Page 104 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep-Oct 2022

104 LAND WARFARE LITTORAL MANOEUVRE
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
“As it stands at the moment, we have our LHDs in terms of capital ships and then a ship-to-shore capability with our (LCM-1E) landing craft, but we have identified that we need to be independent if we lose that blue water capabil- ity. We need to have platforms that can operate indepen- dently from the capital ships.”
A future Phase 2 of Land 8710 will acquire a Landing Craft Heavy (LCH) to replace the Balikpapan-class vessels paid off in 2012. These vessels will likely have a displacement of between 3,000 and 4,000 tonnes and a payload of up to 500 tonnes – capable of moving multiple tanks etc. Beyond that, Land 8710 Phase 3 will seek to acquire a riverine manoeuvre capability.
“What we’ll end up with is a set of overlapping, cascading effects that are primarily designed to work in that shore-to- shore environment, but also able to project into the region either independently or part of an amphibious task group,” BRIG King adds.
“It’s important to realise that Army equipment is getting heavier and therefore what we need are capabilities that can project into the region – the LMV-M would ideally have a range out to 1,000 or 1,200 nautical miles for exam- ple. But secondly, be able to move those heavier platforms such as the M1A2 tank or AS9 self-propelled howitzer.”
The two aspects of Land 8710 Phase 1 are expected to be presented to Government for Gate approval next year, with an Initial Operational Capability (IOC) around late 2025 or early 2026.
“My team have started to focus on developing the docu- ment suite for Phase 2 and we’ve been doing a lot of work with the US Army on their Light Amphibious Warship proj- ect. If we’re asked to accelerate that project it’s important that we have done the analysis,” BRIG King says. “But oth- erwise, at this stage we would anticipate taking it to Gov- ernment around 2025.”
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