Of course defending Australia as far forward as possible is best - it's worked for 114 years so far.
I was commenting on the doctrine of 'Defence of Australia', the discredited concept from the 80s.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
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I was commenting on the doctrine of 'Defence of Australia', the discredited concept from the 80s.
For DOA something like the Centauro would be useful, as it would as a DFS capability for wheeled CAV in expeditionary operations, but yes I agree tanks are vital for set battles and urban warfare.
Without getting too picky, but Long Tan was a successful combined arms operation. The artillery brilliantly protected D6 with close protective fire, aviation was used to support the ground forces, and the cavalry rode in to save the day at the end.
The infantry had good fire support and at the conclusion of the battle it definitely was combined arms once the cavalry arrived. It's the public perception and its impact on Army structure that I am more focused on. The plucky Aussie digger with an SLR holding off the enemy hordes fits in well with Gallipoli and Kokoda. It reinforces the idea of light infantry as the ideal Australian fighting force when in all cases it was the combined arms force that performed better.
For a politician looking to save dollars it is very easy to rely on that angle to avoid spending money on expensive machines.
To give this a naval angle, it could also be seen as why the amphibious fleet has never been much to look at even though our WW2 experience would suggest such a force be a high priority.
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It's probably already familiar to you but this analysis of the Binh Ba battle is a great look at combined arms in Vietnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK8TJFMs51c
I would not say Kokoda was the worst conducted. The Australian army went from a force barely there on paper to developing into a highly competent desert force only then to be thrown into a vastly different environment that they had zero experience in nor the weapon's suited to the environment and having to once again adapt to the challenges to which they did.
To make Kokoda out to be a defeat considering what we were up against and the event's leading up to it has me stumped. They where ill trained, Ill experienced, Ill equipped and outnumbered, But we still made the Japanese pay for it so yes, Kokoda should be celebrated.
Hell Japanese document's showed that they thought they had been up against a force 1,200 strong, There were only 77 Aussies there so that tell's you how hard and how well they thought.
A 3rd LHD wouldn't be at the cost of anything from the army. It would be in support of it. It would be at the cost of smaller amphibious ships, sea lift or similar (such as another Bay class, which is what Australia really wanted). It would also impact on related programs such as support ships, which typically are too light on JP-5. IT would really be a question of say $600m for a LPD or $1 bill for another LHD. I feel that in the future armies are more likely to operate larger aircraft including VTOL particularly in larger tilt wing aircraft. I think it would be a poor choice to choose a ships that had less aviation capability than the current LHD. It would also be a poor choice to choose ships that couldn't support heavier and larger vehicles for the Army.
A 3rd LHD wouldn't be a priority to procurement anyway. Given that BAE and disbanded its workforce, local work is no longer really a factor. It may be worthwhile putting a 3rd LHD into the 10+ years into the future perhaps in time to cover the LHD going into refit.
But by agreeing to the concept, a larger amphibious force, greater aviation capability greater readiness, an amphibious ready group (and what ever that means in the Australian context) that is constructed for regular capability rather than purely theoretical. That we might even deploy an ARG (or part there of) on a global deployment. So plan for that instead of settling for some sort of minor amphibious capability and fighting the concept. That concept would include having over 100 deploy-able M1A1 and other related heavy equipment.
It would actually cost the army, These day's with the higher cost of military equipment and tight budget's mean's little room for extra's, Spend extra in one area and you take away funds from another.
As to your costing, Try a minimum of $1.5 billion AUD for a 3rd ship.
As to your ARG and over 100 deploy-able M1A1's, Well even a USMC MEU doesnt include that many M1's, A Marine MEU has only 4 x M1's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_expeditionary_unit#Attributes, Wanting to deploy over 100 M1's is simple over kill that would bog the ARG down to a single capability and that is tank vs tank warfare for which that is a very rare occurrence these days. Your force need's to be able to adapt to changing situations and circumstances for which an MEU is actually pretty well set up for. If we want something like that then let's not try and reinvent the wheel, Let's just copy it straight out, At worse shrink it down a smidgen.
Planning big is a good thing and why I mentioned we should use US Army experience over US Marines experience when developing our amphibious fleet structure.
A force designed around sea-basing and as a complete ready-to-go force as the Marines are is not what we should be aiming for.
While 100 M1s is probably excessive it is a valid example to demonstrate that the amphibious force does not need to travel in a single move. The point of getting sea-lift ships and resupply ships is so the deployed force can be built up and sustained for a long duration operation.
A force designed around sea-basing and as a complete ready-to-go force as the Marines are is not what we should be aiming for.
While 100 M1s is probably excessive it is a valid example to demonstrate that the amphibious force does not need to travel in a single move. The point of getting sea-lift ships and resupply ships is so the deployed force can be built up and sustained for a long duration operation.
An auxiliary transport capability perhaps more useful for many of our operations than an additional LHD as most of our moves would be from port to port. Yes we need amphibious ships to kick in the door but I wonder if a MLP, AFSB, or AKE would be more useful most of the time, not to mention cheaper with a much smaller crew.
I wonder if Australia could implement such a system? Admittedly they would have to fix up the system surrounding the coastal shipping in Australia but if they could get some vessel's based in Australia able to do what the RAN needed then we should do it, Hell the Spirit of Tasmania line would be a good start.
I know this should be on the Army thread, but I would like to remind everyone that when we had Leopard tanks we had well over 100 of them. And before that we had Centurians, again well over 100 of them. It is only our recent acquisition of American tanks when it was found we only needed half the number. I would have thought that the number should have increased over the years, not shrunk.
While I agree that we should have more tanks than we do, I very much disagree with the thrust of this, which is that the number we had in the past should determine the numbers we have in the future. I find that to be very lazy thinking.
For starters it's worth pointing out that the Abrams purchase replaced the capability we had in service at the time - it replaced two squadrons of Leopards with two squadrons of Abrams. There was no reduction in the number of in service vehicles.
More to the point, why should we look to the past for what we should have in the future? Surely the numbers of equipment we have should be based on the strategic outlook of now and what we can predict about the future, not on what we happened to have in the past.
There's lots of ways to point out this. For instance, at the end of WWII we had many hundreds of tanks in service. Should we then have many hundreds in service now? Of course not. Those many hundreds were required for a six-year global conflict in which the entire nation was mobilised, a conflict that bears little resemblance to our current strategic outlook. The opposite here is also true. How many attack helicopters did we have in service 50 years ago? Should that be taken as justification for not having attack helicopters now? Of course not.
Any justification of numbers must be based on the current strategic outlook. Any other justification, particularly those related to the past, are irrelevant and unhelpful.
For what it's worth, I think a realistic number of tanks under Plan Beersheeba, based on the strategic outlook and realistic funding and strategic priorities, is three 4-troop squadrons or four 3-troop squadrons, which is about the same amount (and effectively a doubling of the tank capability - about another 36-40 tanks). Plus engineer variants.
So the additional C-17 acquisition has been at the expensive of the army and the navy. And the F-35 and sub replacements will mean Australia will disband the Army? Or because the Army got bushmasters we won't integrate any weapons for the airforce?
Choules was acquired for 65 million pounds. Significantly under budget and as an interim solution for JP2048 p4c, reviewed in 2016.
Why would it cost that much. It cost $1.5 b per unit to build the first two ships with local build. So the Spanish are going to charge more for an extra ship? Plus we already have 2 ships basically in service now, so training, simulators, spares, Australiafications etc have already been done and costed. Turkeys LHD was estimated to cost between $500m and $1b usd (inc local build in Turkey).
What I actually said was
That concept would include having over 100 deploy-able M1A1 and other related heavy equipment.
It would mean you could deploy ~100 M1A1. Which wouldn't be a regular ARG component, but what we could deploy to Africa, Middle East etc. More importantly our troops would have more regular training with armour.
There is no reason to think our ARG has to be structured exactly the same way as the USMC and be limited to that concept (Australia would only have 4 tanks). The USMC can be more specialised because of the other branches.
However the USMC has over 220 m1a1 and 40 breachers. So even they don't think every USMC mission is going to require 4 tanks, no more, no less.
I don't see how the Navy improving its equipment that supports Army takes away from the Army. Particularly if it comes from money already assigned to the Navy and out of navy resources and manpower.
We only ever had 90 Leopard AS.1 gun tanks, with the balance being ARV and bridge layers.
Australia is no different than most countries in this though. As military technology on land sea (on topic at last) and air has being more expensive and effective, numbers of ships, tanks, aircraft etc. have decreased.
Add that to a general public unwilling to swap health, education, roads and so forth for armaments which in most minds have little immediate utility and little future need, and there's no way we'll ever see a politician try to convince the electorate that we *need* vast numbers of any of them.
I enjoy the wish listing in this forum as much as anyone, but most of it is done without much consideration of what *any* political party would want to do, or manage to achieve. It's tough enough to get the things that both major parties agree on through parliament, and anything beyond that liable to fall to politics "the art of the possible"
Any idea where the plan to acquire additional Abrams is at right now?
In terms of equipment, what else do you believe Army needs to make Beersheba work?
Sounds good.
Unfortunately our merchant fleet is a shadow of days gone bye. Does raise the question of what expectations modern industrial countries like Australia can have regards to mechant ships and who owns and crews them.
You would think a large island trading nation would have greater ownership of its maritime trade than we do. I think someone did some non strategic maths on that capability. No RFA for Australia.
The Spirit of Australia style ship would be an ideal Ship Taken Up From Trade.
RO RO with bunks,sound good but just not many of this type at our disposal.
For Australia the Navy will have do most of the heavy lifting.
I know that it bores may to tears but I would be more than happy to pay the money and ineffectivly use a third LHD as a pool of 3 for occasioal strategic transport.
The ship is designed to be many things, one of which is to carry containers and pallets in just such a role with cranes, lifts and conveyors sized accordingly.
Remember the HMAS Sydney that flew aircraft in the Korean war was later used as a transport on the run between Australia and Vietnan.
Not ideal I know just practical.
Buy LHD number three and have no regrets for it will pay for it's self many times over in the many hats it will wear over it's 30 plus year service life.
Regards S
The Point class are probably the closest to what the RAN should be looking for in a Sealift ship in my view. Add an additional accommodation block to the rear, a small flight deck and paint it grey. A pair would be good but a third would allow for one in repair, one on station and one in transit. Combined with LSV heavy landing ships, this would eliminate the need for Damen-type LSTs and simplify the fleet.
I would favour several ROROs like this over a third LHD.
Don't bother with joint civilian/military deals, these will risk being cut by a future tight government.
Does raise the question as to the LCH replacement. Do we forego a beaching capability and get a larger pier to pier transport like the Point Class.
Agree it needs to be a Navy ship.
The alternative is, as I stated earlier and Abe suggested a couple of years back, is to kill two birds with one stone and acquire two, or preferably three, modified AKEs. With the LHDs our need for JP5 has gone up significantly and any future acquisition of F-35Bs would require the provision of significantly more aviation stores and ordinance.
The mods needed wouldn't be that major, just a reassignment of tanks and perhaps using some of the huge amount of space available to embark some other existing or desired capabilities. Ideally we will progressively move to modular containerised MCM, hydrographic, command, communications, medical, even special forces support systems. These ships are basically floating warehouses that have AOR sized fuel bunkers.
Interestingly they are a product of GD NASSCO and as such there are ties through the BIW and EB experts who have worked closely with ASC over the last decade and a half. It could make for a very interesting local build or at least outfit.
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