Australian Army Discussions and Updates

[Redlands18]

But the Amphibious capabilities the Army is getting is going to significantly improve manoeuvre capabilities. Also, those Manoeuvre Groups are getting significant weapons upgrades. Some of those Manoeuvre Groups are poorly armed, M-113s, ASLAVs, RBS-70, M-777, G-Wagons and are not fit for deployment.

 

[old faithful]

But the Amphibious capabilities the Army is getting is going to significantly improve manoeuvre capabilities. Also, those Manoeuvre Groups are getting significant weapons upgrades. Some of those Manoeuvre Groups are poorly armed, M-113s, ASLAVs, RBS-70, M-777, G-Wagons and are not fit for deployment.

Exactly. So cutting them back, instead of re equipping them is the answer?
When I joined in 1985, we were still equipped to deal with counter insurgency, and we were good at it. However as the wall came down, it gave governments an excuse to let defence slide, as the cold war cooled right down.
The whole of defence, with the exception of of the RAAF was pretty much left to rot.
We were not able to contribute much to either gulf wars, which was a blessing in disguise.
We contributed SFA to Bosnia, 1 deployment to Somalia, and Rawanda (poor blokes who went).
Then the ET crisis came, and it was kind of back to counter insurgency, with an emphasis to de escalate because if it turned hot, we were in trouble.
Point is, we were not ready or really capable for any of these events, and ET really stretched us.
Now we're are supposed to be shoring up defences, and it's looking to me like it's going to based on pure defence, with very little, if any counter attack capability.

 

[Stampede]

But the Amphibious capabilities the Army is getting is going to significantly improve manoeuvre capabilities. Also, those Manoeuvre Groups are getting significant weapons upgrades. Some of those Manoeuvre Groups are poorly armed, M-113s, ASLAVs, RBS-70, M-777, G-Wagons and are not fit for deployment.

Don't get me wrong there is alot of positivity in the type of equipment we are getting and the capabilities they bring.
The littoral stuff has always been needed on many levels and is well over due.

That said it does also get down to numbers.
Infantry still have a place and I do have reservations about the numbers in those infantry ranks traded off to acquire these new capabilities.
All are needed going forward.
Still feel we are a short a infantry battalion.
Mech / motorised / light whatever.

Concerning

Regards S

 

[old faithful]

Don't get me wrong there is alot of positivity in the type of equipment we are getting and the capabilities they bring.
The littoral stuff has always been needed on many levels and is well over due.

That said it does also get down to numbers.
Infantry still have a place and I do have reservations about the numbers in those infantry ranks traded off to acquire these new capabilities.
All are needed going forward.
Still feel we are a short a infantry battalion.
Mech / motorised / light whatever.

Concerning

Regards S

We are short 4 infantry battalions at the very least.
Himars etc are awesome, and a very nice to have bit of kit. However, if I were the target of their wrath, apart from drones, I would be using SF to target them. They need to be defended, and in all reality, infantry patrolling for SF, and other counter SF is going to be needed.
All major assets need infantry support, in order to do their job. You can't just whack a nassams battery out there and leave the crews to sit and wait, they need to be protected as well, otherwise, enemy forces can just sneek up on them, and take them out, and the crews themselves need to do their jobs, not the grunt jobs. We are very infantry light. Critically so, just like every other area in our defence force. LHDs can't protect themselves, airfields can't, powerstations can't, and ports can't.

 

[Anthony_B_78]

We are short 4 infantry battalions at the very least.
Himars etc are awesome, and a very nice to have bit of kit. However, if I were the target of their wrath, apart from drones, I would be using SF to target them. They need to be defended, and in all reality, infantry patrolling for SF, and other counter SF is going to be needed.
All major assets need infantry support, in order to do their job. You can't just whack a nassams battery out there and leave the crews to sit and wait, they need to be protected as well, otherwise, enemy forces can just sneek up on them, and take them out, and the crews themselves need to do their jobs, not the grunt jobs. We are very infantry light. Critically so, just like every other area in our defence force. LHDs can't protect themselves, airfields can't, powerstations can't, and ports can't.

The critical concern for me, as I pointed out in an early reaction in this thread to the latest restructure, is what is happening to RAAC units.

We are told all tanks and the Redbacks will be concentrated in 3rd Brigade, which will also have, along with 7th Brigade, the Boxers. But we're also told 1st Armoured Regiment will stay in Adelaide as some kind of trials unit (read: non-deployable). We had (were supposed to have, if not quite) three tank and six cavalry squadrons. We're getting sufficient new tanks and Boxers to maintain those sub-units.

A cavalry squadron could move from 1st Armoured Regiment to 2nd/14th Light Horse to give that regiment three squadrons - remembering it's going to lose its tanks. But what about 2nd Cavalry Regiment? Is that one regiment really going to have three tank and three cavalry squadrons? No, I don't believe it either, which is why I am concerned we're going to see a reduction in the operational strength of our armour.

As for being short of infantry? Yes, agree, to an extent. It's bad news that we're losing a battalion. I can only hope 2RAR will be brought up to full strength to partially offset this. I'm not sure I'd agree we're short four battalions. Two, maybe three. But I'd be more concerned about the perceived loss of armour first, and adding other capabilities before going beyond adding two or three battalions to the ORBAT.

 

[Anthony_B_78]

To bring A Res up to a battle standard, in war time conditions, would be a nightmare.
1st of all, the battalions we have (A Res) would need to cannibalise each other to bring them up to strength. Meaning of the 20 Reserve infantry battalions, we would likely consolidate them to about 12 to 15. Again, in wartime conditions, a rapid 6 to 8 week work up would be the bare minimum, remembering that of those soldiers not all of them have completed their basic training as infantry.
Same would go for all the other units arty, sigs would take even longer, armoured longer again, to bring the reserve to any real standard as whole, when mobilised would take about 12 months best guess. Leaving the nation with 5 or 6 regular battalions and what we already have with re enforcements coming from the A res to bring them up to strength.

A minor point but it's arguably worse. We have 12 reserve infantry battalions, not counting the RFSUs, or uni training regiments, or 1st Commando. I'd suggest that in wartime conditions you might be able to form a battalion for active service at short-notice* from - on average - three of those, so maybe four in total. With the nucleus of each reserve battalion needing to remain to enable expansion, which would take considerably longer. And, actually, you might only form three battalions for deployment, with the other providing companies and platoons to bring regular units up to strength.

* Six to eight weeks, like you say, would be the bare minimum. Realistically, if we look at what we did when sending reserve forces to East Timor, it was a six-month workup before they deployed for six months, and that was a fairly benign AO.

 

[Stampede]

A minor point but it's arguably worse. We have 12 reserve infantry battalions, not counting the RFSUs, or uni training regiments, or 1st Commando. I'd suggest that in wartime conditions you might be able to form a battalion for active service at short-notice* from - on average - three of those, so maybe four in total. With the nucleus of each reserve battalion needing to remain to enable expansion, which would take considerably longer. And, actually, you might only form three battalions for deployment, with the other providing companies and platoons to bring regular units up to strength.

* Six to eight weeks, like you say, would be the bare minimum. Realistically, if we look at what we did when sending reserve forces to East Timor, it was a six-month workup before they deployed for six months, and that was a fairly benign AO.

Plan beersheba and Keogh had a plan for the reserves linked to regular brigades.
Reality of the how well and feasible the plan worked others could advise.
The new Army structure did not appear to mention the reserves in the public statement unless I missed it.
Given they make up one of our two divisions, one would think they had some relevance.

Or is that in fact the reality.
They are in all reality not that relavent !

In NZ on a exchange, our host unit had a role / mission in time of conflict to look after the northern part of the north isle if I recall correctly.
What would actually happen in time of conflict is nether here nor there , the fact is the unit had a purpose.
The soldiers had a purpose and direcrion
They had a role.

I think a sense of purpose in the bigger picture is important .

As Old Faithful alluded to alot capabilities need protection.

Good work for grunts.
In times of crissis there will be alot of northern assets both civil and military that will need a protective cadre.
There will never be enough Regs, so as we focus on the North , out southern and eastern based reserve units will need to start to be accustomed to delivery real capability to where government want to focus our defence.
Up north
Hopefully our reserves have a real place and sense of purpose going forward.
Cheers S

 

[Volkodav]

Wasn't there mention of restarting the Ready Reserves?

A few old and bolds I know think quite highly of the scheme.

 

[Bluey 006]

Serious questions:

If we are moving all the armour to Townsville. Will we also be building a rail link between Mount Isa and Tennent Creek? And possibly a RACT / Logistics depot there.

With only 8 x C17s if we have a problem in the North / North-West (arguably the most likely beachhead given it is so sparsely populated with a high concentration of resources), how do we plan to move our heavy forces (70+ tanks and 150 IFVs) such great distances? Especially if RAAF Townsville and Port of Townville are incapacitated by missile strikes. If that was the case, you could also expect adversary subs to be lurking around our coast.

Also, The DSR told us we will have "reduced warning time." HIMARS and NASAMS in Adelaide? Really?
If any assets needed to be forward deployed and ready for rapid deployment, it would be the HIMARS and NASAMS (deterrence and air cover). Given 36SQN is based at RAAF Amberly, wouldn't you put the HIMARS close by? Say, Brisbane.

As for 1st Brigade (light brigade with focus on littoral), isn't Townsville the logical choice for that and link it with 2RAR? A few days sail for LHDs (based in Sydney). Darwin makes sense if we are planning to do all the fighting in Indonesian sovereign territory.

Also, we are building a strategy around, and preparing to fight a distributed conflict across the Indo-Pacific yet concentrating all our like units in certain areas. What? Did someone shout a round of Kool-aid?

Appreciate the "training like we fight" idea but in a distributed conflict would we really deploy all our armour to one place? More likely we will have task-oriented combined arms battlegroups, fit for the desired mission, threat level and objective set. Wouldn't the MRB be better suited to generating these?

I am no force posture expert but some of the decisions in the recent posture shift, seem downright schizophrenic to me.

Happy to be corrected on this. Or hear the explanations, and alternative options.

 

[OldTex]

In times of crissis there will be alot of northern assets both civil and military that will need a protective cadre.
There will never be enough Regs, so as we focus on the North , out southern and eastern based reserve units will need to start to be accustomed to delivery real capability to where government want to focus our defence.
Up north
Hopefully our reserves have a real place and sense of purpose going forward.

From memory the last major exercise focused on asset protection in Northern Australia was K95 (Exercise Kangaroo 95 for those who don't get acronyms and abbreviations). This does have to be practiced and the units need consistency of likely area of responsibility so that prior planning and relationship building with the local authorities can take place. It also allows the Reserves to get an appreciation of the terrain and the difficulties that they will likely be faced with in the even of a mobilization.

 

[old faithful]

The critical concern for me, as I pointed out in an early reaction in this thread to the latest restructure, is what is happening to RAAC units.

We are told all tanks and the Redbacks will be concentrated in 3rd Brigade, which will also have, along with 7th Brigade, the Boxers. But we're also told 1st Armoured Regiment will stay in Adelaide as some kind of trials unit (read: non-deployable). We had (were supposed to have, if not quite) three tank and six cavalry squadrons. We're getting sufficient new tanks and Boxers to maintain those sub-units.

A cavalry squadron could move from 1st Armoured Regiment to 2nd/14th Light Horse to give that regiment three squadrons - remembering it's going to lose its tanks. But what about 2nd Cavalry Regiment? Is that one regiment really going to have three tank and three cavalry squadrons? No, I don't believe it either, which is why I am concerned we're going to see a reduction in the operational strength of our armour.

As for being short of infantry? Yes, agree, to an extent. It's bad news that we're losing a battalion. I can only hope 2RAR will be brought up to full strength to partially offset this. I'm not sure I'd agree we're short four battalions. Two, maybe three. But I'd be more concerned about the perceived loss of armour first, and adding other capabilities before going beyond adding two or three battalions to the ORBAT.

Amour is rarly used without infantry.
It's there to support infantry. I agree, 1st armoured experiment is a real concern. 5 Inf Bns is a huge concern as well.
I doubt 2 RARvwill be bought up to strength. It's posted strength is 350. Choules is capable of supporting 350, 700 in overload, short duration.
An Army of our size should be comfortable with a full division of 9 Inf bns. SF are just that, to use them as infantry is just stupid. And that's what's been happening.

 

[Redlands18]

Serious questions:

If we are moving all the armour to Townsville. Will we also be building a rail link between Mount Isa and Tennent Creek? And possibly a RACT / Logistics depot there.

With only 8 x C17s if we have a problem in the North / North-West (arguably the most likely beachhead given it is so sparsely populated with a high concentration of resources), how do we plan to move our heavy forces (70+ tanks and 150 IFVs) such great distances? Especially if RAAF Townsville and Port of Townville are incapacitated by missile strikes. If that was the case, you could also expect adversary subs to be lurking around our coast.

Also, The DSR told us we will have "reduced warning time." HIMARS and NASAMS in Adelaide? Really?
If any assets needed to be forward deployed and ready for rapid deployment, it would be the HIMARS and NASAMS (deterrence and air cover). Given 36SQN is based at RAAF Amberly, wouldn't you put the HIMARS close by? Say, Brisbane.

As for 1st Brigade (light brigade with focus on littoral), isn't Townsville the logical choice for that and link it with 2RAR? A few days sail for LHDs (based in Sydney). Darwin makes sense if we are planning to do all the fighting in Indonesian sovereign territory.

Also, we are building a strategy around, and preparing to fight a distributed conflict across the Indo-Pacific yet concentrating all our like units in certain areas. What? Did someone shout a round of Kool-aid?

Appreciate the "training like we fight" idea but in a distributed conflict would we really deploy all our armour to one place? More likely we will have task-oriented combined arms battlegroups, fit for the desired mission, threat level and objective set. Wouldn't the MRB be better suited to generating these?

I am no force posture expert but some of the decisions in the recent posture shift, seem downright schizophrenic to me.

Happy to be corrected on this. Or hear the explanations, and alternative options.

One of the main reasons NASAMS and HIMARS are in Adelaide is, proximity to the missile ranges for trg, which is a very large area in the Northern part of South Australia. As you can imagine a missile system with a range of 300km is going to require large practice ranges, Civvies get very nervous about having missiles fired over their heads.
Large Military bases require a lot of infrastructure and civilian support, the number of population centres in Australia that are both in the right place and are big enough to support a Bde, a RAAF Sqn or a RAN Fleet are very few especially outside the Brisbane Line.

 

[Stampede]

From memory the last major exercise focused on asset protection in Northern Australia was K95 (Exercise Kangaroo 95 for those who don't get acronyms and abbreviations). This does have to be practiced and the units need consistency of likely area of responsibility so that prior planning and relationship building with the local authorities can take place. It also allows the Reserves to get an appreciation of the terrain and the difficulties that they will likely be faced with in the even of a mobilization.

Agree
Your quote is important

"This does have to be practiced and the units need consistency of likely area of responsibility so that prior planning and relationship building with the local authorities can take place."

Assuming the threat is bombing of our north by sea and air and maybe a perception an adversarys raiding force will contribute to raids on our soil ; this will require alot of human resources to provide protect to all that we prioritise up north.
This will be a given and over and above the capital and human resources we may require whilst conducting our own concurrent expedition overseas within the region.
Such a scenario mirrors what we have already experienced since federation.

Numbers matter

Some positives in the Army restructure but still many questions and concerns.

Cheers S

 

[Volkodav]

Amour is rarly used without infantry.
It's there to support infantry. I agree, 1st armoured experiment is a real concern. 5 Inf Bns is a huge concern as well.
I doubt 2 RARvwill be bought up to strength. It's posted strength is 350. Choules is capable of supporting 350, 700 in overload, short duration.
An Army of our size should be comfortable with a full division of 9 Inf bns. SF are just that, to use them as infantry is just stupid. And that's what's been happening.

Arguably that's what went wrong in Afghanistan, years of using SF as infantry resulted in the break down in command and accountability that led to the war crimes allegations.

SF is first and foremost about brains and doing what the infantry doesn't do.

When forced to conduct infantry roles without the clear command structure and oversite an infantry battalion has, there will be issues. Even if nothing has gone wrong, the high levels of autonomy and trust, with the lack of oversite, makes it almost impossible to prove or disprove allegations.

Key take home, artillery is a hammer, armour is a spear, infantry is a sword or axe and SF are a set of precise instruments. Use them in other roles or over use them, they will dull and break.u

 

[old faithful]

However, infantry can do some roles that SF do.
Recon Pls , sniper sections, direct action and raids can be done by well trained infantry, as well as harassment behind enemy lines. 3 RAR filled this role well when a para Bn.
No reason light, helibourne infantry could not fill these roles. (Except for lack helos).

 

[Volkodav]

However, infantry can do some roles that SF do.
Recon Pls , sniper sections, direct action and raids can be done by well trained infantry, as well as harassment behind enemy lines. 3 RAR filled this role well when a para Bn.
No reason light, helibourne infantry could not fill these roles. (Except for lack helos).

Exactly.

A lot if the issues over the last decade occured because we (mis)used SF instead of infantry.

Somalia for instance was conducted by an ODF btn. supported by other corps.

We have been mis and inappropriately using SF since the Tampa incident. It's basically become an overblown PR exercise with the political classes bathing in reflected glory, even creating situations to conflate additional glory to bathe in.

We shouldn't even know who BRS is, let alone being overwhelmed with the binary hero/war criminal narratives.

This alone shows how broken things are. A nameless soldier should have been investigated and the mater determined one way or the other, based on the facts, well away from the court of public opinion. The fact it became a celebrity defamation case in the civil courts, is an indictment on our political spin doctors, media and business sycophants.

 

[Bluey 006]

One of the main reasons NASAMS and HIMARS are in Adelaide is, proximity to the missile ranges for trg, which is a very large area in the Northern part of South Australia. As you can imagine a missile system with a range of 300km is going to require large practice ranges, Civvies get very nervous about having missiles fired over their heads.
Large Military bases require a lot of infrastructure and civilian support, the number of population centres in Australia that are both in the right place and are big enough to support a Bde, a RAAF Sqn or a RAN Fleet are very few especially outside the Brisbane Line.

Yes, you are quite right access to Woomera, Cultana and Port Wakefield is likely the reason Adelaide was chosen, and that is fair and reasonable, however, we were told a key reason for the review was the need to consider ‘whether Australian defence units, assets and facilities are prepared for the military to take action in a timely way amid a deteriorating strategic situation’.

I wonder if permanently basing our "long-range strike" capabilities (that were given priority over everything else in DSR) and our air defence as far as possible away from where they are most needed in a time of combat is the best decision in the long term?

Surely, one of the key justifications for acquiring HIMARS was its ability to deliver devastating precision strikes on any landing force in a timely manner, before it gains a foothold or has time to disperse. Hours can make a difference.

 

[Anthony_B_78]

Amour is rarly used without infantry.
It's there to support infantry. I agree, 1st armoured experiment is a real concern. 5 Inf Bns is a huge concern as well.
I doubt 2 RARvwill be bought up to strength. It's posted strength is 350. Choules is capable of supporting 350, 700 in overload, short duration.
An Army of our size should be comfortable with a full division of 9 Inf bns. SF are just that, to use them as infantry is just stupid. And that's what's been happening.

I agree, though would hasten to add there has been much argument on this forum that we need more armour. I'm comfortable with the equivalent of a regiment of tanks and two of cavalry, but not with fewer than that.

I don't think - from what I've read - that the posted strength of 2RAR is about what the Choules can carry for longer distances. The battalion's mission is to provide joint pre landing forces, which are basically - from what I recall - half a recon/sniper platoon, half a small boats platoon, and two rifle platoons. The battalion can field two of these to rotate them through readiness cycles. It seems to me to be a half-measure. I found this old article interesting. (Edit, sorry didn't link that properly - here it is: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/force-sea-australias-amphibious-capability-update)

I absolutely agree an army of our size should be able to field more combat forces than we do. The numbers don't make sense to me. But nor does the fact we have something like 90-odd one-star officers and above.

I agree too about special forces and their use. Only thing I'd add is that it does seem to have been a trend in other nations too to expand special forces. It's questionable if we would be better served having an extra infantry battalion instead of 2nd Commando Regiment but have it para qualified? That seems to be the big advantage of 2nd Commando.

 

[spoz]

Yes, you are quite right access to Woomera, Cultana and Port Wakefield is likely the reason Adelaide was chosen, and that is fair and reasonable, however, we were told a key reason for the review was the need to consider ‘whether Australian defence units, assets and facilities are prepared for the military to take action in a timely way amid a deteriorating strategic situation’.

I wonder if permanently basing our "long-range strike" capabilities (that were given priority over everything else in DSR) and our air defence as far as possible away from where they are most needed in a time of combat is the best decision in the long term?

Surely, one of the key justifications for acquiring HIMARS was its ability to deliver devastating precision strikes on any landing force in a timely manner, before it gains a foothold or has time to disperse. Hours can make a difference.

A landing force is not just going to appear with no warning. Transit time from anywhere except Indonesia and PNG to Australia is measured in weeks, not hours, and it would not take anywhere near that time to move the assets forward. Certainly an air landed force could do it more rapidly, but does anyone honestly think the Australian mainland is likely to be invaded? And without any serious deterioration in our relations with the potential invader to give warning?

We’ve wargamed that in the past; even the US would struggle to mount a successful invasion through the north, and getting to the South East takes a lot of time and resources. Relatively small scale raids, yes possible although we will still have warning time (provided we recognise the significance of the indicators). Certainly we need to continue to evaluate how we would respond to such events; but in the real world there are many more likely scenarios for the use of the ADF in combat situations. With all due respect to Paul Dibb and Kim Beasley, those are the areas into which we need to put most of our intellectual effort and training.

 

[Redlands18]

A landing force is not just going to appear with no warning. Transit time from anywhere except Indonesia and PNG to Australia is measured in weeks, not hours, and it would not take anywhere near that time to move the assets forward. Certainly an air landed force could do it more rapidly, but does anyone honestly think the Australian mainland is likely to be invaded? And without any serious deterioration in our relations with the potential invader to give warning?

We’ve wargamed that in the past; even the US would struggle to mount a successful invasion through the north, and getting to the South East takes a lot of time and resources. Relatively small scale raids, yes possible although we will still have warning time (provided we recognise the significance of the indicators). Certainly we need to continue to evaluate how we would respond to such events; but in the real world there are many more likely scenarios for the use of the ADF in combat situations. With all due respect to Paul Dibb and Kim Beasley, those are the areas into which we need to put most of our intellectual effort and training.

You wouldn't even directly oppose a landing in most of Northern Australia, cut the highways, cut the supply lines and the Outback will do the rest for you. It is amongst the most hostile environments to humans in the world. You need to bring in everything by sea or air and its a very long way from anywhere.