HMAS Adelaide (III)

HMAS Adelaide (III) was commissioned at a ceremony at Fleet Base East, Sydney on 4 December 2015.

Built by BAE Systems Australia and Navantia, the Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD) are the largest ships ever constructed for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The ships provide the Australian Defence Force (ADF) with one of the most capable and sophisticated air-land-sea amphibious deployment systems in the world.

The ship's roles are to:

• embark, transport and deploy an embarked force (Army in the case of the ADF but could equally be an allied Army or Marines), along with their equipment and aviation units
• carry out/support humanitarian missions.

The ships have a conventional steel monohull design with the superstructure located on the starboard side of the flight deck. The ships have the shallowest possible draft to allow operation in secondary ports and harbours, and in the shallow waters common in coastal regions.

There are four main decks: 

• heavy vehicle 
• accommodation 
• hangar and light vehicles 
• flight deck.

The flight deck has been configured with six spots on the port side for medium sized aircraft such as the MRH-90 or Blackhawk, which allows for simultaneous take-off and landing operations; alternatively it can support simultaneous take-off and landing operations of four CH-47 Chinooks.

There are two aircraft elevators that can accommodate medium sized helicopters, with one able to accommodate larger helicopters such as CH 47. Both aircraft elevators service the hangar and light vehicle/cargo deck and the fwd elevator is dual roled for stores and personnel.

Between the flight deck and the accommodation deck is a contiguous hangar and light vehicle deck; the hanger (990m2) occupying the after section of the deck while the light vehicle deck (1880m2) is located on the forward section of the deck. The hanger can accommodate up to 8 medium sized helicopters with 18 medium sized helicopters able to be accommodated if the light vehicle deck is also used.

The command and control (C2) and combat systems consist of:

• combat management system
• extensive ICT infrastructure 
• 3D air search radar, helicopter control and surface radar, and navigation radar
• identification friend or foe (IFF) capability
• electronic support measures (ESM)/electronic countermeasures (ECM) suite
• integrated communications system
• electro-optical and IR surveillance systems.

The LHD will be fitted with a number of defensive systems including:

• Anti-Torpedo Towed Defense System (Nixie)
• Four 20 mm automated guns
• 6 x 12.7 mm machine guns
• Active missile decoy system - Nulka (weight and space reserve)

Specifications