What sort of land force does Australia really need?

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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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Volkodav 8/26/2008 6:28:05 AM

Would it be viable to base each brigade around a beefed up Armoured Cavalry Regiment?

Expanding on Ravens Cavalry concept, why not incorporate our tanks and aviation assets into three identical cavalry regiments?

The Regiment would consist of:

1 x recce sqn (Light Horse or Lancer?) specialised recce and ISR platforms ie. Fennec or similar

1 or 2 x heavy CAV sqn (Horse?) 12 x MBT, Heavy Tracked FOV (6 x AIFV+dismounts, 1 x AEV, 1 x ARV)

2 x medium CAV sqn (Dragoon?) medium wheeled FOV (12 AIFV+dismounts, 6x Armoured Car 120mm, AEV, ARV)

1 or 2 x APC sqn (Mounted Rifle, Mounted Infantry) Bushmaster FOV (APC, weapons carrier, Copperhead) btn lift

1 x Aviation sqn (?) 9 x Tiger, 6 x LUH (ie. EC635, AW109), UAV?

1 x SPA bty (?) 6 x tracked SPG, 6 x medium wheeled SP Mortar, 6 x SPAA

Each brigade would be rounded out with a Mech btn, a Light Inf btn, possibly a Pioneer btn (ideal for peace keeping, reconstruction and humanitarian ops).

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Enterpriser 8/26/2008 7:09:18 AM

Would it be viable to base each brigade around a beefed up Armoured Cavalry Regiment?

Expanding on Ravens Cavalry concept, why not incorporate our tanks and aviation assets into three identical cavalry regiments?

The Regiment would consist of:

1 x recce sqn (Light Horse or Lancer?) specialised recce and ISR platforms ie. Fennec or similar

1 or 2 x heavy CAV sqn (Horse?) 12 x MBT, Heavy Tracked FOV (6 x AIFV+dismounts, 1 x AEV, 1 x ARV)

2 x medium CAV sqn (Dragoon?) medium wheeled FOV (12 AIFV+dismounts, 6x Armoured Car 120mm, AEV, ARV)

1 or 2 x APC sqn (Mounted Rifle, Mounted Infantry) Bushmaster FOV (APC, weapons carrier, Copperhead) btn lift

1 x Aviation sqn (?) 9 x Tiger, 6 x LUH (ie. EC635, AW109), UAV?

1 x SPA bty (?) 6 x tracked SPG, 6 x medium wheeled SP Mortar, 6 x SPAA

Each brigade would be rounded out with a Mech btn, a Light Inf btn, possibly a Pioneer btn (ideal for peace keeping, reconstruction and humanitarian ops).

This would certainly make sense in order to provide medium battlegroups (or heavier if 2 Abrams Sqns per ACR) for higher intensity ops . However, it may be a little heavy for the region and AG will probably pick on you for that (hehe :P).

Personally, I like the idea of:

1st Brigade (Main Warmaking brigade or medium battlegroup generator/rotator)

1st Amd Rgt (4 Sqns)

2nd Cav (Patria?)

3 x Armd Inf (Puma?)

Arty Rgt

Aviation Rgt

7 & 11 Brigades (Yes, we need 4 Brigades - as unrealistic as this is for the moment)

1x Cav Rgt per (Patria)

1x Mech Inf B.

2 x Mot Inf B.

Arty Rgt

Aviation Rgt

3 Brigade

3/4 Cav Rgt

3 x Light Inf. B (or Mot Inf B. until 11 Brigade ARA comes online)

Arty Rgt

Aviation Detachment where applicable.

Brett.

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Aussiegunneragain Raven 8/26/2008 8:28:02 AM

I think the biggest problem, AG, is that we want an army for different things. I want a modern combined arms army able to fight a modern mechanised or counter-insurgency war in concert with our allies anywhere in the world. You want an army able to patrol the jungles in our ?region? and not much more. Fair enough.

Nope, I want an army that focuses our limited resources (particularily manpower) in a way that gives us the best chance of success, in the only part of the world where we really don't have any choice but to deploy substantial ground forces when the situation requires. That said, the force structure which I have previously suggested wouldn't preclude us from making an effective contribution in Afghanistan or Iraq. For example, I did agree with AD that we should maintain a 3 battalion armoured Brigade and there would be nothing stopping us rotating a battalion of that through an overseas location.

I will say, however, army is mandated by government to be able to deploy and support a brigade sized force in medium intensity warfare in concert with our allies anywhere in the world.

Find me an official document that say's that and I'll take my hat off to you. You'll find that if you look at the 2007 defence update it largely reiterates the policy outlined in the 2000 White Paper, that our region comes first. The only ones talking about deploying brigade sized formations into distant theatres are soldiers wanting a bit of the glory. That's nothing new, the catchcry in the 1980's and '90's was to be able to deploy a brigade-sized formation on the Korean Peninsular. It's not a valid basis for our defence policy though.

On the other hand, a light mechanised army can patrol the jungles of our region just as well as the current light infantry army. Simply leave the IFVs at home and patrol dismounted ? the same as we?ve had engineers, artillery and tankers acting as infantrymen in the region lately.

The point is that we shouldn't be wasting a load of money on wheeled AFV's that aren't suitable for regional ops and we shouldn't be focusing valuable training time on operating those vehicles. I believe that the mounted troops could do an ok job of light infantry work, but given that we don't have too many soldiers we want the ones that we do have to be as good as possible at the tasks that they need to do.

I'd note that the only reason you are using ASLAV's and Bushies now is because Paul Dibb's DOA doctrine, when he wanted an Army that only needed to chase Kamarian raider battalions around the Northern Territory. It is only co-incidence that we have even had a couple of conflicts in the Middle-East where they have actually been useful. Prior to that wheeled AFV's would have been just about useless in every conflict that we've been involved in. We might not even be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in 4 or 5 years time and even if we still are tracked vehicles can make a good contribution there. AFAIC spending money and time on a wheeled capability for the regs is ridiculously wasteful for an Army as small as ours.

BTW, this statement is just plain wrong.

I think you would find that with any of those tasks being able to read a map and talk into a radio are 80% of the challenge. Naturally if you were to deploy where you need to know that stuff they should give you some practice first, but it isn't so hard that you couldn't pick it up.

That sort of coordination that I listed is some of the hardest things to do in modern warfare. Saying ?it isn?t so had you shouldn?t be able to pick it up? is how people die waiting for the medivac chopper to come (Sig McArthy) or how your own artillery lands on your head (lots and lots of times), or how 10 French soldiers are killed and the survivors pinned down for hours because they didn't know how to call in air support or even reinforcements. In war, now more than ever, simple things are hard, hard things even harder. As I said, I?m just glad I didn?t have to do those things in Iraq, because wouldn?t have been very good.

The

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Aussiegunneragain Grrr, Typo's.... 8/26/2008 8:37:18 AM

... it's been a long day, but I think everybody can understand my last post.

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Aussiegunneragain Ahem Brett .... 8/26/2008 9:16:50 AM

.... I believe that I'm the only one suggesting adding an extra independent tank regiment to the mix and I'm not suggesting getting rid of 1 Bde. I don't have a problem with heavy forces, I have a problem with heavy forces on wheels for an Army oriented towards jungle and island warfare.

Fundamentally I don't see what was wrong with the old system of the Cavalry and Light Horse regiments providing tracked APC support for the light infantry units (you'd purchase an IFV's now), before Dibbed F*cked up the army with his Bushmasters and ASLAV's. An example of how it works brilliantly is if we were to continously deploy a 3 Battalion brigade on a counter insurgency operation in our region, like we did in Vietnam. We could operate one battalion in the IFV's and supported by tanks, another in helicopters with the third providing base defence or on R and R at any one time. It is an eminantly flexible arrangement that worked in Vietnam and I don't see why it wouldn't work again.

I don't think you could come up with a better way of killing the enemy than by landing a battalion behind them in choppers then running them into them using tanks and APC's (otherwise known as "hammer and anvil" operations). It won't work if the AFV operators like Raven are stuck digging their wheeled battle chariots out of the mud though.

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Aussiegunneragain Independent tank regiment 8/26/2008 9:27:58 AM

That said it might be an idea to equip an independent tank regiment with light tanks like Stormers 30mm cannon and TOW missiles. It would be Herc/Chinook deployable and would be good for both recon and fire support.

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Raven22 8/26/2008 2:23:37 PM

I won't bother replying to everything AG, as we'll just go around in circles. What I will do is reply to those points I disagree with the most.

I think you have some strange ideas about the region. For one, it isn't mostly jungle. Secondly, if we ever had to fight anyone in the region, we wouldn't be doing it in the jungle, we'd be doing it in the cities. Modern warfare (ie, counter-insurgency style warfare) occurs where the people are, and there aren't very many people in the jungle. They are in the cities. The region, and the world, has moved from the 1960-70s, and everyone is living in urban communities. ie:

The battlefield has also become more complex. It is characterised by close combat in cities and villages against adversaries who hide within the local civilian population.

As such, if we ever had to fight in a regional country, we mostly need forces able to fight in the urban terrain. We need to be able to fight in the jungle/mountains as well, but the military decision will always happen in the cities/towns. If you look at our intervention in Timor or the Solomons, by far most of our effort goes into securing the cities/towns/roads. Certainly the vast majority of all contacts happened within shooting distance of towns or roads.

Consider an unstable country in our region - Fiji. Say a couple of years ago we decided to intervene during the coup, and retake the island. If we dropped, say, 3 RAR into the island to battle the Fijians, they would have won, but would have taken serious casualties - casualties that are not politically acceptable today. If we had of landed a battle group with ASLAVs/M113s/Bushmasters etc, we would have taken almost zero casualties. Of course we currently aren't able to deploy or sustain such a force, which is why we didn't intervene in 2006. Add Army 2016 and a couple of LHAs, and we're good to go ten years later.

You may notice I am not making this up. Ever hear of HNA? The re-rolling of the army from light infantry based to light mechanised based? Signed off by the Chief of the Army? Has the support of pretty much everyone in the Army?

AFAIC spending money and time on a wheeled capability for the regs is ridiculously wasteful for an Army as small as ours.

Yes, wheels for regs, how silly of us. It's not like the US is buying thousands of Strykers, the UK many hundreds of Piranha-5, and every army in the world buying masses of LAV-II, LAV-III, Patria, Pandur, VBCI etc. It's not like wheeled AFVs will be useful in the future wars conducted in the cities and towns of the world. It's not like our current wheeled AFVs have been the most sought after capability of the last few years. Terrible waste of money those wheeled AFVs.

No, we don 't have the assets to be able to deploy armour of any description by air. Never will. Even the mighty US military admits they can't do that, which is why their new Strykers and FCS are not going to be Herc deployable.

It won't work if the AFV operators like Raven are stuck digging their wheeled battle chariots out of the mud though.

I've never had a grunt yet complain about getting a ride in one of my ASLAVs on operations, so I'm sure they'll be happy to help dig me out. Sure beats walking and dying shortly thereafter.

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Yimmy 8/26/2008 2:47:49 PM

If we had of landed a battle group with ASLAVs/M113s/Bushmasters etc, we would have taken almost zero casualties.

That is quite a bold assertion, given that none of those vehicles other than possibly ASLAV are up to direct fire engagements. They are battlefield taxis to get the infantry to the fight without being killed by artillery shrapnel and AP mines - they aren't IFV's like Warrior.

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Raven22 8/26/2008 3:28:06 PM

True, but its not like the Fijians have a lot in the way of anti-armour capability. They have lots of soldiers with small arms, which would cause casualties among unprotected soldiers, but won't do much to armour.

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Yimmy 8/26/2008 3:46:37 PM

I don't mean to derail the thread, and I gather your an Aussie cavalry soldier and know your stuff, but I surmise that the armoured vehicles mentioned are fairly vulnerable to crude but prolific weapons such as RPG 7's, SPG 9 73mm recoilless rifles, LAW's, Carl Gustaffs and even the numerous types of HMG's such as Brownings and Dushkas. All of these weapons are prolific in 3rd World nations light infantry and rebel forces.

While, even if M113's were well protected from these threats (I know the Aussie ones have been uprated), I certainly wouldn't be comfy sitting in one while HMG rounds were pinging off it - and ultimately you will have to dismount the vehicle at some point to engage the enemy.

That said, once dismounted, having heavy armour such as Abrams supporting the infantry must be a huge moral and confidence boost for the infantry. Boggy though the Falklands were, I can't help but wonder how some of the battles may have been different had just a few Chieftans been landed.

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