Australia's Real Aircraft Carrier

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Subject: Australia's Real Aircraft Carrier
Aussiegunneragain 7/6/2009 3:52:05 AM

With all this discussion about aircraft carriers I thought it a good time to point out that Australia has a real fixed aircraft carrier just 360 km south of Jakarta, complete with a 2103 metre airfield openned in 1974 and an on-site supply of Jet A-1. / With that in mind I was thinking that a discussion about the potential opportunities that our ownership of Christmas Island presents, as well as how we plan ahead to ensure that we keep it in the event of a conflict, might be in order.

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BLUIE006 7/11/2009 12:43:33 AM

The Island does have a lot of military potential, however a permanent Military Airbase may pose some International relations headaches. Indonesia may not approve?

A clandestine submarine pen on the south side of the island for our cruise missile equipped future subs (Son of Collins) on the other hand....

http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emsmilep.gif" alt="" />

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Aussiegunneragain 7/13/2009 7:44:11 AM

I agree with those who are saying that we wouldn't be starting a military build up on CI any time soon. Apart from the fact that the Indonesians have a nicely burgeoning democracy now and are our friends, it would be expensive and would probably piss the locals off (even though they would like the money).

What I am interested in exploring are the capabilities that we have/did have/would (have) need (ed) to rapidly ensure the protection or recovery of, and exploitation the island's military potential in the instance of a souring of relations with Indonesia. I'm thinking about answers covering the periods of the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, now and into the future.

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BLUIE006 BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS- Santa goes Bad 7/18/2009 1:47:26 AM

I quite like this topic, so thought id see if we can?t get the chatter going? http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emsmiled.gif" alt="" />

Military incursions onto Australia?s external territories such as Christmas or Coco islands are not unthinkable scenarios in the coming 25 years (as we know the political landscape can change very quickly). This is particularly true if Sino Indian relations become tense, the Energy war scenario heated up and/or vital choke points such as Malacca straights become impassable due to environmental terrorism, military activity or climatic event (suggesting the passage of water between Xmas Island & Indonesia could become strategically important).

It is also plausible that due to the ethnic demographics of the Islands other nations would not recognize

Australia

sovereignty during a time of geo-political hysteria, and see them as their own.

Although, it is questionable whether a regional/global power would be willing to take the islands and risk escalation into full scale conflict with Australia & its Allies.

I have chosen to focus my somewhat limited! discussions on the present/future component.

Firstly I have considered how someone might take the islands?

The Islands would need to be taken rapidly and by surprise therefore a naval armada steaming toward the island would probably be undesirable for the aggressor( or the Australian submarine fleet would be making some nice artificial reefs), suggesting an Airborne Insertion of paratroopers or commando?s (possibly via commercial aircraft) to take the airport and port facilities could be the first action, followed by insertion of further air deployable forces and heavy forces (potentially via converted container ships- rapidly rerouting off shipping routes). Followed by deployment of Fighter Aircraft potentially via Myanmar (this would pose some challenges an aggressor, but would not be impossible) (H)

This could be coordinated with deployment of RED attack submarines in the South East approaches to the islands (to fend of any Australian naval task forces that may approach) and the systematic sea (E) and beach mining of appropriate amphibious landing points.

Hypothetical RED Force:

500-2000 Troops (300-500 First Wave )
10-50 Armoured Vehicles
8-12 Strike Fighters

3-5 SSK/SSN

6 Surface Combatants

Such an operation would be hugely ambitious and pose a number of challenges, mostly logistical (fuel in particular). Although if successful it may prove difficult for a unilateral Australian operations too retake the islands.

Recovery: Option 1

The Canberra class LHD amphibious assault ships would be vital to any attempt to retake the islands; however during transit they would be venerable to submarines and maritime strike airc

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StevoJH 7/18/2009 12:44:13 PM

F18F's and F35A's destroy enemy airforces and surface vessels, garrison force starves and surrenders.

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hairy man 7/18/2009 9:29:07 PM

This could be an interesting exercise, particularly if got one reason or another we could not get assistance from our allies, and had to do the job solely with our own forces. On an exercise such as this it is obvious that 5 tanker aircraft are nowhere near enough.

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hairy man 7/18/2009 9:30:34 PM

This could be an interesting exercise, particularly if for one reason or another we could not get assistance from our allies, and had to do the job solely with our own forces. On an exercise such as this it is obvious that 5 tanker aircraft are nowhere near enough.

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hairy man 7/18/2009 9:30:41 PM

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BLUIE006 7/18/2009 10:55:56 PM

Would be a great exercise!

http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emsmileo.gif" alt="" /> to test unilateral capabilities.

The main two conclusions I came up with:

A) We wouldn't have enough tanker.

B) 3RAR should retain the Airborne Role.

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Aussiegunneragain 7/19/2009 8:40:23 AM

Thanks Bluie, that is exactly the sort of discussion I was after.

I agree that if a nation was to take CI (take everything I say to count for the Coco's as well, unless I say otherwise) they would really need to do it by surprise or at least quickly enough to avoid having us deploy sufficient forces to defend them.

Being such a small land area we wouldn't need to get more than a squadron of ADG's there to defend the airfield and a company of infantry with Bushies and ASLAV's to chase any enemy SOF around the sticks, with maybe a section of 155's (which can cover the whole island from the airfield), a section of mortars and a flight of Aussie tigers for fire support, ground radar/thermal imagers/UAV's for counter special forces surveilance and a section of RBS-70 for VLLAD.

Any major incursions could be defeated by the RAAF. The beauty of having the airfield there is that if the fighters could be based out of there we could get away with only basing 4 of them there initially (like the Brits do on the Falklands), as they could operate upon a QRA rather than a CAP basis because the islands are covered by JORN. Otherwise we need to operate CAP's out of RAAF Curtain which would tie up at least a squadron and a couple of tankers and I agree, we definately don't have enough of those (especially for operations over the Cocos). The other RAAF contribution would be to maintain a constant Orion/P-8 patrol armed with harpoon/torpedos around each island out of Curtain. The Navy could probably get away with just keeping a patrol boat in the area to pick up any attempted SOF incursions from submarines, as well as escorting in any shipping to service the island.

The downside of all this of course is that if somebody did manage to grab them, they also wouldn't need a very big force to keep them (in fact logistically it would probably be more of a disadvantage than anything). That means that they could do it without a big, noticeable build up reducing the amount of warning that we would have compared to other operations. Our intelligence services would need to be very aware of any political risks within the region and our government would need to be willing to discretely deploy forces to defend the places if they were at all concerned.

Also if the enemy was operating out of Indonesia they would have the benefit of being much closer to the islands than we are, making providing air support in the instance that much easier for them. Given our limited number of tankers we would be best off to use our airpower to destroy any enemy airfields within range (not the CI one, we need that but we could hit their aircraft instead), rather than tying up all of our tankers to try to maintain constant CAP's to achieve air superiority out of Curtain.

As for retaking the islands, after we had defeated the enemies airpower through offensive counter air I would imagine a naval interdiction campaign (maritime patrollers and submarines) and a SOF recon/raiding campaign supported by airstrikes might induce a surrender from local commanders. Otherwise an airborne/airmobile operation off the LHD's and Curtain, perhaps supported by M-1's once a beach was secured, would do the trick.

Incidentally, does anybody know if there are any Army reserve units on these islands? Having a section manning a couple of GPMG emplacements on the airfield during times of tension would be a discrete way of protecting against an Entebbe style raid.

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Aussiegunneragain 7/19/2009 8:43:28 AM

BTW I'd like to clarify that I wasn't suggesting that the navy escort shipping into the island with just a patrol boat, they would use major units for that.

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