Article in today's Army News
Current Edition : Army News Paper : Department of Defence from Chief of Army on our Combat Brigades on pages 10 and 11:
Each Brigade will have
Two Cavalry Squadrons;
One Infantry Battalion mounted in APCs;
One Infantry Battalion mounted in PMVs.
Rationale is for better integrated mounted capability and joint operations with other forces.
The Australian.
DEFENCE Forces gear up to combat regional terror threats
Australian troops hit the beaches during Exercise Talisman Sabre, at Shoalwater Bay, in central Queensland.
RORY CALLINANThe Australian12:00AM July 14, 2017
It’s the largest amphibious assault for Australian troops since WWII but the generals are hoping Exercise Talisman Sabre 2017 delivers another first in proving capability to deploy an emergency “9/11” style force to respond to insurgencies or other regional emergencies.
With a deadly battle raging in the southern Philippines between government troops and Islamic State fighters, and North Korea’s military reach increasing, the joint exercise is a dry run for the Aust*ralian military to deploy a force modelled on US Marines expedit*ionary units.
Says Major General Fergus “Gus” McLachlan: “This is the sort of capability that government could deploy around the region.
“So instead of just flying in a small training team, we can take a combat team and trail alongside our partners Malaysia, Singapore and up into Hawaii, and so we will be able to bring a capacity into the region that is unprecedented.”
Is Plan Beersheba dead?
May be it should be.
The first of the above quotes hints at why it should be and the second quote offers what is likely a more realistic alternative.
Battalions to no longer be alike but to specialise.
Maybe the Brigades should specialise?
But doesn't that defeat the whole point of Plan Beersheba?
So what is the alternative?
Lets call it "Plan Kapyong".
Instead of the Brigade, the Australian Army should focus on Battalion based Battle Groups. Lets call it an Australian Battle Group (ABG). These would be a combined arms fighting force based around an infantry Battalion. Very much along the lines of a USMC MEU. The one BIG difference would be that there would be no attached aviation element. Australia simply does not have enough Tigers, Chinooks, MRH-90s etc to assign each of the ABGs a permanent Aviation element. An aviation element would be attached when a ABG was deployed.
So what would an Australian Battle Group look like?
Lets assume 2RAR is not going to exist as a full infantry Battalion.
That leaves 6 regular infantry Battalions. Therefore the Army would consist of 6 ABGs.
Each ABG would have the following composition:
Command Element
Tank Force
Cavalry Squadron
IFV Squadron
Infantry Battalion
Artillery Battery
Combat Engineer Element
Combat Service Support Element
A few points about some of the subunits:
Command Element would basically be half of current Brigade Headquarters.
No increased manning.
Tank Force: Current plans call for 14 tanks in each Brigade for a total of 42. Dividing that by six gives 7 tanks per ABG. That is an awkward number. Instead increase that to 9 tanks per ABG. 1 Command tank and two tanks troops. That allows an ABG to form three company battle groups each supported by 3 tanks.
An extra 12 tanks (56 staff) would need to be manned across Army.
Each Tank Force would have one attached Armoured Recovery Vehicle.
Cavalry squadron: Each current Brigade is scheduled to have 2 cavalry squadrons and command ASLAVs/ New CRVs for a total of around 50.
An ABG would have 1 Cavalry Squadron and half as many command ASLAVs/new CRVs for a total of 25. No change in total numbers.
IFV Squadron. Current Brigades are planned to have around 108 tracked M113AS4s/IFVs attached. So each Australian Battle Group would have half as many or 54 M113AS4s/IFVs attached. No change in total numbers.
Artillery Battery. Army currently has 3 Artillery Regiments with 3 batteries of 4 guns for a total of 36 guns.
Each ABG battery would be increased to 6 guns. 6X6 equals 36 guns. No change in total numbers.
So an ABG would be:
Infantry Battalion
9 Tanks
25 ASLAVs/CRVs
50 APC/IFV
6 M777s
Numerous Hawkeis and Bushmasters.
But what if Government DOES want a BRIGADE deployed?
Then TWO ABGs would be deployed and a Reserve battle group could still be attached.
Its all happening here haha
