Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates

[Goknub]

We could do it but there would be a lot of casualties on both sides. The Fijians are well trained jungle/light fighters and have plenty of operational experience (I believe they have half their force on UN ops at any one time). They would also have home-town advantage.

It would be unlikely any Aus govt would be prepared to suffer any sort of casualties for a nation so far removed as Fiji. Unless the Fijian army is killing civilians/tourists en mass only then would an intervention be considered.

 

[alexsa]

Do you think we could do it now?

With great difficulty and not a little risk.

Mod edit:

"Tobruk replacement and RAN threads merged".

AD

 

[old faithful]

cynical .... not at all. Susinclty and ammusingly put I would say. The saddest part of this is that it has all happened at one time or another before. I was around when the fleet wore a rut in the ocean off Fiji (the first time) for no purpose at all. The Hawke government ditthered while the navy chewed up its budget on fuel and increased maintenacne requirements. (A bit like using C-130 hours for the pilots stricke). I understand a few in government wanted us to go in boots and all but the reality was the we were woefully ill equipped even for that.

I was recalled from leave. We were paraded and given the rules of engagement. it was to be a SPE operation.(Services Protected Evacuation.)
ROE were totally unacceptable. We were to take NO automatic weopons.SLR,s (L1A1,s) only. ONLY Australian nationals were to be evacuated,No exeptions. We were not going to topple the coup, just get aussie tourists and diplomats out.

 

[alexsa]

I was recalled from leave. We were paraded and given the rules of engagement. it was to be a SPE operation.(Services Protected Evacuation.)
ROE were totally unacceptable. We were to take NO automatic weopons.SLR,s (L1A1,s) only. ONLY Australian nationals were to be evacuated,No exeptions. We were not going to topple the coup, just get aussie tourists and diplomats out.

And given the helo situation (both aircraft and decks) we would have found if very difficult to even acheive that. And that is without considering the difficulties the ground element would have had trying to fulfilltheir role in a potentially very high risk situation.

The LPH's were a good interim response but the LHD's will give us a much more suitable capability in this regard.

 

[old faithful]

i think it was 1 RAR on the Tobruck, we were going to land at the airport in C130,s with Rambuka,s permission of course!
The helo situation was a couple of sea kings from memory.

 

[Tasman]

ROE were totally unacceptable. We were to take NO automatic weopons.SLR,s (L1A1,s) only. ONLY Australian nationals were to be evacuated,No exeptions. We were not going to topple the coup, just get aussie tourists and diplomats out.

Political correctness gone mad!

Thank goodness the ROE for the Timor operation were more realistic. IMO, the more aggressive the display of weaponery is the more effective the intervention is likely to be. The first troops on the ground in East Timor were very heavily armed and this was picked up and rapidly relayed by the media. I hope we never again subject Australian forces to interventions where they are hamstrung by the ROE and are inadequately armed even for self defence.

Closer to home we still make life difficult for naval and customs personnel involved in border security operations. I was talking with a customs officer from one of the customs patrol boats a few months ago and the circumstances where they can actually open fire with their machine guns are so remote as to be virtually non existant. Of course the more successful illegal fishermen, people smugglers, etc, know the rules and exploit them.

Tas

 

[alexsa]

i think it was 1 RAR on the Tobruck, we were going to land at the airport in C130,s with Rambuka,s permission of course!
The helo situation was a couple of sea kings from memory.

We also still has a couple of Wessex in the utility role from memory (one was carried on Success). We were definately on bones of our ar## in thsoe days.

 

[alexsa]

Political correctness gone mad!

Thank goodness the ROE for the Timor operation were more realistic. IMO, the more aggressive the display of weaponery is the more effective the intervention is likely to be. The first troops on the ground in East Timor were very heavily armed and this was picked up and rapidly relayed by the media. I hope we never again subject Australian forces to interventions where they are hamstrung by the ROE and are inadequately armed even for self defence.

Closer to home we still make life difficult for naval and customs personnel involved in border security operations. I was talking with a customs officer from one of the customs patrol boats a few months ago and the circumstances where they can actually open fire with their machine guns are so remote as to be virtually non existant. Of course the more successful illegal fishermen, people smugglers, etc, know the rules and exploit them.

Tas

I don't know if it is in the public domain so I will be a bit careful. The process undertaken by HMAS Townsville in the 80's was instructive in thsi regard. It was a very tortuous process (day plus and not helped by FCPC comms of the day) and involved Townsvile being nudged by the FFV a few times along the way. Many many warning shots were fired before decisve action was taken and the vessel stopped.

I have to say from my expriance the process was expidited after incident and was much better. however, the message had been sent very clearly by that stage (due in a large part to the Townsville incident) and FFV's tended to stop PDQ.

 

[McTaff]

The days of "touchy feely" with the SIEV and SFFV's have gone on far too long.

Nowadays, I hate to sound like I'm too 'gung ho' but if you're told to stop, and you don't, then you should get told a second time. If you don't, then you should get a few warning shots across the bow and told a third time to stop.

If it comes to a fourth time, that should be accompanied by weapons fire. Let us not make any mistakes; In our waters, told to stop, you disobeyed a direct order, then we'll put holes in your boat. There is no - repeat NO - reason why anyone would not stop unless they were up to no good. Even someone on a medical mercy dash would stop and transfer any casualty to a patrol boat because they know that they'd be giving them to someone who is going to get medical attention to the casualty ASAP.

Forget boarding - they are onto that one and know how to put they kybosh onto that. Even if you get aboard, all that happens is they get three square meals a day, clean linen and a solid roof overhead until we send them home. Just because we charge them does not mean they will pay any fines, and jail/detention means nothing to them. At least if you punch a few holes in at the waterline they have to stop, get off, and you have them where you can get to them.

"Legally...." whatever. Blah blah blah. You can bounce around legalspeak all day but when it comes down to it we could simply change our laws and that'll lets us do whatever we want.

Not saying that we should take up this type of idea elsewhere, but our waters are our waters. Simple as that. They'll stop in pretty short order once we sink a few.

 

[old faithful]

In my current ocupation, i deal with ileagal fisherman on a daily basis...they like it here,even where they are housed! (i have to be a little careful what i say) they think our Navy are a joke, and the consquences of being caught are attractive to the crews of the boats!:shudder
I think the only real deterence to them, would be unacceptable to the public.

 

[alexsa]

In my current ocupation, i deal with ileagal fisherman on a daily basis...they like it here,even where they are housed! (i have to be a little careful what i say) they think our Navy are a joke, and the consquences of being caught are attractive to the crews of the boats!:shudder
I think the only real deterence to them, would be unacceptable to the public.

True, it is the owner drivers who used to resist in my day (long ago) as they had something to loose. The others that would run were the larger commercial fishing boats (generally not 'local'), some of which were caught on quota violations.

 

[flyboyEB]

So what you're saying is that the way they pussy-foot around on the TV (Sea Patrol...shudder) is accurate?
Sink the cheeky buggers!

 

[alexsa]

So what you're saying is that the way they pussy-foot around on the TV (Sea Patrol...shudder) is accurate?
Sink the cheeky buggers!

I hate sea patrol.

However in the real world (from my dated perspective) with some of the bleeding hearts around even where you do your job meticulously in acordance with process you can cop flak and the crictism is used against those enforcing the law. Then thers our legal system which, while doing the right thing in allowing an appeal process, makes a soap opeara out of it.

 

[icelord]

It takes on Average, and this is a pot luck average, about 4hrs to fire a 12.7mm warning shot on an FFV, and even longer to get approval to board at times, since you have to call base, who then calls Canberra, who then has to wake someone who is having a nap.Its better if they just give up, saves both vessels lot of pussy footing.
I'm up for the gung-ho approach, fire 3 in the bow, and 50 in the engine drive until it clunks out, but no.you'd swear we might hurt the dead fish onboard.
And what do the crews care, they stay in the north for a couple of weeks, catch free flight home and start work again the following day to make up for lost income, its a ridiculous cycle.
And please, Sea patrol is as realistic as Star Trek...wait i take that back, the science on ST is sometimes accurate.

 

[diggumsbang]

Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station, WA

Hello all,

i travelled to exmouth on the North West Cape of Western Australia (most northwestern point of the nation) for a university field trip from anzac day to the 30th april. it was for my degree of bachelor of arts - urban and regional planning and formed apart of my 3rd year unit 'regional planning'.

as i am a great defence enthusiast, i was amazed at the scale of the VLF towers and the extent of the original townsite being the US housing and rec base which supported it. from my understanding, it is now solely used by the RAN which was given full use of it in 1999. it is used to communicate with RAN and USN surface and submarine fleets in the south pacific and the entire indian ocean. i was also lucky enough to dive the 'navy pier' which is considered one of the best shore dives in the world...

On another note, for the RAAF enthusiasts - i managed to get a look at RAAF (bare) Base Learmonth (which has an international capacity) and saw a RAAF P-3 Orion refuelling there. interestingly, RAAF base Learmonth acts as Western Australia's reserve strip for international routes in case of emergency at the perth international terminal even though it is over 1200km north of the states capital!

this has sparked my interest to get information for the following from my fellow members;
- when does the navy pier get used?
- what is the maximum size of vessels that can use the navy pier?

for those whom have not been there before, and are interested in VLF communications, i suggest you visit it - as word has it that the phasing out of the station is underway.

Cheers

 

[Lofty_DBF]

They wont be phasing Harold E Hold out its too important for Australian and American submarine operations.
The HEH base is moving towards automation.
Australia has one other VLF comms tower and that is at sale. It is the site of and old omega navigation station.
On a trip back from Japan one of the subs i was on broke down we had no diesels we where going to berth on the wharf but managed to get one diesel running.
So we just kept on going to HMAS Stirling.

 

[McTaff]

Australia has one other VLF comms tower and that is at sale. It is the site of and old omega navigation station.

Yup, the Omega tower is still there, south of RAAF Base East Sale. The actual location is given as Woodside, and sometimes erroneously as Longford or Yarram (Yarram has an aerodrome, so it is synonymous with it as a hazard, and Longford is nearby - Victoria's largest gas supplier. Big fire there ten years ago, so people tend to know where that is)

Incidentally it is actually cited as the tallest man made structure in the southern hemisphere (at more than 420m). It does have an associated "Danger" area on aeronautical charts. D392 (represented by a circle of 3.0nm radius centred on 38 28 47 South, 146 56 12 East, from surface to 2000ft)

At the moment it is only partially lit - a fairly big hazard for low flying aircraft. I guess they haven't found an electrician with a cherrypicker big enough to reach the light bulbs. It is hard enough to see in the daytime until you are right on top of it as well - I've learned to not look for the tower itself but instead look at the plan view of the trees on the ground and find the base of it first.

 

[RubiconNZ]

Amphibious Exercise to depart Canterbury

Media Advisory
2 May 2008

Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ship HMAS MANOORA will be in Cantabrian waters from 8 May as she gears up to provide assistance to a combined military exercise with the New Zealand Defence Force.

The RAN ship is an amphibious sealift vessel - meaning it can offload vehicles, troops and supplies to shore using landing craft without berthing at a port. It is berthing at Lyttelton Port from the 9th of May before departing to participate in a training exercise with the New Zealand Defence Force.

HMAS MANOORA is the sole naval asset in the Exercise named “Joint Kiwi” which will see NZ Army Light Armoured Vehicles (LAV) transported and offloaded by the amphibious sealift capacity in Hawke’s Bay.

The LAV’s are from Queen Alexandra Mounted Rifles Group based at Burnham Army Camp in Christchurch. QAMR are participating in land-based manoeuvres in Canterbury where they will then be transported by MANOORA to the Hawke’s Bay to continue their activities.

Exercise Joint Kiwi runs from 15 May to 17 May off the coast of Napier before returning to Lyttelton to offload QAMR assets.

Interesting display of Trans-Tasman Interoperability, I certainly hope this continues, I think it's fantastic the Manoora as a stand alone asset being tasked to support a Kiwi exercise.
Top Stuff.

 

[Gibbo]

Media Advisory
2 May 2008

Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ship HMAS MANOORA will be in Cantabrian waters from 8 May as she gears up to provide assistance to a combined military exercise with the New Zealand Defence Force.

The RAN ship is an amphibious sealift vessel - meaning it can offload vehicles, troops and supplies to shore using landing craft without berthing at a port. It is berthing at Lyttelton Port from the 9th of May before departing to participate in a training exercise with the New Zealand Defence Force.

HMAS MANOORA is the sole naval asset in the Exercise named “Joint Kiwi” which will see NZ Army Light Armoured Vehicles (LAV) transported and offloaded by the amphibious sealift capacity in Hawke’s Bay.

The LAV’s are from Queen Alexandra Mounted Rifles Group based at Burnham Army Camp in Christchurch. QAMR are participating in land-based manoeuvres in Canterbury where they will then be transported by MANOORA to the Hawke’s Bay to continue their activities.

Exercise Joint Kiwi runs from 15 May to 17 May off the coast of Napier before returning to Lyttelton to offload QAMR assets.

Interesting display of Trans-Tasman Interoperability, I certainly hope this continues, I think it's fantastic the Manoora as a stand alone asset being tasked to support a Kiwi exercise.
Top Stuff.

According to latest NZ Navy news HMNZS Canterbury will be participating also. She was tied-up at Devonport this morning but is due to be in Chch 10-19May.

 

[weasel1962]

Re:

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