The third paper in our Capability Snapshot series was released today. (The fourth, looking at the ADF’s C4ISR networks and capability, will come out next year as part of a larger piece of work.) In many ways the Army is a different beast to the other services, in the sense of it not being structured around major platform delivered capabilities. The Army is a more amorphous organisation, and is able to tailor its configuration to suit a wide variety of circumstances. That makes it a bit harder to assess Army’s capability, but I think I’ve come close.

The main focus of the Australian Army over the past 15 years has been on sustaining combat, training, stabilisation and peacekeeping operations in our near region and the Middle East and Afghanistan theatres. In fact, since the INTERFET mission to East Timor began in 1999, the Army has pretty much been constantly deployed in significant numbers. That’s done two things. First, it’s shown that the structural model that the Army developed during the ‘defence of Australia’ period wasn’t suitable for the operations it was being called on to perform.

The demands of that operational tempo has driven a major rethink of the structure of the Army under Plan Beersheba. In 2010, when ASPI last took an Army snapshot, the three full-time brigades were markedly different. There was one each of infantry, motorised and mechanised brigades. That was workable enough for one-off deployments, for which battlegroups configured for the specific operation could be shaped from elements within each of the brigades. But it was a model that wasn’t suited to extended deployments of brigade size—exactly what was required to sustain forces in Timor-Leste and provide troops for Afghanistan, Iraq, the Solomon Islands and a number of smaller tasks.

When the three brigades were of different types it was hard to replace like for like at the end of a rotation: thus Plan Beersheba was born. Now well advanced, Beersheba’s end state will be three essentially similar brigades, making rotational deployments easier to manage and sustain, as each brigade can now easily rotate through 12-month cycles of ‘one ready (or deployed), one readying and one resetting’.

The other impact of recent operations has been a valuable—and sometimes costly—series of lessons about contemporary battlefields. The rise of well-armed and agile non-state groups means that even relatively low-level conflicts can be lethal. As Western militaries found to their cost in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s no longer safe to take lightly armoured or soft-skinned vehicles into conflict zones.

There’s a trend towards increased protection against improvised explosive devices and other threats. Army’s M-113 armoured personnel carriers have been around for half a century and, despite an expensive upgrade, they aren’t fit for purpose today. The Bushmaster vehicle has proven to be a great success in protecting its passengers and the ASLAV has been an excellent armed reconnaissance vehicle, but it’s clear that greater protection is going to be needed in the future.

Greater protection comes at a greater cost, and the Army’s ability to replace its entire fleet of vehicles will depend on money. That isn’t a new problem. In 2010, ASPI noted that a significant and wide-ranging upgrading of the Army’s protected mobility vehicles and armour wasn’t guaranteed to happen any time soon, given the 2009 Defence White Paper’s expensive naval initiatives.

Not much has changed—the August 2015 announcement that the two major naval shipbuilding projects were being brought forward, plus the looming $20 billion-plus submarine project, means that the Army will again have to fight to make its case. Whether they’ll be successful remains to be seen. Like the RAAF and the RAN, the Army needs a major recapitalisation of its equipment. Unlike the RAAF and RAN, the Army has never been especially good at getting large sums of money for recapitalisation.

But the artillery is all new, and the Abrams tanks are still pretty capable (though an upgrade will be necessary at some stage to keep them near the US baseline). And there’s some light at the end of the tunnel with Army aviation: after long development periods, the Tiger armed reconnaissance and the MRH-90 battlefield lift helicopters are finally reaching maturity. And the purchase of seven new build F-model Chinooks through an FMS purchase (ahead of schedule and on budget, natch) has boosted the medium-lift capability.

Finally, there’s the people aspect of capability. Like all of the services, Army has some specialisations in which depth is lacking. Our 2010 snapshot noted that personnel in specialist trades like medicine, logistics, combat engineering, special forces and intelligence had been required to make multiple deployments because of a lack of alternatives. Some progress has been made in adding depth, but recruitment and retention of specialists is a constant concern. In principle, Plan Beersheba will add depth to support areas by making each brigade more self-sufficient. But some of the specialist units are still ‘one-shot’ capabilities rather than Beersheba’s ideal triumvirate.

The locus of the Australian Army’s combat capability is the soldier—male or female, combat or combat support. While it would be fair to say that large-scale equipment platforms such as ships, submarines and aircraft are central to maritime and air power, the nucleus of Army’s contribution to the joint force is the ‘human platform’.

Army has crafted a simple, deliberate, tailored and balanced approach to perpetually modernise its principal capability. It’s underpinned by four pillars of logic.

First, Army defines the capability of its combat soldier via the Soldier Combat System (SCS). The SCS comprises the following six dynamic, interlinked sub-systems:

1. Lethality – enabling our soldiers to employ lethal and non-lethal force.
2. Survivability – ensuring Army’s ‘human platform’ can survive physical and psychological attack, while also withstanding adverse environmental conditions.
3. Mobility – enabling the soldier to move and remain agile, irrespective of geography.
4. Situational awareness – allowing the soldier to know and act more quickly than potential adversaries.
5. Sustainability – keeping our people effective on the battlefield at all times, no matter the exigencies of their situation.
6. Education and Training – giving our soldiers the means to transform equipment into capability.

To borrow Aristotle’s axiom, the ‘holistic value’ of these SCS sub-systems ‘is greater than the sum of their individual parts.’ However, these systems are, at once, interdependent and in competition with each other. Enhancing one invariably compromises another. Achieving an optimal ’sum’ is as much a science as it is an art.

By example, let’s say Army decides to increase the survivability of soldiers by issuing them a heavier, larger and more robust ballistic plate system. By enhancing soldier survivability, Army has prejudiced their mobility and sustainability. This trade off may have additional implications for the soldier’s lethality and situational awareness as factors such as fatigue and resupply come into consideration.

Second, Army equips its soldiers according to their ‘Tier’, of which there are three. Broadly speaking, Tier 1 Combatants perform niche tasks, such as combat diving or military free fall parachuting. Tier 2 Combatants fight either on foot in the dismounted role or while mounted in Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs). Tier 3 combatants provide general support to combined arms teams. This tiering approach has nothing to do with a soldier’s status; rather, it allows Army to tailor combat equipment to the specific needs of its combatants.

How does this manifest? Tier 2 Dismounted combatants are now issued, will be issued or are testing tailored load carriage equipment, weaponry, target acquisition ancillaries, night fighting equipment, signature reduction devices, surveillance devices, clothing, boots and small vehicles. This kit will make them more lethal, survivable, mobile, sustainable and situationally aware than ever. Tier 2 Mounted and Tier 3 Combatants are increasingly issued or evaluating combat equipment specifically designed to best enable them to perform their various, and often unique, roles and tasks.

Army is also working closely with industry to deliver a new large assault pack that will likely fit 95% of Army’s female combatants. How does this compare to the large field pack issued since around 1994? According to Defence Science and Technology Group anthropometric data, the legacy pack fits none of Army’s females. Tier 2 Combatant marksman, commanders, infantry, combat engineers, joint fire teams and AFV crews will be provisioned with the Enhanced F88 rifle of varying lengths, bipods, day sights, night sights, thermal sights and target acquisition ancillaries. Why? Because the EF88 configuration optimised for combat shooting by Tier 2 Dismounts may not fit in an AFV gun rack—nor be required by Tier 2 Mounted soldiers due to the nature of their role as operators of armoured vehicles in a combined arms team. All of these variations have been deliberately tailored to meet the requirements of combatants performing specific roles and functions.

The third pillar is that the realities of the commercial environment impact how Army modernises its core capability. Technological maturity, commercial reliability, manufacturing capacity, affordability and world-wide demand shape what Army can realistically achieve in a suitable timeframe.

A perennial, and often vexing, modernisation necessity is the quest for constant improvement and the avoidance of obsolescence. The rate of technology advancement means that cutting-edge capabilities delivered today invariably lose their technical advantage as soon as tomorrow dawns. This is the world we live in. As individuals, we confront the same reality when the personal fixed-contract smart phone we acquire is outsmarted by the latest device.

It’s unrealistic to expect Army to be able to update most capabilities as quickly as many of us progress to the latest smart phone. However, what Army must do is constantly seek ways and means to either improve or replace current capabilities. Doing so mitigates the inexorable loss in capability advantage over time.

To address this existential issue, Army has built, ‘adaptive acquisition’ features into many of its soldier modernisation initiatives. This is the fourth logic pillar underpinning Army’s continuous modernisation of its cardinal capability. This approach ensures that the leading load carriage equipment, weapons, ancillaries, radios and human performance initiatives Army delivers in 2015 are not obsolete in 2025.

Army is constantly seeking to enhance the equipping, or modernisation, of its central capability, the soldier. In recent times, it has crafted a simple, deliberate, tailored and balanced, approach for modernising this principal capability. It’s working with other services and groups within Defence, as well as industry, to realise this modernisation effect on an enduring basis.

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.