As a young soldier I had the opportunity to see the Australian Army’s transition between rifles, from the venerable 7.62 L1A1 SLR to the 5.56 F88 Austeyr. And during my Army service I carried both, as well as the M16 A1 and A2.

In the transition from SLR to the F88 I saw the basic accuracy of the average Australian soldier increase rapidly and the number of accidental discharges rise at an alarming rate. I also got to see first-hand how the reality of a weapon system’s capability could be so quickly undermined by rumors and cultural resistance.

Now working in a think tank, my days of carrying assault rifles on military exercises or operations are long past. Regardless, I was somewhat surprised by Deane-Peter Baker’s December 2014 Strategist contribution on the F90 (the latest version of the F88) and his more recent perspective that the selection of the F90 ‘defies the logic of military effectiveness’.

While I have no personal preference for either the F90 or the M4, I advocate that there’s no such thing as a perfect rifle and that Deane’s assessment of the Austeyr needs further expansion. So I think it’s appropriate to present an alternative perspective to the assertion that the AR-15/M4 family of rifles are the obvious alternative.

One of the long standing ‘golden rules’ of military rifle handling drills is that the operator should never remove their master hand from the pistol grip; doing so renders the operator unable to fire their rifle, if only for a few precious seconds—and all seconds are precious in combat. Unfortunately the design of the M4 and all M16/AR-15 family variants demands that when the rifle jams, the operator is required to remove the master hand to operate the cocking handle; the Austeyr does not.

The bullpup design of the Austeyr has the rifle’s ejection port toward the rear of the trigger, and the M4 toward the front. The Austeyr has its cocking handle on the side of the rifle, while the M4 has its on top of the rifle. When a jam occurs in the Austeyr’s mechanism, the operator is able to remedy it without moving out of cover making it a design more suitable than the M4 for modern combat.

The ergonomic F90 design, including its oversized trigger guard, provide both the large and small operator the opportunity to adopt a range of alternative handling positions. The M4’s cut down shape, whilst affording the operator an adjustable length of pull offers only limited alternative holding positions.

In both of his Strategist pieces Deane has provided an interesting commentary on shooting around cover from the operator’s non-dominant side. While the F90 addresses the functional ejection problems of doing this with a new case deflector, the practicalities remain extant. Very few people are ambidextrous and even fewer still are able to effectively employ a weapon from their non-dominant side. While having the utility to do so is a benefit it isn’t arguably a key factor for rejecting a weapon system.

My final point relates to the economic logic of selecting the AR-15/M4. The AR-15 was built in 1959 and the M16 entered service in 1963. It has been subject to numerous upgrades and developments since then. But there should be little surprise that the M4, the latest model, is reaching the end of its service life. It makes little economic sense for Australia to invest in a weapons system with a short service life. I would argue that the enhancement of the Austeyr in the medium term, until the next generation of assault rifles begins to enter service, makes perfect economic sense.

The use of the M4, and other weapons, by the Australian Special Forces highlights the pragmatic manner in which the Australian Defence Force approaches the capability requirements of various units. The M4 in some circumstances offers advantages for the Special Forces soldier especially in water based operations. But a good rifle for Special Forces doesn’t necessarily make a good rifle for conventional forces.

As I said at the start, I have no strong preference for either the F90 or the M4. But I don’t believe that ‘the M4 beats the F90 hands down’. Nor do I support Deane’s assertion that there’s no other alternative to the M4. Indeed from an economic and functionality purpose the ADF selection of the F90 seems to make perfect sense.

There is little to argue with in Beyond 2017: The Australian Defence Force and Amphibious Warfare by Ken Gleiman and Peter J Dean. It’s soundly thought out, well written, and concludes with a number of important recommendations, most of which the ADF would be wise to adopt. As a meal, it would fall into the category of comfort food—reassuring and familiar. That’s my problem with it.

I must admit that my first reading of Beyond 2017 did leave me replete, if I may be permitted one last culinary metaphor. Yet the more I thought about the paper the more dissatisfied I became. I concluded that this was because the option the authors recommended for Army’s amphibious development pathway—the Fourth Way—is simply a merger of proposals already under consideration. Gleiman and Dean have played it too safe.

I fear that none of the four options for Army’s amphibious development discussed in Beyond 2017 will lead to the ADF’s possession of an effective capability. Rather, they will provide an illusion of progress without real achievement. Instead of the Fourth Way, I propose two additional options that can lead to an effective amphibious capability.

My Option Five calls for the raising of an Army-owned Marine Brigade. A brigade of Australian marine soldiers would provide the Government with a landing force that’s acclimatised to life afloat and optimised to conduct entry from the sea. The degree of commitment from the organisation, the amount of training from the marine force, and the specialist equipment required, shouldn’t be trivialised by accepting anything less. Amphibious operations are the most difficult mission a military force can undertake, tasks that will only become harder and riskier as modern anti-ship and sea denial weapons proliferate. If the Australian Government wants Army’s amphibious force to be able to operate across the ‘spectrum of contingencies’ only a dedicated force can achieve the required level of training and sophistication to be effective, as well as the necessary integration with supporting arms. Further, Army’s marine contingent must be brigade-sized at minimum if it’s to be sustainable and accommodated in Plan BEERSHEBA’s force generation cycle.

Admittedly, however, raising a Marine Brigade isn’t a trivial matter. It can’t be done within Army’s current force level of 30,000 plus soldiers. Nor is cannibalising one of the existing brigades wise as this would introduce unacceptable risks elsewhere in Army’s ability to meet and sustain Government-directed requirements. In the Australian Army, the establishment for a brigade is approximately 3,600 personnel, not including the essential enablers that are added for a mission. Even if Army was to roll 2 RAR, its amphibious-designate battalion, into the Marine Brigade, it would still be necessary to raise Army’s personnel ceiling by at least 10%. More enablers, including helicopters and other specialist equipment, would also need to be acquired and staffed. A Marine Brigade is a significant and expensive undertaking, but becoming amphibious can’t be done on the cheap.

If the Government recoils from the considerable cost of raising a Marine Brigade, I maintain that the next best option is to accept that the ADF can’t conduct amphibious operations across the full spectrum of conflict. Option Six would see the ADF’s amphibious ambitions narrowed to HADR or missions where the insertion of the land force is limited to a benign environment (lift and lodge). Of course, as is noted in Beyond 2017, those are the most likely missions anyhow.

If Army is unable to develop an amphibious assault capability, this shouldn’t be seen as an admission of failure. Instead, barring the building of a much larger and more robustly equipped land force, it’s an admission of reality. Accepting this would also allow Army to focus its limited resources on an achievable goal at which it could excel.

It would be interesting to explore how Army arrived at this difficult situation in the first place. When the ADF began the investigation into the replacement of Kanimbla and Manoora, the process started with the type of ship required, and we now have the much more capable Canberra and Adelaide. However, starting with the ships was a mistake. Although the term ‘amphibious operations’ may bring forth a vision of a ship, it’s the landing force that really matters. After all, the purpose of the ship is to manoeuvre the land force in the maritime space so that it can achieve the desired effect ashore. That’s the essence of maritime strategy, or to borrow Edward Grey’s words, ‘The…army should be a projectile to be fired by the…navy.’

The next time the ADF considers an amphibious assault capability, the starting point shouldn’t be the ships to be acquired but the size and type of land force required. Once the land force requirements are identified, and their funding provided, only then should the ADF decide upon the ships. The ship should be designed around the land force, not the other way around. This would be a different approach, but it would mean that the land force, the whole point of amphibious operations, wouldn’t be merely an afterthought.

The Australian Army has to do more than fight. It must carry a legend and serve the slouch hat mystique.

The mythology’s a century old and is as much a part of the Army as its iconic hat.

As WWI ended in 1918, C.E.W. Bean, promised a ‘history to crystallise for all time the greatest incident in Australian history – the first revelation of the Australian character.’ Bean delivered; his history of Gallipoli, Ken Inglis declared, was the Australian Iliad.

Sixty years later, T.B. Millar’s magisterial Australia in Peace and War could judge that the Army’s performance in WWI ‘saw Australia grow and gain coherence and confidence as a nation, acquiring myths and traditions which are part of the equipment of nationhood.’ That war and the conflicts which followed, Millar wrote, ’emphasised both dependence and independence in Australia’s international relationships: dependence based on habit and fear, independence based on brashness or self-reliance, all four qualities being part of the Australian make-up.’

In his pioneering Australia’s Defence, published in 1965, Millar found the diggers immortalised by Bean still marching: ‘In two world wars and the Korean War, Australia’s soldiers carried a reputation not so distinctly bestowed on her sailors and airman, and broadly but not wholly deserved – a reputation for independence, for initiative, for poor discipline and hard drinking off duty, for determined and skilful fighting in battle.’

We ask a lot of our Army. They are to be military professionals able to match a template of the national character. Today’s soldiers are to be well-trained regulars who honour the character traits of earlier civilian volunteers—the profession of arms with a larrikin pedigree. This is the mix the chief of Army, Angus Campbell, is reaching for to build ‘a great Army, worthy of its ANZAC heritage, suited for the demands of current and future operations.’ And the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, hits the same note: ‘It’s a very different armed force today, but with the same values at its core.’

Both were speaking at ASPI’s conference on the Army’s future. So history is agreed, now to write the future. (This is a reversal of the old Soviet Union joke: The future is certain, comrade, it is only the past that is unpredictable.)

Part of the dissonance in crystal-balling for the Army is that those khaki definers of the national character aren’t actually in the front line in defending the continent. Oz strategy since Vietnam has decreed that the Navy and Air Force do that job. The eternal cycle of argument about Australia’s expeditionary tradition versus the defence-of-Oz strategy is more than Army wrangling over resources and alliance commitments. It’s also about where legend sits amid today’s defence planning.

As Michael Clifford observes, there’s a policy tension ‘between Australia’s role as a “middle power” and our perceived national security priorities. The current Government seems to favour a more expansive global role for Australia’s defence force compared with a narrow, more traditional regional focus.’

The Prime Minister set some new security priorities by making his big ‘announceable’ at the Army conference a commitment to Oz shipbuilding. A lot of dollars will flow from the promise for ‘a continuous build of major surface warships here in Australia to avoid the unproductive on-again, off-again cycle that has done this industry so much damage.’

The Abbott Government might have been at the wheel when the Oz car industry crashed, but it’s leaping to the budget pumps to keep the ship industry afloat.

In the perpetual Canberra contest to decide winners and losers, mark this a significant moment for what a Labor government would call ‘industry policy.’ It may be 30 to 40% more expensive to build naval ships in Oz, but the Coalition can embrace it as defence policy. Continuous build means continuous cash; more ships and a younger fleet for the Navy.

But, what is Army talking up as it surveys the future? What’s the message of the moment and what’s falling off the page?

Turning the Army into Marines seems to be a fading meme. The Australian Army’s heart is just not in that marine force stuff. But the old favourite Jointery (joint operations by Army, Navy and Air Force) made a strong showing.

Talking about the US military achieving an enduring presence west of the international dateline, the commanding general of the US Army, Pacific, General Vincent K. Brooks, highlighted the multiple benefits of getting ‘a joint force with multiple options.’

Amen, says the Australian Army. The Chief of Army got quite passionate in expressing ‘profound commitment’ to the value, indeed, necessity of Jointery. General Campbell predicted that historians will look at this decade as a ‘tipping point in building joint forces.’

The ADF has been chanting about Jointery a long time. It became the official religion in the first Defence White Paper in 1976, with its opening pronouncements on Australia’s defence requirements; ‘…we believe that any operations are much more likely to be in our neighbourhood than in some distant or forward theatre, and that our Armed Services would be conducting joint operations as the Australian Defence Force.’ In the Jointery hunt for nearly 40 years yet the Chief of Army thinks we’re only now nearing a cresting moment. As the voice says from the back seat, ‘Are we there yet?’

Australian military Jointery is short of being able to pass the Hartzog test of connectivity and coordination: the ability to get one rifle bullet, one artillery shell, and one Hellfire missile to all hit the same moving target simultaneously.

The blunt answer on Jointery is that there are many miles still to go, Army has a battle-management system that speaks Hebrew, and Army has spent seven years teaching its French-speaking helicopters to respond to Anglais d’Oz.

And Army’s head of Modernisation and Strategic Planning, Major General Gus McLachlan, told the conference that having two battle management systems is less than perfect. But looking on the bright side, it certainly offers added redundancy. Little wonder General McLachlan said the motto for buying the digital future is ‘open architecture’, so all our military kit can actually communicate.

On the jointery and networked quest, the Army says it’s on a route march from being an analogue force to a digital player. More history to make. More tipping points to come.

The thunder of armour heralded the march of the Immortal Regiment on 9 May in a gratuitous display of Soviet-esque pomp and power. For international audiences, the Victory Day message was clear:  Russia stands unbowed by current sanctions, international opinion and volatile oil prices, and continues to plough money into military modernisation.

Back in Australia, the LAND 400 team in the Department of Defence watched the official unveiling of the Armata universal combat platform during the march with great interest. Armata has been an ambitious and expensive Russian project to deliver a common chassis platform to replace their aging armoured vehicle fleet. Given its shared Armata chassis design, the T-15 Infantry Fighting Vehicle is expected to tip the scales at a hefty 40 tonnes. It’ll offer a level of protection unmatched by current infantry fighting vehicles thanks to its mass and advanced armour design.

The impetus for the replacement of Russia’s vehicles was not to conduct sweeping tank battles across Europe but to plug the capability gap identified at the hands of Chechen guerrillas in the 90s. The Kremlin have been forced to learn some hard lessons in the design and employment of armour. The First Battle for Grozny in 1994 and and the second in 1996 demonstrated the vulnerabilities of unsupported armour in an urban environment. The engagements crystallised the Russian understanding of what’s needed to compete in a contemporary operating environment: protection first, mobility next and lethality last.

The short-range antiarmour weapons that wreaked havoc on armoured convoys in Grozny is touted to have been countered with the development of Active Protection suites such as the Afghanit and Malakhit Explosive Reactive Armour which protect vehicles by disrupting or destroying munitions before they penetrate. Crew survivability has been addressed by a radical design change in placing the engine forward to provide additional protection on the frontal arc. The 30mm cannon is the same weapon system found on the Kurganets-25, however, there’s a clear future growth path to the developing AU-220M remote controlled 57mm cannon. The T-15 also carries four of the capable Kornet anti-tank guided missiles. Another significant variation to standard design is the inclusion of a completely unmanned turret which reduces the crew requirement from three to two.

For LAND 400, the unveiling of the T-15 means that the bar for protection and mobility has been set—and set high. Phase 3 of LAND 400 (Mounted Close Combat Capability) will acquire Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Manoeuvre Support Vehicles. Infantry Fighting Vehicles lift infantry soldiers and support the M1A1 Main Battle Tank as a part of the combined arms team that conducts sustained joint LAND combat. Grozny demonstrated that groups of small, relatively unsophisticated non-state actors have the ability to inflict significant damage on ill-prepared and ill-equipped conventional forces. The ADF must be prepared to operate in an urban context, on continental Australia and within our region. The Army must have the ability to survive and defeat the threat posed by short-range, anti-armour weapons, or face the prospect of unacceptable losses of personnel and material.

From about 2025, LAND 400 Phase 3 will replace Army’s current M113 AS4 armoured personal carrier fleet; a fleet that neither meets the capabilities of Plan Beersheba nor the requirements listed in the 2013 Defence White Paper. Acquiring a platform that can be deployed by air and sea and operate successfully in a crowded, connected and lethal environment will be a challenge. There are many excellent Military Off the Shelf (MOTS) vehicles on the market that have a proven operational record and the potential to accommodate future capability improvements. It will require a significant investment by government to realise a vehicle that provides the necessary protection, firepower and mobility for our soldiers to operate as part of a joint or coalition military force. But it will be an essential investment for a defence force required to offer viable military options where government identifies Australia’s interests are at stake in an increasingly uncertain region.

Australia finds itself in an unenviable position, balancing fiscal realities and competing budget pressures against the requirement to replace our aging armoured vehicles fleets, while being prepared for a number of contingencies and strategic futures likely to unfold with little or no warning. In such a tight financial environment, it’s easy to lose sight of the potential costs in manpower and risk of mission failure of financial conservatism. Ahead of ASPI’s Future Force Structure Options Conference, it’s prudent to ask, ‘What’s the right armoured fighting vehicle mix for the Australian Army?’ And once we’ve asked that question, we should be willing to look to, and learn from, international experiences with similar platforms.

When under fire from both sides of a debate it’s comforting to imagine one occupies the sensible middle ground. Of course it probably just shows one hasn’t made a coherent case. I’m grateful, then, that thoughtful responses to my LAND 400 post, by armour enthusiasts, insiders, and sceptics alike, have cast such interesting light on the global-vs-regional imperatives at the heart of the next Defence white paper.

Michael Clifford and Ben James are concerned that arguments against heavy combat vehicles mistake force-protection for force-projection. Relatively low-intensity Army operations in the Middle East already occur in complex threat environments; and even future peacekeepers might need to be deployed in lethal arenas. Mitchell Yates on the other hand worries that an Army designed to be robust enough to confront any hypothetical future conflict won’t be optimised for the kind of battles it’ll actually have to fight. Even the US Army, built to smash near-peer competitors, has struggled to counter insurgents’ asymmetric tactics. Read more