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LCM2000 Watercraft

The LCM2000 watercraft are designed to transfer personnel and supplies from ship to shore. These vessels were purchased to act as landing ships attached to the Manoora and Kanimbla, but there was one major issue - they were too big and heavy. The LCM 2000 Watercraft project was approved by the previous Government in 1997 and involved the construction of six watercraft for the Landing Platform Ships Kanimbla and Manoora. ADI Limited (now Thales) was chosen to build the LCM2000 in 2002 under Phase 1A of Joint Project 2048. Since first entering service in 2005, the LCM 2000s had limited runs as training vessels out of Townsville.

The LCM 2000 project was approved shortly around the time that the LPAs were acquired and being converted. The aspiration of the project was to get a capability that was more competent in sea lift than existed anywhere in the world at that time. A tender was placed around the early 2000s and, because a new design that had not been tested or proven offered potentially more capability than existed in existing designs, the decision at the time was made to go with this new design.

The project has suffered a number of problems. It was definitely developmental. There are lessons learned in this, of course. If you look at the fundamentals, it had never been built. When you try to develop a watercraft, you are basically trying to push a shoebox through water carrying a lot of weight, in addition to which you want to marry it to a major ship to do the unloading; and then, secondly, you want to put it ashore in a surf condition and unload those stores safely. At that time, if you look at the tender evaluation, the new design potentially offered these capabilities. But to achieve those the design was based on an aluminium hull. It was beamier and it offered higher speed. So, theoretically, it offered the capability that the ADF sought. The problem was that the tender was actually based on a very early concept design to be produced by a company that had never built a landing craft using aluminium, which had never been used in such a manner.

The dimensions were drawn inside the department very early on. It was based on the footprint of the LPA deck. The idea was that the two landing craft would be placed on the deck of the LPA. Two of those on the LPA foc'sle, lifted on by the 90-tonne capacity crane, puts 120 tonnes on the foc'sle of that vessel. A modification was developed to strengthen the deck to carry that weight. It was never put on. Critics said those vessels are so rusted out that they have absolutely no capacity to deal with that weight.

But the issue about space and weight was more complex than that. When the initial paperwork design was done an allocation of space on the deck was made. When the LCMs were fielded in an LPA for trials it was determined that the Occupational Health and Safety [OH&S] aspect of trying to work round these craft was space restricted. So it is not that you cannot put them onto the deck of the ship. You can, if it had been reinforced. What happened during those trials was that the handling of the LCMs into the water was deemed to be very risky on an OH&S aspect. There were also other aspects with the assessment of the craft's capability - not just the fact that they are restricted in their space on the deck but also with respect to their capabilities as to performing their primary role, which is lifting goods and equipment from the LPA to the shore.

Defence suspended trials of the six Landing Craft Mechanised on 29 August 2007 pending further investigation into structural issues that became apparent during testing. Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) CEO Steven Gumley said it was a prudent safety precaution to suspend the watercraft trials pending the technical investigation between Defence and the builder, Thales Australia. "DMO is working closely with Thales to resolve this issue," Dr Gumley said. Dr Gumley said there was no impact on Army watercraft capability as the LCM2000 fleet had yet to achieve operational status and was still under trial. The Army watercraft capability will continue to be provided by the existing fleet of LCM8s.

Defence suspended trials of its six recently delivered LCM2000 landing craft after two of the vessels developed cracks during testing. The cracks appeared in bracing struts supporting the starboard sponsons of the two landing craft; the other four hadn't shown signs of cracking but they were being examined. No cause for the cracks had been determined at the time of writing, but ADM understands the LCM2000s have been used for lengthy open-water passages from Darwin to Townsville carrying significant payloads; on occasion they are known to have encountered sea state 5 and this may have contributed to the cracking.

More critically, the dimensions and weight of the watercraft meant they were unsuitable to be launched from the RAN's two amphibious landing ships (LPA), HMAS Manoora and Kanimbla, and were not fit for alternative Australian Defence Force use. On 01 February 2011 Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare updated the Projects of Concern list, announcing the cancellation of the LCM2000 Watercraft project. Accordingly, the project has been cancelled and Defence will now begin plans to dispose of the vessels. A new series of LCMs (the LCM-1E) built by Navantia will enter service in 2014.