Australia behind other nations in amphibious naval capabilities: report

Australia still has "a long way to go" if its navy is to be considered ready for future challenges, a leading research institute said on Wednesday.

The government think-tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), has said that despite key purchases of two, new multi-billion dollar multi-role vessels, Australia's naval defense still faces "critical" gaps in its forward planning.

The report also detailed the need for specifically-trained seamen for the vessels, as the Indo-Pacific region was becoming a "center of global and strategic power", while climate change could spell the need for more amphibious naval power in the future.

The release said the ships' potential could not properly be realized until there were appropriately-trained personnel to man the two ships.

"Australia's political and military leaders will need to make several key decisions in the next two years if they want to develop an amphibious warfare capability that's relevant and ready for the crises and contingencies of the current and future operating environments," the report said.

"The ADF has yet to approve any conceptual plans for the sustainment of a joint amphibious warfare capability past 2017."

The report said the Australia's amphibious sector was stuck in the past and Australia could not be considered to have world-class amphibious capability, despite the two ships - the HMAS Canberra and the HMAS Adelaide - being the largest Australia has ever commissioned.

The authors said that setting up a dedicated amphibious warfare "center of excellence" would drag Australia's shortfalls out of the 20th century.

"The last time the Australian military took on the full spectrum of amphibious operations was in 1945, and the knowledge and culture that developed across the services to support those operations have long since been lost," the report said. Endi