The change is still a plan at the moment - it will be some time before it is implemented. If there are enough, all the vehicles in the troops will be gun cars. Since there are no more cav scouts, the need for the PC has very much diminished. The Land 400 vehicle will combine the armament of the ASLAV-25 with the carrying capacity of the PC, so it will be moot by then anyway.
That is more or less happening. 2 RAR will lose its rifle companies, and only be manned to form the HQ, logistic specialists and pre-landing force of the amphibious force. The ground combat element (ie, the infantry, armour etc) will simply come from the ready brigade. This will save a few hundred positions able to be redirected elsewhere.
Manpower - there just aren't enough warm bodies to go around.
The reserve are tasked to provide scouts to the ACR as part of the Total Force concept. They will integrate with them on the larger exercises during the readying, and then be available on a longer NTM during the ready.
t68
Well-Known Member
How exactly wil the reserve force traing intergrate into the reguler force when 90%attending 1x night a week 1x weekend a month and 2x weeks a year but from memory as part timers are limited to 100 days a year unless they are taking a full time postion in the short term.
That may have all changed since my time in the 80/90's
A lot has changed since the 80s/90s.
Essentially, however, the paired reserve brigades are tasked to provide the scouts for their linked regular brigade. The reserve brigades will train up their own scouts on their own training activities, and then combine with the regular brigade for whichever exercises are required. Exactly which exercises they support will be based on negotiation between the regular brigade and reserve brigades, pending available resources/availability etc.
The key is, the scouts aren't actually integrated into the regular units. They conduct their own training and raise the capability, which then inserts when required into the regular unit.
Essentially, however, the paired reserve brigades are tasked to provide the scouts for their linked regular brigade. The reserve brigades will train up their own scouts on their own training activities, and then combine with the regular brigade for whichever exercises are required. Exactly which exercises they support will be based on negotiation between the regular brigade and reserve brigades, pending available resources/availability etc.
The key is, the scouts aren't actually integrated into the regular units. They conduct their own training and raise the capability, which then inserts when required into the regular unit.
So is the manning issue retention problems? Not enough people enlisting? Or is it the government not wanting to spend more money to fix manning issues? Surely if the single biggest issue is not enough bodies to get the job done, the problem would be solved by increasing the end strength of the Army (that is of course there are enough people joining in the first place).
It just boggles the mind that the increase in funding to 2% GDP come 2020/21 is not enough to fix, I would think, a pretty damn big issue.
It just boggles the mind that the increase in funding to 2% GDP come 2020/21 is not enough to fix, I would think, a pretty damn big issue.
There is no real problem with recruitment or retention. The problem is there is a government imposed manning cap on the Army - about 30 500. A few extra positions are coming with new capabilities announced in the white paper, but other than that manning is not increasing no matter what the budget is. Army has no say in what their manning is, only how it is employed. When balancing the capabilities, the powers that be decided that scouts in the ARA weren't important enough to keep.
It's also why a lot of the 'let's buy this bit of kit' discussions aren't always very useful, as there would be no one to man the extra kit.
t68
Well-Known Member
Ignoring the buget implications is the recruit and retention levels high enough if the goverment wanted to expand could it be meet to match the increase?
totally agree, though some equipment acquisitions actually result in lower manpower requirements even while increasing capability. The flip side of course is that high tech equipment requires a higher percentage of skilled and experienced operators and maintainers, who take longer and are harder to train, then are more attractive to civilian employers.
The above is more the case with the RAN than the Army, or even the RAAF, but would have an impact on the enabling side of the equation. As I understand it CAV has lower manpower requirements than Infantry, even when they have their scouts (assault troops in my day) while Armoured/Tanks have lower manpower again. I could be wrong but I believe SPG batteries require fewer personnel than towed, while the new M-777, still provides a manpower saving over the M-198.
It is a catch 22 in that successive governments choose to apply manpower caps while also failing to invest in the sort of capabilities that would mitigate the cap. I also understand that part of the issue is the government choose (or at least used) to include personnel under training under the manpower caps. This used to be the case on submarines where ships staff who were not yet qualified in their nominated roles, let alone effective, were counted against the totals causing much extra work and stress for the qualified senior sailors, hence higher separation rates. I can imagine similar happens in the army though I doubt not being able to replace a single qualified technician could prevent an army unit being deployed.
For the combat arms, absolutely. Army has zero problem recruiting for the combat arms, and probably never will. The difficulty is recruitng for the technical trades and other esoteric occupations. This is partly ignorance on behalf of the wider public (most people think everyone in the army is infantry, and are unaware the trades exist) and a lack of interest in those jobs anyway (more young men want to grow up and to join the army to run around and shoot guns, rather than join the army and fix things).
You can easily see this is army's recruiting ads. Try to find an advertisement that is aimed at recruiting people into the combat arms - they don't exist. Army can spend zero dollars on those jobs and people are lining up out the door anyway. All the money is being spent on recruiting for technical jobs, women and indigenous. That's it. All anyone at the strategic level cares about is how many women and how many indigenous the army has.
Have a close look at recruiting ads. You will see that almost everyone shown in the ads is a woman, or if male they will be from an obvious racial or cultural minority. It's like white guys don't exist. You won't see any ads that imply there is an enemy, as that may deter women (in the rare occasions that weapons are carried, they will be slung). You will never see a female wearing camouflage cream in the ads, as that might deter women. Whether this is wise or proper, I'll leave to others to judge.
I can't help but feel that given the expectations of the army there needs to be an increasing in manning to 35,000.
That would (very rough estimate) allow for 4 Beersheba brigades (no 2RAR), appropriately sized enabling brigades (including allowances for a more distributed battlefield and resultant increased support needs) and some new, though not yet planned, capabilities that I feel are inevitable - such as increases in army aviation.
35,000 may well still be unders but I remain of the view that an army of 4s should be the standard, with anything less the exception.
Regards,
Massive
An increase in manning to 35 000 wouldn't allow for four Beersheeba brigades. You're effectively increasing the size of the army by 33% while increasing manning by only 17%. It would go pretty close to allowing the current orbat to be fleshed out to full strength though. Army did expect Government to provide a lot more extra manning with the white paper to do just that, but it didn't happen. As it is though, about an extra 1500 soldiers are provided for in the white paper, which should see the army grow to ~32 000 by mid next decade.
As I think I've mentioned before though, this problem is never going to go away - no matter what the manning is, people are always going to want a bit more. When the Army was 25 000 strong, leaders would have been saying that if manning increased to 30 000, then all problems would be solved. Now that we have 30 000, an army of 35 000 is the answer. If we increased to 35 000, you can bet your bottom dollar that everyone would be calling for 40 000 within 5 years. The imperative to maximise combat power within the manning cap will always remain.
Having said that though, there is a minimum size needed to man all the capabilities the army is expected to provide, and it is bigger than the current size. It's an enduring problem for the ADF - trying to provide a 'full-service' ADF with such small manning.
This is kind of the core of the issue isn't it.
A balance between defining the capability you want and then working out the numbers you need, and restricting numbers so that capability is delivered in a lean manner.
I would prefer the former - what numbers are required for a properly enabled army of four Beersheeba brigades.
As you say though, preventing creep in numbers would be the next issue - bringing in the need to the second approach.
Thanks again for your considered reply - always greatly appreciated.
Massive
What's the fourth brigade for? It would either mess up the raise, train, sustain cycle of the existing three combat brigades, only increase the number of available brigades once every three years, or be split into three, like 2RAR is to perhaps provide an extra battlegroup to each existing brigade.
Only the last option would really have any real utility but even then would likely make more sense if instead of forming a fourth brigade with all the associated overheads, the manpower is instead used to either increase the number of subordinate units in each existing combat brigade, increase the size and combat power of those units, or create additional enabling capabilities to support all three brigades, i.e. an amphibious ACR/Engineer/Aviation group and an Airborne/Airmobile ACR/Engineer/Aviation group.
A fourth brigade would allow a reset, readying, ready, deploy cycle instead of the current reset, readying, ready cycle. At the moment the ready brigade has to do all the deployments, which means there isn't actually that much left behind for unexpected contingencies. There are currently three battle groups in a brigade - two of them do a six month tour each, and the third is the ready battlegroup. There's nothing left over for anything else. A fourth brigade would allow scheduled deployments to occur with one brigade, while a second was kept ready for contingencies.
As stated though, the combat brigades are not the priority for extra manning (hence why they are shrinking). While the combat brigades are three deep, all the enabling brigades are only two deep (two ARH squadrons, two MRH squadrons, two Air-Land batteries, two STA batteries etc etc). When doing brigade exercises/planning, the enablers always culminate well before the manoeuvre elements do. That is where the priority for manning lies.
t68
Well-Known Member
Just been flicking thru flight global from a link in another thread but I came across this in regards to the ARH. While no conformation is directed towards the Commonwealth.
Could a MKIII EuroTiger be in the running for tiger replacement,surley we would not go down that again and could you trust what they say?
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/a...r-way-on-tiger-mk-iii-attack-helicopt-432948/
Could a MKIII EuroTiger be in the running for tiger replacement,surley we would not go down that again and could you trust what they say?
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/a...r-way-on-tiger-mk-iii-attack-helicopt-432948/
same reasons as to why SOCOMD cycle 4 - actually allows greater flexibility in the rotation cycle
There was a story I caught the end of on the news last night on the Apache at Avalon. I did not hear the whole thing but I believe they said Boeing had advised the ADF that should they place an order deliveries of the AH-64E could begin to the ADF within two years.
Did anyone else catch the story or know any more on it, I have had look but couldn't find anything on it elsewhere.
Did anyone else catch the story or know any more on it, I have had look but couldn't find anything on it elsewhere.