BAES have announced they will be offering the CV90 Mk III and the RG41 for LAND 400.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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Only one, you sure on that?
Not LAND 400 as a whole but the concept of a single family of vehicles being able to meet the full spectrum of requirements. The acquisition of the LHD should be complemented through purchasing appropriate equipment to enhance our capabilities.
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Thats a relief.
What is your take on elements of the Infantry being in favor of a return to the old system where RAAC operates the armour in support of light infantry as opposed to having specific mech and motor infantry battalions?
Probably should move this to the land forum.
Trust me, good seakeeping is very useful in a sea landing . Did one amphib landing off the USS Fort McHenry in AAV-7A1's and despite being designed for the conditions, there's something deeply spooky about feeling the nose of your 30 odd tonne armoured coffin bumping along the bottom at a 45 degree nose down attitude as the following surf catches you on the run in to the beach...
As a result of quite a few of the AAV7 crews having 'brown moments' due to the surf, they decided we wouldn't go back aboard in the coffins, so they sent an LCM. The surf hammered that up onto the beach too far and it couldn't kedge itself off(just dragging the anchors). So, the McHenry sent a LARC in to grab a rope so the Mc Henry could drag the LCM off the beach. The LARC made it in to the beach OK (geez, they surf well!) but smashed the windscreen trying to get back to the ship. Eventually one of the ship's boats bought out a cable to skull drag the LCM off the beach. About bloody time too - it was hours later and getting dark when we got back aboard.
Now that is PISS funny!!!!
I just spent the day with the CN, Minister for Defence, a chunk of the Admiralty including some of the USNs. Was a good day and a good experience for a little grunt like me.
I learnt a few things (especially from a historical perspective). :rel
Disagreed with a few things.
But kept an open mind and enjoyed hearing a variety of opinions.
I learnt a few things (especially from a historical perspective). :rel
Disagreed with a few things.
But kept an open mind and enjoyed hearing a variety of opinions.
Well actually as the LHD well dock stands now you couldn’t even fit in one (all the way that is). You would need to remove the centreline wave barrier. After that only one indeed. The USN’s dimension requirements for the LCU(R) program were maximum length of 40m and beam of 14m. The well dock of the Canberra LHD is 69m long (including the ramp but this aligns to the bow of many landing craft anyway) and 16.8m wide. So no second LCU(R).
Since Textron’s LCU(R) is just a paper design you could of course build a short hull version for the RAN. Reduce the length by 25% and you could fit in two back to back. But this would reduce the payload by about 33.3% and your net payload level would not be very different to four BMT FLCs. Plus of course you would suffer the disadvantage of only two hulls vs four.
Still not making any sense. LAND 400 was originally scoped for three types of manned vehicle: the IFV for combat roles (similar to the UK FRES Speciality Vehicle), a supporting vehicle to replace Bushmasters and M113 variants (similar to the UK FRES Utility Vehicle) and a Recce & Surveil Vehicle (RSV) which has been spun out into Land 121-4 as the Protected Mobility Vehicle – Light (PMV-L).
How is it that any of these vehicles is not appropriate to the LHD? The key issue for embarking on LHDs for army combat vehicle is tank or truck lane meters. How long they are! The shorter the vehicle the more you can pack them in.
For beach crossing we need a beach recovery vehicle and hopefully one will be acquired as part of JP 2048 but its not a LAND 400 issue.
LOL. You know the LVTP7 aka AAV7 is actually by USMC Amtrac standards a very poor swimmer. It was designed for what they call 80% land, 20% sea to replace the previous LVTP5 which had been designed for 20% land, 80% sea.
The problem was the USMC lacking APCs was forced to use their Amtracs ashore for protected mobility. The LVTP5 was way too big and with petrol fuel carried under the main deck it was a very bad APC. It was however a great swimmer and surf crosser.
This problem has been retained through the EFV which is still supposed to be a full flight APC/IFV as well as a swimmer. Much easier just to make an amphibian boat that spends the minimum amount of time on shore, just enough to cross the littoral zone safely and get the grunts feet dry to the land fight.
The BMT FLC seems like a very interesting design. Considering we have already ordered LCM-IE for use with the LHDs, what is the likelihood of getting FLCs at some point in the future to work with the LHDs and Strategic Sealift ship supplementing (or even replacing LCM-1Es)?
Is there an existing amphibious design of the Australian high speed catamarans?
The various L-Cat designs are intriging, presumably we would be looking at something like the L-Cat 200 for the LCH replacement.
(I am presuming something like the JHSV is not the kind of thing they are looking for.)
We haven’t ordered LCM-1Es. The Government has tasked Defence to consider LCM-1Es for ordering. The ordering decision will be made in the next year.
But this does not preclude the FLC. The Army’s water transport force is around 18 LCM8s for use in ship to shore and coastal/inland waterway transport. The LCM-1E will only replace the ship to shore role as they are very short ranged and can’t do the independent operations role.
So the balance of the LCM 8 fleet will also need replacing. So assuming the UK’s FLC project goes ahead they could be acquired around 10 years from now to replace the LCM 8s and also the LCM 1E. FLC won’t be available by 2015 so something like the LCM 1E is needed and it might as well do the job. It’s been designed for use in the JCI LHD so that’s a plus.
L-Cat is very interesting but the transformation capability between barge and catamaran is more suited to a ship to shore connector. It doesn’t really offer much in the way of a capability advantage for independent operations but with the downside of increased complexity and expense.
JHSV type vessels are being considered because the sizing of the ship hasn’t been narrowed in on (yet). Most of the earlier fast catamarans had a bow ramp as that was part of their ferry operations. They could be customised to over the beach landings.
I meant rapid as in the near future, naturally these would take time. Even getting a second hand Bay class in service with the RAN by around June 2012 would be a big plus.If you mean Rapid as in the next 6 months, then no.
The UK MoD has published its business plan, and has laid out the decommissioning process for those ships culled under SDSR. They expect it to take until March 2012 to remove one Bay from service.
Now if you wanted Ark Royal she would be available by April next year..................
Manoora and Kanimbla are pretty much out of action, leaving just Tobruk as our only major amphibious asset
The first LHD HMAS Canberra won't be in service until January 2014 (assuming everything goes to schedule), and the second won't be in service until June 2015.
That means as it stands until HMAS Adelaide enters service, we have a significant capability gap.
I didn't realise the LCM-1Es haven't been ordered yet, I thought they had, but very good points on the Army LCM8s
A JHSV style vessel with bow ramp makes a lot of sense. This is well proven technology, has significant local industry presence with Austal or Incat plus could likely leverage Austal's experience with the US JHSV, TSV and even LCS programs. This should be a low risk, reasonably affordable option.
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HMAS Canberra is expected to be operationally ready in 2015, HMAS Adelaide around 2016-17
Tobruk has its own issues to deal with, technically leaving us with no amphib force to utilise
Not so affordable, they burn a lot of gas. JHSVs are a very different requirement to that of JP 2048/5 and I doubt they will be well suited.
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I am a fan of a JHSV for the pacific islands, based in Darwin for use around the north. One day it can be assigned as a high speed intercept of fisherman/people smugglers, or the next as Rapid Response for the army deployment in the region.
As much as they burn fuel, it can be handy for quick reponse...we could always just get a Austal LCS
Fair enough on the LCU(R), if they don't fit they don't fit and I get what you are saying about only one or two vs four causing issues with redundancy.
On LAND 400 I hadn't heard anything recently about the vehicle types being looked at and was going off discussions a couple of years ago that the Army was drifting towards buying an 8x8 FOV to replace everything. Good to hear it is not the case.
On reading the replies I see than LAND 400 is perhaps the wrong project to be referring to in this case and that EFV is likely too specialised and expensive to be considered at all.
Agree on the BARV but would still like to see the ADF deploy Viking or something similar, doesn’t need to be operated by RAAC, may be a better fit with RACT or RAE. It is a very useful and capable multi role vehicle.
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The Lcm1e is 190 nm range with load, and supposed upto 100 t. of distributed load, more than a Lcac (65-70 t.).
Edit: To mean that in the space you have for 2 Lcac, you have 4 Lcm1e and that is able to put in the beach 260 t. more of heavy armoured vehicles per each wave, slower, but heavy vehicles are very important because they will give the strike and protection to other light vehicles like Hummers...
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Like I said the LCM-1E has very short range. Australian Army LCM8s have a range of over 1,000 NM as well as crew facilities to support week or longer independent operations. The LCM-1E is very much a 500 hours a year only ship’s boat with little or no capacity for independent operations outside the harbour.
The LCM-1E is in a very overloaded condition when carrying 100 tonnes and is not able to safely cross surf zones. It is designed to complete the full mission with only 56 tonnes of payload.
Two LCACs will out perform four LCM-1Es by a significant margin in every ship to shore situation. With a 25 NM over the horizon standoff two LCACs will get to shore over 500 tonnes before the first LCM-1E even hits the beach. They will do so regardless of the sea state and beach condition. The LCACs will however burn a lot more fuel and cost a lot more to raise, train and sustain the capability.
The job to be done by Lcm1e, to deploy from over the horizont wrt the beach, is well acomplished with 190 nm range. The Lcac speed with payload is 40 knots wrt 15 of Lcm1e, so say 3 times faster (incl. load/unload time), a normal load on Lcac of 50 t. for 2 Lcac is 100 t. times 3 is 300 t., while in that time 4 Lcm1e has put say 70 t. normal load (distributed) times 4 is 280 t. so my numbers don´t out perform Lcm1e by a significant margin (just 20 t., talking about distributed load), maybe yes in fuel burnt :lol2
But is important the first wave is heavy armoured enough, whenever you decide to reach the beach that important first touch of the beach in distributed in 4 different landing points with 4 Lcm1e and more those 200-260 t. more to be able to defence themselves. I hope i explain well, until the 2nd wave arrives.
I don´t know where you get your info, but Lcm1e is was designed to lift a Leopard tank of more than 60 t. to complete that full misssion. The 100 t. is "overload" what it means it wont be able to carry that on high state easily, but yes in good state, similarly the figure 70 t. for Lcac is also "overload" and i don´t think is not affected by sea state if this is bad enough, as you say.
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