See August 25, 2020's https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-25/scott-morrison-announces-$1b-defence-stimulus-package/12595200
"including the earlier than expected construction of a large hull vessel for the Pacific."
More see earlier November 9, 2018's https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/australia-to-build-new-ship-aid-smes-in-new-pacific-focus
"The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has committed the government to building a new, large naval ship dedicated to humanitarian work and disaster response among a suite of policies aimed at our Pacific Island neighbours."
COMMENT
As well as responses to warfare hospital ships are established methods of soft power projection. This is particularly to aid small islands and larger poor nations in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Also bushfires up and down the coast of southeastern Australia in 2019-2020 established a need for short-notice humanitarian seaborne assistance (eg. to evacuate Australians from coastal towns under threat from bushfires).
There are regular events like cyclones, earthquakes and Tsunamis. Help to islands suffering
COVID-19 may be an irregular crisis.
Here is a list of Current Hospital Ships with the US and China now in competition to an extent. Not to be outdone Australia wants to acquire a specialised vessel.
For Australia a semi-flat-top ship of over 20,000 tons with helicopter and maybe landing craft is possible. It may be converted/modified from a civilian hull or new build.
The Australian government may be wary of raising the hopes of Australian shipbuilding and maritime unions that a high wage entitlement to again produce and crew civilian ships may begin. Things can get highly political.
"including the earlier than expected construction of a large hull vessel for the Pacific."
More see earlier November 9, 2018's https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/australia-to-build-new-ship-aid-smes-in-new-pacific-focus
"The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has committed the government to building a new, large naval ship dedicated to humanitarian work and disaster response among a suite of policies aimed at our Pacific Island neighbours."
COMMENT
As well as responses to warfare hospital ships are established methods of soft power projection. This is particularly to aid small islands and larger poor nations in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Also bushfires up and down the coast of southeastern Australia in 2019-2020 established a need for short-notice humanitarian seaborne assistance (eg. to evacuate Australians from coastal towns under threat from bushfires).
There are regular events like cyclones, earthquakes and Tsunamis. Help to islands suffering
COVID-19 may be an irregular crisis.
Here is a list of Current Hospital Ships with the US and China now in competition to an extent. Not to be outdone Australia wants to acquire a specialised vessel.
For Australia a semi-flat-top ship of over 20,000 tons with helicopter and maybe landing craft is possible. It may be converted/modified from a civilian hull or new build.
The Australian government may be wary of raising the hopes of Australian shipbuilding and maritime unions that a high wage entitlement to again produce and crew civilian ships may begin. Things can get highly political.
4 comments:
I feel that in the last decade, there's been a re-think of HDR situations in SEA towards smaller emergency medical packages, especially Indonesia and the Phillipines, which are extensive island archipelagos where a natural disaster can be spread out across multiple islands.
The Indonesian Navy, for example, has not only built up medium amphibious ships with 4 Makassar-class LPDs, they're adding two similar hospital ships as well as updating their lighter amphib forces with a new 2,000 ton LST with helideck, of which 6 will be in commission.
With the mix of large and small vessels, a HDR response can be tailored to the situation, say a typhoon affecting a group of islands. A big LSD can be loaded up with a medical battalion to act as a main treatment node, sat a town with a high casualty rate, while a smaller LSTs can fan out to visit smaller villages along a coast, carry a medical company to perform basic casualty response, and be used as a helipad for ferrying patients to the bigger ship.
And while defence watchers tend to be fixated on the Singapore Navy's upcoming JMMS program (The earlier Endurance 160 design was shown with a hospital deck: https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz57/lionnoisy3/35deckmainendurance.png), the RSN has actually improved HDR with the Independence LMVs which can carry medical modules and up to 8 20-foot containers.
Watch this video up to 2:20.
https://youtu.be/Gw-2XdSxLpA
I bring this up because Australia already has a perfect design for a small HDR ship in the West Pacific, which is the Austal Spearhead-class T-EPF
https://www.austal.com/ships/expeditionary-fast-transport-t-epf
In fact Austal already has a hospital version designed:
https://news.usni.org/2018/07/16/35097
The standard 2,500ton USN T-EPF has a cost of $180 million, and if, for example, the RAN acquired four similar ships they should be able to cover the West Pacific region quite well, and operate in shallow, austere harbours. not just as HDR platforms but for various other tasks, from supply runs to supporting joint military training and exercise. Each T-EPF should easily accomodate an Australian army medical company and all their equipment and supplies.
Hi Shawn C
A very good comment, balancing analysis and details.
I'll use it next week for a couple of articles: one about Australia and another about Indonesia.
Regards
Pete
Thanks Pete,
I was in my cool down week from my regular monthly deadlines (lifestyle magazine editor) but I’ve always been big in fact checking.
A great resource was David Boey’s book on Singapore’s HDR efforts during the 2004 Tsunami in Aceh province as it highlights a lot of the uncertainty HDR responders have face, and that was the first time Singapore packed a 8800ton Endurance Class to the bulkhead with equipment.
https://www.mindef.gov.sg/oms/dam/publications/eBooks/More_eBooks/ReachingOutOFE.pdf
Hi Shawn C
Yes the Humanitarian Disaster Response (HDR) to the 2004 Tsunami was huge.
China had relatively little sealift capacity to offer in 2004 (eg. helicopter flat-tops, semi-flat-tops and landing craft, on beach LSTs and hospital ships) compared to the US. So China has at least 3 HDR sea projects to catch up in this soft power for regional friends arena - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_ship#Current_hospital_ships :
- Zhuanghe – a converted container ship capable of being fitted out for various roles. When fitted with medical facilities it is officially classed as a "medical evacuation ship".
- Daishandao, also known as Peace Ark in peacetime – contains 300 hospital beds, 20 intensive care units and 8 operating theatres. and
- Project 320 – Former Russian hospital ship Ob built in 1980, purchased by China in 2007.
Like the international search for MH370 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370 there's nothing like an international peace action instead of war.
Cheers
Pete
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