The skills needed to operate future RAN task groups have been
boosted by recent deployments of what are arguably the RAN’s two most capable
surface combat assets, the guided missile frigate HMAS Sydney and the upgraded
Anzac class frigate HMAS Perth.
Since such task groups will be centred on the RAN’s two new
27,500-tonne Canberra class Landing Helicopter Docks (LHDs), the first of which
will enter service in early 2014 and the second midway through the following
year, the embedding from early May until late July of HMAS Sydney with the US
7th Fleet’s George Washington Carrier Strike Group was no surprise.
“Like the centrepiece to a Carrier Strike Group, an LHD has
a very good Command and Control system,
supported by a substantial communications suite and as a result, an ability to
execute local Sea Control – a real strategic capability increase for the RAN,”
HMAS Sydney’s Commanding Officer, Commander Karl Brinckmann, told ADM.
“What the embed has done is give my colleagues and me a real
feeling for that new capability, the opportunity to ask questions, get information,
operate our ship as if it was part of our new Task Group.
“The Navy’s enduring operational requirements mean we don’t
get many chances to exercise together with more than two or three ships, and
we’ve been able to play an important role with the USS George Washington, her
escorts, and her supporting replenishment units.”
A vital aspect of that role was acting as alternate Air
Defence Commander for the Strike Group. This provided experience not only with
the layered air defence concept but also with the Aegis combat system equipping
the strike group’s escorts and, from 2016, the first of the RAN’s three
Aegis-equipped air warfare destroyers (AWDs).
Included in the embed period were Exercise Pacific Bond in
the western Pacific, and Exercise Talisman Saber off the Queensland coast in
July, throughout which RAN air warfare officers were embarked aboard the Nimitz
class carrier George Washington and the Ticonderoga class cruiser Antietam.
“They were operating the USN systems first hand, or being
taught how the systems work and training with them. We also had US personnel
aboard Sydney to discuss and work through the various intricacies of large Task
Group air defence,” CMDR Brinckmann said.
As part of her complement the Sydney carried two RAN Fighter
Controllers, normally based at RAAF Williamtown.
“The Americans really weren’t expecting us to have this
capability when we turned up, but we were able to do some tactical air control
aboard HMAS Sydney, receiving additional data from other assets via Link 16, and
launching USN Super Hornets for surface search and air intercept missions.
“We also got the fighter controllers over to the US ships so
they could see how the Americans work with their equipment, and on a grander
scale.”
Intruders who had evaded the carrier group’s combat air
controls were targeted with simulated launches of Sydney’s SM-2 Block IIIA
anti-air missiles. Operational release of a mid-course guidance upgrade for the
missiles was only recently received from the Chief of Navy.
The fighter controllers were one of several capabilities not
generally anticipated within the 7th Fleet.
“A senior US officer operating with a USN Oliver Hazard
Perry (RAN Adelaide class) FFG would immediately think the ship would have had
its missile system removed, probably no sonar, and normally be used for low-level interdiction
operations,” CMDR Brinckmann said, echoing the reduction in capability in a US
Navy FFG counterpart.
“So for Americans to see us operating with our additional
fire control capability, upgraded sonar, and upgraded weapons systems, was a
welcome surprise for them.”
Underwater skills
Underwater skills too were honed early in the embed in
Exercise Haedori Wallaby; two days of manoeuvres off the southern coast of
Korea with a South Korean submarine and a US Navy P-3 Orion aircraft.
“The submarine was operating in very deep warm water where
it’s extremely difficult to locate a submarine contact unless you have very
good queueing information on where it’s likely to be, which is where the P-3
helped.”
Exercise Nichi Go Trident off the Bay of Tokyo with the
Japanese destroyer Murasame was also an opportunity to improve ASW skill
performance and was followed by command of a surface action group in Exercise
Pacific Bond off the Marianas.
This saw Sydney interacting with Japanese and US destroyers
and P-3s, US Air Force B-52 heavy bombers flying from Guam, and the USN Los
Angeles class nuclear submarine Chicago.
“Chicago was the target for ASW,” CMDR Brinckmann explained
to ADM. “Operating with the Korean submarine the previous week had shaken the
cobwebs out and although we were still in deep water, we were able to maintain
contact for much longer, which proved my systems and improved my personnel.”
Sydney’s embed ended with Exercise Talisman Saber. During
the exercise the FFG continued as part of the George Washington’s protective
screen, although two days were spent in the approaches to Shoalwater Bay
protecting HMAS Perth and the Arleigh Burke destroyer USS Chung Hoon from
submarines and surface units during the shore bombardment phase.
Lessons learned
After three months under US operational control, CMDR
Brinckmann has two volumes of lessons learned. One of these lessons, essential
to the efficient operation of any future RAN Task Group, is the method of
communicating between units.
“In my operations room I’ve got about 15 people on watch at
any time so I’m limited in the amount of HF and UHF circuits I can operate. The
Americans have a greater formal communications ‘reach’ and on top of their UHF
and UHF circuits, they have their own external non-traditional chat circuits; a
form of classified instant messaging to each other to update the warfare
picture,” he said.
“If I’m planning a serial or an exercise I do that by formal
messaging processes; the Carrier Group uses things like Powerpoint slides and
chat rooms.
“This is one of the
things we very much need to continue to learn so we can better integrate for
the future and optimally operate and communicate command and control between
the new units we’re procuring over the next few years.”
According to Captain Lee Goddard, Commanding Officer of HMAS
Perth, the Anzac class frigate is no longer a trial ship, but a fully capable
warship that is conducting trials.
Such trials have been Perth’s inevitable lot since becoming
the first of the RAN’s eight Anzacs to complete the extensive anti-ship missile
defence (ASMD) upgrade in late 2010.
Earlier this year Perth conducted a Unit Readiness workup
concurrently with ongoing Category 5 system sea acceptance trials focusing on,
but not limited to, the performance of the CEA Technologies’ CEAFAR active
phased array radar, the associated CEAMOUNT active phased array missile
illuminators, and Saab Systems’ 9LV 453 Mk3E combat management system.
Subsequent participation in Talisman Saber was the ideal
opportunity for Perth to test and prove in a highend training environment her
ability to protect high value units such as LHDs, said CAPT Goddard, whose
association with the Anzac class stretches back to the mid-90s.
During the exercise Perth was primarily operating in the
littoral with the Expeditionary Strike Group – the USS Bonne Homme Richard
assault ship, the USS Germantown landing dock ship, two Arleigh Burke guided
missile destroyers, and HMAS Choules.
“We’re particularly good working close inshore with our ESSM
(Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile), 5-inch gun, infrared search and track, and
certain modes of the CEAFAR system which we set up to protect the high value
unit while it’s conducting amphibious operations,” CAPT Goddard said.
“Having served in Anzacs as a warfare officer, Executive
Officer and previous Commanding Officer, I can assure you the picture I’m
seeing is so much more complete and it provides me with so many more options in
terms of soft kill as well as hard kill.
“The operations room leaves behind any other operations
rooms I’ve seen; the way it’s set up allows me and my team to have a much wider
and much greater appreciation of the tactical and operational environment and
the ability to apply well thought-through terms of engagement.”
Hands off approach
One lesson emerging from the new combat system was to avoid
applying old paradigms into manual inputs.
“You focus on setting up the system, setting the parameters,
as much as possible having a hands-off approach and letting the system, the
radar and the fire control systems do what they’re supposed to do.
“Without giving anything away, the modern seaskimming
missile is supersonic and flies about five metres above the waves, and that’s
exactly what the ASMD is designed to deal with.”
Six CEAFAR radar faces and four CEAMOUNT fire control faces
mean Perth can now simultaneously control in the air not one but 16 ESSMs, an
extraordinary increase in capability although one unlikely to be employed in
practice.
Nevertheless, the need to combat anti-ship missiles fired in
salvo against the ship itself and high value units under its protection could
quickly exhaust the 32-missile load held in its single Mk 41 vertical launch
system.
The Anzac class is fitted for but not with two VLS modules,
but weight and expense as well as tactical considerations make the addition of
the second module unlikely.
“The thing to remember is that the force air defence system
is a layered system which includes the FFGs with SM-2 and soon the AWDs,” Chief
of Navy Vice Admiral Ray Griggs told ADM last year. “You’re always trying to
target the missiles further out and not have to rely on ESSM or Phalanx or
something like that. We probably could, I don’t think we will.”
