Tag Archive for: Australian Army

Russia’s Victory Day Parade and LAND 400

An Abrams M1A1 Tank provides intensive fire support while assaulting an enemy position during Exercise Chong Ju.

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.

Introducing ASPI’s 2015 International Conference: Army’s Future Force Structure Options

Australian Bushmasters escort a Dutch crane into the Baluchi Valley, Southern Afghanistan, to facilitate repairs to an essential town bridge.

The Army has shouldered the bulk of the Australian Defence Force’s operational workload and casualties over the last decade or so. While there has been a range of equipment acquisitions which has left Army far more capable than when it initially deployed to East Timor in late 1999, there has been little sustained discussion or debate about the type of capabilities that will influence the Army’s force structure over the coming decades. This is certainly not a criticism of the Army. A quick search of the Army website will unearth a depth of material produced; from quality historical work, to operational concepts and blogs on future equipment. It offers a rich foundation of thought. ASPI has also contributed to the debate in recent months here and longer term here.

Nevertheless, unlike topics such as shipbuilding, submarines choices or fighter aircraft which  generate a broad range of options; land equipment seems less attractive – although there is always emotional views on the quality of boots and personal equipment and, of course, anything to do with Armour!

Yet helicopters—which are now an assumed and critical element of land operations—seem to warrant little in the way of debate. The aircraft decisions that were made in the first decade of this century have generated little discussion, yet the ANAO certainly made a range of telling judgments in their 2014 report here and reviewed by Andrew Davies here.

While it was assumed that Europe’s defence sector  would  continue the level of investment necessary to sustain a strong R&D roadmap in capabilities such as the Tiger ARH, this has not occurred. Equally the new MRH 90 troop lift helicopter is well behind schedule with the New Zealand version facing some challenges. Do these shortcomings create operational issues, and if so, are there alternatives?

The Bushmaster vehicle has been a revelation on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and has proven to be one of the capability ‘finds’ of the decade. But its evolution as a capability is not widely understood. What lessons are to be learned from the experience and again what impact does this have on the significant decisions that will be before Government over the coming years?

Government has announced a number of Army reform initiatives since 2004 from Hardening and Networking the Army to Plan Beersheba. This reform journey has been largely successful but well out of sight of the broader Australian community. But has the reform journey resulted in a more capable and cost effective Army or has it simply added cost without a capability dividend?

Submarines and aircraft are topics that draw a wide range of opinions—informed or otherwise.  Army on the other hand seems to attract far less by comparison. There are of course the hardy few who will be fast to re-invigorate the ‘anti-tank’ banter. This is not a bad thing – because if the logic of capabilities such as the tank can’t be explained simply they deserve to face criticism.

We need to bring a sharper focus to the debate on Army force structure and capability issues. We at ASPI wish to do our part to invigorate the discussion and examine the issues we believe warrant attention.

To this end, the 2015 Land Conference ‘Army’s Future Force Structure Options’ which is to be conducted in Canberra from 24 June will focus on:

  • The Strategic Issues which may shape Army’s force structure options.
  • The Challenge of modernising a force in being.
  • Industry Policy—is it different to support the land force?
  • The technology and integration challenges facing the Australian Army.
  • Aviation its current status and options for the future.
  • And of course Land 400 and what needs to be done to ensure its success. Registrations are now open and we will continue to add more points of view on the Strategist site and other fora over the coming weeks.

For updates on the conference, along with the ticket release date and lineup, please see here.

Armour, Army and Australia’s future strategy

BalanceWhen 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

LAND 400: the insider’s view

An ASLAV from the 3rd Reconstruction Task Force is pictured against the backdrop of Afghanistan's searing and rugged mountains during a patrol.

The recent ministerial announcement that government had given first pass approval and released an open request for tender for phase 2 of Project LAND 400 represents much more than a decision ‘to replace Army’s thousand or so M113, ASLAV, and Bushmaster combat vehicles’. LAND 400 is a key element in Plan BEERSHEBA, a series of coordinated and ongoing initiatives that will greatly enhance the Army’s ability to generate credible land power and provide scalable, responsive land force options to government. In his ASPI Strategist post, Karl Claxton gives his perspective on why much of the commentary around LAND 400 has been hostile.

The announcement of first pass approval for phase 2 of LAND 400 means that Defence can now seek options to replace the ageing Australian Light Armoured Vehicle (ASLAV) fleet, Army’s most flexible and versatile armoured fighting vehicle. Over the past 15 years, those vehicles have been at the centre of the ADF’s operational deployments, from peace-support and crisis-response operations in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, to security, capacity building and major conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re seeking the same characteristics of flexibility and versatility in the new fleet of Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles (CRVs) being sought through Land 400 Phase 2, with variants including reconnaissance, command and control, joint fires, surveillance, ambulance, repair and recovery. Read more

Army and armour—moving the debate forward

An ASLAV from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment fires its 25mm Bushmaster cannon during a night live-fire practise at Mount Bundey training area during Exercise Eagle's Run.In a recent blog post my colleague Karl Claxton took the opportunity to frame the issues around the Defence Minister Kevin Andrew’s recent Land 400 announcement. Sadly, Karl echoes an old complaint:

Most commentators have been hostile toward the project from its inception a decade ago. The key complaint arises from a disconnect between strategic guidance in the 2000, 2009 and 2013 white papers, directing that equipment acquisitions be prioritised around what’s needed to prevent attacks against Australia and contribute to stability in our immediate region, and LAND 400’s focus on platforms for high-intensity contemporary and future operations including amphibious assault.

Armour and the Australian Army must be one of the most uninformed policy and capability debates in recent Australian defence history, and let’s face it, we have had some absolute classic defence force structure debates over the decades. In this case I want to put down some facts which may help us navigate our way through what’ll inevitably be an emotional rollercoaster for enthusiasts from both sides of the argument. Read more

Reader response: the rifle debate

Dr Deane-Peter Baker raised some interesting points in his article about the firearm presently used by the Australian Army. His post provides a good starting point for a more robust discussion about the topic. The F88 is a capable weapon. But the issues raised in Baker’s article, such as its lack of railing systems for modifications, inability to be easily fired in an ambidextrous manner, and lack of an adjustable buttstock, are things that we should look to correct in any future procurement.

Still, Baker’s post needs to be read within a wider context. The conclusion—that we should acquire the M4—is itself contentious. The M4 certainly meets the standard discussed above but the weapon’s primary operator, the United States, is certainly not content with it, albeit, not for those reasons.

As a point of entry to the discussion, consider the Battle of Wanat in 2008. During that encounter, over 200 Taliban fighters attacked a position held by the US Army and supporting troops from the Afghan National Army (ANA). Coalition forces sustained a worryingly high number of casualties, and the engagement was the subject of later analysis which drew the following conclusion about weaponry (see pp.219–220 of the report): Read more

War in Iraq and the need for a parliamentary debate

RAAF F/A-18F Super Hornet aircrew depart for morning sortie.

Cracks are already starting to show in the Government’s strange haste to commit Australian troops and aircraft to war in Iraq, and the equally confused messaging about how we are meant to respond to the raising of the domestic terror threat level.

Because of the institutionalised horror calling itself the ‘Islamic State’ that has taken root in Iraq and Syria, and because of Australia’s evident complicity in destabilising the region following the invasion in 2003, it’s not enough to stand back and leave it to the locals to fix the violent mess we helped create. We do have an obligation to help restore stability in Iraq; the question is, what constitutes the most effective and appropriate kind of help? On that score, the Australian Greens strongly disagree with the Abbott/Shorten unity ticket that a new war in Iraq will resolve the hideous aftermath of the last one.

It’s important that the Government immediately drop the façade that this is a strictly humanitarian endeavour, and call it what military commanders and Administration officials in the US are calling it: a war. Abbott’s ‘no boots on the ground’ commitment was jettisoned after less than a fortnight; we now have more than 600 pairs of boots arriving at al Minhad airbase in the UAE, headed for grounds unknown. Similarly, President Obama’s commitment that the 1600 inbound US troops would be there as ‘advisers’ now apparently extends to ‘close combat advising’ all the way to the front line. Read more