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Amphibious Ready Element (ARE)

The Australian Army does not have any comparable organisation to the US Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (MEU(SOC)). In Australia’s Army, 3 Brigade was deemed the major Entry by Air and Sea force and would enable a heavier follow-on force to be delivered by sea lift. The ADF operated two Kanimbla class amphibious ships, each capable of carrying 450 soldiers. A review of amphibious training activities over the previous ten years would indicate that the Army’s 3rd Brigade had provided the land force component.

Yet surprisingly, when short notice operational tasking has occurred, such as Operation PADANG ASSIST, elements of the 1st Brigade were deployed, even though no recent joint training had occurred between the Brigade and naval elements. In addition, operational tempo and maintenance cycles are limiting the ability to conduct individual and collective training. What is of more concern is that work-up exercises between the amphibious ships and other elements likely to make up the Amphibious Ready Element (ARE) and Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) is not occurring at all.

With the release of Force 2030, the 2009 Defence White Paper, the Australian Government clearly set the Australian Defence Force (ADF) onto the path of a maritime strategy. While the ADF does have a history of pursuing maritime strategy that arguably dates back to the landings at Gallipoli, most of its recent strategic thought has dealt with the requirements of Continental Defence.

The Australian Amphibious Concept considers permanently assigning a high-readiness combat team to the amphibious ships, if so the land forces will be required to complete amphibious competencies. Given the likely scope and duration of this training regime, it is likely that this training requirement will have a major impact on the Army’s Brigade rotation cycle.

Australia’s new Amphibious Deployment and Sustainment Capability (ADAS), consisting of the two new CANBERRA class landing helicopter dock (LHD) and the new Strategic Lift Ship, it will be able to deploy a single medium battlegroup with all of its equipment, including the M1A1 Abrams, by sea and by air to its objectives ashore and sustain it there in combat for periods of up to ten days. In addition to these three major units, six additional ocean-going landing craft have been promised by the government to both supplement the CANBERRA class and operate independently of them in lower-order contingencies where the higher-end capabilities of the LHDs are not required.

The new LHDs have multi-spot capable flight decks, large landing craft docks, four landing craft per LHD, canstow large numbers and varieties of fighting and support vehicles while providingaccommodation and hotel facilities for up to 1,000 soldiers per LHD. A maintenance schedule will maintain the maximum number of training opportunities for Army to exploit the two LHDs as a system. Preferably LHD 1 will gooffline in March, returning on-line late April, and LHD 2 will go offline in October, returning online late November. This ensures that the two EMA events are phased six months apart, which will be the routine for the forty-year Life of Type of the LHDs.

The Operational Concept Document for the ADAS System (JP2048) defines the Army’s Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) as a battle group based organisation with enablers such as armor, medium artillery, aviation, engineers and logistics. The ARG will have 2,200 personnel and reflects the USMC and the UK’s RM models and is articulated in detail by the LHQ Landing Force Concept of Employment. Amphibious related individual and collective training requirements exceed baseline infantry skills, as the landing force requires exposure to the maritime environment of surface and helicopter assault.

Additionally, contemporary amphibious warfare is about being able to operate congested flight decks, hazardous well docks, drive a range of vehicles on and off moving platforms and over beaches through surf, tailor logistic support requirements, manage the joint battlespace, support joint fires, and command from a Joint Operations Room afloat without recourse to operating ashore. The training necessary to operate safely in the maritime environment has been well articulated by Australia’s allies and the ADF needs to produce an amphibious force with similar training regimes. Survivability at sea will be mandatory training for all the Landing Force, and not just specialist Army personnel attached to the ships.

The Army will have ten battle groups and a commando regiment available (with CS and CSS enablers this yields five deployable battle groups) when Army Objective Force matures; however, there is insufficient capacity in RAN platforms to generate five amphibiously trained battle groups.

1. Option One: Placing one battle group as the amphibious specialist battalion, similar to an airborne battle group, and group enablers, such as fires, commsand logistics assets in support. This option will allow a high level of capability to be achieved, certifiably to US and UK standards, but introduces significant rotation issues for Army, especially under the current operational constraints.

2. Option Two: Similar to the USMC MEUs and the UK’s 3 Cdo Bde (RM), an Australian brigade, grouped as a combined arms task force, may be best placed to be the Army’s amphibious specialist, providing entry and allowing heavier, or follow-on, forces to penetrate subsequent to the amphibious operation. This would allow capability comparable to the US and UK certifications levels.

3. Option Three: Similar to the French model where, until recently, annual changeovers occurred between battle groups as this would permit Army’s ten battle groups exposure to amphibious capability. This would allow capability development to be broad, but would likely not achieve US and UK certification standards.

Consideration must be give to the role of 2nd Commando Regiment and its requirement to also be incorporated into the online Landing Force. Similar to the MEU(SOC) approach of the USMC, or the Bde Recce Force of the UK RM, it may be necessary to rotate a Cdo Coy with the Landing Force. The US and UK exemplars suggest that one Army brigade formation, of three battle groups, cycled through amphibious training regimes annually, or bi-annually, will develop corporate knowledge and culture at a level similar to US and UK capability and certification levels. Alternatively, the Army’s ten battle groups can be exposed to amphibious training, which was the approach adopted by the French Army until recently. However, this will not achieve the same level of capability as key allies.