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RNZN to use RAN tankers to fill capability gap

by Andrew McLaughlin
written by Andrew McLaughlin
Chief Petty Officer Communication and Information Systems Leighton Potts communicates via signal lamp with HMAS Sirius, while conducting a replenishment at sea in the Arafura Sea during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2017. *** Local Caption *** An Australian Defence Force (ADF) Joint Task Group, Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2017, participating in a series of key military exercises throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Running from September to November, Indo-Pacific Endeavour will focus on enhancing military cooperation with some of Australia’s key regional partners including Indonesia, Japan, India, Malaysia, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Brunei, Timor-Leste, Thailand, Cambodia and the Federated States of Micronesia. The deployment, in planning for more than 12 months, is part of ongoing efforts to enhance and develop strong positive relations with regional militaries through both dialogue and practical activities. The Joint Task Group will demonstrate the ADF's ability to operate across the full spectrum of military operations, from high-end military capabilities such as anti-submarine warfare to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. HMAS Adelaide will be accompanied at various stages of the deployment by HMAS Melbourne, HMAS Darwin, HMAS Toowoomba, HMAS Parramatta, and HMAS Sirius, making it the biggest coordinated task group deployment in many decades. Indo-Pacific Endeavour will also involve service personnel from the Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force and include Defence civilians, ADF helicopters, and fixed wing aircraft.

HMAS Sirius (pictured) and HMAS Success will provide replenishment-at-sea services to the Royal New Zealand Navy until HNZS Aotearoa enter service in 2020.

 

The Royal New Zealand Navy will retire its replenishment tanker, HMNZS Endeavour on December 22, and will be provided with at-sea replenishment services by the Royal Australian Navy until its new vessel enters service in 2020.

HMNZS Endeavour completed its last overseas deployment in June, and returned to her home port of Taranaki for the last time in November. The new vessel, to be named HMNZS Aotearoa is currently under construction in South Korea.

“The Royal New Zealand Navy works on a reciprocal basis with the Royal Australian Navy and other allied navies when it comes to providing fleet fuelling services and other operational requirements in circumstances such as this,” a NZDF spokesman told Radio NZ. “This shared resourcing is very common amongst partner navies.”

But the capability gap has been criticised by Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s director of the Australian defence and strategy, Andrew Davies.

“We’ve had some examples here in Australia where our air force has gone several years without an air-to-air refueling capability for example because the project was slow to deliver it,” he said. “You adapt, you make the best of what you’ve got and you cross your fingers and hope that you don’t really need the capability that you’re doing without.

“The good news is that the Royal Australian Navy has a base on the east coast as well as on the west coast which means that we have two at sea refueling tankers for ourselves. That means that there is a Royal Australian Navy re-fueler on the New Zealand side of the continent which means the two navies will be able to coordinate and hopefully fuel will be there when needed.”

New Zealand provided its amphibious transport vessel, HMNZS Canterbury to lead a joint Australia-New Zealand task force from 2011 when the RAN’s two amphibious ship, HMAS Kanimbla and Manoora were withdrawn from service due to severe corrosion and machinery failures.

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