I find the attitude that M1s are useless and will never be deployed, in an era which saw Australia lead an intervention into Indonesian territory, 9/11, Bali bombing etc., to be a touch optimistic at best and short sighted at worst. If we didn’t foresee 9/11 and Timor what else will we not foresee before the M1 runs out of life.
The actual act of 9/11 was unpredictable, but it was clear to anyone that hardline fundamentalists were turning their attention on USA even in the mid-1990s.
However CIA and co stopped paying attention.
As for East Timor, the Australian government was partially responsible for that issue:
1. They supported Indonesia’s invasion in 1975 due Australian fear of Communist East Timor.
2. They turned a blind eye to Indonesian atrocities e.g. Dili/Santa Cruz massacre in 1990s.
3. The Australian intelligence community and government all ignored advice that Indonesia was creating pro-Jakarta militias and that a show down was going to happen. This only came out due to whistleblowers in the Australian intelligence community who were outraged by their seniors lack of action.
Australia also does poorly at diplomacy in the Asian region.
Comments by Australian PMs such as John Howard’s “we are America’s deputy sheriff in the region” or Kevin Rudd telling Chinese students that their country is bad and corrupt in Mandarin or Paul Keating calling Malaysia’s PM “recalcitrant” don’t help either.
Seems to me that instead of tanks, we need to spend more money on training capable intelligence services and government ministers capable of any level of foresight.
Again, the M1 was procured as part of a larger programme to harden and network the army, it provides a tip of the spear capability that if we need it we’ll really need it. I doubt Army planners will get caught short without tanks in a combat situation like they did in 1966-67.
It’s not a speartip. It’s a single tank batallion not an armoured brigade or armoured division.
Australia’s only mechanised brigade is 1st Brigade and it’s main combat components are:
1st Armoured Regiment – 1 tank batallion.
5RAR – 1 mechanised batallion equipped with M113 (Not modern IFV)
7RAR – 1 mechanised batallion equipped with M113 (Not modern IFV)
2nd Cavalry – ASLAV
8th/12th Regiment – towed M777 155mm guns (Not SPG, SPG procurement has been cancelled).
The brigade is lacking in other key speartip components – IFVs, hardened mobile command, SPGs, MLRS etc.
It has no integral Air Defence – Australian Army only has a single battery of RBS70 for airdefence and (another of C-RAM) and these are assigned to 6th Brigade which is a support unit.
Basically Australia’s M1s are a token force designed for the odd infantry support job, in the same fashion that tanks were used in WWII in Papua New Guinea or in Vietnam in 1970s.
Before anyone says: “that’s how you use tanks in jungle,” bare in mind the Imperial Japanese used tanks in largeish numbers in an offensive role in both Malaya and Philippines. There was also considerable tank use in India-Burma as well as China.
If you want to use armour in a meaningful manner, you need numbers and you need those other key components.
Sign In
