By Commodore Gerald Christian, AM, RAN
This article was first published in the Australian Naval Review, 2021, Issue 1, in June 2021.
Behind the significant naval fleet recapitalisation efforts and the intense activity to develop and sustain a sovereign naval shipbuilding capability, an equally complex challenge has become ensuring timely, appropriate, and logical infrastructure is in place to support new and existing naval capabilities.
Not only is the evolution of continuous naval shipbuilding and sustainment impacting how we plan for future Royal Australian Navy infrastructure but also the resultant ‘continuous naval-base building’ is demanding better and smarter ways to manage the challenges at an enterprise level.
Navy is responding to the changing environment – which, among other aspects, features a shift to capability program architecture, inculcation of seaworthiness into everyday aspects of Navy life, and continuous naval shipbuilding becoming a reality. Internal naval strategic documentation and guidance specifically for developing infrastructure has been aligned with contemporary government direction. The intent of this article is to describe some of the internal infrastructure planning activities behind the resultant ‘continuous naval-base building’.
The importance of Australia’s naval capability across a range of security, diplomatic and constabulary scenarios continues to grow as the security environment becomes increasingly complex and challenging. This determines our need for military preparedness, our international engagement posture, and our responsiveness to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief abroad, as well as our ability to render aid to the civil community at home.
The 2016 Defence White Paper affirmed that Australia is now embarked on the largest recapitalisation of its naval capability since World War II. This ranges from the introduction of large amphibious ships and surface combatants and an increase in our submarine capability to modern aviation capabilities, offshore patrol vessels and support ships and the introduction of uninhabited systems, advanced weapons, and other game-changing technology.
This multibillion-dollar enterprise is a vast undertaking for Navy and Australian industry. Acquiring and effectively delivering these new capabilities demands collaborative consultation and careful planning. New platforms, systems and technologies will have complex and intensive sustainment demands to remain effective. An essential foundation of the overarching sustainment piece is the infrastructure, facilities and training areas needed to support our capability. These elements are key enablers of Navy’s future capability and require strategic planning and appropriate levels of funding.
All ships require a home port for maintenance and regeneration after prolonged periods at sea. This is not simply about access to wharves – it requires workshops, docking facilities, warehouses, hangars, fuel and explosive ordnance storage, maintenance and loading, and aviation support. It is in-ground infrastructure, engineering services, power generation, boat ramps and cranes.
It is also the office accommodation where a substantial proportion of Navy personnel do their daily work in developing, supporting and maintaining the Fleet. It is the training facilities that skill our people, and the training areas that enable the Fleet to exercise and realise true collective capability. It is living-in accommodation for our people, the fitness amenities that support their health and readiness, and the medical facilities that provide their care.
As the Navy grows in capability the traditional base architecture is now continually challenged by new, often unique, demands placed on it, especially with greater sized vessels, greater draught vessels, greater ship numbers and an impressive growth in the number of sailors in our modern and futuristic Navy. The emerging concept of undertaking most training, apart from initial joining training, in your home port is slowly becoming reality as we strive to support the new Navy Learning Strategy with infrastructure in support of capability.
The art of infrastructure planning is in the ability to write an accurate functional requirement that extrapolates into enterprise-level initiatives such as multifunctional spaces and buildings; state-of-the-art wharf services; and highly technical production, training, storage, and distribution facilities. Defence real estate integration and provision of suitable contemporary living-in accommodation all work together to deliver infrastructure in support of the naval warfighting capability. Defining future expansion concepts and surge needs is also a crucial component. It is becoming harder to satisfy all the requirements with the available funding!
Internal to Navy, infrastructure management systems are being strengthened to promote and enhance the collaborative approach to naval and other maritime infrastructure development. This guidance is key for the two teams spearheading better Navy infrastructure outcomes. Commander Shore Force and his team are focused on the current ‘bases-in-being’ as part of Fleet Command, while Executive Director Navy Infrastructure and his team are focused more on future projects, base upgrades and refurbishments, estate planning for Navy, and all strategic infrastructure management based out of Navy Headquarters in Canberra.
It is a well-known axiom within Defence that the clearer the requirements set, the better the relationship management outcomes for the key delivery agency and suppliers. To improve such management Navy has taken a leaf out of Air Force’s book of infrastructure experiences and has established a Navy Infrastructure Steering Group (modelled on the RAAF Infrastructure Steering Group) to more holistically manage these challenges. This group has taken on the forensic task of presenting annually an agreed report on the status of all Naval Critical Infrastructure – infrastructure which is critical to the naval mission – to the Chief of Navy Senior Advisory Committee, which is driving more acute examination and oversight of naval assets.
Along with the establishment of the Navy Infrastructure Steering Group, other changes include an update of the Navy documents Plan MERCATOR and Plan BEACON, the development of a new document SEA MARK 2021–2050 – Maritime Domain Infrastructure Strategy, and updates of establishment naval capability needs statements and the Naval Capability Profile. The significance of these plans will briefly be explained to show how the naval infrastructure planning jigsaw puzzle is being crafted and assembled.
Plan MERCATOR has changed from its previous focus of being a Navy 20-year plan. Plan MERCATOR is not just about Navy; it is a maritime domain strategy that articulates how we will bring together air power, land power, naval power and supporting capabilities in the maritime domain to defend Australia and its national interests now and in the future. It also aligns all of the fundamental inputs into capability and all of the key stakeholders in the maritime domain and the National Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise towards this single aim, through an integrated Joint Force. A publicly releasable version is being prepared.
Plan BEACON is a vision document: it articulates the rationale for the disposition of establishments that support the RAN and the facilities needed at each location to allow Navy to successfully achieve the outcomes directed by government for Australia’s maritime capability and operations. Plan BEACON has a planning horizon out to 2070. The plan is cognisant of the strategic direction provided by the 2016 Defence White Paperand the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and will also inform, and be informed by, future Defence white papers. As a strategic document, Plan BEACON articulates the Maritime Capability Manager’s guidance regarding support requirements which will ultimately inform facilities and infrastructure investment through capability projects or baseredevelopments at naval establishments or potentially other locations. A publicly releasable version is being prepared.
SEA MARK 2021–2050 – Maritime Domain Infrastructure Strategy represents a significant step forward in Navy’s strategic infrastructure planning. It provides consolidated and coordinated direction on maritime facilities and training areas by considering all current and future requirements through both warfare and geographic lenses. It evolves our current peacetime position for a resilient, integrated facility and training area network capable of supporting complex maritime operations in a contested environment. This is a classified document.
The commissioned naval establishments and associated outstations are also part of the seaworthiness regulatory system. We have been able to identify the capability needs by establishment and have put in place measures to ensure that provision of wharf services, fuel, explosive ordnance, IT and other requirements are not ship stoppers in capability preparing for its warfighting roles.
The Navy Capability Profile provides Defence’s Estate and Infrastructure Group with a singular compendium of Navy’s capability-focused facilities and infrastructure requirements coupled to competing inputs that are calibrated to synchronise and prioritise with strategic, operational and Joint Force influences. This defines what Navy needs from the Estate and Infrastructure Group stewarded estate enablers, and then sets the performance expectations to provide Chief of Navy, as the Capability Manager, with the assurance and confidence that capability is actually being delivered within the prescribed reliability and availability parameters linked to seaworthiness outcomes. The Naval Capability Profile is focused on providing capability corporate knowledge to the Estate and Infrastructure Group of Navy’s bespoke bases that support our ships, submarines, people and training efforts through providing clarity as to the requirements in Navy’s own words, calibrated from influence factors and defined in performance and assurance expectations specific to the delivery of estate enablers towards capability outcomes.
All of this internal work is now manifesting itself in visible infrastructure improvements or new physical creations. Those who work on or have recently visited RAN bases and establishments will have seen a seeming explosion of earthworks and infrastructure upgrades underway. This is ‘continuous naval-base building’ hard at work. Perhaps the best contemporary example is the Larrakeyah Barracks in Darwin, which hosts HMAS Coonawarra, where there are multiple Defence Estate and Infrastructure Group activities collocated, co-designed and locally collaborated to minimise impact on current naval day-to-day operations. The Kuru wharf (named after HMAS Kuru, an auxiliary patrol boat that played an important role in the Battle of Timor) in construction (also known as FSNON – Facilities Supporting Naval Operations in the North) is a ‘game changer’ located on the seaward side of the breakwater and will be able to take up to landing helicopter dock size naval vessels alongside by mid-2022. Another impressive example is the work now underway at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia and the planned work not yet visible at the Henderson precinct in Western Australia. And to those who have witnessed the wharfage upgrades at Garden Island in Sydney it is clear that the advent of ‘continuous naval-base building’ is upon us now. Infrastructure matters!
