Australian Army’s littoral transformation is the right move, experts say

SINGAPORE — The Australian army’s recently created Littoral Manoeuvre Group is the correct move for the country’s armed forces, experts told Breaking Defense, especially as tensions continue in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia announced plans to transform its ground forces into a littoral-focused force in its 2024 National Defence Strategy, which called for an army “optimised for littoral manoeuvre with a long range land and maritime strike capability.” 

In March, Australian Army established the Littoral Manoeuvre Group to strengthen the service’s “ability to move, deploy and support land forces across coastal and island regions.”

But as budget cuts to some programs loom to make room for AUKUS spending, experts warn that the unit needs to be adequately resourced to ensure it can fulfil that role.

In the wake of increased spending on commitments for the trilateral agreement, the country is conducting a budget review to free up funds for the acquisition of nuclear submarines, even as the country is pledging to bring defense spending up to three percent of its gross domestic product in the coming years.

Last month, the Littoral Manoeuvre Group completed a large-scale amphibious exercise during a training event with Indonesia.

John Blaxland, a professor of international security and intelligence studies at Australian National University, told Breaking Defense that an exercise like that suggests that Australia envisages working with allies and partners to deploy forces to observe and safeguard key littoral sites, as well as control maritime chokepoints in a conflict.

“The Littoral Manoeuvre Group is a radical organisational design concept for Australia which reflects a significant reorientation towards being able to rapidly deploy and support forces operating over considerable distances alongside partners,” Blaxland said, adding that the group harks back to World War II, when Australian forces demonstrated mastery of combined arms warfare in the littorals. 

Independent Australian naval commentator Alex Luck agreed, calling the focus on littoral operations “a step in the right direction.” 

“Australia faces a difficult geographic challenge in its near abroad, in light of a rising Chinese military capability expanding into the wider Pacific and Indian Ocean theatres. Therefore the Australian Army will have to rely on significant naval mobility allowing for flexible coverage of maritime spaces including islands directly under Australian control and maritime approaches around Australian territory,” he added. 

He also stressed the need to work with Australia’s neighbors and partners such as the US and New Zealand “in securing maritime features around Australia, but particularly across Pacific Island spaces.”

The Littoral Manoeuvre Group will include three landing craft battalions, each operating four medium and two heavy landing craft. Both Blaxland and Luck agree that outfitting the group with these landing craft is crucial.

Australia awarded contracts to Austal Australia for Land Craft Medium in December 2025 and for Landing Craft Heavy in February. LCM will have a cargo capacity of 80 tonnes (88 tons) while the LCH will be able to transport 200 soldiers and six M1 Abrams tanks or nine Redback infantry vehicles.

Luck said the introduction of the two new classes of landing craft would introduce capabilities that the Australian Army has not operated in recent times. 

“The LCH in particular, in conjunction with the Royal Australian Navy’s own amphibious assets, represents an unprecedented new resource the Australian Army will need time to further refine and develop,” he said. 

“It is therefore important to apply a step by step approach maturing these new amphibious capabilities to allow for further refinement, including allocation of additional resources further strengthening the new LMG concept,” he continued. 

And while Australia’s plans to equip the new group as outlined in Australia’s defense Integrated Investment Program appear to be sufficient, Blaxland cautioned that those plans would take time to come to fruition and was dependent on whether funding is available to follow through. 

“The plan appears to be to expand significantly to help move whole battalion groups and supporting elements to work alongside partner forces in the ‘littorals’ across the archipelago. But with significant funding constraints, this is not likely to reach full operational capacity for some years yet,” he said.