Page 32 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2023

32 DEFENCE BUSINESS HEAD LAND CAPABILITY
APRIL 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
ADM: Can you explain why the combined arms approach to fighting is so important to Army?
MAJGEN KING: The Army Combined Arms Fighting System is how we conduct close combat as part of the Joint Force. We’re the only arm of the Defence Force/the Joint Force that can conduct close combat on land. Historically that has been a factor of war that’s always been there and Ukraine
in a combined arms sense. So, I don’t know whether gov- ernment has been listening, that’s not for me to say, but certainly the lessons are there to be seen in terms of how Ukraine is operating its fleets of heavy armoured capabili- ties and the value of each of those individually as they con- tribute to the Combined Arms Fighting System.
ADM: What is Army’s expectation of the level of detail that will come with the DSR?
MAJGEN KING: In terms of the DSR, we are not pre-empt- ing or second-guessing direction around what equipment, structures, and posture will be imposed upon Army. Re- gardless of what is said, it’s been made very clear by Chief of Army to us that we are to be ready to embrace that direc- tion and we have our resources arrayed ready to accept that direction and move out.
We have a method that takes us from our current state of Army In Being to our Army Objective Force and we call it the Army Force Structure Implementation Plan. That’s a really flexible process. It takes new direction from the Chief of Army, the DSR and the DSU as examples, and will take all of those feeds we’re seeing in Ukraine. It will dove- tail those into our thinking in terms of what work packages we need to develop, how we fight, how we’re postured and how we’re structured. That’s an ongoing process and the
ABOVE:
Army will acquire 29 Boeing AH- 64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters to replace its Tiger ARH fleet
LEFT:
Army considers a combined arms approach pivotal to the conduct of land warfare
“I’M DISAPPOINTED I WASN’T ABLE TO LAND THE OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE AND LOGIC TO CONVINCE PEOPLE THAT WE NEEDED LAND 400 PHASE 3”
has validated that once more. Sadly, the fact is, the conduct of close combat is inherent in the nature of war and we don’t believe it’s going to change. So, the lessons from Ukraine are if you don’t operate modern equip- ment with TTPs that allow you to manoeuvre as a Combined Arms Fighting System then you get picked apart and destroyed
in detail, as we’ve seen with the Russian forces.
The Chief of Army made the point at Land Forces last year that Land 400 Phase 3 is the missing piece of the puz- zle in terms of the Combined Arms Fighting System. We have to conduct close combat as part of a Joint Force, that need hasn’t changed; the Infantry Fighting Vehicle remains
the missing piece of the puzzle.
ADM: Do you feel that the message has been heard in government, given Ukraine’s request for tanks and build- ing of their own combined arms force?
MAJGEN KING: I can read the papers as well as you can and I see the president of Ukraine is specifically requesting tanks and is happy to trade the complexity of operating a variety of different tanks that will be difficult to maintain because of an incompatibility for the mass and the firepower and protection or persistence that heavy armour provides.
Again, in recent months Ukraine has shown the value of combined arms manoeuvre and how you can dislodge a well-protected force through modern systems manoeuvred
DEFENCE
NIGEL PITTAWAY