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What part do Navy and RAAF play in ELF?
Edition 1171, July 26, 2007 |
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Smooth sailing: A digital image of one of the two new amphibious ships Navy is to receive.
Photo courtesy of Navantia |
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BEING able to sustain concurrent low-intensity and high-intensity operations requires more than just expanding the Army.
“Not only do you have a Land Force growing, but there’s also a Navy and Air Force component of this as well,” Assistant Deputy Chief of Army Brig Wayne Bowen said.
Brig Bowen said projecting to sea and air points of disembarkation required a commitment from all three services.
“Enhanced Land Force covers the bigger picture, and that joint bit is often missed on people,” he said.
Although the planned amphibious ships are not part of ELF, Brig Bowen said “when they do come on line, you’ll suddenly have an immense capability for Army”. In the meantime, ELF requires that Navy maintains its landing craft capability “to project us to shore”.
“We’ll also need more medical support and Navy have the lead in providing that aboard their ships in the form of a new Primary Care and Resuscitation Facility,” Brig Bowen said.
A larger Army means a need for greater mobility and in addition to Naval support, Air Force will also be required to expand.
“We’ll need greater crewing for our C-130 and C-17s so Air Force has been tasked to do that,” Brig Bowen said.
“They’ll also want to project onto an air point of disembarkation so they’ll need more airfield defence guards and other airfield support capabilities, which they’re building up.”
He said although rapid airfield construction development was not funded under ELF, the capability would be complementary to the project.
“It’s exactly the sort of capability that when you want to project into a region or react rapidly to an incident, you would need,” he said. |
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