Originally Posted by x.squadi_in_oz

If you read it in the Courier Mail then it must be true......free, un-biased journalism that is!

I know,but it's the only rag Brissies got.

Feel sorry for the diggers who'll be stuck picking their arses at sea.

I do wonder what has prompted this massive splurge on amphibious "power projection".
Are we finally invading New Zealand?

Two articles on this

Towards a Marine Force

http://www.securitychallenges.org.au...no2Palazzo.pdf

For the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) acquisition of two new amphibious ships—known as Landing Helicopter Docks (LHDs)—represents the dawning of a new era in how the land force will do business. The last time the Army conducted an amphibious landing was at Balikpapan on 1 July 1945 in the final days of the Pacific War with Japan. That experience is now a distant memory. If the Army, and by association the Australian Defence Force (ADF), is to make good use of its coming amphibious capability, the land force will have to undergo a transformation as it rediscovers its maritime past while meeting the challenge of future requirements. Amongst the most pressing requirements facing Army, and the ADF, is the need to provide a sustainable landing force, learn the complexities of amphibious operations, and become able to work with Navy with a degree of intimacy and cooperation that has never been achieved before.

Projecting Force
The Australian Army
and Maritime Strategy

http://www.army.gov.au/lwsc/docs/sp317.pdf

With the release of Force 2030, the 2009 Defence White Paper, the Australian
Government has clearly set the ADF onto the path of a maritime strategy. With this
development, Australia has joined many great states—from the Athenians to the
Americans—who have pursued maritime strategies to their benefit.
While the ADF does have a history of pursuing maritime strategy that arguably
dates back to the landings at Gallipoli, most of its recent strategic thought has dealt
with the requirements of Continental Defence. For most serving officers, maritime
strategy represents an intellectual shift of direction. The essays contained in this
monograph aim to facilitate that shift. They hope to draw back the curtain of poor
understanding which at present obscures maritime strategy and thereby ease the
three services’ transition to this new guiding concept.
The authors of this study paper examine the concepts that underpin maritime
strategy and the operational, force structure, and doctrinal requirements of its
successful implementation. Taken together they represent an intellectual starting
point on the Army’s—and the RAN and RAAF’s—journey towards the implementation
of a revisited yet updated strategic idea. In these essays the authors demonstrate the
benefits maritime strategy offers to the organisation, outline some of the challenges
officers will need to overcome, and illuminate the pathways forward.

If 3bde are tasked with this then it will make a change for DoD to actually use the RAR for something intresting and not just rely on SF (or the Tabloid press Regiment perhaps more suitable name)

Just imagine our paras being re-rolled as booties! Oh the irony...... Para, para, in the gutter,kicked to fuck by an LI nutter! That was THE chant on manya nite at route 66 naffi bar catterick mid 90's!

Interesting powerpoint presentation here:

http://www.defence.gov.au/opEx/exerc...df/hawkins.pdf

Originally Posted by x.squadi_in_oz

If 3bde are tasked with this then it will make a change for DoD to actually use the RAR for something intresting and not just rely on SF (or the Tabloid press Regiment perhaps more suitable name)

Just imagine our paras being re-rolled as booties! Oh the irony...... Para, para, in the gutter,kicked to fuck by an LI nutter! That was THE chant on manya nite at route 66 naffi bar catterick mid 90's!

Kin ell, refugees from 90,s Catterick naafi , how do you survive here in paradise??mind you the occasional curry and mushy peas care package still get through from Ripon or Harrogate!!back in the the late 50,s and 60,s when we were needing em ,not just feeding em, a young and army barmy Nig crossed paths with quite a few L I units , whether at the JWS in johore ,labuan and kuching, and later on in Baor and NI, but on average once they had been taught the basics, how to operate the taps in the shower, turn the light off with the switch and not a well aimed stone, and most important of all how to lace their boots.Even today the LI have not mastered the drinking of alcohol or use of knives and forks, instant recognition scars of NLI or KOYLI on the cheeks and lips obtained when learning to eat with knife and fork in basic training,do they still make the Modern LI study for their Blood Tests?????

LOL! KFS handling and Alcohol drinking skills are fine thank you. Dont miss the Catterick at all also!

Typical RAN, buying second hand ships. We need the money to keep the asylum seekers.

As for OZ Marines, surely not..seaborne infantry that's all. Although the Yanks are sending in troops to OZ, maybe the USMC are going on HMAS Largs?

Originally Posted by beagleboy

How many times have they tried trotting out this shit, Marines, and let's not forget a Coast Guard. Once the journo's put down the crack pipe and get a dose of reality, shit they believe the crap the pollies tell them.

Financially, dare I say the Defence Force will become an orphan, already in real terms the defence budget has not as in Howards term, been increased, it has in fact been reduced thanks to the socialists. So the expense required to run a 'marine' unit just won't happen. Even the Royal Marines (RM) which is a poor cousin to the RN as they come under their budget, are we to be compared to at least the RM with their budget?

Budget 2011: Defence spending mugged, ADF not off limits | Crikey

I agree with your sentiments regarding budget cuts, see above.

However, I'm not certain that this proposal will prove to be that expensive as wages are sunk costs an. In addition, costs will probably be off set by fewer Navy recruits and possibly a reduction in the Custom's budget.

Originally Posted by Batemans Bay

Typical RAN, buying second hand ships. We need the money to keep the asylum seekers.

As for OZ Marines, surely not..seaborne infantry that's all. Although the Yanks are sending in troops to OZ, maybe the USMC are going on HMAS Largs?

Prefer them there rather than Darwin.