212 man,
Re scenarios requiring such approaches to ships, I agree they would be isolated in nature. Having said that, we did practice such scenarios both as single ship and formation assaults fairly regularly. Why? By way of an example only, ships and the like allow for relatively easy accomodation overflow when all other accomodation options have been utlised e.g. the Sydney Olympics. Lot's of people concentrated together potentially constitute a high profile target for bad guys. There are a number of other scenarios which I won't go into here.
TOT,
I think I get where you were going with your thoughts. I was involved with the '96 accident and subsequent BOI so I won't provide my thoughts on the process then or its outcomes except as to say that elements of the Spec Ops (CT as it was known then) capability have improved as a result. Of note, the '96 BOI was headed up initially by a Brig and the entire board consisted of military officers. Recently, the ADF (as a result of real / perceived transparency within its judicial system) has changed its approach in this regard and the current BOI is being headed up by a civvy. Perhaps this will alleviate you of what I think are some of your concerns.
P68
