Page 70 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

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SEAPOWER
LAND 8710
MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
However, John Godwin, BMT’s business development director APAC, told ADM in late February that he was un- able ‘at the moment’ to confirm the Caimen 90 had been formally proposed.
He denied this was because of the Caimen’s aluminium hull and superstructure when Defence had mandated steel, but said that BMT had made it “very clear” that the vessel could be built in steel if required.
“We’ve got well over a decade of experience in develop- ment of the Caimen hullform and that goes
over quite a range of deadweight tonnages,”
Godwin stated.
LEFT: An Army LCM-8 and Navy LCM-1E Landing Craft carry M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, M113 APCs and ASLAVs during Exercise Sea Explorer at Cowley Beach
architecture and engineering design services, together with project management of these services, the company would be bidding with undisclosed Australian partners who excelled in providing construction and manufacturing services.
The Commonwealth’s tender requirements specified an incredibly versatile vessel, the company told ADM.
“Navantia Australia’s solution proposal draws on the design heritage and proven technical performance of the LHD Landing Craft (LLC). A great deal of research and development has been undertaken to create the LLC de- sign that performs well in landing situations.
“These learnings will be exploited and integrated into the LMV-M design.”
SERCO
Serco describes itself as an industry leader in complex maritime project management and Defence Business De- velopment Director Asia-Pacific Rob Slaven told ADM that the company’s Land 8710 contender meets all the essential requirements in the RFT.
“There are some very challenging bits and pieces in there which are purely Australian and we’re ad- dressing those as best we can with a hull de- sign that is deliverable, that is easy to build, and gives the Army exactly what it’s looking for which is a sustainable, robust platform that can do things that they have not yet even
imagined,” Slaven commented.
The Oboe functional design, named in
recognition of the Australian-commanded amphibious operations in Borneo towards the end of World War II, is 42 metres long,
weighs between 230 tonnes in a light-ship condition, to 340 tonnes for an inter-theatre full load task. Meeting the accommodation and endurance requirements was not a challenge, Slaven said.
A 1/16th scale model of Oboe One underwent a rigorous series of speed and performance trials at the Australian Maritime College (AMC) in Launceston last August and passed with flying colours.
Some additional testing was scheduled simply to verify the hull design again, specifically against the Army re- quirement, Slaven disclosed.
“We don’t expect any issues, our hull-form remains un- changed and we have an Australian design partner to flesh out the detailed design. The design authority and intellec- tual property will reside in Australia as will our platform systems integration authority. Serco will lead the platform systems integration activity along with an Australian part- ner,” he said.
The company was partnering with one of the three ship- yards at Henderson and 13 other companies that had been brought into what Slaven described as a very strong “Aus- tralian” industry team. ■
“The requirement that Army and CASG have come out with is quite unique and we’re in a great position to assist in what they’re trying to do because the hullform is so scaleable and we’ve got experience with other navies and armies in doing that.”
Godwin declined to name anywhere where
a BMT-designed landing craft was in service,
although he could have mentioned the US Army’s Manoeu- vre Support Vessel (Light) whose design was developed by US shipbuilder Vigor in partnership with BMT as a natural evolution of the Caimen 90.
The MSV(L) is intended to replace the US Army’s LCM- 8 fleet and according to Vigor, provides the optimal combi- nation of performance, operational flexibility and life-cycle cost, leveraging more than a decade of extensively-tested performance.
Prototype construction began in September 2019, to be followed by low-rate production of four MSV(L)s and full rate production over a 10-year period of up to 32 addition vessels.
This presumably is of interest to Defence, although the US Army has chosen construction in aluminium rather than steel.
NAVANTIA AUSTRALIA
Significantly, Navantia is bidding for Land 8710 but as Navantia Australia, marking the first Defence acquisition program for which the Australian Navantia is bidding in its own right as a sovereign Australian designer.
Since Navantia Australia’s sovereign expertise lies in naval
“PROVISION MUST BE MADE FOR TWO REMOTE WEAPON STATIONS AND TWO .50 CALIBRE MACHINE GUNS”
DEFENCE