Page 22 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2022

22 DEFENCE BUSINESS LAND FORCES 2022
NOVEMBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
There is a perception that the platforms in our combined arms fighting system – the tanks, the infantry fighting vehicles, and the others – are too big, too heavy, they will consume all of our strategic transportation. That argument is predicated on the assumption that we would always be reacting, as opposed to indicators and warnings that could allow us to pre-position, we would anticipate, and we would project in advance, balancing the resources and supporting our allies.
For me, a number of these new assets that Army are getting under Land 400 and under other programs provide a disproportional effect. A combat team, a company of infantry, fighting vehicles, or even tanks can provide an enormously disproportionate effect in complex terrain in the region. This is not about a tank on tank conflict; this is about giving ourselves a task-organised land element in support of a joint force that can deploy forward to deliver the best possible effects.
We assess that the joint force can’t prevail if it is not strong in all domains –. From the protection land power can provide to port facilities and airfields to enable our other our sister services to function as part of the joint force, Army from our perspective has those fundamental roles where we can secure and protect at the very least.
The last point I’d say is that the other aspect we can provide, that is crucially important, is persistence. We can loiter and place capabilities to persist where other assets need to go away and refuel or can’t provide that enduring capability. For example, land-based long-range precision fires – that’s a persistent capability that we can project into the region in support of our allies or the joint force and then protect it with our combined arms fighting system. And in so doing, contribute to the joint force. That’s the value contribution that we can provide.
DOES THIS MEAN YOU NEED TO BE WORKING WITH ALL ARMS OF AUSTRALIAN POWER, NOT JUST THE JOINT FORCE?
MAJGEN KING: Correct. All elements of national power – including of course other arms of Government as well as civilian transport, sea and air. There seems to be an argument that we’re just going to consume all government and civilian transport assets in order to lift our vehicles. There’s an operational art to how we deploy, how we react and indeed how we project. Some of that is anticipatory, depending on what the adversary is doing, but to suggest that, hey, we’re just going to consume all of our transportation resources – that’s not how we operate. It’s not how we deliver that operational effect, or how we prepare for the conduct of operations.
I talked earlier about persistence. Persistence reflects that many conflicts last over an extended period. We incrementally build up and we draw down over that extended period based on the operational effect needed. So on that basis, we are very comfortable that we won’t consume or saturate all transport assets at once. We will work within the joint force to project that initial element, and then we will gradually build up or build down. We may project early, we may need to react. But to simply argue, “We don’t have the assets to project you, therefore, we shouldn’t have that asset,” I think is a falsehood that doesn’t represent how Army has ever operated in terms of how we deploy and how we plan to deploy.
ABOVE: A soldier during Exercise Predators Run 2022.
DEFENCE