Although Initial Operating Capability (IOC) for the first of the RAN’s two Canberra class Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) amphibious ships is scheduled for mid to late 2015, the capabilities these 27,800 tonne vessels will deliver to the ADF have yet to be widely appreciated.
Rear Admiral Mark Campbell RAN, Head of Navy Capability, points out that in addition to their principal warfighting task, the LHDs will be capable of operations across many different warfare disciplines.
“An LHD with Seahawk Romeo helicopters embarked will be a powerful asset in anti-submarine or anti-surface warfare. An LHD with unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles or unmanned underwater vehicles embarked will contribute to surveillance and strike functions.
“Acting as a lily pad for allied forces, they can contribute to the air war,” RADM Campbell told a Royal United Services Institute (NSW) amphibious warfare seminar in Sydney.
“A small company-sized force embarked in Canberra or Adelaide will be a strategic weapon in a way no other group of 200 soldiers is ever likely to be,” he added.
Each ship can of course deliver much more – the ability to embark, transport and deploy a force of more than 1,000 personnel by helicopters and landing craft, along with all their weapons, ammunition, vehicles and stores.
Canberra’s IOC will furnish the ADF with a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and a non-combatant evacuation operations capability similar to the combined capability of the decommissioned landing platforms amphibious (LPAs) Kanimbla and Manoora.
It will also allow the 600-strong landing force element of the Joint Amphibious Ready Element from 2RAR to complete a newly-developed collective training and certification cycle aboard Canberra in the course of the year.
Final Operating Capability (FOC) of both ships in 2017, together with the resources provided by the 16,190 tonne Landing Ship Dock HMAS Choules, will “provide government with a cost-effective option for shaping and influencing the geo-political environment as well as a significant deterrent effect”, RADM Campbell commented.
Some issues remain unresolved.
Underprepared? Royal Marines Colonel Jim Hutton, Deputy Commander of the Australian Amphibious Task Group (AATG), told a questioner that no current ADF vehicles were waterproofed and there were no plans at present to make ‘wade-able’ the new generation of vehicles expectable from Projects Land 121 and Land 400.
“And if you drown one of those vehicles when you’re taking it into a beach, at present you have no vehicle to recover it - breaching a water gap is difficult with the current generation of ADF vehicles,” he noted.
US Marine Corps Colonel John Mayer, Colonel Amphibious with the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters (DJFHQ) in Brisbane, stressed the need for flexibility.
“As a new commander with a Marines Expeditionary Unit, I spent the first year putting armour on everything to be ready to go and fight a high-end war in Afghanistan but guess what? The mud slide in the Philippines hit and I had to send my stuff ashore,” he said.
“I couldn’t do anything because we were too heavy, too bulky, and it was all next to useless in the Pacific. So you’ve got to be ready to fight, but you’ve also got to be ready to do good stuff as well.
“Once your politicians realise amphibious forces can do things no one else can do, your ships are going to be in huge demand.”
Both the benefits and complexities of the amphibious force were highlighted by AATG Commander, Captain Jay Bannister RAN, in particular the capabilities it will be able to provide towards military support options such as HADR.
The benefits of sea-lift Moving the amount of stores that can be carried by a single LHD would require156 C-17 or 375 C-130 loads.
In a single move, Choules alone can transport up to 26 M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, about 70 light vehicles, and more than 200 tonnes of ammunition, an amount equivalent to 75 C-17 or more than 180 C-130J loads.
“Let’s say the destination was 12 days steam for our amphibious task force group, a distance that a C-17 might cover in a single leg,” CAPT Bannister said.
“The LSD will arrive in 12 days with equipment that is combat ready to be employed as soon as it is unloaded.
“If we could use four C-17s to move this cargo - if they could generate that rate of effort - it still takes them 52 days to deliver the stores. That’s assuming we have the ability for overflight, host nation support and a suitable airfield for strategic airlift.”
CAPT Bannister noted modern thinking in amphibious warfare aimed for high mobility and rapid tempo manoeuvre, with beaches secured and operated for only as long as necessary to enable this.
This approach would typically aim to maintain a sea-based logistic approach, aimed at minimising the footprint ashore and requiring a networked fires and robust command and control capability for strong coordination.
“We have very little experience in such concepts and indeed the landing force will likely struggle with the limitations imposed by the reduced sustainment in the ATF (Amphibious Task Force) and an irregular logistics chain,” he said.
“It will take some time, and perhaps operational experience to truly explore the capabilities and limitations of this concept, and understand the true benefits of sea basing”.
