An Australian-designed amphibious vessel with the bow of a ship and a ramp at the stern is now the logistics linchpin for the US Marine Corps operating in the archipelagic region stretching across Australia’s northern approaches.
The 73 metre Matilda 1, a stern-landing vessel (SLV) design from Queensland naval architects SeaTransport, has been in USMC hands since July, following its construction in the Indonesian shipbuilding precinct of Batam.
Under charter with the Marines for the next three years, Matilda 1 is purpose-built to land troops, vehicles and equipment across shorelines throughout the Indo-Pacific. The vessel’s shallow draft, wide ramp and long range enable it to access remote beaches up to 4000 nautical miles away, making it a highly useful capability.
Homeported in Darwin to maximise its strategic impact and support the annual 2500-strong Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, Matilda 1 now provides a vital logistics link for the USMC’s Stand-In Forces; small, mobile units that are the cornerstone of how the Marines intend to fight within contested maritime environments.
The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) on July 17 said that, from its Darwin base, the SLV will be used for operations throughout the western Pacific and Oceania, plugging a gap in the Marines’ littoral manoeuvre and logistics capabilities. The vessel will also be used for experimentation around logistics-centric manoeuvre and sustainment, the insights gathered leading to the refinement of tactics, techniques and procedures about how to operate within littoral and archipelagic environments. The charter of Matilda 1 is seen by the Marines as “a critical bridge to future naval capabilities”. The experimentation is expected to shape future operational requirements and provide critical data to inform the final design of the US Navy’s recently selected 100 metre-long Landing Ship Medium, or LSM. The LSM, a design from Damen of the Netherlands, is the same baseline vessel selected by the Australian Army to fulfil its heavy landing craft requirement under Project LAND8710.
“The SLV gives the Marine Corps a hands-on opportunity to learn how shallow-draft, high-capacity shore-to-shore vessels can sustain distributed forces across the littorals without relying on fixed ports or large amphibious ships,” Aaron Hatfield, maritime program manager of the science and technology division within MCWL tells The Australian.
“We are using Matilda 1 to test concepts for contested logistics and littoral manoeuvre, and to generate the data that will inform future requirements and how our Stand-In Forces are sustained in the Indo-Pacific.
“The value of chartering a platform like this is speed: it lets us put a real vessel to sea now, learn quickly and reduce risk for the capabilities that follow.”
The USMC’s high opinion of Matilda 1 rests largely on the vessel’s performance figures: it can sail from Darwin to Manila and back again carrying a 550-tonne payload; it can survive seas up to Sea State 7; and it has a cargo deck the size of two tennis courts. For the Marines, this translates into its being able to deliver up to 18 HIMARS rocket launchers or a dozen 32-tonne 8×8 Amphibious Combat Vehicles.
In July, Matilda 1 successfully underwent beach landing trials on Dundee Beach southwest of Darwin, where the vessel demonstrated its ability to de-beach without tug assistance or hull damage.
A week prior, Matilda 1 passed dry berthing tests in the mangrove mudflats of Hudson Creek, a Darwin estuary.
The Australian understands that while Australian Army teams will spend several weeks embarked on Matilda 1 as a “learning exercise” it currently has no plans to acquire an SLV of its own, despite being chronically short of littoral manoeuvre vessels and heavy landing craft.
Ian Bostock is the founder and editor of Defence Technology Review magazine.