Pacific 2012: NZ’s Task Force plans demand capability growth | ADM Dec 2011 / Jan 2012
Nick Lee-Frampton | Wellington
New Zealand’s Defence Capability Plan (DCP), published September 2011, has as its end goal an expeditionary Joint Amphibious Task Force (JATF).
ADM discussed the concept, the challenges and the format of the JATF with Commodore John Martin, the Maritime Component Commander (MCC) at HQ Joint Forces NZ (HQ JF) at Trentham, from where he was running five operations concurrently.
“The great thing about the DCP is its long-term focus,” CDRE Martin told ADM.
“We have an extremely positive vision for 2035 around the NZ Defence Force (NZDF) being combat capable, maritime in outlook, expeditionary in nature and interoperable with allies and partners.”
ADM suggested that effectively a joint amphibious force already existed.
“There are bits I would say we could tick off in the sense of an expeditionary force already in being. Recent humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) operations in Tonga, in Samoa are good examples of a joint force, its been sent from here, it’s expeditionary, its done the business.”
Nevertheless, CDRE Martin said there are challenges facing the JATF.
“There need to be capability tweaks [and] improved interoperability, not only in the inter-agency space but also within the services as well as improved command and control (C2).”
Is HQ JF currently capable of handling the JATF of 2015? Asked ADM.
“There are a couple of things, which the Government expects us to do, which are challenging, said CDRE Martin. We have always been a force contributor but the expectation is that we will now lead.
“That requires a level of C2 that we need to work on in the next four or five years and in terms of the long term this is going to be a key stream of development right into the future.
“We need to bring together and integrate C4, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) with a more New Zealand-led joint and inter-agency focus rather than plug in to someone else’s C2 organisation as we have done in the past,” he added.
“Amphibious task force training needs to be entwined in the professional development of our people. I aim to build naval officers who have amphibious operations in their blood.
“We have to get better at interoperability [and] sea-basing. We are going to have to become subject matter experts in ship-shore transfer. C2, the capability to run this beast, is going to be the key challenge — to conduct the C2 offshore by ourselves.”
HMNZS Canterbury, which was commissioned June 2007, is not yet fully introduced into service in her role as an amphibious task force vessel, Martin pointed out. “There is remediation work to be done and I expect that to be completed by 2014/15.”
How, asked ADM, are the sea-land-air communication and data links?
“This is a logical and appropriate challenge to address in the next four years,” he said. “Many of our capabilities were designed to be interoperable with our allies and with the rest of the NZDF and this is part of our ‘plug & play’ approach. We now realise we need greater levels of interoperability within the NZDF above and beyond simple radio circuits. Data exchange is definitely something we need to work through.
CDRE Martin said that sea trials of UAV systems are likely by 2013. The DCP shows a neat schematic of space, air, land and sea force elements. ADM asked how often the platforms are going to be deployed together?
“We have an exercise early in 2013 and another in 2015 when we will have just about every force element together. We’ll have HMNZS Canterbury, the OPVs (Offshore Patrol Vessels), the IPVs (Inshore Patrol Vessels), the combat force, the P-3 Orions, the NH90s, the SH-2Gs, the ISR, as well as the C2.
“The bits that are missing are the long-term capabilities, UAVs and persistent ISR, which will come into being beyond 2015 anyway. Our exercises will focus on being able to do that forward ISR task, the advanced force operations, rapid environmental assessment and then deliver effects from the sea, chop the land force into the environment and then go into a sustainment role. All this must be overseen by a robust command and control organisation and a logistics tail that supports it.”
Can we have a credible amphibious force, ADM asked, with just one amphibious ship?
“Depends on which amphibious force. If we are part of an Australian combined force then we can be a credible component of an amphibious force. Operating in our own right, credibility also means having the lift to deliver the right effect at the right time and then being able to sustain it. We have always been concerned around the support from the sea of the current force whether that is using ships taken up from trade (STUFT) or borrowing other assets.”
Replacing the fleet tanker HMNZS Endeavour will provide an opportunity to look for the capabilities that can give the RNZN extra lift and sustainment, Martin noted.
“However it is not just about lift, it is also around the littoral warfare support (LWS) capability, because some of the effects we may want to deliver in the region may not just be about landing troops, but may be around understanding the situation, gathering information and then allowing other people to deliver effects. So credibility is more than numbers of platforms, it is about training and being interoperable.
“In the NZ context the deliver of an expeditionary effect may not only revolve around an amphibious ship, we can use other enablers. I regard the Naval Combat Force [and] the LWS and the OPVs as part of the task force as well.”
ADM asked if there are going to be enough helicopters?
“There are never enough helicopters, ever!” according to CDRE Martin. “The Government has signalled that will consider upgrading or replacing the SH-2G Seasprites; they are an essential part of any of our work. We have an expectation that we will integrate the Seasprites in to the OPVs. It just so happens that at the moment we have five operational Seasprites, but normally we should expect about three.
“We are working to integrate the other NZDF helicopters in to our ships. The A109 conducted a series of successful static trials on HMNZS Canterbury in late October and next year [2012] we will be doing the same thing with the NH90, with flight trials in the 2013-2014 time frame.”
Will the OPVs be in the JAFT? asked ADM.
“Absolutely. I expect the OPVs to be involved because they have a reasonably long range and they are quick and they will have a good ISR capability with the Seasprite.
“We have deployed them to the Tokelau, Tonga, Samoa, shortly the Solomons. They are getting about and they are extremely useful.”
Is ‘amphibious’ given due credit in the proposed Task Force?
“I think it is. We know we can’t get to some of the places we need to get to because there are no runways or the distance from NZ is such that heavy airlift is just not as viable. So we are in the business of delivering military effects from the sea, and I think that is what amphibious warfare is in the NZ context.
“Amphibious force is a new core competency we have to develop, with expertise in ship-shore transfer.”
Give the widely publicised problems that Australia has experienced with its own troubled amphibious fleet, ADM asked CDRE Martin if the ADF has been using HMNZS Canterbury?
“I think there are interoperability opportunities. Being able to put our landing craft in to the back of HMAS Choules is certainly an opportunity I want to explore,” he said. “We have taken ADF vehicles up to East Timor and also deployed forces HMNZS Canterbury using the RAN’s LCH from, so my expectation is that we can certainly assist with sealift if required. We are not able to load an M1A1 tank due to weight restrictions, but I guess that would not be an interoperability issue for us in the South Pacific. We will want the best interoperability out of the RAN’s forthcoming Canberra class LHDs.”
Could the amphibious focus lead to the creation of a sort of Marine Corps as distinct from the Army’s existing infantry force?
“The fundamental challenge for the Navy is to win at sea and that requires a naval outlook as opposed to a land outlook. I know I can never look at the ground the way an Army person does.
“There are going to be times when we need the land force to just do Land Force ops because when we deploy them off the ship we need them to go and win and they don’t need to be looking over their shoulder worrying about what’s happening at sea.”
It is said that 90 per cent of the world will be living in the littoral by 2015, so how will that influence the Task Force, ADM asked CDRE Martin?
“It highlights that the JATF will be able to access and influence more people. The flexibility and the responsiveness it will bring seems only more and more appropriate.”
“But there is a range of related strategic challenges when standing up a robust amphibious capability, Martin pointed out.
“Cyber warfare is part of our planning. Anti-submarine warfare, the ability to address a submarine threat needs to be considered at the very beginning of a ship’s life, not halfway through or retro-fitted. We understand that, so we do that.
“Other areas: the increased impact of naval aviation on our Navy; the increased demand for new boarding party capabilities needs to be factored in; the C2 in the kill chain – that too needs to be factored in.
“For the Navy, he said, the delivery of kinetic effect has generally been driven by the needs for self-protection and self-defence.
“We have to understand with JATF how we participate in, lead and control the delivery of offensive kinetic effects, and I think they drive a demand for a very robust C2 organisation,” CDRE Martin told ADM.
So will the C2 environment differ because of the JATF, he was asked?
“Devolution of responsibility or mission command is an essential part of the way we do business. You need a headquarters that is able to process that and provide the right advice or support to the commander in the field. I think that’s the difference between leading operations and supporting operations.”
ADM senses a maturity to NZ’s DCP, a solid foundation on which one can build, a view, which Martin shared: “Not only solid, but refreshing. Here is a policy response based on rigorous analysis, that balances all the things the Government is trying to do with the fiscal challenges it has got, yet still has responsible and realistic ambitions for the way the Government will preserve NZ’s sovereignty and protect NZ’s interest, not only around the South Pacific but wider as well.”
It seems also to reflect greater awareness of the maritime dimension too: “In the Strategic Intent, it says emphasis has been placed on the Land Force’s ability to sustain operations,” CDRE Martin told ADM.
“If you read that you might think, ‘Oh it’s all about land operations.’ But I don’t think so. Because if you look at what “sustain” means I think it is about such words as ‘enable, protect, support, supply’ and all of those, up until the beach, can’t be done by the land force, they have got to be done by the other services.
“I think that is the maturity we have developed over the last 10 years in terms of the NZDF’s approach to jointness.’