which is best implemented from a fixed base back home. However, if the operation is large enough and complex enough to require deployment of the deployable Joint Force HQ (DJFHQ), then sufficient organic C2 capacity exists within this organisation to cover a reasonable spectrum of air operations.
Henman told the seminar that organic air C2 will likely be adequate for permissive, ‘low-density’ tasks; a complex or contested operation will typically require a centralised Joint Task Force C2 arrangement with the amphibious force operating as a task group under a broader task force construct. While not especially complex, this command arrangement separates key elements in time and space and therefore requires effective, robust, broadband links to enable real-time collaborative planning and data sharing.
Implicit in all this, of course, is the need for the air C2 system – the Theatre Air Control System (TACS) to be integrated to the appropriate level with the embarked task force HQ and the ship’s own Combat Management System (CMS). At present the only fixed elements of this C2 environment are the CMS, a variant of Saab’s 9LVMk3E system for the Anzac frigate, and the ADF’s extant Joint Command Support Environment (JCSE).
Many of the key configuration decisions have already been made, however, including the initial choice of C2 equipment and space allocated for this function within the LHD. The operations area (in two adjoining operations rooms) will accommodate some 70 personnel in all conducting ship, ATC and watercraft operations as well as operational and amphibious planning. The C4I system which will support the embarked amphibious force HQ will initially be the same JCSE installed aboard the LPAs HMAS Manoora and Kanimbla. This will be enhanced (and possibly replaced) when Phase 9 of JP2030 is rolled out (see p.40).
It’s understood that work is underway between CDG and DSTO to define requirements for a dedicated Amphibious Warfare Command Support System (AmWCSS). This would involves some level of functional integration and communications linkages with Army’s future digitised battlespace under Projects Land 75/125 (se p.38), the Land 17 Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) element and other C2 systems currently being acquired or developed. Options for AmWCSS development and acquisition will flow from this work but it is not clear whether JP2030 Ph.9 will be the mechanism by which they will be acquired and delivered.
This all goes to highlight the fact that the ADF is climbing a very steep learning curve in developing and fielding an amphibious warfare capability of a scale it has never contemplated before. The task is complicated – and particularly in the case of defining and then refining the embarked C2 capabilities required - by a lack of clarity in Defence’s thinking.
As MAJGEN John Caligari, Head of Army Modernisation pointed out at the seminar: “Too many are concerned about the Army, Navy and Air Force cooperating to achieve the capability that they miss the real thing they should be concerned about.
“The ADF has yet to establish the tasks, conditions and standards we require the soon-to-be-raised Amphibious Force to be capable of achieving.”
It’s clear the ADF is still working to develop the answers to RADM Alan Du Toit’s questions, cited earlier in this article. While the answers aren’t in yet, his questions provide an essential goal and point of focus for the people trying to work them out.
Subject: Sea