Shipping needed to facilitate an unopposed landing of a light infantry brigade.

[StingrayOZ]

Abe made some very extensive posts on the L & C and its suitability in the RAN thread.

I think 3 large LHD's and 3 large supply ships would be very suitable for the RAN. I think we are nuts for not ordering a 3rd LHD, even as a bare stripped out hull and a complete cutback on systems and gadgets at least initially. But lessons are always learnt the hard way. The JC1 design is the right design, but you really need 3 to work.

Success and Sirius replaced with 3 L&C. Or 2 L&C and a dedicated oiler and perhaps a contract with a commercial shipping company (P&O) for additional sealift. Its what should happen (should have happened years ago) but most likely won't due the push for a surplus.

I'm not that up to speed on the SA state of affairs. But they should be able to have at least a variation of that capability. Three large Korean, French or Spanish LHD's (20k) should be affordable and perform the function. If it was a choice between 3 smaller (but still highly capable) LHD's and 2 JC1 LHD's, I would be tempted to pick the 3 smaller.

A single LHD at the sizes we are looking at can't do it. A LHD and a sealift (like a Bay) can't. You have to go Wasp sized (40k) to get that capability.

Two you also get the ability to deploy troops from air and heavy equipment by sea from the dock. As when the dock is flooded I don't believe you can use the air capability (well not effectively as the whole ship is on a lean aft). So one ship can specialise on air lifting and one on sealifting. You can then pack em out for that. Operationally you also deploy troops and tanks or armour at the same time.

 

[Sea Toby]

A LSD or LPD of a Damen Enforcer design would handle a battalion, so you will need three ships to move a brigade in one single trip. Having one ship will require three trips.

Or use a LHD design such as the Juan Carlos or the Mistral. They can handle a brigade in a single trip.

Since ships do go to dry dock for maintenance, it is wise to have at least two for around the clock operations. A second ship also provides backup and more flexibility.

Since South Africa will not forwardly deploy their amphibious forces all of the time alike the Americans, there is no need to have three ships to forwardly deploy one ship.

Any amphibious ship or ships will require resupply, so even for an unopposed operation one replenishment ship is needed too.

I believe the Aussies are on the right track with two LHDs and one LSD/LPD considering sustainability and the possibility one ship will be not be available.

 

[swerve]

...Success and Sirius replaced with 3 L&C. Or 2 L&C and a dedicated oiler and perhaps a contract with a commercial shipping company (P&O) for additional sealift. ...

That's a very big increase in capability. One Lewis & Clark has about the same tonnage as Sirius & Success combined. Sure you need ships that large, & wouldn't be better off with something smaller & cheaper?

 

[StingrayOZ]

That's a very big increase in capability. One Lewis & Clark has about the same tonnage as Sirius & Success combined. Sure you need ships that large, & wouldn't be better off with something smaller & cheaper?

Depends what you are trying to do.

Looking at something like East Timor (which is really what drove Australia to seek this sort of capability). Your leading a complex international mission involving Aus, NZ, UK, Dutch, American (as a very secondary almost observer role), French, Spanish, Singaporean, German, Indian task force. At the same time, cities are on fire and there is possibly a huge humanitarian mission going on at the same time. Some countries can provide some sealift (for most countries its limited as this is on the other side of the planet) but there is no backbone of sealift. What you end up with is a mess of logistics, incompatible systems, lack of combined training, languages etc.

With the L&C we tap into american capabilities, training and systems. We could resupply a wasp type ship in its role as well. Given the USMC troops being based up north, thats a very important capability to have. The cost difference isn't as much as the tonnage difference. Its going to be cheap to run, cheap to operate, there are training/logistics synergies between US and AU that could be very useful.

Looking at the region we could deploy in logistics are going to be very important.

Supplying 11,000 troops (which is what Interfet peaked at ) is no small measure. 5,500 were Australian and 1,100 were NZ. So really we should have capability to supply nearly 7,000 troops in the region just for ourselves. Because this isn't a theoretical thing, its a real thing that occurred ~10 years ago. Looking around regionally we have all sorts of on going issues, Fiji is under military control. PNG had two Prime Minsters recently. Eastern Indonesian provences of Pupa also have independence movements. East Timor was close to civil war. Issues in Bougainville, Indonesia has waves of independence movements at times. Samoa, Malay emergency, etc etc.. Its all there..

South Africa has the same sort of issues. It won't always be able to rely on a whole bunch of US and EU assets to save its region. In fact I would say its getting less likely by the day. The problems in Africa will be around for decades and there will no doubt be policing, peace keeping missions. SA could provide the local backbone for these missions to occur.

How much free sea lift you think the EU and the US have sitting off the coast of SA or Australia? Not much, its mostly northen hemisphere based. Its only free if there is nothing much going on, which there often is.

2 L&C and a contract for emegency sea lift seems pretty reasonable in that context.

 

[Massive]

Depends what you are trying to do.

This is the crux of it.

I often wonder if whoever is doing the strategic plannning starts at this level given what the ADF ends up with.

Given the sort of operations that are being bandied about you really need 3 LHDs and 3 L&C.

2 LHDs are required to support the landing force (so you need 3) and 2 L&C (or similar) are required to provide logistics support after 2 weeks.

I imagine you would also want to establish local sea control (at least 1 AWD and 2-3 ANZACs - requiring access to a L&C) and broader area sea denial (2 Collins on station).

The L&C are going well beyond the typical role of Cantabria and Berlin (to say nothing of Sirius and Success) and the incremental cost would not be that large. I imagine they will be going up and back, suggesting 2 would be required at any one time - this means that 3 are required to ensure this.

Only go for less capabilty if you are trying to do a lesser task than this.

Regards,

Massive

 

[Dodger67]

The kind of action reported here - Kenya troops fight on beaches in assault on Somali rebel city - CNBC - is most likely what the authors of the South African Defence Review have in mind with the requirement they have set.

Besides the amphibious capability as such, the South African Navy is also severely lacking in a NGFS capability, They currently have only the 76mm OTO guns of the 4 frigates and 2 OPVs - which are clearly too light for the job.

The original idea was that the 76s are "interim" guns for the frigates. The plan was to "navalise" the locally made G5/6 155mm gun, but the failure of the German MONARC experiment killed off that idea. The frigates are also armed with Exocets but they lack a land-attack capability. In any case such expensive missiles are not a viable alternative to NGFS