NavWeek: Beach Bash
NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA
Fog Bay was living up to its name, putting the entire coast in a shadowy relief and giving the bush beach fringe a mystical glow as the sunrise gradually choked off the mist and murk. Overhead, silhouettes of MV-22 Ospreys whirred and whirled and AV-8B Harriers streaked past a line of assault amphibious vehicles (AAVs) that slowly churned toward the shore.
The AAVs disgorged camouflage-clad, green-face-painted U.S. Marines and Australian soldiers who secured the beach in methodical fashion as smoke-belching landing craft air cushion (LCAC) vehicles swept through the surf to unload jeeps, trucks and other expeditionary necessities.
Down beach, more teams stormed the shore – including some Japanese troops who had embedded with the Marines, embarking with the Corps when it left Okinawa for this huge July amphibious exercise known as Talisman Saber.
Talisman Saber is a biennial naval drill between the U.S. and Australian going back about a decade. This year's exercise is the first since a major influx of Marines came to Darwin, the first to be focus mostly in and around the Northern Territory and the first to include Japanese forces.
The presence of the Japanese has garnered more attention for this year’s Talisman Saber, especially amongthe Japanese media. U.S. and Australian officials have downplayed the Japanese role in the exercise, while many in the media were looking to make a link between the presence of those forces and greater unity among the U.S., Australia and Japan in opposition to China.
At a Darwin press conference, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott took great pains to boast of the defense relationship his country has developed with the U.S. and discount any ill feelings that bond might cause with China
“The U.S.-Australia alliance is very long-standing,” Abbott says. The recent increase in Marines sent to the Darwin area will “add to the economy,” he says. “China appreciates we are an ally of the U.S., and our alliance with the U.S. never stopped ... our friendship with China.” Australia and the U.S., he says, are both “friends” of China. “We are encouraged by the rise of China,” he says.
At the same time, political ads on Australian TV decry a loss of jobs to China. Political posturing aside, there is no denying the angst Beijing might be feeling with such amphibious drills honing American, Australian and Japanese forces.
Talisman Saber combines the operational abilities of U.S. AAVs, LCACs and the amphibious assault ship LHD 6 USS Bonhomme Richard with Australian LCM-8 “Mike Boat” mechanized landing craft, lighter amphibious resupply cargo (LARC-V) boats and the Bay-class landing-dock ship (LSD) HMAS Choules.
And while both U.S. and Australia have been touting their naval humanitarian efforts in recent years – and while the same operational training can help with combat and non-combat missions alike – there was a definite military cast to the Fog Bay drills in Talisman Saber.
True, there were no opposing forces as the trio of nations bashed the beach. But just working out the choreography of such a complex and sophisticated drill is valuable in its own right. These types of operations are among the most difficult to pull off, even with the most modern of technology.
“We have to worry about the tide, wind and access to the beach,” notes Australian Navy Cmdr. Chris Aulmann, the commanding officer of the Choules, which was sitting about 8 nm off the coast.
Both the Marines and Australian army have shifted their focus to more expeditionary – that is, amphibious – operations in recent years and the Aussies are looking for guidance from the acknowledged global experts on such missions.
“As our forces become more joint, they want to use the Marines as a model,” says Chris Rahman, the senior research fellow in maritime strategy and security for the Australian National Center for Ocean Resources and Security (Ancors), a leading naval research advisory center at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales.
“We’re betting back to amphibious launchings,” says Maj. Sisto Bernardo, the second in command for the Royal Australian Regiment, which operated with the Marines for the beach assault. “Australian soldiers have never been in AAVs before.”
Now, he says, it’s time to get much better at amphibious operations. “The world has changed.”
Indeed it has. Who would have dreamed decades ago that Japanese forces would be practicing amphibious assaults with U.S. Marines and Australians on a Northern Territory coast? There is no getting around the historical significance of such a scenario, especially as the region gets ready to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
As it did then, so does Australia now occupy a very strategic place in U.S. plans for the Indo-Asia-Pacific.
Shortly before U.S. forces starting fighting World War II Pacific battles, Ernest Hemingway toured the region and wrote, “Always remember that a powerful enough navy imposes its will without having to fight.”
The U.S. and its naval allies are starting to flex that kind of power.