If LAND 400 goes all wheeled where to for 1 Armoured Regt?

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Subject: If LAND 400 goes all wheeled where to for 1 Armoured Regt?
Volkodav 11/4/2008 1:06:13 AM

Assuming LAND 400 results in a common wheeled FOV replacing the M-113, ASLAV and Bushmaster, where does this leave 1 Armoured REGT? Will it retain it's Abrams as a DF Infantry support asset or will we see the introduction of a DF variant of the LAND 400 solution in the long term? Is there any chance 1 Armound could actually be reroled as Armoured CAV and expanded with tracked CFV, AIFV and Assault Troops converting each Sqn into an Armoured Battle Group to compensate for the loss of our tracked Mech Inf?

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Aussiegunneragain 11/4/2008 5:22:23 AM

Assuming LAND 400 results in a common wheeled FOV replacing the M-113, ASLAV and Bushmaster, where does this leave 1 Armoured REGT?
Will it retain it's Abrams as a DF Infantry support asset or will we see the introduction of a DF variant of the LAND 400 solution in the long term?

Is there any chance 1 Armound could actually be reroled as Armoured CAV and expanded with tracked CFV, AIFV and Assault Troops converting each Sqn into an Armoured Battle Group to compensate for the loss of our tracked Mech Inf?

So you are wondering whether in the instance that the Army decides to turn its mechanised infantry regiments into motorised units incapable of conducting an armoured assault, whether we would then ditch the only remaining asset that we have that can perform an armoured assault (the M-1's). Then we would purchase a whole lot of tracked IFV's which should have equipped the mechanised infantry units in the first place and turn the former tank unit into a mechanised infantry unit which is run by the RAAC.

Hell yeah!!! Why not completely re-arrange our current force structure, force a whole lot of people to retrain unnecessarily and to join another corp, split the command structure for formerly infantry tasks between two corps and reduce our overall armoured assault capability, all at great expense to the taxpayer. Sounds like a plan.

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Volkodav 11/5/2008 3:21:50 AM

Umm AG you do realise that Armoured CAV operate a mix of tanks and CFV's don't you?

I am not advocating getting rid of the Abrams, rather I am speculating what may happen and then suggesting what I would like to see happen.

I know we can't afford nor do we have the man power for a full US style ACR but surely we could form a decent combined arms Regiment based on 1 Armoured Regt by adding CFV's, AIFV's and assault troops to flesh out our tank squadrons into combined arms battle groups each with tanks, cavalry, armoured infantry and LAND 17 SPG's.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/3rd_US_Armored_Cavalry_Rgt.png/800px-3rd_US_Armored_Cavalry_Rgt.png" width="800" border="0" />

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Volkodav 11/5/2008 4:38:30 AM

Further to the above each CAV Troop has 2 Platoons of 4 Abrams, 2 Platoons of 6 Bradleys, a HQ with an Abrams and a Bradley for a total of 9 Abrams and 13 Bradleys per troop. Each Squadron has 3 CAV Troops and an Armoured Company with an additional 14 Abrams aswell as a BTY of 6 to 8 M-109 Paladins.

One of these squadrons would absorb our entire Abrams fleet as well as a Btn worth of Bradleys (or other AIFV/CFV) so is probably unachievable but a set up combining a Troop of tanks with a CAV Troop and an Armoured Infantry Platoon could work with 4 MBT's, 6 CFV's and 4-6 AIFV's per Armoured CAV Troop (or what ever you want to call it). This would provide a battle group with 12 MBT's, 18 CFV's and 12-18 AIFV's.

At the moment we lack a true self sufficient heavy armoured force, I believe something along the line of Armoured CAV could be the answer.

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Aussiegunneragain Volkodav 11/5/2008 5:31:24 AM

My apologies, I misunderstood and thought you were talking about getting rid of the Abrams.

The point I would make is that apart from the fact that we don't have our tanks and recon vehicles integrated down to "troop" (squadron in Australian parlance) level, we have an armoured "regiment" now. It's called 1 Brigade. I don't see why we would turn it into a motorised brigade by replacing the M-113's with wheeled vehicles and then have to raise the equivalent of another couple of infantry battalions to work out of the Bradleys in your armoured cavalry regiment. Frankly we probably couldn't raise the troops anyway. Why not just replace 5 and 7 RAR's M-113's with IFV's and let them continue doing what they do now? As I understand it they work closely with 1 Armd and 2 Cav anyway so I don't see the benefit in going through all the ginning around of a re-organisation for no good reason.

Personally what I reckon is that Land 400 should prioritise getting 5 and 7 RAR more IFV's over new wheeled vehicles. The Bushmasters have been in service for less than 10 years so won't need replacing for at least another 20. Many of the ASLAV's are less than 10 years old too and the oldest isn't even 20, so they won't need replacing for a long while yet. In the meantime 3 Brigade is operating 40 year old M-113's which are basically useless in the face of a threat comprising of more than smallarms and mortars. It would be ridiculous to look at more wheels while that is the case.

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Raven22 11/5/2008 5:42:08 AM

As AG said, if we bought wheeled IFVs for the mech battalions for commonalities sake, why would we then go buy tracked IFV for 1 Armd Regt? It makes no sense.

How is that any different than the current ability to battlegroup a sqn consisting of a tank tp, a cav tp, and 1 or 2 inf pls? The US has the ACR set up for their own reasons that Australia doesn't share. There is no reason whatsoever that we should copy it.

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Volkodav Raven 11/5/2008 7:11:54 AM

I thought you were in favour of "Fighting" CAV, which is what I though Armoured Cavalry to be?

Is there a real possibility that the M-113, ASLAV and F echelon Bushmasters will be replaced with a wheeled FOV including Rec, IFV and APC variants?

Alternatively is there a chance that LAND 400 will be a multi faceted purchase like FRES, including both wheeled and tracked vehicles each tailored to its specific role?

Is there a need for a tracked AFV to support the MBT's or will a wheeled vehicle suffice?

If we don't buy a tracked AFV as part of LAND 400 will this result in the Abrams being limited to the DF and infantry support role?

Having served in both the RAINF and RAAC (yes it was the reserves ) I believe them to be complementary and when working in close concert with each other the capability of the whole to be greater than its parts.

I believe in both combined arms and training as you fight, but then again so do the US, British, French, German, Norwegian and Israeli armies to mention a few. This is why they have or are moving towards instilling combined arms at lower and lower levels within their ORBAT. Why then is Australia so fixated on maintaining a 60's / 70's divisional structure when our deployed forces take on similar combined arms battle groups structures to other nations?

Our Cavalry Regiments, with their mix of Gun cars, APC's and Assault Troops are our only integrated combined arms formations and I believe them to be our most flexible and useful conventional forces. Is it such a stretch to suggest we extend this combined arms structure from our medium Cav to include our Heavy forces?

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Aussiegunneragain Volkodav 11/5/2008 7:55:03 AM

I thought you were in favour of "Fighting" CAV, which is what I though Armoured Cavalry to be?

Is there a real possibility that the M-113, ASLAV and F echelon Bushmasters will be replaced with a wheeled FOV including Rec, IFV and APC variants?

Alternatively is there a chance that LAND 400 will be a multi faceted purchase like FRES, including both wheeled and tracked vehicles each tailored to its specific role?

Is there a need for a tracked AFV to support the MBT's or will a wheeled vehicle suffice?

If we don't buy a tracked AFV as part of LAND 400 will this result in the Abrams being limited to the DF and infantry support role?

If we want to be able to conduct a seriously contested armoured assault over any terrain then we need tracks its as simple as that. Trying to fight through a position on rough ground on flat runners because the enemy has just called in a fire mission that blew all your tyres would be suicidal. Whats more we already have mechanised infantry to do that job properly and I frankly don't see the RAR giving up that role to allow the creation of any "fighting cav" units. Nor do I see any reason why they should in the absence of any evidence that it would be an improvement over what they are doing. The fact that the jones are doing something doesn't constitute evidence either. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of your suggestion is that the accomodation and maintainence arrangements for all of the vehicles in Darwin would be stuffed up.

Finally having a section of recon scouts per ASLAV troop hardly qualifies the Cav units as being "combined arms formations". They are set up for recon, escort and light offensive action, not close combined arms combat. I don't mean to disparage them in any way in saying that because they are all vital roles. However lets not let esprit de corp fool us into believing that they are something that they are not and lets also not pretend that they are more useful or important than any other specialisation.

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Raven22 11/5/2008 8:08:38 AM

Wow, thats a detailed post.

I thought you were in favour of "Fighting" CAV, which is what I though Armoured Cavalry to be?

My idea of a 'fighting cav' is very different to an ACR. By fighting cav all I meant was we should change the organisation and training of our cav regts from a medium reconnaissance unit into more of a general fighting unit. The unit wouldn't be too different to mech inf - the way I described it I think is that mech inf have vehicles to support the dismounts, cav would have dismounts to support the vehicles. Not much would change - more emphasis on dismounts working with vehicles, more support capabilities (like TUA or similar), and a changing of doctrine to reflect this. This already happens on ops, all it would really take is the head shead recognising this and changing the doctrine and training of the regiments.

Is there a real possibility that the M-113, ASLAV and F echelon Bushmasters will be replaced with a wheeled FOV including Rec, IFV and APC variants?

Alternatively is there a chance that LAND 400 will be a multi faceted purchase like FRES, including both wheeled and tracked vehicles each tailored to its specific role?

The exact requirements for Land 400 has yet to be finalised, so who knows? It most likely will be like FRES though - with all vehicles having some commonality but tailored for their roles.

Also, whether Land 400 will find a replacement for the Bushmasters in the mot inf bns isn't decided yet either. My personal thoughts on the matter is that if we insist on maintaining three types of infantry (mech, mot and light) is that the mot inf should be equipped with a vehicle like the Stryker brigades. Therefore you'd have a tracked IFV with a two-man turret and auto-cannon, a CFV similar to the IFV but wheeled, and an IMV similar to the CFV but with an RWS instead of the two man turret. Something like Bradley, NZLAV and Stryker respectively (but newer vehicles of course).

Is there a need for a tracked AFV to support the MBT's or will a wheeled vehicle suffice?

Probably. With the advance in technology for wheeled AFVs, maybe the head shed will decide that they provide enough mobility for the IFV role. My opinion is that the IFVs for the mech bns will and should be tracked.

If we don't buy a tracked AFV as part of LAND 400 will this result in the Abrams being limited to the DF and infantry support role?

No.

How are those militaries moving to integrating combined arms at a lower level than Australia? As far as I know, our allied armies don't permanently integrate different capabilities (tanks, cav, inf etc) below brigade level. The ACR being discussed is an exception, but the vast majority of the US Army simply battlegroups their capabilities exactly the same as we do.

One technical point is that a 'formation' describes a brigade-sized force. A cav regt is not a formation. More to the point though - there is no requirement to combine different capabilities below brigade leve. Below that battle-grouping will be used as required - the same as the British and the US do it.

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Aussiegunneragain Raven 11/5/2008 8:28:02 AM

I still have a hard time understanding how that role differs from that of the mounted infantry be they in wheeled or tracked IFV's. Basically the commander only ever has three choices when he engages the enemy:

1. Fight from the vehicle;

2. Dismount the troops and have them fight alongside it;

3. Dismount the troops and have them go off and fight without the vehicle.

Those decisions should be predicated by the nature and disposition of the enemy and the terrain rather than by the corp that the vehicle is being operated by. By having infantry and cavalry units performing essentially the same tasks but with different doctrines can only lead to mass confusion AFAIC. As such I don't see any point in changing from our current arrangments from having the RAAC doing tanks, recon, escort and light offensive ops and the infantry doing mechanised assaults.

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Volkodav 11/6/2008 1:57:49 AM

Thanks Raven.

Yeah it was detailed, the baby finally went to sleep so I could type with two hands instead of only two fingers.

On the combined arms units used by other nation the two specific examples that come to mind are Norways Telemark battalion and the US 11th Cavalry.

From Wikipedia:

Telemark Battalion Organization

Armoured Squadron - the armoured squadron is the battalion's main strike weapon. It has a Headquarters troop and three tank troops, with a total of thirteen tanks assigned. The armoured squadron's main equipment is the Leopard 2 main battle tank.
Mechanised Infantry Company 3 - the infantry company is organised along similar lines to the armoured squadron, with an HQ platoon and three rifle platoons. The company is equipped with the CV9030 infantry fighting vehicle. however, as infantry, the soldiers of this company can get to areas that are inaccessible to both MBTs and IFVs, with the consequence that it is the most flexible unit.
Mechanised Infantry Company 4 - A second Mech Inf-company was established in August 2006. This company is equipped with SISU XA-203's. It also has a sniper squad.
Field Artillery Battery - artillery support is provided by Battery Piraja of the Army's Artillery Battalion. This is equipped primarily with the M109 SPG.
Combat Engineer Company - the engineers company has three platoons, each with a different task:
- Combat Engineer Platoon - this is the ordinary engineers unit, equipped with the M113 vehicle to directly support the infantry and armour.
- Special Armoured Platoon - this is equipped with various armoured engineers vehicles, including bridgelayers and mine clearance vehicles.
- Staff Support Platoon - this contains the company HQ, as well as divers, explosive ordnance disposal and NBC clearance.
Staff Support Company - this is the battalion's support unit, and consists of six platoons:
- HQ Platoon - this runs the battalion's communications and information systems.
- Armoured Reconnaissance Troop - this is equipped with the CV9030 in the armoured reconnaissance role.
- Armoured Mortar Platoon - the battalion's heavy mortar capability.
- Forward Air Controller and Fire Direction Platoon - this allows heavy fire to be directed in support of the battalion's other assets, not only from the battalion's mortars, but also from artillery and air support.
- Armoured Medical Platoon - this is the battalion's forward medical aid unit, equipped with armoured ambulances and an armoured aid post.
- Logistic Platoon - this supports the battalion through fuel, ammunnition and food supply, as well as transport and recovery.

And

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/11th_US_Armored_Cavalry_Rgt.png" width="271" border="0" />

Anyway theres a nappy that needs changing so I look forward to continuing this discussion later.

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