Sea Control - Sea Control 198 - Australian Amphibious Capabilities with COL Kim Gilfillan

Episode Date: September 6, 2020

Links:Force from the Sea: Australia's Amphibious Capability - An Update, by Kim Gilfillan, The Cove, July 3, 2020.The Cove Strategic Update 20202016 Defence White PaperAmphibious Operations and the Evolution of Australian Defense Policy, by Peter J. Dean, US Naval War College Review, Fall 2014 

Hey folks, Jared here. This week we welcome Colonel Kim Gilflin, Commander Landing Force for the Royal Australian Army, to the program to provide an update on Australia's evolving amphibious capabilities. I want to preface the episode with our usual disclaimer that all opinions are our own and not representative of any institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. I also want to give a shout out to Dr. Ed Salo, a new volunteer who edited this episode for us. Welcome, Ed. We are also seeking volunteers to assist with back-end production of Sea Control. Volunteers will be sitting in on interviews, assisting with sound editing and production, and helping transcribe episodes. Contact Sea Control at simsec.org if you're

interested. Finally, as always, we want to advertise and strongly recommend our friends in the SimSec Podcast Network and our second podcast feed, The Bilge Bumps. Find them on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever else you download your podcasts. It's a more low-key, slightly less serious approach to current events in the maritime domain, and naval history by three historians, so check them out wherever you download your podcasts. With that, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today we're discussing a recent article that appeared on The Cove. If you're not familiar with The Cove, it's an online Professional Development Network for the Australian Army, allowing access to the professional

military education anywhere, anytime. Our guest today is Colonel Kim Gilfillan of the Royal Australian Army, who published Force from the Sea, Australia's Amphibious Capabilities, an update. You'll find the article linked in the show notes as well. Colonel, welcome. Hey, Jared, really good to be with you here today and excited to talk about where the Australian amphibious capabilities come from and where we think it's heading. Well, thank you, sir, for coming on.

And if you don't mind, I'd like you to introduce yourself to our listeners first and tell us a little bit about your background. So I'm the Commander Landing Force for the Australian Amphibious Forces. My background is Rotary Wing Aviation, Reconnaissance Attack, and Air Assault. I've got also sort of breadth in background in training and capability development. So, you know, reasonable breadth there and, of course, some operational experience thrown in. But that, you know, the Rotary Wing background gives me that broader perspective, I think, on the whole force and it's certainly been an exciting challenge coming into this amphibious

space in the last three to four years. Well, thank you and again, welcome. I'd like to start by asking you to provide a little bit of history on Australian amphibious operations. What is the history of Australia's amphibious forces? Because the first things that come to mind are the ANZACs at Gallipoli and then operations in the Pacific in World War II. Is there more to that? Well, I think that's a good place to start. So clearly Gallipoli was an amphibious operation, but it was a British-led operation. I think when we then reflect on amphibious operations in the Pacific in World War II, initially Australia started doing partnered operations with the United States. And then as we progressed into 1944 and 1945, Australia started doing more

independent operations leading through to the Oboe series of operations in 1945, which is probably, I think, from our most probably a high point of amphibious capability. And it wasn't completely unilateral, but there was still a lot of support provided from US Navy and Air Force in the conduct of those operations. But that was sort of up to brigade and divisional level land forces getting pushed ashore. Since then, of course, post-World War II, our amphibious capabilities really weren't a key focus. We continued on with a range of land campaigns in the occupation force in Japan and then Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, but there wasn't a lot of focus on amphibious operations. So it's probably not really, I think there's a smattering of things

that occurred in that kind of period but it's and then really if we start looking at the last 35 years there's been an increased focus on our capacity to to respond and project land forces into the into the region of course the you know the southwest pacific and southeast asia is made up of thousands of islands and archipelagos so and and force projection and and land force maneuver in those spaces is is challenging so i think what we've really seen over the that the last 35 years is a bit of a change of focus there. Some key things that probably key markers in there are our response into East Timor at the time, now Timor-Leste in 1999,

from a sort of response to a security situation and the Indian Ocean tsunami in Christmas 2004 where we responded in support of Indonesia after a massive natural disaster there. So there are probably two key markers there where we've needed to project forces. And, of course, there's a range of other ones. More recently, Fiji assist in 2016 post a cyclone, you know, and a host of other examples.

You cited Operation Morris Dance in your article. What happened in that operation? And was that the unofficial start of the modern era for Australian amphibious operations? Well, so Morris Dance was an operation that sought to project forces into the southwest specific in 1987 following some instability in Fiji and the potential for breakdown in security and then the potential need for non-combatant operations. I think what became apparent during that operation was that we were underdone in our capacity to project land forces to operate in the land domain away from Australia in sufficient quantity and capability to meet

the government's need. So it'd probably be better to characterize Morris Dance as a trigger point for advancing our force projection and amphibious capability rather than the beginning of the modern era, which I think probably, as I said, that was a trigger point, and then we've had a gradual increase in capability over that period with the acquisition of a range of sort of intermediate-level capabilities before we get to the kind of current capabilities we have. So what is the role of the amphibious forces in the Australian military?

I think you've described at this point mostly humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update advances on our 2016 Defence White Paper, in particular in setting and focusing our strategy in the context of the region and in terms of our capacity to shape, deter and respond. Of course, amphibious forces and our broadest force projection capabilities play an important role across all of these themes. You know, from a range of activities with our friends and partners in the region, we're focused on shaping the environment by improving our relations and capacity to work together, and particular in demonstrating a range of credible combat capabilities and a willingness to employ them that really plays to the deterrence theme. And of course, our capacity to respond, like in East Timor in 1999, to defend Australia and its national interests. Of course, disaster relief is in there, but clearly we are really looking at the deployment of credible combat forces as a key marker in that shape to respond piece. Thanks. And for our listeners, we'll have links to the 2020 Strategic Update as well as the 2016 Defense White Paper in our show notes. You highlighted the rapid advancing capability in the last five years in the paper.

Can you describe that advance and what's driving it? Well, you know, we just talked about a morse dance, and I think that was a driver for advancing our amphibious capabilities to enhance our force projection more generally. I think it also marks a significant change from thinking about what had become, I think, a continental defense strategy to one more of a forward or a maritime defense strategy in depth. So in terms of how far we've come in the last five to seven years, when I look back, I think it's really very significant from our, you know, where we didn't really even have a capacity to project a company lift with all of its enablers and helicopters to what we can do now. It's really very significant with the acquisition of two Canberra-class LHDs, the landing helicopter docks, and their capacity to support and enable helicopter operations, landing craft operations, and significant numbers of embarked forces. The HMAS Jules, the landing ship dock, over the last five to seven years, we've seen the

introduction to service of those capabilities and, of course, then the integration with the range of particularly land army capabilities, but also Air Force interoperability as well, so that we can enable the whole force projection package. So it's really the significant enhancement in scale and type of capability that we can employ. In the past, we would only be looking at, from a rotary perspective, sort of a troop lift capability like a Blackhawk, Whereas now we're looking at our Black Oracle placement, the MRH, as well as running Chinooks off all three ships and our attack helicopters, the ARH Tiger. So, you know, from a Rotary Wing perspective, that really is a marker for how significant that advance in the size and the capabilities that we can bring to the party. And from a broader perspective, we've enhanced our reconnaissance forces and we've increased the size and the type of ground combat capabilities we can employ.

And, of course, along with that, increase the size and scale of the logistic forces that are necessary to enable operations. So this may be more of an organizational question, one just prompted by your last response. You mentioned the Air Force. Is the Air Force operating off of these ships? Are they operating aircraft off these ships as well? I'm not as familiar with Australian force organization as some other countries. So the Air Force doesn't operate any aircraft off the ships, but of course, we operate in conjunction with the air component from the ship. So it's really about airspace control, communications, linkages to enable the joint force to operate together. OK, got it. Thank you. Is there a stated goal for the amphibious capability that the ministry is building towards? What does the future look like for you here? Or are you have you reached the goal that you were looking for?

No, I certainly don't think that we've reached the goal. so in that so at the end of last year the chief of the navy declared final operating capability for the two uh canberra class lhd specifically but that's a project introduction of service milestone rather than a than a full capability final operating capability and in fact i think in terms of the 2020 defense strategic update i don't think there is an explicit goal for the amphibious capability but the key focus i think is our ability to operate in the uh in the region and our capacity to shape, deter, and respond. And there's both some key markers for the future trajectory of our capacity to operate in the environment, as well as how we anticipate

conducting ourselves. Thanks. I'm going to shift gears a little bit with the next question, is that the next part of your paper was a bit of an internal debate about focus on singular objectives. Why does Australian doctrine focus on a single objective, and do you agree with that approach we can probably talk about doctrine a little bit more detail but of course our doctrine is not uncommon to uh to some of some of our partners doctrine but but generally i generally i think i put that piece in the paper because i think since world war ii a lot of our maritime based conflict has been limited in nature and really focused on uh on a you know single a single operation uh but when we look at the kind of uh operations that were conducted in

the Pacific Theater in World War II. And I think from memory, from one source, there was 112 or something like that amphibious landings conducted in the theater in World War II. And they're all linked in an operational design to achieve the outcome. So I think my focus is really on trying to make sure that when we think of planning amphibious operations, it's in the context of an operational art that looks at the broader objectives and not just on the singular objective of that particular amphibious action. Yeah, I can't really imagine a modern operation taking place in that same area that's not going to require multiple objectives. So let me ask then, you're a Commonwealth nation with ties to the UK. Your operational history is also very closely

linked to the US Marines in the US. Where do you derive your doctrine? As a small nation, I think this is always a challenging space for us. We maintain very close relations with, of course, the U.S. from an Army perspective, both the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, and then, of course, with the British Army and the Royal Marines, and, of course, a range of other people. So I think our challenge has been to incorporate the doctrines and the way of operating of our key partners, but figure out what our doctrine needs to be so that it reflects our capabilities and our culture. And I actually think the most recent version of our amphibious doctrine is a pretty good hit at meeting our requirements, but also ensuring that we have interoperability

with our key partners. So that's really our drive. It's balancing what the inputs are from, as I said, two key partners from a U.S. perspective, as well as our other partners, but at the same time, making sure that doctrine meets our requirements and that interoperability piece. So how is your or how are your amphibious forces organized? So from a maritime perspective we've got our amphibious ships and of course a bit more broadly than that can escorts advanced advanced forces etc etc and you know a range of additional capabilities that that need to go with those maritime forces. Then we've then we've established a joint pre-landing force which is which is a joint Army-Navy capability based on an Army pre-landing force reconnaissance capability

and some Navy reconnaissance and survey capabilities, expedition reconnaissance and clearance, so clearance divers looking to clear up to the high-water mark and survey. So really that JPLF piece is about answering CADF and CLIF information requirements from both the tactical and technical perspective and, of course, being part of the shaping operations prior to any amphibious operation. Then we've got our ground combat element, and really we try to keep our terminology consistent

with our key partners. So the ground combat element is really the number of our land force manoeuvre element. Then we've got an air combat element and a logistic combat element that rounds out the land forces. So then what is your command and control structure like? Is it a cataf and a cliff supporting supported, or is there a calf? Is the Army always going to be supported in the event of a landing

to a Navy commander, or how is that organized? So inside our amphibious forces, we run a cataf and a cliff in a supported supporting role. I think probably one of the key differences, though, is that we have formed a single joint tactical headquarters. So we have a single headquarters that works to both my partner, CADIF, and I, and also distributes the necessary orders to both the maritime forces and the land forces.

So that's quite a different construct to a MEW and FIBRON with two separate staffs, and that provides some additional internal challenges to ensure the alignment of the FLIF and CADIF intent But what it does mean is that what we can produce out of our headquarters is consistent across the elements of the force at the beginning and doesn't require subsequent refinement. So that's a real positive. I mean, I acknowledge that that hasn't been combat tested at this point, but it has proven quite successful in the last five years of introduction in the service and the conduct of a range of sort of exercises and lower tier non-combat operations. So we certainly intend to continue progressing that relationship at this point. And I think, you know, in the end, the success of any of these amphibious operations requires the catapult and the cliff to be able to work together to cooperate in the achievement of a common objective.

And if you can set those two conditions, then everything else will flow. And, of course, as soon as you either don't have a common objective or you haven't agreed to cooperate, then the friction is going to fly. I was going to ask, is there a dispute resolution mechanism built into that or is it just automatically referred to higher command? So from a doctrinal perspective, set the conditions for a dispute to be elevated up the chain. I think that is the kind of thing that would be necessary in a combat situation where it may be harder to resolve tensions between threats to the maritime forces and vice threats to the land forces. But we haven't had to do that in my experience with our capabilities, but we clearly acknowledge the potential for that. I think a lot of, you know, sometimes I describe this as an arranged marriage and, you know, and sometimes counselling is necessary to help that relationship along. So in terms of developing the relationship between Catiff and Cliff, we have actually set up some, you know, some additional architecture in the forming of that, forming and maintaining of that relationship to ensure that, you know, we can forecast problems coming towards us and resolve them in time before they become an issue.

So we can risk manage things in advance prior to them becoming an issue. Thanks. So you don't have a Marine Corps, you, Australia. How does the Australian military generate its amphibious forces? Yeah, so I think that the fact that we don't have a Marine Corps is a really interesting point and perhaps something we could explore a bit later. But to simply answer the question, you know, we've focused on generating a range of land force elements that are permanently focused on amphibious expertise, you know, including my headquarters, the pre-landing forces and some elements of our, you know, littoral manoeuvre capability. We've got some elements that you might describe as semi-permanent, in particular the aviation elements where they're not permanently assigned to aviation, but we need to make sure they maintain their qualifications and proficiency because they're really hard to rebuild again. So we make sure that there are continuous touch points with the amphibious shipping to maintain those qualifications and competencies. And then we've got some rotational forces, predominantly the ground carbon element and some elements of the logistic carbon element, which we generate on an annual basis.

So there's some particular reasons for that approach, which we can go into now if that's what you'd like to do. Yeah, let's go into that now. And then I also want to follow up on the why doesn't Australia have a Marine Corps question, because it seems like a natural thing for an island nation to have. But, yeah, please go your direction first there. Well, I think the two things are kind of related. As I said, in World War II, we conducted a, you know, significant, really quite significant, you know, at least from our perspective, amphibious operations up to divisional strength landing forces of 30,000 troops going ashore in June of 1945. But we still haven't generated a Marine Corps. But I think we're aware of the risk that we might need to increase our capacity to operate in the littoral.

And so part of the focus on not generating a Marine Corps element inside of the Army, but on focusing on rotational forces, is actually on really increasing our broader amphibious competence and awareness of the challenges of operating in the littoral environment across Army more broadly. So the focus on the permanent elements is on making sure that we retain enough knowledge to be ready now to meet the government's objectives, to bring the rotational forces along on the journey every year to meet what we need to be ready for now. But the focus on having rotational forces rather than permanently assigned forces is on, it's actually on the future, on making sure that when we arrive at the future, we have a better understanding across Army about how to operate in the littoral given. As I said, that's really over the last 20 or 30 years, that switch in strategy from being a continental, one of continental defense and, you know, land maneuver by itself to really our need to conduct land maneuver in that littoral environment. So what is the size of the army and how does a unit then become amphibious? Is it a set rotation or certain units kind of always rotating? Well, I think in relation to that point about rotation, the relative percentage is probably not so meaningful. It's more the idea of trying to broaden our knowledge.

So we would, on an annual basis, rotate a battle group from one of our brigades through. But the idea is to continue to rotate those forces from all of the essentially, you know, an infantry based battle group, but supported by with armour and engineers, artillery, etc. As I said, to continue broadening our exposure to the challenges of operating in the in the in the littoral, those rotational forces come from our combat brigades. As I said, some of the other forces are either permanent or pretty close to being permanently assigned, and of course, they don't rotate. And then how do you smooth the transition for the rotational forces? I'd imagine that's some of what you're permanently assigned. That's a mission for those who are permanently assigned there is to bring in the new folks and bring them back up to speed. Yeah, indeed.

So there is a clear role and specific tasking for the permanent elements to be part of that transfer of knowledge. There is a role for transfer of knowledge and understanding of what the path is from the last rotational battle group to be transferring that onto the next one. Because, of course, their perspective of what they need to do is different to the perspective of permanent forces who do it all the time. So we try and make sure we get that transfer from both the perspective of the rotational forces and the permanent element. We've got a range of courses that different elements of the force can do to prepare them. And we are looking at additional packages as we go forward. And then, of course, we've got a range of set activities in our force generation cycle that brings people along the basic competence journey to the point of being able to conduct tactical execution by knife. Thanks. What is the JPLF and what are its missions?

So the Joint Pre-Landing Force, as I described before, is a combination of Army and Navy capabilities really designed to conduct, and I'll focus on clandestine operations because they're the most challenging, but really in any context to answer CADF and CLIF information requirements, both technical and tactical, to enable us to project forces ashore. You know, there's a lot centered around the beach and confirming that it's suitable technically for the conduct of landing operations, the back of beach, and then how we project forces further than the back of beach. And then overlaid on that the tactical perspective of understanding adversary forces, intent, disposition, et cetera, so that we can understand prior to executing amphibious operations that the conditions are at an appropriate risk threshold for us to continue. I was going to transfer over to the Navy side of this now and talk about amphibious shipping, but I think we've covered what you have or are developing now. You had the LHDs, you had the LTDs. Is there anything that we missed on the amphibious shipping side? Not current force. We've got two LHDs, the HMS Jules and LSD.

We've got a range of Army and Navy landing craft that support those capabilities. The Jules has got a Mexi float that can be constructed to both transport additional forces to shore and support beach operations. From a future perspective, we're really looking at beefing up the support element. The Depend strategic update looks to replace HMS Jules in the future with two amphibious support ships, which will both be able to do the kind of function of Jules as well as provide additional logistic support. And from an Army perspective, we're looking at increasing our littoral maneuver capability through additional heavier landing craft and intermediate landing craft, which our focus is really on increasing our ability for intra-theater maneuver as opposed to the – so that we'll be capable of deploying, but the focus is really on intra-theater littoral, very increasing our capacity in that space. Thanks. And kind of my final scripted question, at least, was are your forces taking anything from the evolution that's happening in the U.S. Marine Corps, whether it's new concepts, for example, the expeditionary advanced base operations, the Toro operations in a contested environment or some of the doctrinal changes that we see the Marine Corps going through?

Yeah, so we maintain very close relationships with the U.S. Marine Corps. And of course, we're, you know, tracking very closely the, I'll call it a changing direction for the US Marine Corps under the current commandant and their doctrinal approach to conducting operations. I think that from my perspective, the focus seems to have switched from the US Marine Corps, you know, who has been involved in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, from their capacity to conduct land manoeuvre really to switch the Marine Corps' focus to conducting land-based operations in support of maritime manoeuvre.

And so I see AIBO, et cetera, as really focusing on being able to support maritime manoeuvre in that context and really go back to the roots of the US Marine Corps as being part of the US Navy. So we see the Australian Army as really needing to be on cue with understanding and being able to conduct operations in conjunction with the US Marine Corps in that context in terms of supporting maritime maneuver. But of course, the Australian Army needs to maintain its own capacity to conduct land maneuver and land maneuver in terms of full land maneuver and littoral maneuver given

the archipelago to our north. So while we're really working hand in hand with the US Marine Corps and watching those developments with a great deal of interest in looking for the opportunities to incorporate those adjustments into our own doctrine. We're also working with the US Army to look to how to conduct, how they look to conduct littoral manoeuvre in the, particularly in the Pacific Theatre, so that we can ensure that we are also able to partner with the US Army. So that's kind I think the key challenge for the Australian Army is to both be able to conduct those kind of operations that support maritime maneuver as well as maintain our capacity to conduct land maneuver,

a challenge for a small nation and a small army and a small defense force. And there's one follow-up question I had to that was U.S. Marines are developing some anti-access capabilities, and now the Army is talking about it as well. Is that planned for the Australian Defence Forces as well? And when I'm talking anti-access, I'm talking about air defence, anti-ship cruise missiles, those types of things. Yeah, look, and I think there's excellent crossover there between the kind of things considered in expeditory advanced base operations and also the kind of things that the US Army is looking at. So we would see those anti-access area denial capabilities both as potentially being in place to support maritime manoeuvre and also in an archipelagic and littoral region also being able to support land manoeuvre. So I think there's a great deal of synergy in those concepts, especially as they pertain to the southwest Pacific and the kind of area to our north.

So we're very definitely looking at those concepts going forward. Well, thank you so much. I don't have any other scripted questions. Did you have any final thoughts? Otherwise, I'll wrap it up here. Hey, Jared, Luca, thank you for having me on today. It's really exciting from my point of view to have been a part of this. As I said, it's really quite a significant advance in Australian force projection capability. But we don't rest here. We've got a lot of work to go. So our key focus is on both being ready now and also looking to set the conditions to expand our ability to operate in the littoral as we go forward. A range of things coming in the future, sort of 10 years down the track that we're aiming at and being ready now to support our government in shaping the environment to meet our needs and being able to provide that credible combat power as part of deterrence and respond where necessary. So, you know, exciting. It's an exciting journey. Great to do a whole range of activities with the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy and the U.S. Army as well. We've been great partners for many years. So, look, I hope what I've had to say helps to make sense of our Australian way of doing things for some of your listeners. Thanks very much, Jared. Absolutely. Thank you again for coming on to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Sea Control is edited by Keegan Ingersoll. © BF-WATCH TV 2021

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