Thanks for the post and experience.
As you say the ability to project to shore is important.
Does that mean the ship should have a docking well and therefore be of sufficient size to accommodate such a design.
Or is the old hang the landing craft over the side approach still sufficient and mate to the rear ramp of the ship to load /unload.
Thoughts
Regards S
I suspect the question is very dependent on both the size and quantities of the goods/stores a vessel like this would be planned to lift and move. If the expectation would be for a HADR/hospital ship to land pallets of relief supplies (food, water, medical supplies, etc.) then one method might work. OTOH if the vessel was also anticipated to land vehicles to start or aide relief efforts (like heavy construction equipment, ambulances, etc.) then a well dock might very well be required.
Some assumptions I would make regarding a well dock, is that a hospital/HADR ship would not have quite the same requirements in terms of quantity for landing craft when compared with the
Canberra-class LHD's, as the hospital/HADR ship would be a non-combatant, and would be utilized in much more benign security environments. This would in turn suggest that the ship could anchor much closer to shore than one of the LHD's might, so the round trip transit times for landing craft should be shorter. In addition since the vessel would be providing humanitarian assistance, as opposed to landing troops which might quick become engaged by hostiles, IMO there would be less pressure to land larger "waves" of personnel and resources, since there would (should?) be little concern a landed platoon or troop would be surrounded, engaged and/or overrun.
As a side note though, it would probably be a good idea for decisions to be made regarding what the actual focus of the vessel would be. A dedicated hospital ship would absolutely be useful for Australia to have in the event of a hostile situation, as well as in the event of a natural disaster or epidemic/pandemic, and during periods without emergencies involving Australia proper, could be used as a "goodwill" ship visiting Pacific islands to support local medical facilities. However, a dedicated hospital ship would not have the same capacity requirements for logistics that a more general HADR-type vessel would likely have, instead replacing at least some of that space and displacement with permanently mounted hospital beds, wards, surgical theatres and diagnostic/laboratory equipment.