Developing Joint Amphibious Capability: Chief of Army's Address at the Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Conference
Abstract
The following is the text of an address given by the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison, to the Royal Australian Navy’s Sea Power Conference in Sydney on 31 January 2012. Lieutenant General Morrison stated that the introduction into the Australian Defence Force of new amphibious capability is anything but routine. The Landing Helicopter Docks cannot be thought of as merely a transport capability. Rather they are an integral part of a combat system with unique, and unprecedented, command and control and sustainment challenges. The acquisition of the Landing Helicopter Docks represents not only far greater technical complexity in the operating systems than the Australian Defence Force has previously experienced, but will introduce a far greater complexity into the joint training, scheduling and integration across and between services. All parts of Defence activity are going to be affected and will need to adjust. The Army is up for this challenge. The future generations of Army officers will be trained and exposed to amphibious operations from the outset of their careers, as a central pillar to how we fight. This will require an agile and joint mindset that we cannot claim to possess across the entire force at present.
Minister for Defence, Deputy Premier of New South Wales, Chief of Navy, Chief of Air Force, senior international and ADF officers, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Firstly, Ray thank you for the opportunity to participate in the keynote session of this prestigious and influential conference on Maritime affairs. It is wonderful to be invited to address this gathering and to share the platform with you and Geoff Brown. I think it sends a powerful message about the importance that all three services place on this event—and by implication, on joint operations in the context of maritime strategy. What is clear is that no part of my job is too small for the opportunities, such as this, to be as clear as possible about Army’s focus and how it contributes to national defence and security. So let me make two definitive statements as a prelude to my main theme in today’s address.
Firstly, Australia needs its ADF more than it needs its Navy, its Army or its Air Force if it is to possess robust military options now and in the future. It is about being a joint force and Army knows that. Secondly, the foundation to Australia’s national security is a maritime strategy. That has been articulated and re-articulated in a series of white papers. But a maritime strategy is not a naval strategy, it’s a joint, indeed an inter-agency, and perhaps coalition strategy and Army has an essential role to play if that strategy is to continue to have relevance in the coming decades.
My purpose today is to describe what I see as Army’s role in that maritime strategy and to provide an insight into how we are marrying our doctrinal and force development planning, to Government’s direction and guidance, in order to be capable of executing the strategic tasks allocated to us. At its heart, Army needs to be able to deploy force elements, by air and by sea, with the requisite joint military capabilities to meet the operational challenges it will encounter, sustain that commitment until acceptable conditions are achieved, rotate forces if required if the operation proves to be protracted and then to redeploy to home locations. While that has been our history, such a capacity has not always been resident in the Army of the day, nor achieved with real effectiveness and efficiency. Nonetheless, the many significant operational lessons learned by this generation of soldiers over the last twelve years particularly, allied to the introduction into service of a range of joint capabilities that will occur in the next two decades, will ensure that Army has the potential to be a key contributor to achieving national security through the application of a maritime strategy. For the remainder of my address, I want to focus on how that potential will be realised.
The Australian Army’s reputation and identity was forged at Gallipoli—one of the most famous amphibious operations of the twentieth century—which, while bold in conception, lacked much in execution. It is uncontroversial that Australia’s grand strategic practice since Federation has involved contributing joint military forces to coalition operations to support a favourable global order maintained by the dominant maritime power of the day—in turn Britain, followed by the United States. The relatively small size of the Army at times encourages an almost tactical level thinking about its employment when, in reality, Australian statecraft has made frequent and diverse use of land forces over the past century. For a middle power like Australia, the use of strategic land power is not so much related to size and mass, but rather to effect and objective. When judged against these criteria, it is clear that Australian policy has, since 1942, used elements of land power for strategic purposes more frequently than any other military instrument, particularly in our primary operating environment.
In the light of that history it is somewhat surprising that we are having to relearn amphibious operations again—pretty much from first principles. The explanation for this I believe is that for much of history the three services developed much closer ties with the equivalent services of our allies than they did with the other elements of the ADF. This has not been entirely our fault. Governments of all persuasions have—quite appropriately—provided niche force contributions all over the globe in support of our alliance arrangements. More often than not this has involved penny packeting of niche forces with the result that we have developed both operational and joint expertise—but not with one another. However, the strategic shock of East Timor in 1999 threw us back together and since that time I believe we have made great strides in developing joint concepts, joint doctrine and—most difficult of all—a truly joint mindset and culture.
it is somewhat surprising that we are having to relearn amphibious operations again
But we all recognise that we face enormous challenges in developing the forces provided by our strategic guidance, and the doctrine and command and control arrangements to effectively employ them across the spectrum of operations. In that respect Ray, I am indebted to you for a valuable insight from your speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last month. You cautioned Navy against complacency and warned that the introduction of the new amphibious capability is anything but routine, especially in light of the evolution of a frigate culture within your service over the past three decades.
For my part I am concerned that Army has become mired in a belief that the RAN and RAAF only provide strategic lift. This incorrect attitude limits our ability to conceive of Entry by Air and Sea Operations in anything but the most permissive environment. I have echoed your warning to my own service Ray—we cannot afford to think of the LHDs as merely a transport capability. Rather they are an integral part of a combat system with unique, and unprecedented, command and control and sustainment challenges.
Army has become mired in a belief that the RAN and RAAF only provide strategic lift.
Indeed the acquisition of the LHD represents not only far greater technical complexity in the operating systems than we as a Defence Force have previously experienced, but it will introduce a far greater complexity into the joint training, scheduling and integration across and between services than we have ever needed to achieve in the past. It means that all parts of Defence activity are going to be affected and will need to adjust. But we, Army, are up for the challenge. I want to own the solutions and have indicated on this slide the price of my “buy-in”.
Lord Edward Grey once eloquently argued that the British Army needed to be ‘a projectile fired by the Navy’—a quote, while popularised by Jackie Fisher, is often mistakenly ascribed to him. I am very fond of that quote as it provides an aiming mark for me and my force developers as we seek to create the land component of the joint amphibious capability. The weapon system of the new LHD is in fact the embarked force, and the true capability is the joint effect delivered through Army, Navy and Air force within the Amphibious Task Group.
In the remainder of my time I would like to outline where Army is at in the development of amphibious capability and some of the hurdles that we need to negotiate in my time as Chief of Army. The key internal factor that will determine Army force generation are the changes to our brigade structures under Plan BEERSHEBA. It is no coincidence that the Minister for Defence publicly endorsed this plan at the same time as he commissioned HMAS CHOULES, in December last year. The two are inextricably linked. Under Plan BEERSHEBA the Army is developing multi-role combat brigades. This is an overdue development. For too long we maintained single capabilities within brigades with deleterious effects on our force generation and career planning cycles. This was inefficient and probably harmed retention as well. The development of the standard multi-role brigade will enable Army to reach the objective set in the 2000 White Paper for us to be capable of providing a brigade for sustained operations within our primary operating environment. It also allows us to develop forces of a combat weight commensurate with the level of threat in the modern battlespace. The force generation implications of this are profound and will ensure that we meet our obligation to the Government, and the remainder of the ADF, to be able to undertake sustained joint operations both in the littoral approaches to Australia and throughout the immediate neighbourhood.
Much of the responsibility for raising, training and certifying land forces capable of amphibious operations falls squarely within my remit. But I well understand that it is vital that I collaborate closely with the Vice Chief of Defence Force Group as the ultimate joint capability authority as there are some enabling functions that are not apparent in this process or fall between single service functions. I have announced that I will commit an Army Battle Group, based on our Second Battalion and including a cross section of combat and enabling capabilities from across Army, to the development of a truly amphibious capability. The training required to prepare Army to conduct combat operations as an integral part of a joint amphibious team is substantial, and is not be underestimated. New skills and training techniques will need to be developed and sustained, and importantly a new culture and outlook for our role in the region grown and matured.
The training required to prepare Army to conduct combat operations as an integral part of a joint amphibious team is substantial
In any event, the development path of the Army and ADF since the East Timor intervention in 1999 has assumed the existence of a rapidly deployable Battle Group reinforced by a follow-on Multi-Role Combat Brigade. The recent changes that I announced with regard to the transfer of the parachute capability from the conventional force to the Special Operations Command and the allocation of a dedicated amphibious Battle Group conform perfectly to this strategic guidance. Army will have a robust force generation cycle for contingency and sustained operations built around a rapidly deployable Battle Group trained and enabled for Entry Operations across our region, intimately supported by Special Force operations.
We are well on the way to getting the fundamentals right. However, I do acknowledge, that like Navy we are entering uncharted waters—no pun intended. From the outset we (all three services) will need to carefully develop and formalise an unambiguous, robust and permanent C2 structure, supported by doctrine, to plan and command amphibious operations in all likely operational contingencies.
Previously, we have been able to adapt rapidly and get it ‘right on the night’ in East Timor and Solomon Islands. Our excellent people and culture facilitated this, though it was triumph of improvisation rather than professional mastery. My predecessor Ken Gillespie noted at this conference in 2010 that the Australian Army had no standing Commander Landing Forces, nor was there a designated organisation to command and control amphibious training and operations. That deficiency has been rectified with the nesting of a dedicated C2 element with the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters and it is an important development. Army, and the ADF’s, doctrine and training centres need to now adapt to meet the needs of the capabilities and roles upon us.
Our culture needs to be expeditionary in nature, taking account of the new and significant force projection capability, with a permanently embarked land combat force. The future generations of Army officers will be trained and exposed to amphibious operations from the outset of their careers, as a central pillar to how we fight. This will require an agile and joint mindset that we cannot claim to possess across the entire force at present. Likewise we will be required to operate every one of our armoured and aviation platforms from the LHDs simultaneously and across a spectrum of threats. Our array of complex communications and surveillance systems must now be considered primarily within the amphibious environment. The logistic challenges of operations afloat are unique and substantial. Army must urgently come to grips with maintaining and sustaining a whole range of land equipment in a maritime setting.
... we will be required to operate every one of our armoured and aviation platforms from the LHDs simultaneously and across a spectrum of threats.
The Navy and our allies, in particular the United States Marines, have considerable expertise upon which to draw. Australian Army officers are conducting training with our Allies in the USA and the UK. We have not yet come to grips with the logistic demands of sea basing. This is unsurprising as we have never been called upon to do it. But it will be essential to our ability to conduct operations from the sea and it will entail a large amount of Army’s inventory spending time afloat. Our transition from the current training, posture and culture will be difficult but it has begun. It is absolutely necessary because an Australian maritime strategy demands it. A cohesive, joint approach, focused on the geographic and demographic realities of our region, is clearly articulated in the 2009 White Paper. To be credible, such a strategy must include an integral role for elements of Australian land power if it is to be flexible and balanced, capable of dealing with diverse and unpredictable global and regional security requirements. The Australian Army is on board, fully embarked and ready to play its part.
About the Author
Lieutenant General David Morrison, AO took up his appointment as Chief of Army in June 2011. He joined the Army in 1979 and graduated from the Officer Cadet School, Portsea to the Royal Australian Infantry Corps. Between 1980 and 1991 he held a variety of regimental positions including Australian Instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK in 1987–1988. He was deployed to Bougainville as part of Operation LAGOON in 1994, and in 1999 took up the position of Colonel Operations, Headquarters International Force East Timor (INTERFET). He commanded the 3rd Brigade from 2002–2004, was appointed Director-General Preparedness and Plans in 2005, Commander of the Australian Defence Colleges in 2006 and Deputy Chief of Army in 2008. During 2008 he led a review into the Army’s command and control structure which resulted in the Adaptive Army initiative. He was appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2010 for his service to the Australian Army in the fields of training and education, military strategic commitments and force structure and capability. A more complete biography is available at <army.gov.au/Who-we-are/Leaders>.
