Page 69 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SEAPOWER LAND 8710 69
Surf beach landings in deep load conditions must be pos- sible in up to 1.5 metres of surf; rock landings in sheltered waters in up to 1.0 metres of surf.
Growth margin of 10 per cent is required for lightships displacement, 4.5 per cent for any increase to vertical centre of gravity, and Life of Type is set at not less than 20 years.
Provision must be made for two remote weapon stations and two .50 calibre machine guns.
The new landing craft will not be carried within the LHDs but must be able to exchange cargoes with the am- phibious vessels.
As described by a source close to the program “the re- quirement set is not in any way, shape or form reflective of the capabilities of the LCM-8 or the Navantia-built LHD Landing Craft (LLC).
“They want to be able to do open ocean transit through areas like the Coral Sea, to self-deploy from places like Townsville across to the Solomon Islands and then meet up with the amphibious task group which will provide 98 per cent of the combat material required. Then they’ll provide independent intra-theatre shore-to-shore transport while the task group moves on to other things.
“Defence is not being proscriptive about how contenders can deliver a vessel which meets the requirements; it gives the contenders a lot of leeway in determining a solution.
“But these will be very much Army vessels; there will be occasions when they operate as part of the Joint Task Force with Navy; and then there will be opportunities for them to operate independently with Army.
“They’re not specifying the size of the vessel although maximum draft is set at 1.6 metres and there’s an air draft limitation of six metres so the vessel can pass under a traf- fic bridge to reach the Ross Island barracks in Townsville.”
Although commercial confidentiality has understandably restricted their comments, Austal Australia, Birdon, BMT, Navantia Australia and Serco have all confirmed to ADM their participation in the Sea 8710 Phase 1 RFT, although not necessarily with whom or how.
AUSTAL AUSTRALIA
Austal Australia confirmed in June 2021 that it would sub- mit a proposal to design, build and sustain Army’s next generation of littoral manoeuvre capability, but has subse- quently declined to discuss any details of its intentions or of prospective partners.
Although Austal Australia is best known for its expertise in aluminium-hulled ship construction, CEO Paddy Gregg pointed out the company’s on-time, on-budget delivery in March of the 14th of 21 steel-hulled Guardian-class vessels
ABOVE LEFT: Soldiers from 2RAR swim to shore from an Army LCM-8 Landing Craft at Cowley Beach during Exercise Sea Explorer
RIGHT: The 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland Mounted Infantry) conduct a beach landing with the new Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle (CRV) from an LCM-8 during Exercise Sea Wader 2020 at Cowley Beach Training Area, Far North Queensland
contracted under the Commonwealth’s Pacific Patrol Boat program, as well as Austal’s Henderson shipbuilding and service facilities.
BIRDON GROUP
Joe Smith, General Manager Marine at Birdon, describes the Australian-owned private company as the country’s most experienced provider of Army watercraft, both in Australia and in the US.
As such LMV-M was a natural fit for the business, and the company was looking forward to developing a truly sov- ereign solution that would meet Army’s needs now and into the future, although he gave no details.
Birdon’s Australian Army experi- ence dates back to 1990 and includes the design and build of bridge erec- tion propulsion boats, utility work- boats and regional patrol craft, and the refurbishment of LCM-8s and Balikpapan-class land craft heavy (LCH), as well as the upgrade and on-sale of Australian-manufactured LCM2000s to the Israeli Navy.
“THE NEW LMV-M FLEET WILL BE CAPABLE OF CARRYING THE JOINT FORCE’S CURRENT AND PLANNED ARMOURED AND PROTECTED VEHICLES”
In the US, Birdon is prime con-
tractor for the complex upgrade of
117 47-ft US Coastguard Motor Life-Boats operating in the extreme marine and high-surf, littoral environments, and is supplying from its Denver close to 500 M30 new-build bridge erection boats to the US Army.
BMT GROUP
BMT describes itself as a multi-national ship design house and maritime technology company, and in October 2019 it confirmed that it would be bidding for Land 8710 with its 203-tonne Caimen 90 landing ship.
This is able to operate at 22 knots with a 90-ton payload over a range of up to 500 nautical miles, allowing faster amphibi- ous offload from a host platform when compared with slower, more conventional landing craft. Unladen speed is 40 kts.
Three high-speed diesel engines coupled to waterjets of- fer inherent redundancy, and the tri-bow monohull landing craft form reportedly results in excellent sea-keeping, with a less than one knot speed reduction in Sea State 4.
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