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Subject: What sort of land force does Australia really need?
Volkodav    8/19/2008 8:19:53 AM
Continental defence suggests light armour and motorised infantry. Regional commitments suggest air mobile light infantry. Extra regional coalition operations suggest heavy armour. We need to be capable in all areas but how can we achieve a balanced capable force with our small recruitment base? What solutions may we be seeing in the Defence White Paper?
 
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Raven22       8/23/2008 7:08:36 AM

Sorry but that is completely wrong. 3 Bde and 7 Bde regularily operate with aviation assets and their brigades organic armoured units on both exercises and operations. They also operate with tanks from time to time. Even we poor old 6 Bde Ready Reservists in the underfunded 90's got to do those things.

Not really. Beyond the odd large exercise, the brigades don't really work with each other at all. That's not enough to foster the sort of instinctive competetence for combined arms warfare that is required these days. For intance, I'm a cavalryman from 1 Bde. I've worked for plenty of light infantry bosses that didn't have a clue how to use cavalry. They'd never done it. I deployed on ops under an infantry OC that openly told me he was intimidated by armour. I've also never worked with helos in Australia - even during pre-deployment training. Yet I was expected to be able to work seamlessly with coalition air overseas. That's a lot different to, say, a US officer that lives and breathes combined arms.

I think the biggest problem with changing our Army structure is our history. Everyone looks at our history from WWII, sees nothing but light infantry and assumes that is what we need. It happens at every level - how often have you seen an article written or a speech given that says under HNA the army is growing from 6 battalions to 8 battalions, as though the only units in the army are infantry. No one remembers, for instance, that by far the most successful battles in Vietnam were combined arms affairs with tanks, cavalary, artillery and aviation. We have to stop having a light infantry centric look at our Army, and really accept combined arms as the basis for the future army.

 
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Raven22       8/23/2008 8:40:46 AM

Sorry but that is completely wrong. 3 Bde and 7 Bde regularily operate with aviation assets and their brigades organic armoured units on both exercises and operations. They also operate with tanks from time to time. Even we poor old 6 Bde Ready Reservists in the underfunded 90's got to do those things.

Not really. Beyond the odd large exercise, the brigades don't really work with each other at all. That's not enough to foster the sort of instinctive competetence for combined arms warfare that is required these days. For intance, I'm a cavalryman from 1 Bde. I've worked for plenty of light infantry bosses that didn't have a clue how to use cavalry. They'd never done it. I deployed on ops under an infantry OC that openly told me he was intimidated by armour. I've also never worked with helos in Australia - even during pre-deployment training. Yet I was expected to be able to work seamlessly with coalition air overseas. That's a lot different to, say, a US officer that lives and breathes combined arms.

I think the biggest problem with changing our Army structure is our history. Everyone looks at our history from WWII, sees nothing but light infantry and assumes that is what we need. It happens at every level - how often have you seen an article written or a speech given that says under HNA the army is growing from 6 battalions to 8 battalions, as though the only units in the army are infantry. No one remembers, for instance, that by far the most successful battles in Vietnam were combined arms affairs with tanks, cavalary, artillery and aviation. We have to stop having a light infantry centric look at our Army, and really accept combined arms as the basis for the future army.

 
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Yimmy       8/23/2008 11:46:10 AM
Kevin, what source are you using in your description of the Guards in the Falklands conflict?  I can't find any mention of a failed route march.  Britains small wars .com has a good description of Tumbledown from the British ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/Tumbledown.htm ) and Argentinian ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/David/Tumbledown.htm ) perspectives, but I would be interested in reading about what you are referring to.
 
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Kevin Pork       8/23/2008 6:12:26 PM

Kevin, what source are you using in your description of the Guards in the Falklands conflict?  I can't find any mention of a failed route march.  Britains small wars .com has a good description of Tumbledown from the British ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/Tumbledown.htm ) and Argentinian ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/David/Tumbledown.htm ) perspectives, but I would be interested in reading about what you are referring to.



"The Battle for the Falklands" by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins ISBN 0 7181 2228 3  (Page 274)
 
(Max Hastings went with the TF to the Falklands and reported on all phases of the war)
 
to summarise -
 
Basicly, the Guards couldn't even make it to Goose Green (after 12 hours walking, they turned back), that combined with a lack of Helos to get them forward meant there was only one way to move them - by sea, this (along with a number of stuff ups) led to the Galahad disaster.
 
The Guards were overburdened and ill trained for the operation. I want to make it clear, it was not their fault - they were the wrong troops to send to the Falklands - they were trained and equipped to fight the USSR in Germany, then had their carriers taken from them and were sent to the arsh end of the Sth Atlantic. however, they are an excellent real world example of why you don't get light Inf by just saying "get out and walk" to mech or mot Inf.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    AD   8/23/2008 10:03:35 PM
However even a Timor style operation, with the relatively low overall threat, required a substantial use of armoured vehicle capability with significant numbers of M113, ASLAV (and sub-variants) plus early examples of Bushmaster IMV's deployed, despite formally being in an "evaluation" role within Army.
 
I read somewhere that the wheeled vehicles were pretty useless in ET because they kept getting bogged.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Raven   8/23/2008 10:37:27 PM
Not really. Beyond the odd large exercise, the brigades don't really work with each other at all. That's not enough to foster the sort of instinctive competetence for combined arms warfare that is required these days.
 
Both 3 and 7 Brigade have their own armoured elements, B Squadron 3/4 light horse and 2/14 Light Horse respectively. The 7 Bd battalions also have their own Bushies. They don't need to operate with other Brigades to get experience with light armour at least.
 
For intance, I'm a cavalryman from 1 Bde. I've worked for plenty of light infantry bosses that didn't have a clue how to use cavalry. They'd never done it. I deployed on ops under an infantry OC that openly told me he was intimidated by armour. I've also never worked with helos in Australia - even during pre-deployment training. Yet I was expected to be able to work seamlessly with coalition air overseas. That's a lot different to, say, a US officer that lives and breathes combined arms.
 
Well I don't know what is happening then, because we used to have tanks and aviation elements on exercise with us at least yearly. If they regularily found the time and fuel to give artillery officers the experience they need firing missions from Kiowa, then I'm very surprised that they aren't being exercised with another recon element like 2 Cav. The tanks generally operated more with the infantry and LH than with us (as they should), but they came down to provide targets for us when practicing anti-tank drills (more accurately I think we were the targets ;-)) and as a ready reaction force when the guns were attacked on a couple of occasions. We deployed the guns by Blackhawk on one occasion and used to deploy our recon team by Huey and Kiowa on several others. It's not a huge amount of cross training over the course of five years, but it was at a time when the army was less well funded than it is now and we were a combat support unit in a second line brigade, so I'm very suprised that the high readiness units aren't getting that sort of experience now.
 
One possibility that springs to mind is that if you have only worked with 3 Brigade, then you aren't going to get a balanced overall picture. That brigade's job is rapid deployment light infantry work, so they have a lot of experience with helicopters and a bit with bushmasters but not so much with tanks and ASLAV's. I don't think that is anything to panic about because of their role, but I also think that you might get a different view if you worked with 7 Bde units who have integrated armour.

I think the biggest problem with changing our Army structure is our history. Everyone looks at our history from WWII, sees nothing but light infantry and assumes that is what we need. It happens at every level - how often have you seen an article written or a speech given that says under HNA the army is growing from 6 battalions to 8 battalions, as though the only units in the army are infantry. No one remembers, for instance, that by far the most successful battles in Vietnam were combined arms affairs with tanks, cavalary, artillery and aviation. We have to stop having a light infantry centric look at our Army, and really accept combined arms as the basis for the future army.

It sounds like there is a bit of inter-corp rivalry creeping in ;-). The infantry get more recognition than the rest of us because there are more of them and because they are at the front and centre of every deployment. That doesn't mean that we can't perform in combined arms ops when we need to, the examples that you give of how that happenned in Vietnam should be proof enough of that.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    KP   8/23/2008 11:23:02 PM



Kevin, what source are you using in your description of the Guards in the Falklands conflict?  I can't find any mention of a failed route march.  Britains small wars .com has a good description of Tumbledown from the British ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/Tumbledown.htm ) and Argentinian ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/David/Tumbledown.htm ) perspectives, but I would be interested in reading about what you are referring to.




"The Battle for the Falklands" by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins ISBN 0 7181 2228 3  (Page 274)
 
(Max Hastings went with the TF to the Falklands and reported on all phases of the war)
 
to summarise -

Basicly, the Guards couldn't even make it to Goose Green (after 12 hours walking, they turned back), that combined with a lack of Helos to get them forward meant there was only one way to move them - by sea, this (along with a number of stuff ups) led to the Galahad disaster.

 The Guards were overburdened and ill trained for the operation. I want to make it clear, it was not their fault - they were the wrong troops to send to the Falklands - they were trained and equipped to fight the USSR in Germany, then had their carriers taken from them and were sent to the arsh end of the Sth Atlantic. however, they are an excellent real world example of why you don't get light Inf by just saying "get out and walk" to mech or mot Inf.

I'm not sure that I would take everything that Max Hastings has to say at face value given his record. See link.  

>>
 
I'd note that Goose Green is only about 19 miles from Port San Carlo so I find it very hard to believe that the Guards would walk for 12 hours, which would have gotten them most of the way there, then walk all the way back unless they did so because a change of plan required them to do so. I'm not going to write off Hastings' suggestion outright but I'd like to read something from some of the officers involved as to the decision to move the Guard's by ship versus route marching before I believe it. Remember that 5 Infantry Bde only arrived 3 days after Goose Green and when the rest of the Army had advanced a long way towards Stanley, so the commanders were probably keen to move them up in the quickest way possible.
 
 I'd also note that even if you and he are correct, it doesn't automatically support the notion that troops can't successfully conduct both light and mechanised operations. There may be lessons that can be learned from the Guards experience (like as Yimmy has suggested, "don't put your soldiers on guard duty outside Buck House for extended periods, if you want them to maintain combat fitness"), that might lead to us being able to do what they failed to do successfully.
 


 
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Kevin Pork       8/24/2008 1:47:43 AM







Kevin, what source are you using in your description of the Guards in the Falklands conflict?  I can't find any mention of a failed route march.  Britains small wars .com has a good description of Tumbledown from the British ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/Tumbledown.htm ) and Argentinian ( h**p://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/David/Tumbledown.htm ) perspectives, but I would be interested in reading about what you are referring to.










"The Battle for the Falklands" by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins ISBN 0 7181 2228 3  (Page 274)

 

(Max Hastings went with the TF to the Falklands and reported on all phases of the war)

 

to summarise -



Basicly, the Guards couldn't even make it to Goose Green (after 12 hours walking, they turned back), that combined with a lack of Helos to get them forward meant there was only one way to move them - by sea, this (along with a number of stuff ups) led to the Galahad disaster.



 The Guards were overburdened and ill trained for the operation. I want to make it clear, it was not their fault - they were the wrong troops to send to the Falklands - they were trained and equipped to fight the USSR in Germany, then had their carriers taken from them and were sent to the arsh end of the Sth Atlantic. however, they are an excellent real world example of why you don't get light Inf by just saying "get out and walk" to mech or mot Inf.




I'm not sure that I would take everything that Max Hastings has to say at face value given his record. See link.  



>>
 

I'd note that Goose Green is only about 19 miles from Port San Carlo so I find it very hard to believe that the Guards would walk for 12 hours, which would have gotten them most of the way there, then walk all the way back unless they did so because a change of plan required them to do so. I'm not going to write off Hastings' suggestion outright but I'd like to read something from some of the officers involved as to the decision to move the Guard's by ship versus route marching before I believe it. Remember that 5 Infantry Bde only arrived 3 days after Goose Green and when the rest of the Army had advanced a long way towards Stanley, so the commanders were probably keen to move them up in the quickest way possible.

 

 I'd also note that even if you and he are correct, it doesn't automatically support the notion that troops can't successfully conduct both light and mechanised operations. There may be lessons that can be learned from the Guards experience (like as Yimmy has suggested, "don't put your soldiers on guard duty outside Buck House for extended periods, if you want them to maintain combat fitness"), that might lead to us being able to do what they failed to do successfully.


 


The link is a bit of a long stretch, Hastings was on the Falklands, he wasn't in the Pacific battles.
The Guards CO suggested that the route march be abandoned, 5 Bde agreed. It was not a change of plan, it held up the plan. The commanders had no wish to send them by ship as it was too risky, but they had no choice, since the Guards couldn't march and Helos were busy elsewhere - it was ship them or have them sit the war out in San Carlo.
 
It is possible to maintain fitness and do extended guard duty (I've done it myself at Vic Barracks a number of times), but you need to have the fitness to maintain, carrier troops don't have
 
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Aussiegunneragain    KP   8/24/2008 4:09:30 AM
The link suggests that Hasting's has a history of passing his own interpretations on events to which he is not privy. Irrespective of whether or not he was on the Falklands he would not have been privy to the reasons behind the commanders decision's, especially to those of the commander of a unit to which he was not attached. Do you seriously believe that the British Army would have said to a journalist "we've called off the march of the Guards because they are too unfit". Seriously? He might have gotten a few second hand mutterings by paratroopers passing their own interpretations on events, but he wouldn't have had to full picture. The senior British officers who ran the operation still can't agree between themselves about how the operation ran, so Hastings is hardly ane expert witness on the matter.
 
Anyway, here is an article that gives a different version of why the guards were taken to Bluff Cove by sea. It indicates that the decision was made because it was the quickest way to reinforce the Para's who had gone there by Chinook, against orders. The article also suggests that had that not happened then the Guards would have marched into action like all the other troops. Go's to show that you can't take any one source as gospel, hey.
 
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PBZ/is_6_84/ai_n14699964
 
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Aussiegunneragain    KP   8/24/2008 4:41:46 AM
The link suggests that Hasting's has a history of passing his own interpretations on events to which he is not privy. Irrespective of whether or not he was on the Falklands he would not have been privy to the reasons behind the commanders decision's, especially to those of the commander of a unit to which he was not attached. Do you seriously believe that the British Army would have said to a journalist "we've called off the march of the Guards because they are too unfit". Seriously? He might have gotten a few second hand mutterings by paratroopers passing their own interpretations on events, but he wouldn't have had to full picture. The senior British officers who ran the operation still can't agree between themselves about how the operation ran, so Hastings is hardly ane expert witness on the matter.
 
Anyway, here is an article that gives a different version of why the guards were taken to Bluff Cove by sea. It indicates that the decision was made because it was the quickest way to reinforce the Para's who had gone there by Chinook, against orders. The article also suggests that had that not happened then the Guards would have marched into action like all the other troops. Go's to show that you can't take any one source as gospel, hey.
 
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PBZ/is_6_84/ai_n14699964
 
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