Quick questioning, does this sort of explanation ever make it beyond defence? ie: to the political class?
It certainly doesn’t reach the ears of our ‘analytic’ class (or is roundly ignored, if it does…)
It certainly doesn’t reach the ears of our ‘analytic’ class (or is roundly ignored, if it does…)
Redrighthand
New Member
Thanks for that. That was really helpful. I guess a question is, then, how much cheaper is the Boxer platform, and how much of those jobs could be done by them? I know it's not a tank, and I understand that tanks are needed, but some of the new IFV's are more capable than last generation tanks. If they're able to do some of the work as well (I'm thinking of those screening roles for example), and if they're substantially cheaper, maybe mixed units of M1's and Boxers could be used. If something is 50% of the price, but 80% as effective, that could work. If it's 50% effective, but 80% of the cost, that's not a solution, to my mind. At any rate, it I didn't realise how few we had. Cheers.
Takao is 99.9% right - the missing .1% being that we have never had enough.
(Bloody auto correct, it keeps changing Takao to takeout)
The discussions on priorities he mentions can get heated; particularly when something one Service or Group, or part of a Service or Group believes is essential gets a priority which means that it will struggle to get funded; all Services and Groups have those. But at the end of the day, the prioritised list represents the best solution the whole Department can come up with. I was Navy, but when I was doing Capability Planning I fought Finance just as hard for armour and transport aircraft as for Navy projects because they were the things the whole Department believed it needed.
Of course, occasionally an urgent requirement arises at short notice, or we get too good an offer to refuse (Choules), both of which can mess up the way in which the priorities are supposed to be funded - that’s life. But I don’t think I ever saw a requirement arise out of nowhere; they were always something we had examined but had had to place, reluctantly, below the line at the time the decisions had to be made.
(Bloody auto correct, it keeps changing Takao to takeout)
The discussions on priorities he mentions can get heated; particularly when something one Service or Group, or part of a Service or Group believes is essential gets a priority which means that it will struggle to get funded; all Services and Groups have those. But at the end of the day, the prioritised list represents the best solution the whole Department can come up with. I was Navy, but when I was doing Capability Planning I fought Finance just as hard for armour and transport aircraft as for Navy projects because they were the things the whole Department believed it needed.
Of course, occasionally an urgent requirement arises at short notice, or we get too good an offer to refuse (Choules), both of which can mess up the way in which the priorities are supposed to be funded - that’s life. But I don’t think I ever saw a requirement arise out of nowhere; they were always something we had examined but had had to place, reluctantly, below the line at the time the decisions had to be made.
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Takao
The Bunker Group
Sort of.
Normally the project has a budget. Through the process they develop options based on the need and the tender options. So LAND 123 will have a proposal that buys 50 widgets, 75 widgets and 100 widgets. There may be some expansion, so buying 50 we give $1b back, buy another 35 and we need another $1b.
Those options are developed in a similar, but much more detailed process. Finance plays a much larger role, sustainment costs, workforce costs (if we bought 130 tanks we'd need to double RAAC...) etc etc. Most of this detail isn't in the final submission, but it is accessible. Ministers have requested the detailed justification before, but normally they are provided with a small package that has Finance and Defence sign-off and a binary option.
Don't know about mixing tracks and wheeled vehicles the only one that do so are the French. Pretty risky considering the difference in mobility. You would end up with Tanks slowing down the wheeled during transport and the wheeled slowing down the tracked in impervious battle terrain.
If it can help we Italians developed the Centauro because of our coastline. Tanks wouldn't arrive in time to oppose an amphibian assault(back in cold war). So the B1 Centauro was developed to use the highway network to fastly arrive and defend the shoreline.
Luckily for us it works pretty well also for low intensity expeditionary. Enough armor against irregular armies and good fire support.
Correct me if I'm mistaken but Australia won't get in a against peer expeditionary mission alone. In that case the tanks would be US ones.
I would understand then a token force as training ground to receive if needed American heavy armor but as a standalone force I wouldn't have considered it a priority.
If it can help we Italians developed the Centauro because of our coastline. Tanks wouldn't arrive in time to oppose an amphibian assault(back in cold war). So the B1 Centauro was developed to use the highway network to fastly arrive and defend the shoreline.
Luckily for us it works pretty well also for low intensity expeditionary. Enough armor against irregular armies and good fire support.
Correct me if I'm mistaken but Australia won't get in a against peer expeditionary mission alone. In that case the tanks would be US ones.
I would understand then a token force as training ground to receive if needed American heavy armor but as a standalone force I wouldn't have considered it a priority.
Quick question, Do we know yet what is happening to out current M1's, And if nothing would their be any slim chance at all in the realm of reality of giving these to say the reserves? Just thinking even without being the most upto date model nor the same as what we will acquire it would get our tank numbers up to where we want them, Though I understand this will depend on training requirements, man power in reserves for them and budget to sustain it.
Takao
The Bunker Group
You are sort of asking what the price difference between a Ferrari and a Semi-trailer is and can we buy more of one or the other. Both do broadly the same thing, transport stuff, but fundamentally differently. A Ferrari can do some of the transport a Semi does, and a Semi can do some of the track work a Ferrari does. But you wouldn't.
It's all secret squirrel stuff about cost and capabilities, but based on project figures you can assume a Boxer is about 75% of an M1. The M1 could do about 60 - 80% of a Boxer's job (any RAAC peeps who want to challenge or correct, please go ahead). The Boxer could do maybe 20 - 25% of an M1s tasks, mainly focused on the lower tempo combat scenario's like Afghanistan (ie, 30 mm will work fine against most targets and the armour fine against most threats, so you may be happy taking additional risk).
Log wise they are probably be about the same, slight edge to the Boxer for fuel consumption. Deployability wise no difference. Mobility wise, it depends, but under combat conditions you'd probably give the edge to the M1.
An IFV is an impressive beastie, but that's not the Boxer. Pedantic I know, but... the Boxer is a reconnaissance platform, the eyes. The M1 is the knuckles on the fist, they punch a foe in the face, hurting and scaring the crap out of them. The rest of the fist is the IFVs and the infantry. The IFV operates beside tanks, in the thick of a fight. The CRV will try and avoid that. Hence LAND 400 being split in two. Our IFV will be decided later. I'd suggest the only difference in that para above would be an IFV could do 40 - 50% of an M1s tasks; the better armour and the tracks makes a big difference.
Ironically, in an urban fight, I might consider preferring a K9 over an M1.....but that's a whole other can of worms, and I'll have both RAA and RAAC coming for me!
A K9, even in as AS9 fitout, doesn’t have the protection levels an M1A2 SEPV3 has, doesn’t have the mobility and whilst it has an impressive firepower, especially for destroying fortifications, buildings etc. should another tank come along, it would be in significant trouble…
Build a better fortification / building demolishing round for the M1A2 and that would be your winner, I suspect…
Thanks Takao,
Fascinating.
Could a US Army Heavy BCT generate 5 battlegroups in this manner? My sense is that they would really only be able to generate 4.
Thanks again,
Massive
Aardvark144
Active Member
Returned to the US to go back into stock for for future upgrade.
Not doubting it but has this officially been confirmed or is it just the expectation?
Aardvark144
Active Member
I have read it; however, for the life of me I cannot find the article. Will keep looking.
Takao
The Bunker Group
You are right, without reinforcement they can only generate four BG.
For us, Bde's are task organised. The force that occupies Enoggera / Lavarack / Robertson/Edinburgh is not a war-fighting formation, it's a force generation formation. You can plug anything into it, although you are probably going to try and keep the number of LTCOL commanders to 4 - 8. 5x BG + 1x CER + 1x Fires Regt + 1 CSSB maximises what the Bde Comd can comfortably command.
You may chose to take less, of course. It may be that we choice to sacrifice one of them. But I think, at the higher levels of war, a combination of the more varied threat and the rate of casualties would force something like a 5 BG force.
I must confess to still being confused as to what we can actually deploy.
The Army structure I understand is still the same as can be found in this attachment. Yep its wiki!
As Army regular brigades are for force generation not deployment, what can we actually deploy?
Appreciate theirs probably some hush hush stuff here, but are we looking at a reinforced battalion sized force or maybe a very small Brigade.
One Infantry Battalion only with support. Is that it
Cheers S
Aardvark144
Active Member
Have found a reference in a Wikipedia article on 'Tanks in the Australian Army'. That was not where I read it though. Will keep looking.
Rock the kasbah
Active Member
I am only new here but a couple of weeks ago on this thread I asked if Australia had an army or division and a very succinct, knowledgeable and polite contributor informed me that we can almost get a division , will be low on sigs and from memory other important stuff but still a division
It is back there somewhere
Getting the requisite sub-groups could be achieved by adding (a lot) more tanks. Tanks are manpower efficient for the combat power generated.
An option could be to have two mechanised brigades comprising a cavalry regiment (3 squadron CRV), 2 armoured regiments (2 tank squadron, 1 IFV company) and 2 mechanised regiments (1 tank squadron, 2 IFV company).
Thoughts?
Massive
Agreed. We are a very wealthy high productivity, high labour cost country.
The calculus shouldn’t be “are tanks expensive” (they are) but “how much does a unit of combat power delivered by tanks compare to a unit delivered by light or mechanised infantry.”
My guess is that the all-in unit cost of tanks if measured in this way is much lower.
More tanks.
Massive could you please qualify, is this the total regiments for each brigade or across two brigades.
Unless I'm mistake Army currently have for the " heavy stuff ".
3 x Tanks Sqns
6 x Cav Sqns
9 x Mech Inf Company's.
Total of 18 Coy / Sqn
I'm not sure what the future holds for brigade composition and specialization.
Therefore the above looks like what we mix and match with both for now and into the future.
Any news out there.
Regards S