Pacific 2012: Understanding amphibiosity | ADM Dec 2011 / Jan 2012
Gregor Ferguson |Canberra
The ADF began a tentative experiment in amphibiosity and force projection with the acquisition in the mid-1990s of the two ex-US Navy landing ships, HMAS Manoora and Kanimbla.
Although likely to be remembered more for the manner of their retirement than for anything they achieved, the two ships actually served Australia very well and laid the foundations for the amphibious warfare capability that will be embodied in their replacements. The Navy’s two new Landing ships Helicopter Dock (LHD), Canberra and Adelaide, will offer significant amphibious and force projection potential when they start to enter service from 2014. Whether or not that potential is developed fully into a robust and effective operational capability will depend on the individuals serving on them and the services operating and supporting them.
This question was explored in early October at a Williams Foundation seminar in Canberra on the LHDs and ADF aviation.
Between them the two 27,000 tonne ships will be capable of carrying up to 2,000 embarked troops and all their vehicles and equipment, eight LCM-8 landing craft and up to 48 helicopters. They will be supplemented (at least initially, and quite probably for the next couple of decades) by the 16,000 tonne Landing Ship Dock (LSD) HMAS Choules, formerly the British RFA Largs Bay, which arrived in Australia in December 2011. She can carry up to 700 troops and a mix of light and heavy vehicles and tanks.
According to Rear Admiral Alan Du Toit, Head of Navy People and Reputation, the ADF Amphibious Task Group of the future will have a combined displacement of 79,300 tonnes, carrying a 2,600-strong embarked force with 2,800 lane-metres of vehicle stowage and 16 helicopters in hangars with a further 8-12 parked on deck. The force will be able to conduct landing and disembarkation operation in Sea State 4. The force that existed before Manoora and Kanimbla were summarily retired embodied about one-third of this payload and its boat and helicopter operations were limited to Sea State 2.
Pause for a moment and compare this nascent Australian capability with that of the Royal Navy: its two 21,500 tonne Albion-class amphibious assault ships can embark 305 marines each (or about 700 for short periods), with up to three helicopters, four Mk10 LCUs (operating from a well dock) and four smaller LCVPs slung from davits. The 22,500 tonne helicopter carrier HMS Ocean can embark 660 Marines, with up to 18 helicopters and four LCVPs slung from davits. That’s still not as much as the ADF’s planned LHDs and LSD, though the Royal Navy can also deploy the former aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the commando helicopter role and a much larger train of RFA supply ships and tankers.
For the first time in history the ADF’s amphibious fleet matches, though doesn’t quite exceed, that of the UK. That’s a remarkable growth in materiel assets, but in one critical aspect the UK (like other nations with a similar maritime and operational history) remains ahead: in expertise and specialist domain knowledge about amphibious operations.
Notwithstanding that the Canberra-class LHDs are essentially lightly modified variants of a MOTS platform, the Spanish Navy’s Navantia-designed strategic projection ship, Juan Carlos 1, there are considerable risks attached to this project. However, the risks aren’t necessarily where Australian conventional wisdom would suggest observers ought to look.
The recent history of defence capability development and acquisition in Australia is such that political and media attention has been focussed on the cost and schedule of the Canberra-class ships and their associated landing craft. Platform cost and schedule appear at present to be the sole measure of project success and therefore the principal drivers of this emergent capability, which reflects an impoverished understanding among observers of the complexity of an amphibious capability and what the true measures of success ought to be.
Although there has been much internal activity within the Navy, Army and Capability Development Group (CDG), relatively little external attention has, until now, been focussed on the way these new ships will be used.
Furthermore, the focus within Canberra has tended to be on the roles and requirements of the Army and Navy – the latter will own and operate the LHDs while the former will be, in effect, their main armament: the effects which the amphibious force seek to deliver will generally be the result of action ashore by the embarked Army troops.
But a truly joint capability must embrace and integrate the air domain also: not just Navy and Army helicopters and UAVs but the full panoply of air capabilities and effects, from maritime patrol and response (including ASW), airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) and tactical air, including fast jets and tankers. That means bringing the RAAF into the amphibious community.
The Williams Foundation seminar in Canberra explored these additional dimensions to the ADF’s amphibious capability and focused attention on the doctrinal, organisational and training issues which need to be mastered in order to develop the full operational potential of the ADF’s new amphibious assets.
Some of the Command and Control (C2) aspects of the seminar were examined in ADM’s November 2011 edition. This article looks at some of the mechanics of delivering operational effects, both by helicopter and by landing craft.
The ADF has developed its amphibious warfare capability off a low base in a short time. It has made some very good decisions: the Navantia-designed Canberra-class LHDs and LCM-1Es are undoubtedly good choices. But other decisions reflect the lack of specialist knowledge within the ADF and consequent lack of foresight in specifying and selecting key equipment. It’s rather like somebody trying to decide what car to buy after learning to drive from a book – nothing can replace the knowledge and experience gained behind the wheel. And it appears the ADF didn’t know what it didn’t know about amphibious warfare at the time these decisions were made.
Key among them was the decision not to acquire helicopters with automatically folding rotor blades. This will have consequences for the LHD ‘deck tempo’ during amphibious exercises and operations which will be discussed below. It’s arguable the whole concept of ‘deck tempo’ and even ‘dock tempo’, as it relates to well dock operations, was insufficiently understood within the ADF at that time.
These decisions matter because speed of disembarkation, and so the ability to concentrate force rapidly ashore, is one of the secrets of amphibious success. Besides, future amphibious operations will differ somewhat from those of the 20th century, says RADM Du Toit. The typical ‘classic’ landing operation saw a rapid disembarkation, possibly opposed, to secure a base ashore from which the landing force would then attack its objective. The emerging US doctrine of Ship to Objective Manoeuvre (SOM) demands a higher operational tempo with troops being landing by helicopter or surface craft directly on their objective in a carefully coordinated operation which integrates joint fires and a complex logistics chain.
The ADF in partnership with DSTO has been evolving its own variant of this doctrine through much thought and experimentation over the past decade. The platforms enabling such operations – LHDs, helicopters and landing craft – must be flexible enough to support both rapid deployment and then rapid recovery of troops, equipment and vehicles so they can be withdrawn if required or re-directed quickly to a new task.
The C2 implications of this type of warfare are formidable, also. With that in mind MAJGEN John Caligari, Army’s Head of Modernisation and Strategic Planning, asked what are the tasks, conditions and standards that this nascent amphibious force is required to achieve? Reflecting its own unfamiliarity with the maritime domain, he noted at the seminar that Army’s own doctrine confuses naval strategy with maritime strategy and uses the words interchangeably.
Emphasising the importance of understanding the fundamentals, Caligari cited Albert Palazo’s Land Warfare Studies Centre paper ‘Projecting Force – The Australian Army and a Maritime Strategy’: “Maritime does not mean naval,” says Albert Palazzo. “Rather, a maritime strategy is a form of joint operations in which the medium of manoeuvre is the sea, but the objectives to be influenced are on the land.”
Caligari notes that the Key Performance Parameters for the ADF’s amphibious force carry no conditions: the force must be able to land two combat teams simultaneously at separate objectives, one by air and one by sea, by day or night, in marginal weather conditions in Sea State 4. It doesn’t mention a potential enemy, or how long the combat teams need to be deployed, both of which affect the planning and force structure involved.
Similarly, the force is required to be able to land M1A1 Abrams tank and M88 Hercules recovery vehicles in ‘benign conditions’. But over what distance? Over the horizon, or from closer in? And as part of a landing force, and therefore in a tactical manoeuvre? And the requirement to hangar and operate helicopters while simultaneously conducting well dock operations with landing craft and other vessels doesn’t mention the need to deploy troops (and so prepare them and move them through the ship efficiently), nor the rate of assault (and so the deck and well dock tempo required to deliver the optimum number of troops on their objective as quickly as possible).
This unfamiliarity with such a new operating environment results in a cascade of uncertainties and questions to be addressed and resolved at different levels of command, says Caligari. Some of these, such as the capacity of the ships and embarked helicopters and landing craft to deliver troops ashore (or recover them) in varying sea states and weather conditions, can’t be addressed properly until the LHDs themselves are in service. But this will have a significant shaping effect on the development of tactics, operational doctrine and force and HQ training requirements.
Levels of competence and professionalism will be determined to some degree by the size of the land force that’s actually dedicated to the amphibious role: rapid rotations of small units will prevent individuals and teams building familiarity and expertise and so reduce the force’s competence. Similarly, lack of availability of the ships for training will also prevent the accrual of collective expertise and memory.
The stakes for the ADF are very high: Caligari’s own assessment of the risks associated with amphibious operations highlights the importance of an Integrated Order of Battle (ORBAT) in the amphibious force and the level of collective training that’s undertaken. The more integrated the ORBAT, the more collective training its components undertake, the lower the operational risk in all types of operations.
Figure 1 above shows that if it’s not careful the ADF could find itself in the worst of all possible worlds – trying to undertake relatively complex amphibious operations with an under-prepared and under-trained force.
A subject matter expert gave the seminar attendees food for thought: BRIG Mike Ellis, Royal Marines, is the Director of Development of UK Joint Helicopter Command. The JHC supports deployed amphibious task groups by assigning a balanced air group built around the UK Commando Helicopter Force (CHF), with three principal tasks: Lift, Find and Strike. Depending on the nature of the operation it can draw upon the rotary wings assets of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and Royal Air Force: Seaking and Chinook helicopters for the Lift role, Apaches for the strike role and AEW and/or ASW Seakings for the Find role, with Lynx helicopters in a variety of utility roles – the exact composition of the embarked air group can vary considerably, and can evolve markedly during the course of an operation.
For example, he said, HMS Illustrious began operations in the Middle East in 2002 cleared to operate three embarked Chinooks; by the end of her deployment she had six Chinooks and two Seakings embarked – Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) needed to be developed on the spot, and they were.
The UK’s operations in Libya in mid-2011 provide an example of the sort of flexibility the ADF needs to achieve; the air group embarked on HMS Ocean consisted of two Seaking Mk7 AEW aircraft in the ‘Find’ role; two Lynx Mk 7 utility aircraft, and a flight of five WAH-64D Apaches in the strike role. There were also two US Air Force HH-60 Black Hawk Combat SAR helicopters embarked.
This was the first at-sea deployment of the Apache and the UK found that the aircraft, not being marinised, had a substantial flight deck footprint and therefore slowed the ship’s deck tempo. Furthermore, because HMS Ocean was operating independently, rather than as part of a task group whose HQ would be embarked on one of the Albion-class LPDs, elements of that One-Star HQ needed to be embarked on HMS Ocean to provide the necessary C2 capabilities to support operations.
With hindsight, said Ellis, one of the lessons was that operating the not very ship-friendly Apaches off a flight deck they were sharing with the fully ship-integrated Seakings was a struggle. Having two flight decks available would have enabled the non-ship-friendly strike and C-SAR aircraft to operate from one deck at their own pace, and the Seakings and Lynxes from the other. This principle can clearly be applied to other contingencies.
The difference between aircraft that are and are not optimised for maritime operations is instructive, Ellis pointed out: a Seaking with automatic blade folding can be moved from the hangar deck, via the elevator, spotted on the flight deck and have its engines running ready for flight within 10 minutes.
A Lynx with manual blade folding requires 20 minutes. The Royal Navy and British Army found it took 30-60 minutes to get each Apache ready for flight. And the British Chinooks simply couldn’t be fitted onto the elevator or into the hangar so remained permanently on the flight deck – this meant in turn that they were vulnerable to the weather and to marine corrosion, and that maintenance was only possible during daylight hours (it was a tactical environment, remember) and where weather and sea conditions permitted.
The ADF must explore these issues, and their implications, with the MRH90, Tiger ARH and CH-47D and CH-47F Chinooks for itself. The learning curve will be steep, but the ADF will be helped by the fact the MRH90’s rotor blades can be unfolded manually (on land) within 10 minutes. This might take longer at sea. The Tiger’s four-bladed main rotor can be folded also – a two-blade fold or all four folding – and unfolded within 25 minutes (two-fold) or 45 minutes (four-fold), roughly comparable with the UK’s Apaches.
Flight deck compatibility and operating procedures have been pioneered during the French deployment in mid 2011 of three Tigers aboard the amphibious landing ship Tonnerre to support the revolt against Libyan dictator Muamar Ghadaffi.
Force preparation, especially of non-specialists, is a critical issue, Ellis pointed out: pre-embarkation training for the Libyan deployment, Operational Ellamy, took four seeks. And ideally, all forces assigned to this embarked role should undergo this type of collective familiarisation training at least twice a year to build and sustain proficiency.
“Our capability only comes to life when embarked together for a period of at least a month,” Ellis told the seminar. “In our experience a concentration of the amphibious forces, twice a year, will enable a strong capability to be fielded.”
This proficiency is helped immeasurably by posting Suitably Qualified and Experienced People – SQEPs – to the ship as permanent members of the ship’s company. There should be a senior aviator – ‘Wings’ in Fleet Air Arm parlance – who is an experienced pilot and who will be responsible for aviation operations. He is vital in helping embarked helicopter squadrons with ship integration and operational issues.
Similarly, the ship’s company must include an Air Engineering Officer with a high level of engineering authorisation to ensure rapid integration of the embarked squadron with the ship – if the aspiration is for a ‘plug and play’ capability with embarked helicopters, such appointments are essential, Ellis contends.
The Navy must operate the ship, he told the seminar, but the embedded aviators and amphibious specialists in the ship’s company coordinate the ‘airfield’ – having the right people in the right positions speeds up all activities. This applies also, by the way, in the world of watercraft. The skill and expertise driver here is not in the handling of small craft but in the delivery of a tactical effect ashore, and the delivery process begins before troops and equipment embarked on the LHDs board their LCMs.
One of the lessons from Operational Ellamy and other UK deployments is that ship compatibility is vital for embarked helicopters. Regardless of the capability and performance of the aircraft, if they take too long to prepare for flight this can cripple deck temp and therefore operational effectiveness. Ellis cited lack of automatic blade folding, lack of specialist deck-handling equipment and the lack of a telebrief to enable rapid briefings and flight planning as significant culprits. Here are other issues to watch also, Ellis warned: flotation gear, transponders that can be seen by the ship’s radars, deck and aircraft lashing points, castering undercarriage, ‘wet build’ to resist corrosion and weather effects, electromagnetic interference issues, and the like.
It’s not fanciful to imagine a future phase of Project Air 9000 might aim to introduce more ship-friendly blade fold and telebrief capabilities for the MRH90s, Tigers and Chinooks.
“Ideally, maritime specific fittings should be common across the fleets to avoid the ‘Fleet within a Fleet’ issue,” he said. “While budgeteers might argue that the cost of ship-optimising an aircraft, or buying marinised aircraft, is wasted if they are significantly more expensive and spend only part of their capability at sea, the answer to this is to be determined by where you expect to deliver effect and how you plan to get your aircraft to the point from which to generate it.”
Much the same applies to the ships, Ellis added: they need to be capable of sustaining an effect C2 role, there need to be efficient routes from briefing room to cockpit for the aircrew (and from accommodation spaces to the flight deck and the landing craft for troops), there need to be well-equipped and large briefing rooms because air groups will grow, there needs to be plenty of ready-use ammunition stowage, and the stowage of aircraft munitions and the optimum route from stowage to flight deck needs to be properly thought out.
As noted earlier, Ellis’s comments apply also to the embarked land force and the process of preparing it for action and then feeding it into the helicopters and/or landing craft which will take the force ashore.
One point worth considering – and it has been considered by Navy and Army, though not resolved yet, so far as ADM is aware – is the use of smaller watercraft aboard the LHDs. It can take over two hours to flood the well dock and another two hours to pump it out. If there’s a short-notice requirement to move small groups of people or stores this is uneconomical proposition, for that reason the ADF is also examining the use of smaller landing craft (possibly even air cushion vehicles) to permit this short-notice flexibility.
The Williams Foundation seminar cast a flinty light on the ADF’s preparations for developing an amphibious force. The strongest message was that proficiency and safety demands a high level of specialised knowledge across a wide spectrum of the ADF than perhaps had been suspected: the ADF’s biggest problem isn’t in applying good people to the challenge, it will lie in educating and training them and then nurturing their corporate knowledge and expertise, once this has been created.