Shipshape down south
July 24, 2000
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The most obvious task facing our nation's defence force is the defence of Australian territory, which occupies an enormous geographical area and a coastline at over 36,000 kilometres, one of the largest in the world.
Australia also has important offshore interests in the Indian, Southern and Pacific Oceans, and Australia's area of strategic interest stretches from the island chains in the north to the great Southern Ocean.
Moreover, many members of the country's relatively small population, concentrated mainly in the south-eastern quarter of the country, do not have a complete understanding of the nation's geostrategic circumstances and the Navy's role in maintaining its security.
A major challenge that stems from this is for the Navy to enhance the understanding of the contemporary public in the issues of national security, and the important
component occupied by the RAN in Australia's military strategy.
The RAN, and indeed the forces as a whole, must have the ability to cope with a substantial difference in levels of activity, from dealing with illegal fishing and other economic infringements, to operating for a sustained period in a high level conflict.
This will be best achieved through developing and maintaining the ability to operate extensively with the maritime forces of friendly powers in our immediate region, along with the inter-operability advantages gained through the continued integration of the Army and Air Force with naval assets.
The primary governing factor in setting the force structure of the RAN must be the ability to operate in a wide range of level of capability in order to provide Australian Governments in the short and long term with a variety of defence options.
The RAN has focused its efforts towards these objectives in recent years with the acquisition and upgrading of two heavy landing ships and through the leasing of a highspeed catamaran for rapid troop transport tasks.
Despite Australia's and in particular, the RAN's involvement with the peacekeeping operation in East Timor, the need to be able to participate in international peacekeeping operations should not, and does not, influence force structure decisions.
We are currently building a force structure suitable for operations over a wide area, ranging from the broad Indian and Pacific Oceans to the narrower waters around our northern coastline.
As the most mobile of Australia's services, the RAN is well placed to enact our policy of regional engagement.
We exercise regularly capabilities for national defence.
In effect, we are building relationships that will contribute to regional stability and security.
The combination of these capabilities will ultimately provide the RAN with the tools to promote Australia's national interests.
However, force structure is only one of six major goals that confront the RAN presently.
Our people, vital for the success of any navy, remain the first priority.
We need to staff the Navy with well trained people who can win at sea and who want to be in the Navy.
Operations and preparedness is another important goal, asserting the fact that we must continue to maintain a high level of performance in joint and combined maritime operations in support of Government objectives, as stated previously.
Two other goals which are closely linked are our business practices and our corporate responsibilities, both of which are essential ingredients for any organisation to become successful - the RAN is no different.
The sixth and final goal the RAN must seriously labour over is the ability for us to shape our own future.
Ultimately, we need to shape and integrate the Navy with other defence elements in order to focus our efforts towards fighting and winning at sea.
We have recently undergone some major structural changes with the Navy's major capabilities being arranged into Force Element Groups, to enhance the integration and control mechanism which are essential for the success of our business.
The purpose of these major enhancements to the existing structure was to better position the Navy to allow our people shape the future of the service.
This is a vital issue that we must confront to ensure that our people are the very best at what they do, our force structure is aligned with the objectives of future governments, our Navy is entirely responsible for its own decisions and that the Navy's ability to employ its core competency, that of defence, is not eroded or becomes irrelevant.
The new Collins class submarines recently built in Australia have attracted a lot of bad publicity due to some underlying design deficiencies and consequential operational limitations relating to the platform and combat system.
But to express concern about the capabilities of the new Collins class submarines is not to ignore their very strong points.
These will include a much improved operational ability, extremely advanced sonar and communication systems, and a well established support base and logistic network.
These are all vital attributes for their primary role of reconnaissance.
The media coverage of the Collins project has, at times, been harsh by not taking into account the complexity and quantum leap in technology needed to complete such an immense task.
Nevertheless, these deficiencies have been addressed by a Submarine Capability Team that the Defence Secretary, the Chief of Defence Force and myself appointed last year, headed by RADM Peter Briggs.
We are now making some real advances in the project and the team has developed and implemented a plan to deliver the Collins class submarines into service with optimum capability, learning from some valuable but expensive lessons of the past.
The intention, by fast tracking two of the submarines, is to have them at a minimum level of capability be the end of year.
It is an ambitious and aggressive schedule which will require a lot of drive to achieve.
I am confident that the Collins class will silence its critics by emerging as the most effective conventional submarine in the world.
We are currently addressing the issue of the air-warfare capability shortfall resulting from the removal of three Perth class air-warfare destroyers from service and the cancellation of the ANZAC Warfighting Improvement Program.
Retaining a credible airwarfare capability is vital to our suite of Military Response Options as air control is a necessary precondition for control of the sea.
A number of options are being considered at present to fill the gap resulting from the removal of these assets.
These options include potential acquisition of ships currently in service with other navies or a new-build strategy.
The latter proposal would be based on a mature technical and design package.
Design input from Australian industry would be best achieved through a consortium joint venture process providing a close relationship between the Government and Australia's shipbuilding industries.
The use of acquisition reform initiatives (such as consortium joint venture or alliance contracting) and streamlined methods will be paramount to meeting the basic requirements of the air-warfare destroyer in an affordable and timely manner.
Alternatively, we could get nothing at all.
The decision on the future acquisition of a suitable air-warfare platform will not be made for some time yet, however, until the Australian Government considers the relative importance of the RAN within Australia's Military Strategy.
The issues discussed above highlight the fact that the R AN faces some significant challenges over the next few years.
The defence of our country remains a serious responsibility, and it is essential that we contribute to national policy options by being able to deliver combat power through contributing to deterrence, power projection and sea control.
By VADM
David Shackleton,
Chief of Navy
Reproduced from Defence Review