No one said anything about an ENTIRE Brigade....
We have roads and rail??? really?
No need to get so defensive about it, it is merely an opinion that not all forces need to be based on the East coast or the holy grail of forward defence...Darwin.
You do realise that there is basically a brigade minus in Adelaide right??? Battalion, armoured elements, artillery, CSS?? So a base in Perth is not completely out of the realm of possibility.
What is one single battalion going to achieve....not sure you'll have to ask our ONLY amphibious battalion that question???
The Canberra class thing was a joke but since you think its a brilliant idea good stuff, send it over hahaha
You are missing some of the behind the scenes knowledge as to why it's a dumb idea.
First off, you place you military forces with respect to the threat. That gives us patrol boats in the north and a fighter Sqn. That's all the threats to the landmass of Australia taken care of. So you put the rest where it can be sustained. And the majority of that should be in a triangle between Brisbane, Adelaide and the coastline. Why? Simple - the vast majority of our population and industry are there. But, there is one other consideration, that of politics. Northern and western Australian's are as much Australian as those in the triangle, so we put elements in Perth, Darwin and northern QLD. Note that political consideration includes economic ones; the ADF contributes a lot of money to those communities (and arguably before the minerals boom of the late 00's was the major crutch for Darwin and Townsville). That's it - the majority is driven from where the population is because that's how we retain people. So yes - while most of our population is on the east coast the majority of the military will be there.
When it comes to retention - what do you think the main cause is? It's not the LT's or PTE's (which are easy enough to grow anyhow), it's the senior CAPT - LTCOL and senior CPL - WO2. The ones with families. Spousal employment is hard in the triangle and even more so north or west. Schooling (although actually pretty good in Darwin) is a problem as well, especially for the older kids. Gosh - my family would
love to move back to Darwin, but we can't justify the impact of the kid's education and my spouse is unlikely to find employment. So we can't go.... The ADF is just starting to realise this wholesale, and while Service needs will always (rightfully) be the priority, we have to consider the member's non-military needs and circumstances. We cannot just find people of those ranks and experiences off the street.
Do you know why there is a Bde minus in Adelaide? There is actually a reason for it, and it's got nothing to do with Antarctica. It's simply down to weather and training opportunities - you can do field training at Cultana for 12 months a year, but not at Mt Bundy. The retention is a bonus! This highlights the fact that we can keep military forces in the SE triangle and push them forward if needs be. And the rail and road links between Adelaide and Perth are as good as those between Darwin and Adelaide.
You also seem to miss the point about rail and road. The fact is with internal lines of communication we will always respond quicker than a threat. And we have experiences in moving large amounts of mass (be it people or equipment) around Australia. Between the ADF, the mining industry and the farming industry, you'd be surprised at how quick we can put stuff somewhere. It would take longer for the LHDs to go from Sydney to Perth than it would to move 1 Bde to Perth. In fact, it would probably be faster to move 7 Bde to Perth than for the LHDs to get there. Whereas we could just send the LHDs to the Port of Brisbane.....
Let us put aside that 2 RAR is a Bn. I get it, the RAR Association will have my head. But it's not. It's a Coy sized pre-landing force. It'll only be committed when there is a mech force in the same landing party. Unlike this single Bn in Perth. And what is that single Bn of regular's going to achieve? They won't be able to train with armour, engineers or artillery. They'll just be a chunk of light infantry in an Army going mech. So they'll have even harder retention problems (it'll be a unique unit), and they'll be even more useless on a battlefield as they won't be familiar with the bits that keep infantry alive. So it's a net negative that undermines the point (and success) of Beersheba. And complicating it further, your specialisation will force the senior soldiers to remain in Perth, making a significant % leave. We've tried this before in many units in many locations - it's predictable!
Finally - like one of my soapboxes says - how are you paying for this? You have the FSP, read that and tell us what you are cutting to pay for this. First though, let us know how much you think it'll cost. I'd be surprised if you were close - I sure as hell wasn't when we priced moving something. But the budget has been 'fixed' for the next 20 years and there is no fat. So what are you cutting?
Do consider MINDEF's background and what has occurred over the past 12 - 18 months. Has there been any suggestion or hint that this is a possibility? I can assure you that increases in WA numbers have already been identified as a challenge and something like this two-ocean Army is most likely to have been looked at and discarded. Quickly.
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