Australian Army Discussions and Updates

Lolcake

Lolcake

Active Member
I have been following the Ukraine war footage for quite some time. The effectiveness of the lancet drone to swoop in undetected is very concerning. It has wrecked havock on anything from light vehicles to heavy tanks. It also recently also took out a IRIS-T battery and the crew was completely oblivious to its prescence.

Programs are needed quite urgently to counter this. I would hope these go hand in hand with Land 400 P3
 
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SwingShift

Member
Complete commonality maybe a scary construct in a digital reliant world where complex capabilities exist as systems of systems. Whilst obviously there’s massive training, parts, efficiency and purchasing value in commonality, to have two or three vendors in near parallel in some critical capabilities may provide a level of redundancy in the event one manufacturers capability is digitally compromised.

Capabilities are no longer at risk only of kinetic or electronic attack, but also the hidden software and communications pathways providing points failure in comms, command, controlling, or targeting. Imagine a worm, hack or malware attack told every vehicle of a type to turn 90 degrees and accelerate at a pre-programmed date and time, or to fire off it‘s armament load out.

There’s a reason Red Spice became an immediate and high cost priority.

I see value in a level of redundancy in having examples like both Shornets and F35A, and value in IFV and CRV coming from different factories and DNA.
 
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Nudge

New Member
In a sign of the times moving on from the MRH90, Safran has ceased (about a month ago, I believe) it's Australian Euro-helicopter engine maintenance services, and the new UH-60M Blackhawks have begun to arrive in country. I suspect we'll see some media on that latter soon. Unless I have missed it already.
 
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ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Nudge said:
In a sign of the times moving on from the MRH90, Safran has ceased (about a month ago, I believe) it's Australian Euro-helicopter engine maintenance services, and the new UH-60M Blackhawks have begun to arrive in country. I suspect we'll see some media on that latter soon. Unless I have missed it already.
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Yeah, I’ve heard through the grapevine 6 Avn Regt has got it’s hands on the first examples already but I’d not be surprised if the news is being held back, given the sensitivities around ADF helo ops right now and I’m not sure too many would complain about that...
 
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ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Jason_DBF said:
Will the Australian Army operate these helicopters with Hellfire or air to air missiles?
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Neither so far as I am aware. We have -E model Apaches inbound for that sort of stuff...

M134D and MAG-58 7.62mm door guns plus counter-measures I believe are the only ‘kinetic’ systems that are to be fitted.
 
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Wombat000

Well-Known Member
Just a hunch of course, but I reckon it’s hardly surprising they’re in US drab.
we are receiving them in a timely prompt state, in the general condition they’ve been generically made in the US.
Especially with the current MRH-90 situation.

My impression is the Auscam colour scheme of the previous Blackhawks were positively appreciated, both in a practical tactical sense and in an identifiable Australian presence sense.
my punt is they will arrive incountry promptly and be progressively repainted as they enter their maintenance period.
 
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Observer27

New Member
Volkodav said:
No idea what the conops are, if they have even been developed yet. I am looking to what the DSR says is desired, i.e. light forces that can operate effectively from small amphibs.
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I also very much like the idea of a Bv410, BvS10 or Bronco style of amphibious all-terrain vehicle for Australia. Personally I lean towards the Bronco but I suspect both families are suitable with very similar capabilities (much like the Redback vs Lynx were for the IFV).

The Royal Marines currently operate the BAE Systems BvS10 vehicles (named in UK service as "Viking") replacing the earlier Bv206, and have on order the more recent Bv410 as a further expansion. The Royal Armoured Corps also operated over 100 of the very similar ST Kinetics Bronco (named in UK service as "Warthog") to supplement the Vikings in Afghanistan; these were purchased in 2008 as an Urgent Operational Requirements package and retained in service until the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2015. Thales were responsible for the UK mission systems on the Warthogs and were also the UK point of contact for warranty support matters. The UK have used the same four variants of both families of vehicles, being: Troop Carrier, Ambulance, Command, and Repair & Recovery.

According to the UK ministry of defense, "the primary role of the Viking is in protected mobility for the Royal Marines, it is also often used in battlefield reconnaissance, fire support and as a command platform."

In 2009, Thales and ST Kinetics also offered the French government Broncos, and while their bid lost to the BvS10, it shows that Thales and ST Kinetics would likely be very open to local assembly or production of the Bronco at the Thales protected vehicles manufacturing plant in Bendigo. Thales and ST Kinetics already have agreements in place for manufacturing and marketing of 40mm ammunition here in Australia.

Given this, I think it is an interesting idea for Australia to order local assembly or production of the Bronco 3 by Thales in partnership with ST Kinetics and field them in the role of Protected Mobility Vehicle, Amphibious All Terrain (PMV-AAT). This would keep production of all three protected mobility platforms unified under Thales using common fit-out, vehicle electronics, mission systems and weapons stations in order to simplify operator training and maintenance across the three PMV platforms.

As for CONOPS, I don't know how to formally describe this, but I see the Australian Army using them with essentially the same doctrine as the Bushmaster (as a protected mobility vehicle) but in situations where their extra mobility and amphibious capabilities can be used to advantage. This would certainly be the case with amphibious landings (no, I know they are not armored amphibious assault vehicles) and across many littoral, riverine and flooded environments. We would certainly do well to look at the ways the royal marines use their BvS10s.

As to numbers and how they would be fielded in the Australian Army, there are a multitude of approaches.
  1. Using them to establishing for amphibious operations within the new littoral brigade being formed, perhaps representing IOC for the platform.
  2. Issued across the armor focused brigade replacing Bushmasters (and M113s in roles where the Redback would be overkill)—this is similar to the way Sweden organises their armored brigades with the Bv410 complementing the CV90 IFVs.
  3. As a high mobility light cavalry company in selected brigades.
  4. Fielding one company of vehicles for each Bushmaster equipped infantry battalion to be used in place of Bushmasters when desired and for familiarizing motorized infantry on their use during training.
  5. As a platform for various specialty weapon systems, e.g. NASAMS (like Sweden with the IRIS-T), mortar carrier, electronic warfare, UAS carrier.
  6. As a battalion-size reserve stockpile for large scale conflict.
  7. As a potential Antarctic operations vehicle (should conflict arise over the Antarctic treaty or violations of it)

Here is a BvS10 in an amphibious assault ship well dock demonstrating direct landing and return between the ship's well dock to shore. No landing craft required.


UK Viking and HMS Bulwark
UK MoD, OGL v1.0OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons


Here Royal Marines are swimming to shore from a landing craft in BvS10 Vikings during an amphibious landing.


Vikings Float Ashore During Amphibious Assault Phase of Exercise Auriga MOD 45154387
Photo: Petty Officer Husbands/MOD, OGL v1.0OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons


Here is a Royal Thai Army Bronco during the 2010 Thai floods. Looks kinda useful.


Armoured vehicle in Thailand
Government of Thailand, CC BY 2.0 <Creative Commons — Attribution 2.0 Generic — CC BY 2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
 
Takao

Takao

The Bunker Group
SwingShift said:
Complete commonality maybe a scary construct in a digital reliant world where complex capabilities exist as systems of systems. Whilst obviously there’s massive training, parts, efficiency and purchasing value in commonality, to have two or three vendors in near parallel in some critical capabilities may provide a level of redundancy in the event one manufacturers capability is digitally compromised.

Capabilities are no longer at risk only of kinetic or electronic attack, but also the hidden software and communications pathways providing points failure in comms, command, controlling, or targeting. Imagine a worm, hack or malware attack told every vehicle of a type to turn 90 degrees and accelerate at a pre-programmed date and time, or to fire off it‘s armament load out.

There’s a reason Red Spice became an immediate and high cost priority.

I see value in a level of redundancy in having examples like both Shornets and F35A, and value in IFV and CRV coming from different factories and DNA.
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100%

We can cover a lot of commonality advantages from a training point of view by common subsystems (so if every vehicle uses a AN/PRC-158 radio, that makes life easier). By pushing the Generic Architectures that LNIC is doing sterling work on, we can achieve a very high level of compatibility and commonality without being constrained to one supplier.

Multiple suppliers are not just an advantage as SwingShift says from a security point of view, but also a political. Berlin's actions since the Russian invasion of Ukraine should beg serious questions as to what would they deny us if needed. A political disagreement that delays Boxer/HX77/40M sustainment would not be the first time a European nation has reached in and done that to us. There are also supply lines - interdicting one supply line from Germany is easy; interdicting one from Germany and one from South Korea is harder.
 
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Anthony_B_78

Active Member
Massive said:
Continued shuffling of two few cards, too many of which are light infantry.

Even post-DSR it remains very unclear as to what Army is being set up to acheive.

Sadly at the moment it is likely unable to achieve much outside of very permissive environments.

Regards,

Massive
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I don't share this negativity around decisions made thus far. It was entirely predictable that Land 400 Phase 3 would be cut, albeit admittedly not to less than a third. (I agree with those who remain hopeful that there will be a follow-on order once they are under construction to at least double the project numbers.) Importantly, the tanks are still being acquired in numbers sufficient to maintain a standing force equivalent to a full regiment, plus the armoured engineering capabilities, which are important too, and there'll still be sufficient AS9s for a regiment of those, while the Boxers are being acquired as planned.

You put it together and you can see that in terms of "heavy" forces the Australian Army would be able to sustain a deployment of a squadron of Abrams, an armoured infantry company in the Redback, two squadrons of Boxers, and a Huntsman battery. Add to that the long-range fire capabilities being acquired, such as HIMARS. Funnily enough, there would - assuming two of the three mechanised battalions revert to motorised or light infantry - only be five of those, total, so you couldn't sustain a deployment of two, as it stands. Still, all of this is a significant advance on the capabilities that we have had since the post-Vietnam drawdown.

Armoured forces able to deploy as a battlegroup or as combat teams as part of a task force make sense for our region. If instead the argument is for multiples of, effectively, armoured brigades, then the questions should be where could we deploy and sustain such a brigade, and where would we want to?
 
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Stampede

Well-Known Member
Anthony_B_78 said:
I don't share this negativity around decisions made thus far. It was entirely predictable that Land 400 Phase 3 would be cut, albeit admittedly not to less than a third. (I agree with those who remain hopeful that there will be a follow-on order once they are under construction to at least double the project numbers.) Importantly, the tanks are still being acquired in numbers sufficient to maintain a standing force equivalent to a full regiment, plus the armoured engineering capabilities, which are important too, and there'll still be sufficient AS9s for a regiment of those, while the Boxers are being acquired as planned.

You put it together and you can see that in terms of "heavy" forces the Australian Army would be able to sustain a deployment of a squadron of Abrams, an armoured infantry company in the Redback, two squadrons of Boxers, and a Huntsman battery. Add to that the long-range fire capabilities being acquired, such as HIMARS. Funnily enough, there would - assuming two of the three mechanised battalions revert to motorised or light infantry - only be five of those, total, so you couldn't sustain a deployment of two, as it stands. Still, all of this is a significant advance on the capabilities that we have had since the post-Vietnam drawdown.

Armoured forces able to deploy as a battlegroup or as combat teams as part of a task force make sense for our region. If instead the argument is for multiples of, effectively, armoured brigades, then the questions should be where could we deploy and sustain such a brigade, and where would we want to?
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Some positivity-absolutely.

Acquisition of Boxer, AS21 Redback, M88A2 Hercules, AS9 Huntsman and replacement M1A2 SEPv3 tanks will give Army over 500 heavy vehicles.
On many levels, very impressive compared to what we have had, and certainly a force many a near peer would be cautious of adding in the other capability's of the broader ADF.

As you mentioned above

"able to sustain a deployment of a squadron of Abrams, an armoured infantry company in the Redback, two squadrons of Boxers, and a Huntsman battery. Add to that the long-range fire capabilities being acquired, such as HIMARS."

One would reckon as Army expands we should be able to deploy the above on our own turf; although I'd suggest we would be challenged to currently deploy such a force regionally with our own current maritime assets, thus we would be dependant on allies for logistics.

While for some this would be an appropriate level of force, I feel a certain recent European war has reinforced many things and also taught us that there is always new things to learn.
As for Armour.
My take is that heavy armour still has a place and that numbers matter.

So what heavy armoured vehicle numbers are appropriate and achievable for a balanced ADF?

IMO a modest increase in AS21 and AS9 would be appropriate and feel will probably happen any way.
I'd also suggest adding a small number of M1A2's.

Where do these vehicle number go?
Well that depends on Army's structure going forward, which currently appears a mystery in the public domain.



Cheers S
 
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Anthony_B_78

Active Member
Stampede said:
IMO a modest increase in AS21 and AS9 would be appropriate and feel will probably happen any way.
I'd also suggest adding a small number of M1A2's.

Where do these vehicle number go?
Well that depends on Army's structure going forward, which currently appears a mystery in the public domain.



Cheers S
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I agree. It will be less of a mystery when the Chief of Army outlines the force structure. For as long as I have had an interest, it's been very much in the public domain. From the CA's comments in the wake of the DSR - which included a subtle hint or two that he wasn't happy - it will just be a matter of time.

If we were to speculate a little, within reasonable limits, I don't think it will be all that radically different than the existing structures. We don't tend to do radical, well not since the pentropic experiment. Where the new armour goes, and what happens to the two mechanised battalions not set to gain new vehicles, will be the most interesting questions. I expect you wouldn't bet against 9th Brigade getting the Redback and the Huntsman. Other brigades may only see either if subsequent orders are placed - as most of us would wish.

It does seem odd that if 9th Brigade is to function as the Army's effective armoured brigade that it only has one of three tank squadrons. Perhaps we could see some change there. It would seem to be more cost-effective to concentrate such a platform in fewer locations. We may also see more light armoured squadrons using the Hawkei.
 
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