Hello, guys! I have some questions about the Australian Army. I appologize, if they have been discussed previously. I tried to find some info about it, but it is a hard thing to do in such a long topic.
1) The Plan Beersheba states, that the three active brigades (1st, 3rd and 7th) are to be converted to "become fundamentally alike in structure"
What do the planers envision, when they say that? The three brigades are combined arms brigades already. They have all the forces categories - cavalry; infantry; artillery; engineers; signals; logistics. But other than that the three brigades are very different from one another. To me it seems, that the 1st is a heavy formation for high intensity conflicts, the 7th is a motorised formation for low intensity conflicts and the 3rd is to be made of rapid deployment units to enforce either the 1st or the 7th brigades.
2) What was the justification to discontinue the airborne role or the 3rd Bn, RAR and leave the army without that capability? Afterall now that the army is working on an amphibious warfare battalion under the 3rd Brigade to me it seems, that a brigade of an airborne battalion; an amphibious APC battalion and a Bushmaster IMV airmobile-qualified battalion as a follow-up force to either of the previous two would have been a very nice combination. I doubt that the only reason for "cuting the wings" of the 3RAR is money, especially considering the amount of money the ADF is spending these days. To me it seems very strange and unjustified to greatly enhance the airlift capabilities with C-17s, C-130s, C-27s, air tankers, new troop carrying helicopters and at the same time to scrap the airborne capability.
3) So now it is clear, that the 2RAR is becoming an amphibious infantry battalion. What are the plans for the 1RAR and the 3RAR?
4) I think I have seen somewhere in the public Plan Beersheba documents about the army planing to have 9 regular infantry battalions, but I only count 7. What are the plans about the other two, or am I mistaken about the number?
5) What is the rationale behind the artillery reorganisation? Why is there only one fire, but three observation batteries in each artillery regiment? Do the observation batteries have a secondary role of mortar batteries? Our armed force are traditionally trained in lines with the Soviet army art of operations, so I am maybe unable to think about force structures out of the box, but to me field artillery battalions should include three identical fire batteries to provide continuous fire support, so while one battery is firing, another is maneuvering or taking positions to open fire and the third battery is leaving its positions after a fire barrage. Is that the envisioned mode of operations of the fire battery and its three fire troops?
6) Are there plans for a self-propelled howitzers acquisition for the artillery regiment of the 1st Brigade, because naturally towed artillery greatly reduces the mobility of a mechanised brigade? I think I have seen plans for the Australian Army to acquire CAESAR (or alike) artillery systems. Are these plans scraped, as it is buying M777A2 towed systems?
and one last question, a bit unrelated. For that I apologize, but still:
7) I see that the New Zealand Army has reverted its infantry battalions back to motorised units and it has only one mechanised unit. At the same time it is selling surplus NZLAVs. Does this mean, that the NZ Army is using the Australian 2nd Cavalry Regiment as a model for the Queen Alexandra's Mounted Rifles, because IIRC selling the surplus NZLAVs would leave their army with as much machines, as the complement of the Australian regiment?
Thank you!
