Anthony_B_78
Active Member
Not doubting you, but I find some of the doctrine you've recounted, well, bemusing. That's probably the best word. How is our doctrine so far removed from reality?
In the context of IFVs, you said in your earlier post a brigade needs 347 "gun cars". Referencing my previous post, that's more than twice what a US Army Armored Combat Brigade Team fields. More than twice. It would be enough for at least four armoured infantry battalions, probably with four rifle companies each. Add a tank regiment to that, and a cavalry regiment, and it's a bloody big brigade.
Where in our region would we need such a big and heavy brigade, and how could we support it logistically? And why would we have doctrine based on such unrealistic equipment holdings and force structures?
The Brits and the Americans, for comparison, don't use anything like that kind of structure. The US Army I've mentioned, but the Brits are not overly different, just with more flexibility perhaps in terms of barracks organisation versus field. As it stands, and this may be slightly dated because they keep going through reforms, it fields two armoured brigades, each with one armoured regiment and two armoured infantry battalions.
I would imagine the doctrine - or a version of it - must be in the public domain for you to talk about it, so would be intrigued to read more about the thinking if you're able to point me to anything.
Assuming our 129 Redbacks will all be the "gun car" variants, I don't see why 3RAR can't field four rifle companies. The numbers would allow for that, plus spares for training, maintenance, and so forth.
I don't think it is overly likely that 3rd Brigade would be deployed with its barracks strength. More likely, it may deploy as a task force HQ with units drawn from other brigades and not all of its own units, or, alternatively, it may itself provide units to deploy with another brigade HQ or some other HQ level.
With that in mind, and considering what we've been told about 2nd Cavalry, then if 3RAR had four rifle companies, you could deploy a battle group of a tank squadron (18 tanks), a cavalry squadron (20+ Boxers) and two armoured infantry companies (30+ Redbacks) as part of a larger formation. That would be a strong battle group. Sure, you could only rotate it twice, but from what we can see that might represent the peak deployable armoured battle group.
More likely perhaps, are armoured combat teams or a battle group (-). Similar to what we sent to Afghanistan, but with more combat weight. For example, a half-squadron of tanks, a cavalry squadron, an armoured infantry company - we could field four of those (with 2nd/14th Light Horse providing the additional cavalry squadrons), and so could sustain such a deployment.
Either of the above would have been of value if deployed in Iraq/Afghanistan as part of coalition forces, and would have value in future scenarios.
