As I understand it, the new requirement is to be able to project land force in Australia’s immediate region (replacing the previous effective mission of generating under equipped battle groups for west Asian contingencies). Both sides in a potential major conflict in the Pacific seek to be able to deny access to hostile surface ships (increasingly relying on land-based maritime strike to do that but also submarines, sea mines and land based air). Denial of access ensures that massed armoured formations in a Pacific war are unlikely because the ships to lift and sustain those troops won’t be committed until the seas are safe (a particularly pressing problem for Australia with limited escorts).
Australia is acquiring some of the capabilities to participate in such a denial strategy. I guess the change can be understood in this way. The previous plan envisaged a regiment of SPHs supporting the (continent-based) manouevre of combined arms battlegroups, the new plan is centred around batteries of long range strike missiles on islands with the infantry protecting them. In other words, artillery is not so much supporting the manouevre of armour and infantry but is the decisive arm.
I think it makes sense as a concept but I can’t see how it works for Australia without a) land-based deployable protection from ballistic missiles and b) a lot more firepower than is being planned c) various other problems discussed on the Australian Army thread.
As a concept, I believe I understand it, which is different from me thinking it is a sensible one. I can, to a degree, understand how/why the USMC is being re-shaped the way it is planned, but that is not the same as my thinking it is a good idea.
Planning to 're-shape' Army into some sort of bastard, red-headed stepchild of the USMC, particularly given the time it would take to implement such a plan, and also how much longer it would take to recover and regenerate capabilities if (when) is becomes known that the plan leaves large capability gaps, leaves me concerned.
It is also worth mentioning that the ADF is a fraction of the size of just the USMC, and that the USMC is also able to draw upon the rest of the US military and defence establishments for additional support and capabilities whilst Australia has only a small fraction of such capabilities and in many areas, little or none at all.
As it is I question some of the assumptions and assertions made about the USMC reformation, and the ADF/Army reformation even more so.
Take for instance the USMC decision to disestablish it's Tank capability, apparently in the belief that if (when) the USMC needs armoured support, that can be supplied by the US Army who still retains tanks. IMO there is a significant flaw that it seems many planners are or have overlooked in their assessments of what can and likely will happen. The specific flaw that I am referring to here is the reality that in order for the US Army to provide tank support to a USMC combat deployment, particularly to islands in the Pacific, the US Army not only already needs to be present on those islands, it needs to be present with tanks. If a USMC unit engaged in combat needs support from armoured elements, it is no good if it will take Army a week or more to move tanks into the area of operations because the amphibs deployed by the USMC did not have any, and it will take time for the US to get suitable vessels to where US Army tanks are based to pick them up and bring them into the area of operations.
In a similar vein, I have grave doubts that what appears to be the current gov't and Defence strategy for the future has been fully thought through. An obvious potential issue on attempting to form such a 'focused' force is the question of what happens if the focus wrong? That is just one of the potential issues which can arise if one hyperspecializes in anything. The more focused or specialized the more expensive and/or less relevant something is for anything other than that area of focus, expertise or specialization.
Reforming the ADF into a force which will be apparently highly dependent on land-based AShM batteries deployed to islands to Australia's north and northwest is IMO fraught with risk and could prove as effective as the Maginot Line was in defending France.
Firstly, whatever conflict Australia becomes embroiled in would need to be one where Australian forces, if deployed to these islands as envisioned, could actually have an impact upon the conflict. If a conflict erupts somewhere that Australia becomes involved with, but does not involve that region or SLOC's which run through there, then all the forces Australia reformed to be of use will be largely or perhaps even entirely ineffective.
Secondly, if the SLOC in/through the island chains are important, Australia would need to be able to get it's forces into the area/onto those islands in order to be effective. Absent permission from the gov'ts and people living on those islands, Australia would have to effectively invade and it could potentially even require opposed or partially opposed landing of Australia forces. Relating to this, the hypothetical Australian AShM batteries would also require sufficient/appropriate defending forces to survive attacks which could come from the forces Australia intends to oppose, but could also come from 'local' people and forces.
Thirdly, Australia would also need to first establish and then sustain the logistics chain to deliver the support which such deployed forces require. This logistics chain would need to be large enough and robust enough to deliver what Australian forces would need, when and where they would need it, and likely some losses and opposing forces attempting to cut those supply lines.
Lastly, all the above has been making the assumption that Australia could establish forward deployable, land-based AShM batteries for A2/AD use. It could also turn out that ISR and comms capabilities to make such units work in the region require more resources than Australia can or is willing to allocate. Or it might be that the ROE's Australia considers 'acceptable' are too restrictive to make land-based batteries effective at OTH engagement of surface vessels. Given the amount of ship traffic which transits some of the region's SLOC's, I believe this could happen. IIRC on average some 200 vessels transit the Malacca Strait every day. If Australia could deploy an A2/AD unit somewhere within striking distance of the Malacca Strait in a bid to close the Strait to hostile traffic, Australia would also need to have some way to ID legitimate/hostile targets from friendlies and neutral shipping. WIthout such an IFF capability, Australia could potentially end up engaging neutral or friendly shipping, and/or disrupt maritime trade world wide including impacting other nations otherwise completely uninvolved.
