Naval Officer Talks Future Australian Amphibious Ops

Note*  This article is focused on the entry into Australian service of the LHD01 which is based on the Spanish Juan Carlos 1 (L-61).

Question: You have an extensive amphibious background - what are the main lessons we can learn from the USN and other Navies using LHDs?
The main areas that we need to focus on in terms of running the ship itself are how they run a large multi-spot flight deck with a mixture of aircraft and how the run a well dock. These are skills that I am sure with the professionalism we already have in the ADF we can pick up pretty quickly to deliver a basic safe operational LHD for lower end amphibious operations. What will take us some time is the ability to generate the tempo of flight and well dock operations that is required to deliver combat capability rapidly across the shore. It is this tempo that will determine how successfully the ADF can mount amphibious operations at the higher end of war fighting. So we need to learn how they simultaneously operate large numbers of aircraft and watercraft in an effective, efficient and yet safe manner.
One other less understood area that we can learn about is providing full logistic support to a land force when they are engaged in combat. Making sure when the force leaves Australia it has all it needs to conduct the first period of the operation without any further logistic resupply or access to supporting infrastructure is essentially what makes an amphibious operation so unique and so powerful.

Read the whole thing here.