Australian Army Discussions and Updates

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Nick underscore

Member
Random, but could someone clarify the number of G-wagon ambulance variations under land 121 phase III? I understand there has been issues regarding the prototype production (reported by ANAO last year), but cannot find reference to the required number of vehicles?

Thanks
 
W

winnyfield

New Member
Bonza said:
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I think that was an issue that came up with the Mk. 262 SOST and another 77-grain open-tip round used by the US Army - I can remember a comment in a story from the USMC claiming their lawyers had looked over the Mk. 262 design and deemed it compatible with the laws of war as they stand. I forget exactly how they justified it but I think it had something to do with the projectile not being designed to expand/fragment, but that effect being a consequence of a different feature of the round. It sounds rather shaky to me, but I'd have to find it again to be sure of what they said.
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The 5.56mm Mk318 SOST bullet was based upon the 7.62mm M118LR round issued to snipers.

From memory the reason for the open-tipped 7.62mm M118LR being cleared (some legal controversies on the internet), was that it flattens rather than expands/'explode' - semantics.
 
B

Bonza

Super Moderator
Staff member
winnyfield said:
The 5.56mm Mk318 SOST bullet was based upon the 7.62mm M118LR round issued to snipers.

From memory the reason for the open-tipped 7.62mm M118LR being cleared (some legal controversies on the internet), was that it flattens rather than expands/'explode' - semantics.
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Ah I see - thanks for the information, and the correction on the name.
 
M

mickm

New Member
I am interested to read about the Australian Army replacing the Steyr Rifle that is currently on general issue. I am curious to know what will happen to the thousands of old Steyrs when the are replaced.

Will they be held in reserve storage for future emergencies or contingencies or will they be just sold off or destroyed. I have always been curious to know what happened to the SLRs when they were replaced. Are they buried or stored somewhere for re issue during an emergency.

I know in the 1950s and 1960s some of the old Lee Enfield .303 rifles were released to the public and there were thousands of them floating around in the hands of the public, some converted into hunting rifles, but I know that this is not possible for SLRs and Steyrs.
 
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MAAntonius

New Member
Hey Gents,

Considered posting a new thread, but figured this would be the better venue for now. I'm a US Sailor looking at options for my post enlistment (a few years out). I'm originally from California and loved Australia when I visited, especially my one time out in Perth and the rest of WA. I was tremendously excited when I read about the foreign enlistee route to citizenship... I'm not likely to get it for being wealthy or overeducated any time soon, but think I could be of reasonable use to the military forces.

I hold a rate that's available in your Navy but is roughly equivalent to the Army's EWO specialty. I'm looking to see if somebody with signals experience and language training (Arabic), albeit from a Naval force, would be accepted into said job with relative ease. Further, I have a pretty good idea that 152nd Signals is the place to be within said job, does anyone have info on what they're looking for as far as language background, PT standards, etc.? Our equivalents are pretty hush-hush as well, just curious about whether they also do LLVI and heavy rucking and so forth or if it's more about supporting shooters from afar.

Final question; is the Aussie army as loaded with death by powerpoint idiocy as the US military is as a whole? Here, the guys who work with your SAS-R and so forth overseas are generally exempt from most of the BS but I've seen careers derailed by an insufficient amount of fluffy, secondary school "volunteer hours" and so on when said servicemembers are hyper-fluent badasses who can out PT the best of them... it seems like a waste of effort and manpower and I abhor that nonsense. I've read of controversy down south yet nowhere near the volume... also, keeping a military of reasonable/sustainable size would hopefully keep the bureaucracy at bay relative to a 400,000+ man force like our active-duty Army right now...

Thanks for your time and sorry to ramble in my first post. Hope to hear from you.

Very respectfully,
MAA
 
O

old faithful

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
MMA, im sure some of your background would be helpful to RASIG, s. Dont think it will fast track you to 152.
You would still have to do basic training and corp training, and then try to get into 152. The recruit training and iet , initial employment training will have death by powerpoint for sure. It would be about a 6 month process before you were posted to a sig squadron. If you got to 152 regt, and wanted to work on the ground with SASR, then you would do the cardre course and more specialist course before you hit the ground with them, think a total of about 3 years before you got what you wanted, if you passed everything.
 
M

MAAntonius

New Member
Faithful,

Thank you verily for the info. 3 years to the bush is a lot faster than the signals-support accessions for us, and there's an awful amount of Big Army to get around first. This may be more due to actual cultural differences and not just bureaucracy-growth issues, but there's an increasing demand on "PR campaigns" and "volunteer hours" and "community outreach" at the cost of actual war fighting capability.

Is the AA less like that as a whole? Also, would 'sandbox' language experience be of as much use as it is for CANUSUK? Seems like the far eastern orientation would be more important, and with such a small force comparatively the demand for ME linguists has to be less, or in a worst case, nil!

Thanks for your time,
MAA
 
F

Fracas_AU

New Member
Not trying to be a smart ass here, but can someone remind me again why Australia only has 59 MBT's? I know as a country we're surrounded by sea probably reducing the need for tanks but 59, really??
For comparison, USA has around 6000 (Abrams), UK 300 (Challenger 2), Canada 200 (Leopard 2), Japan 400 (Type 10 and 90), Singapore 200 (Leopard 2) and Indonesia 200 (Leopard 2).
59 MBT's just seems like a laughable number compared to these other countries.
 
R

Raven22

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Raven22 said:
I ran into the linked presentation regarding the future of Plan BEERSHEEBA that I thought might be of interest. In particular, there are a few nuggets regarding the future of tanks, amphibious capability and offensive support that indicates the capabilities that army will seek to acquire in the near future.

http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/Content/Our%20future/About/Army%20101%20Brief%20Ver%207%20-%20Modernising%20from%20Beersheba%20and%20Beyond%20v4.pdf
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Wow, thanks for posting that, the future looks really promising. The breaching and bridging vehicles on the M-1 chassis was interesting, as was the additional tanks to be acquired. I was actually discussing the need for an amphibious cav sqn or regiment to support the new amphibious capability the other day great to see it's being discussed.
 
ASSAIL

ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Raven22 said:
I ran into the linked presentation regarding the future of Plan BEERSHEEBA that I thought might be of interest. In particular, there are a few nuggets regarding the future of tanks, amphibious capability and offensive support that indicates the capabilities that army will seek to acquire in the near future.

http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/Content/Our%20future/About/Army%20101%20Brief%20Ver%207%20-%20Modernising%20from%20Beersheba%20and%20Beyond%20v4.pdf
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Very interesting to see Army Aviation's interest in tilt rotor platforms. All the more reason to get the LHD's working with USMC's Osprey asap
 
t68

t68

Well-Known Member
ASSAIL said:
Very interesting to see Army Aviation's interest in tilt rotor platforms. All the more reason to get the LHD's working with USMC's Osprey asap
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I imagine the tilt rotor capability is not V22 but something along the lines of the Bell Eagle Eye as that PDF file said unmanned tilt rotor, as the Canberra only have 1 spot on the deck which can handle V22
 
ASSAIL

ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
t68 said:
I imagine the tilt rotor capability is not V22 but something along the lines of the Bell Eagle Eye as that PDF file said unmanned tilt rotor, as the Canberra only have 1 spot on the deck which can handle V22
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Yes I understand that. I simply tried to convey that familiarity with tilt rotor will be an essential future requirement for the ADF without being platform specific. I should have conveyed that better
 
N

Nick underscore

Member
Thanks you Raven.

A few interesting pieces. Enhanced land fires capability (required 2018) as many have spoken about recently to HIMARS and the Littoral manoeuvre and sustainment systems (required 2015) to compatible the LHD and the LCH replacement.

W.r.t to the Army structure a few pages in - could someone clarify why 1st Bgde is so different in regular ARA numbers to 3rd and 7th Bgde? I thought the Multi- Role Bgde's have the same troop numbers, albeit with some different vehicles until Land 400?

Thanks
 
t68

t68

Well-Known Member
ASSAIL said:
Yes I understand that. I simply tried to convey that familiarity with tilt rotor will be an essential future requirement for the ADF without being platform specific. I should have conveyed that better
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Ah gotcha my misunderstanding
 
A

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Fracas_AU said:
Not trying to be a smart ass here, but can someone remind me again why Australia only has 59 MBT's? I know as a country we're surrounded by sea probably reducing the need for tanks but 59, really??
For comparison, USA has around 6000 (Abrams), UK 300 (Challenger 2), Canada 200 (Leopard 2), Japan 400 (Type 10 and 90), Singapore 200 (Leopard 2) and Indonesia 200 (Leopard 2).
59 MBT's just seems like a laughable number compared to these other countries.
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1. Army has historically been a light infantry focussed force, with tanks employed in direct support of the infantry, not as the primary combatant force as other nations do. This is a legacy of our operational experiences. As a consequence, heavy armour hasn't been a high priority for Army or Government. We operate enough to be able to provide up to a squadron of tanks to support an operational deployment (barely) and retain our tank fighting skills, and that's about it.

2. Budgets. Read the ANAO report on the M1A1 acquisition, the number of tanks we have is massively dictated by the amount of money Government is prepared to spend on that capability...

3. More tanks appear to be on the way, as are more heavily armoured transports / close combaat vehicles (read IFV's) and Cavalry vehicles, as well as combat engineering and recovery vehicles. That said, we're unlikely to have huge numbers of MBT's any time soon.

Personally if we can go close to gaining all the capabilities in the document Raven posted, in reasonable numbers, our Army though still small, will be a tremendously capable and survivable force.
 
R

Raven22

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Nick underscore said:
W.r.t to the Army structure a few pages in - could someone clarify why 1st Bgde is so different in regular ARA numbers to 3rd and 7th Bgde? I thought the Multi- Role Bgde's have the same troop numbers, albeit with some different vehicles until Land 400?

Thanks
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I think you'll find that's a typo. I dare say someone has swapped around the numbers for 1 Bde and 6 Bde. 1 Bde will be just as large as the other combat brigades.
 
H

hairyman

Active Member
"More tanks appear to be on the way" Are you referring to the additional 11 recently ordered, or are there even more in the wind?
 
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