I don't know about issuing ammo to the soldiers on base, however, I was often amased at how I could (as a non uniformed civvy) drive around inside Enoggera Army Base when I was doing contract work their years ago. After signing in daily past the fat, unarmed middle-aged scurity guard, I was able to drive anywhere without once being challenged for ID etc.

 

Slightly different atmosphere when at Amberley, however, I was still able to wander from 38SQN down to the Photographic Section. The mind boggles.

 

I think they have beefed up security since I was there last. I believe they now have a bigger dog and a longer chain!

 

Forget terrorists, drunk locals can stroll around! 

I recall being on secondment to 2CAV once when it was still at Holsworthy (yes, I'm showing my age - it was the 80's) and doing my turn on guard duty at night. When patrolling the dimly lit grounds we were issued pick handles...

i can appreciate that historically the biggest threat mayve been disorderly drunks and the odd protester, but the whole pretence of the latest issue was one of deliberate terrorism involving actively destroying defence assets and mass murder.

does it not strike people as odd that even if the gate security is 'armed' its bearly an actual deterrant, yet those actively trained in weapons handling and the actual targets are not equipt to deal with such an event.

how far do you think attackers would get it their alleged plan actually worked? how far do you think theyd get if soldiers signed out a weapon when they presented for duty?

just thoughts...

When I was in the School of Artillery at Manly in the early 90's 1 CDO regiment climbed the cliffs, took over the guard house which had 1 axe handle between 6 soldiers and planted fake explosives on the guns. Unfortunately it turned out to be a career limiting move for the CO of 1 CDO as he had neglected to tell anybody of the "raid" and the Chief of Ground Forces got called out in the middle of the night. Doesn't say much for base security there but then again it is pretty hard to steal a howitzer.

Thats pretty funny, I have heard (from reputable source) that the Brit SF community regulary carry out similar activites to highlight inadequacys in existing security procedures at various UK military and Gov installations.  I know for a FACT that they managed to actually get on board a Vanguard at Faslane and put stickers with teh following crest in a few areas!!!!

Similarily the Nuclear Reactor at Dounreay in Scotland has also had its security shown to be rather less than adequate in a similar manner.

Given that recent operational deployments have involved a lot of OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR - of which urban security, vehicle searches and check point/roadblock monitoring are a part of.

It is surprising that they don't deploy ADF personnel at these base check points to provide them with situational training.

(i.e: How to approach vehicles etc)

During the early 90's this was pretty much the be all and end all of our training and interestingly armed military personnel were used for security at a number of installations during the 91 Gulf War. The ADF is much smaller than it was then so we probably don't have enough spare bodies to use in this way.

Both 6 RAR and 8/9 RAR were still Reg in 1991 and I believe 8/9 RAR started its conversion in 1992 with 6 RAR following with a single RR Coy in 1993. The RR scheme didn't really get up to speed until 95 or 96 just before the whole thing was canned.

 

So in terms of my comment, which refered to 1991, the ADF was larger than it is today.

No it wasn't, we have 7 reg battalions and 1 CDO battalion now, eight infantry units in all. The most that we ever had then was 6 Battalions until 1992 and the regular force shrunk to 4 over the next couple of years. When they canned the Ready Reserve they only raised one extra battalion to begin with, which left us with 5 during the late part of the 90's.

I'd note that I'm not saying that I think that the RR was a bad idea, far from it. I just think that we should have been used to raise extra high quality reserves rather than being used to replace regs.

I personally think it is disgraceful that Army states it's "too difficult" to have troops with weapons and live ammunition, securing their bases. Not having this capability even under the highest levels of the "safebase" system is a joke.

 

Every single day in Australia, thousands of police, other law enforcement agencies and private security contractors carry weapons with live ammunition with training that is not a patch on that which ADF members are provided. The difference is experience in carry and operating same. Locking weapons and ammunition away and forbidding the carriage of such can not be conducive to gaining realistic experience in day to day usage of same. 

 

The protective security measures at bases are currently inadequate. A handful of mostly untrained and inexperienced persons have managed to conduct surveillance and preparations for an attack on one of our most significant operational bases and only good work by domestic police and security agencies has prevented it. Army security measures seemingly provided next to no deterrence to these persons. Private security contractors, no disrespect to same, are chosen on the basis of cost to employ. Not the level of capability they provide and should be withdrawn from usage in this role, ASAP.

 

The improvements that need to be made should be aimed at addressing 2 primary threats to Australian military bases, in my humble opinion.

 

1. Random mass shootings.

 

2. Attacks from human or vehicle borne IED's.

 

To help provide this protection, I submit that the following measures need to be implemented:

 

1. Civilian "gate guards" need to be withdrawn and replaced by, armed Australian Protective Service officers that provide the same level of operational capability as they do for embassies and consulates within Australia.

 

2. APS and military police units, including general tracking dog units, should provide armed (even if only with sidearms) mobile patrol units on a 24 hour basis for all military bases with an armoury and significant personnel numbers.

 

3. Military Police units (ADF police if you like) should develop a 24hr Quick Response Force capability for all ADF bases, equipped with an armoury and significant personnel numbers, based there on a permanent basis. This capability should be armed with standard ADF small arms (F-88, Browning Hi-Power Mk 3 and non-lethal weapons and kit - batons, OC Spray, handcuffs and TASER etc). MP's should not be tasked with menial duties such as investigating minor breaches of ADF law, but rather re-focused on their deployment and domestic protective security roles. Regimental police should be re-rolled to handle the minor investigative taskings, with hand-off's (ie: RP's are responsible for investigation only, not prosecution) to external (from the unit) prosecution agencies to ensure the integrity and fairness of charges against soldiers suspected of committing breaches of military law.  

 

3. All Regimental guard rooms should be manned 24hrs a day and be equipped and tasked with surveillance of regimental locations, assets and buildings as well as communication tasks for the unit. Guard rooms should have an effective radio and telephone communications network with APS and MP based security teams to ensure C3 in the event of any major incident.

 

4. Reliable "2 way" communications channels with State police forces should be established in order to seek assistance or provide situation reports for response to any major incident occurring within or nearby to major military installations.

 

5. Physical security measures, including restricted person and vehicular access to military installations and video surveillance, security lighting and motion detector systems for fence-lines etc should be upgraded. A hollow "boom gate" should not be the primary (and only) measure of preventing vehicular access to military installations.

 

A "main gate" should be the only viable external access for non-ADF vehicles to a base. (Additional access points for ADF which are operated for specific periods during exercise or operations may be necessary as well, but should be substantial enough to prevent access even to "ramming" type vehicle attack scenarios).

  

The "main gate" should be designed to allow reasonably quick and efficient vehicular access but be sufficiently capable to stop "ramming" type scenarios and be able to "isolate" suspect vehicles without allowing them to travel any further if warranted. A glass box for the gate guard and a hollow plastic boom is no longer sufficient, I'm afraid...

 

These are my thoughts anyway. Any comments?

 

 

 

 

 

 

thanks for your thoughts aussiedigger2.

i think that over the ages homebased 'peacetime' militarys have been regarded as safe and as such certain drills and civil protocols/niceties must be adhered to. perhaps theres a historical foundation for not having garrisoned/barracked troops armed in democracy? i cant imagine an armed civil assault on a military barracks at anytime in australias recent history, even during the hippy days of vietnam era.

yet now we have small fundamentalist elements actively seeking to saboutage vital assets and mass murder military members. if we consider that except for certain naval bases, all other 'targets' are located quite peripherally to any civilian centre, im unconvinced that civilian agencies could even rally any sort of rapid response. eg: williamtown is 40min from newcastle. newcastle cops are busy enough, its a peripheral centre, how long do you think it will take to call in the local swat team, get em suited up and get them to an armed assault of the home of australias air defence? theres an unarmed guard and a straight road leading to several flightlines of multibillion dollar assets just sitting there!

 but these things dont happen here, they havnt before! will it really take an actual attack for this to be addressed? im only an observer, maybe im wrong??

Agreed, the NSWPOL "Counter Assault Team" capability is resident in Sydney. They would need to be flown to Newcastle to respond to an incident quickly. 

 

Hence my suggestion that every major base, should have an armed QRF capability formed by the local MP/RAAF Police / ADF Police contingent.  

 

ADF should develop a protective security course designed to train personnel for this role. This course could be an adjunct to the existing close personal protection course the Military Police already run and would provide (I would think) a reasonably desirable operational role within the MP ranks, when not deployed operationally.

 

There is a security review being conducted at present by ADF and hopefully some useful additional security measures are identified and implemented by this review.

 

Despite there being certain standard security measures implemented at every airport, consulate, embassy on a permanent basis and temporarily during major events (CHOGM, Commonwealth Games, Olympics, APEC, Pacific Islands Forum etc) within Australia, these are apparently "too hard" for ADF to contemplate and there is "no threat" because "it hasn't ever happened"...

 

I don't seem to recall Russia ever nuking Australia before either. Does this mean there is no possible threat of it? I do notice there has never been a terrorist based CBR incident in Australia either. Yet for some reason we have created the Incident Response Regiment...

 

We've never had a politically motivated siege event requiring the use of a Tactical Assault Group in Australia and we actually maintain 2 of them. Why? They've never been used...

 

A little bit less myopic vision from Defence would be appreciated in this regard...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shouldn't there be ADGies to prevent this type of thing? 

Which brings me to my next point, if we have Airfield Defence Guards why don't we have something similar for the other services?

 

The Air force defines ADGs as the specialist ground defence force required to protect Air Force bases and installations from hostile ground action

Suggesting that there primary role is the protection of RAAF equipment, personnel, assets and facilities during operations in Australia and overseas, protecting base assets, infrastructure and personnel against attack by enemy ground forces for up to five kilometres from the airfield perimeter fence. These guys are intended to counter raids by enemy special forces surely terrorists should be easy pickings?

 

Having said that I'm with Aussie Digger in suggesting that every major installation should have a protective force -

perhaps with hybrid skills sets (Military Police /Airfield Defence Guard/IntelligenceCorps (Including DSA) /CT) with the composition depending on the location (facilities in built up area's would have a higher surveillance/MP component).