2021 boosting our northern border protection

Indulge yourself with a fascinating read of Admiral Sir Reginal Henderson's 1911 recommendation for the protection of Australia's coast. This report he wrote after a personal nationwide tour that he and a close team completed in 18 months covering every State and Territory.

For the protection of Australia at the time of 4.5 million people, he recommended a fleet of 52 vessels including 9 submarines, 14 cruisers, 12 torpedo boat destroyers and 3 depot ships. All for the princely sum of $46.5m! He also recommended the fleet be increase proportionally with the increase in population.

110 years later, with a population of 25 million, Australia now has a naval fleet of only 49 vessels, albeit expanding,70% of which are quite small and many are non-combatant. Their choice of submarine designs are diesel electric that would use up most of their endurance just transiting to and from their operating areas and too slow to be effective when they get there.

Defence, and Navy in particular during times of peace, is generally the first casualty in budget cuts. Alas there are enemies looming on the horizon.

Sensible Governments have their Defence fleet capability significantly enhanced by "dormant charters" of commercial vessels. The Falklands War was a classic case where ships taken up from trade (STUFT) totalled 45 vessels.

The main transport task of materials and equipment was carried out by liners, roll-on-roll-ff (Roro) ferries, container ships and freighters, totalling 21 vessels, and interestingly enough, all of which were fitted with helipads prior to departure to the war zone.

Facing budget challenges after decades of bickering leadership and spiralling debt, any nation should focus on financially effective dormant chartering of newer coastal vessels capable of "multi-tasking".

Admiral Henderson proposed a fleet of 4 armoured cruisers, and 5 protected cruisers to the sub base port of Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, which is presently Australia's area of highest border incursions. Today, there are no naval vessels based at Thursday Island today. Hello? Anyone home?

Interestingly Admiral Henderson visited Cooktown, Cairns and Thursday Island and suggested that the protection of our north eastern seaboard should extend to our south Pacific neighbouring countries and the defence policy to be treated as a whole.

Dormant charters are pre-signed at an agreed rate, so that in the event of conflict or emergency response, the vessel comes under Naval control on an hour's notice. A variation on this method is employed by the UK MoD, Scandinavian countries, Canada and the US, mainly with flexible Roro vessels

While larger Roro vessels would be of little use in Australia's regions, due to the lack of port infrastructures, there are potentially far more useful options available.

When trying to determine what type of vessels are most useful in any given environment, there is no better guide than looking at what the locals use. South Pacific Nations including Australia and New Zealand have a variety of coastal commercial vessels 50-80 metres all of proven designs.

Smart experienced people with "war wounds" know that any likely dispute will require archipelagic designs and suggest governments should incentivise operators to ensure that any new coastal vessels have:-

• Beach landing capability
• Cabins for 17-19 crew
• Extra dry and reefer stores
• Communications centre fitted to receive "plug & play" military communications.
• Fitted for but not with Helipad capability
• Axle loadings for LAND 121 vehicles
• Vehicle deck fitted with power and plumbing to receive containerised accommodation, ammunition magazines and fuel tanks

A really significant benefit of such an arrangement is that the dormant contract can be written to align vessel availability to contingency response times. The overseas ships on dormant charters notice times vary between instant and 30-days.

A second advantage is that ongoing commercial operations guarantees that what Defence receives is a proven and practical working vessel, compliant with applicable regulations. Furthermore, most such charters include the vessels' crews, either as Naval Reservists or Government civilian mariners, according to the envisaged concept of operations.

These dormant charters could easily be incentivised by the Government providing the loan guarantee and the capital cost of the extra requirements. Treasury would easily ascertain that this is a very economic way to boost border protection capability and active training facilities.

These small coastal vessels often work on a schedule visiting several ports and include 2-3 berthings/sailings a day in different port conditions, which is perfect training for navigators and deck officers. With diesel electric multi-screw propulsion, bow thrusters and automated cargo handling equipment these would be engineering and electrical training centres that any Navy would envy. The helipad is an ideal aviation training platform for Naval and fleet air operations.

When no commercial work is required, the vessels can be used to support the Pacific Step-Up, while effectively conducting reconnaissance of accessibility of any beaches and facilities they use, of local attitudes (humint) and of the prevailing electromagnetic environment.

Most coastal vessels have sizeable underdeck tank capacity to carry fuel to remote communities, in the event of conflict, this extra fuel would be of key importance.

These dormant charter support vessels have two significant advantages in not requiring Defence capital budget expenditure, and not having to run the slow and costly gauntlet of the naval vessel acquisition process which more than often results in unproven designs unfit for task.

Logistically a highly mobilised fleet accessing all small ports, improves the frontline options for emergency response, border protection and defence as a whole.

Can someone with the vision of Admiral Henderson and a bit of spine make a simple thing like this happen in the face of the ponderous bureaucratic processes we are burdened with today