Exclusive report: Inside HMAS Canberra (Australia's largest ever warship)

news.com.au ^ | 11th May 2013 | Ian McPhedran

[naturalman1975]

ON the bridge wing of the navy's newest and biggest ever warship, HMAS Canberra, the vast scale of the amphibious assault ship is dramatic and stark.

With Melbourne city silhouetted across a shimmering Port Phillip Bay, the ship's expansive 32-metre wide flight deck stretches for 203 metres as pleasure yachts bob at their moorings more than 30 metres below.

Such is the sheer size of HMAS Canberra that the antennae on top of the ship's stern mast will touch the deck of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

This Canberra is known as a Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) and she dwarfs anything else in the Royal Australian Navy fleet. She is the first of a $3 billion two-ship build. The second, HMAS Adelaide, will arrive early next year.

It is Australian engineering and technical expertise at the BAE Systems' Williamstown shipyard that is putting the finishing touches on vessels that will alter the nation's power projection capabilities forever.

.....

Captain Sadleir says that having the levers of the nation's first truly global military capability is a huge honour.

"This is an amazing self-sufficient capability, but our biggest challenge will be understanding just what we can do with it," he says.

Navy doctrine will change significantly with the arrival of the two LHDs and three Adelaide-built Hobart Class Air Warfare Destroyers, the most lethal warships ever to serve in the RAN.

The two amphibious assault ships and the AWDs will be home ported at Garden Island in Sydney, but the big ships will spend a great deal of time operating with the 2nd Battalion Royal Australian regiment out of Townsville or representing the nation around the region or the world.

[Dundee]

I've known Jonathan Sadleir since he came out here from the RCN and I've done a lot of work with him in his previous posting. A very driven and focused officer, this posting will test him like no other. If he does well driving Canberra he'll pick up his first star (potentially as COMFLOT or COMWAR depending on the posting cycles).

[41Thunder]

Thanks for the photos. My brother used to call the Canberra “One Badass Ship”! He served aboard the Canberra from 1962-1966.

[Stonewall Jackson]

In early August 1945, there was some debate about naming a US warship after HMAS Perth, after escaped POW's finally told the story of her heroic last stand at the Battle of the Sunday Strait, fighting alongside USS Houston. But the war ended and warship construction virtually ceased before anything could come of this discussion.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Spanish LHD, SPS Juan Carlos I, alongside the Spanish Carrier, SPS Principe de Asturias. The RAN’s LHD is based on the SPS Juan Carlos I.

HMAS Canberra