MEDIA QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
BRIEFING ON THE M1A1 ABRAMS INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT (AIM) MAIN BATTLE TANK
LIEUTENANT GENERAL PETER LEAHY:
Ladies and gentlemen, do you have any questions?
I might just hand the microphone to whoever is asking the first question. Can I also ask that people identify themselves and the media organisation that they work for, before asking your question.
QUESTION:
General Leahy, John Kerin from The Australian. Is 41 out of the 59 sort of I guess being available, and you've got, what, eight or nine in training, is that the sort of work rate you expect from these tanks?
GENERAL LEAHY:
What it provides us is essentially three squadrons. A squadron is the sort of identity that we'd expect to be able to provide a very strong capability into these combined arms teams that we're talking about.
It also provides us the capability to have one on operations, one preparing for operations and if necessary one resting from operations.
Frankly we don't consider that we would need to deploy much larger than squadron size, and if we had to we could adjust. So we think this is a sensible and sustainable organisation.
We do know that we're going to have to prepare some - we've got to train people, so we do need the spare ones. The pools that we're talking about that we think the organisations into the three squadrons and the one regiment provide us all the capability that we need.
QUESTION:
Ian McPhedran from News Limited. If you had these tanks available for a campaign such as Iraq, would you imagine that you would actually deploy them in a situation like that?
And my second question is there's been a lot of criticism of this decision based on the fact that the strategic thinkers believe there's a great - it's not very likely that we'll ever use these things or that they'll ever fire a shot in anger?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Let me deal with the second part of the question. We see that the type of security environment in the future is becoming increasingly complex, but also unpredictable.
A large part of our argument and the eventual decision to acquire this tank was based on the fact that we really don't know with any degree of certainty what sort of threat weapons may appear on the battlefield.
We believe that to ensure that, as I said in the opening remarks, our soldiers can achieve their mission without undue risk. We need to have readily available the protection from these tanks, both for the tank crew, but also the protection that they provide for the combined arms team.
Their ability to move into a battle site, their ability to survive as you've just seen, a range of threat weapons, and then, and most importantly in the complex environment, their ability to be able to be very accurate, to show discrimination and discretion.
We see this complex environment quite possibly urban terrain, and it will be hard to distinguish the enemy from people going about their normal business. We expect that the ability for a tank to take a hit, to move forward, to identify very clearly a target and then protect the combined armed team is a very important part of what we're doing.
With regard to decisions for deployment, and that properly is one for government, as Brigadier Clifford said, this provides government with a further range of options in the complex environment of the future.
QUESTION:
Would you be recommending to government the deployment of this force in a situation such as Iraq?
GENERAL LEAHY:
If there were a threat, and I won't be specific about the particular environment, if there were threat to our forces I would of course recommend the best force mix to make sure that our force could achieve its mission without undue risk.
I talked about the simple fact that our historical analysis, our experimentation and our observations tell us that tanks save lives. That's what I would seek to do, save our soldiers lives.
QUESTION:
Geoff Barker, Financial Review. In addition to what you've said it's also been suggested quite frequently that one of the reasons for this acquisition was to be able to train Australian crews in them, deploy the crews, but not the tanks so that the Australian crews might be able to operate pre-deployed American equipment in certain areas. I that part of the reason for getting the tanks?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Frankly it wasn't. I think we've gone through in some detail the criteria for selecting the tank, the way that we've selected this tank. This is the best tank available out there. What you've talked about, the fact that our crews might be able to operate other people's tanks is coincidental to that.
Frankly, it applies across a whole range of capabilities we've got in the ADF at the moment from some of our aeroplanes to our ships and so on. It's coincidental we're purchasing a tank that will do a job for Australia.
QUESTION:
Max Blenkin from AAP, General. A few technical issues. The Singars* radios we're acquiring with these are a fairly advanced bit of kit. Is there compatibility issues. Does that mean - what implications does that have ...
GENERAL LEAHY:
If I can hand over to Duncan, I think he mentioned that they are compatible but he'll give you the details of that and I'll give the floor to him.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL DUNCAN HAYWARD: The Singars radio is compatible with the raven* radio that we use in Australia now.
QUESTION:
Does this have issues for other ongoing projects to re-equip the communications systems across Army?
COLONEL HAYWARD:
Because of the digital, because of the embedded diagnostics in the vehicle and the embedded digital systems it provides us the option to easily change components without having to re-change the whole thing.
If in the future we decided to put a different sort of radio in, that is something that is very easily achieved.
QUESTION:
If we're not getting DU armour what sort of armour are we getting.
COLONEL HAYWARD: Armour technologies are sensitive in a classified area. The armour that we are getting is an advanced non-DU armour. We have had a look at destructive testing of this armour and we have sent across an Australian scientist to have a look at it, and it provides us an excellent level of protection.
QUESTION:
It's basically [indistinct] armour isn't it?
COLONEL HAYWARD: It's an advanced non-DU armour that provides us an excellent level of protection.
QUESTION:
Just a bit more on survivability. The Americans have had quite a lot of experience in Baghdad fighting in urban terrain and some of their tanks have taken catastrophic hits. Are you aware of that? Are you conscious of what they're up against over there and what we might have to face in urban terrain.
COLONEL HAYWARD:
One of the things that you don't see from those videos when you see a destroyed tank is the fact that the crew has survived and has been able to leave the vehicle either unharmed or with minimal injuries. No tank is invulnerable but this is a world class tank that offers world calls protection.
QUESTION:
Daniel Cottrell from Australian Defence Magazine. I'd like to ask some general questions about deployability of our new tanks. Specifically you mentioned there's Navy people here to tell us about how they can be moved by sea, but also the sort of specification we need with tank transporters, how we get on with underpasses and bridges and particularly perhaps some not so strong bridges in our regions we might need to use these?
GENERAL LEAHY:
If I could start, I'll turn to the guys who are perhaps better versed including Alan Dutoit. We see that this tank will be able to be moved both throughout Australia and throughout the region.
We don't have in the Australian Defence Force a doctrine of amphibious assault. We don't see that we'll rush up against the beach and put everything ashore on day one.
We see that predominantly the tank will be moved through the region if necessary wherever we might decide to take it, administratively.
We see throughout Australia that the majority of the moves will be administrative, and they can be done quite easily.
But the tank is also, as we mentioned, in the order of 60 tons, 62 tons combat weight. I'd remind you that the Centurion tank that operated most successfully in Vietnam was in the order of 52 tons combat weight. So we're not talking about a huge difference here.
We see that we can deploy this tank and we can use it in a very wide range of situations.
Now perhaps if I turn to - Duncan, are you the best guy for this in terms of the weight, or should we go to Alan Dutoit about the Navy? What would you like? Navy?
COLONEL HAYWARD:
Well perhaps a little more on the road transporters with the contract upcoming and then Navy after that.
The vehicle's only 30, about 30 to 40 centimetres wider than a Leopard and it's about a half a metre longer than the Leopard. We're currently looking at a range of transporters for the vehicle that will be domestically produced. In terms of overall weight, it is essentially in the order of magnitude of a road train which operates quite successfully in the north and is about that same order of magnitude.
The trailer and the tank are less than 4 metres and 4.6 metres is normally the difficulty you have with dealing with underpasses. So we're well under that.
GENERAL LEAHY:
If I could invite Commodore Alan Dutoit to come up and talk about some of the Naval aspects of moving this vehicle.
COMMODORE ALAN DUTOIT:
Yes good morning. I'll make the point as Army has made that tanks are not a new capability but it is just improving on the capability. It's the same for Navy. We are capable of carrying our current generation of Leopard tanks now and we'll be able to carry the new Abrams tank in the future, both with our current capability and indeed as we look to our future for these capabilities.
And I make the point here that on a regular basis we carry heavy loads, you know the tank is over 60 tonnes. On both the Tobruk and the LPA as we carry the landing craft, the old CM8s, they come in at 65 tonnes with a 70 tonne crane on those ships. So we're used to moving heavy gear around, and it also applies to heavy plant and machinery. If there's a natural disaster within the nation or indeed in the region, we would have to be able to move out of shore as well. So it's within our means.
QUESTION:
General, Graeme Dobell from the ABC. You're talking about geo-historical analysis, and the way you've looked at this. I'm interested in why we've moved from the 200 White Paper, where tanks were not necessarily very high on the priority list, even a questionable capacity in terms of the White Paper, to this need to have it in service by 2007.
What has changed in the way we look at the region, that you've had this quite, turnaround at least?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Graeme, I'd disagree with you when you say there's been a turnaround or a change in the White Paper and our view of that.
The White Paper said that - and Brigadier Clifford talked about it; I talked about policy continuity. The White Paper said that we do not seek to develop heavy armoured forces. Now we're not developing heavy armoured forces.
The very next paragraph in the White Paper then talked about the fact that we would seek to have the combat weight to ensure that our soldiers would be able to carry out their mission without undue risk. And that is essentially the argument that we're talking about.
So I don't see that there is any significant change. Indeed, very little change at all from the prescription of the White Paper of 2000, to what we're producing here.
This is about infantry, tank, combined arms team cooperation, to ensure that our soldiers who might be deployed in a wide variety of operations, from all out warfare, conventional operations, to what we saw in peacekeeping operations.
And let me remark in historical analysis on Blackhawk Down in Mogadishu - what was a peacekeeping operation, a humanitarian, they had very few critical hours - Blackhawk Down, what actually finished the day off and saved the day was the arrival of Pakistani tanks.
And we see that quickly a situation in something as relatively benign as Mogadishu in those days of peace support and peacekeeping could go really bad really quickly. And to be able to have the ability to quickly escalate to dominate the environment, is something that means our soldiers can survive.
So I disagree that there is a change in the policy prescription. This is policy continuity. It's entirely in line with having the ability to achieve success on the battlefield, and do it quickly and keep our soldiers alive.
QUESTION:
In terms of the region, I mean, none of the operations we've, the peacekeeping we've done recently in Timor and Solomons and Bougainville, we haven't even, we haven't thought we needed that capacity for a tank.
I mean, we've had armoured personnel carriers, and that's been all we've felt the need of. What's changed in the region that you can use a, a sort of a Blackhawk Down analogy and apply it to the South Pacific or South East Asia?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Well, it's not just about the region. It's not about one specific scenario. I think what's changed is the complexity of the future security environment. The speed at which things could escalate; the fact that now very lethal threat weapons are readily available, and that to be able to cope in this sort of environment, we need available this sort of capability.
QUESTION:
My last one. Is the upgrade more important to army than some of the other ideas that have been put out by various commentators - Kim Beazley the latest, before him, Paul Dibb* - about the need for army to get another battalion. Is, would, in terms of those sort of trade-offs, why tanks instead of another battalion?
GENERAL LEAHY:
It's really about trying to bring balance back to that core element of army, which is the combined arms team; to make sure that infantry, armour, artillery, engineers, and now our army aviation, can all work in concert.
And what we see in the combined arms team, that at times, the strength of one element will cover for the inherent weakness of another. And you will change the mix.
What we're tyring to make sure is we've got the balanced combined arms team. We saw that the Leopard was frankly vulnerable. It wasn't going to be able to provide its part of the effort for the combined arms team, so we've sought to replace it. The A1 is going to replace it. It will bring balance back to that combined arms team.
QUESTION:
Geoff Barker again, General. I know this was about tanks, but you have introduced Blackhawk Down into this discussion. Could you tell me whether the army's analysis of the comparison between the MRH 90 and the Sikorsky matches that of the ADA, and when we might expect a decision on that?
GENERAL LEAHY:
I can tell you that Defence has forwarded to the Minister our deliberations on Air 9000, and that the Minister has that, and I would expect - I think it's in the next week or so - that it might go to the Cabinet, and we'd expect a decision then. And I'll wait, just as you will wait Geoff, for what the decision will be.
QUESTION:
In terms of the other side of what you're talking about - the need for balance - is part of the resistance of army to the idea of an extra battalion or extra battalions, that need to actually bulk up the battalions you've got, that whole debate about hollowing out. Is that still part of the concerns you have about the existing force?
GENERAL LEAHY:
I wouldn't have said that I've got resistance or concerns. What we're trying to provide, through our program of hardening and network the army, is a balanced force. And we're prepared to consider all of the issues.
I'm aware that there is a debate out there on certain elements of the army, and we've got our own debate internally. We'll work with people who would assist us from outside; we'll work internally, and we'll come up with a balanced force.
QUESTION:
Nick Stewart, The Canberra Times. Two questions. One technical one. First of all, I presume that we're still using normal fuel and we're not moving to a specific turbine fuel for our vehicles, our variant?
GENERAL LEAHY:
I'll hand to Duncan for that one.
COLONEL HAYWARD:
In regard fuel type, we will continue to use diesel fuel in the vehicle, or in military terms DF2. In American service they use JP8 or JP9. For the first 12 years of American use of M1, they ran it exclusively on diesel. It works very well on diesel. The only reason that the US changed was because of the increase fuel consumption brought about by their large rotary-wing helicopter fleet.
QUESTION:
Thanks. And the second question was, I presume we're using three tank troops and there'd be three troops in a squadron. Would, given that it is essentially a heavy tank, will there be increased emphasis on combined arms operation, and do you see that we require an independent armoured regiment, or would there be a need to merge it into more a combined arms regiment?
GENERAL LEAHY:
One of the things we're looking through our program of hardening a network in the army, is to improve our ability to group and regroup; to tailor for a specific mission the types of force that we might require.
And we see firstly that the headquarters of the armoured regiment is a headquarters that we might aggregate infantry, armour, artillery and other forces around. So we see that the headquarters has a definite role.
But I also see that the flexibility of the squadron and the troop structure, whereby you have integral command, you have some support capabilities, means that we can group and regroup that very quickly, perhaps to infantry, to cavalry, and other organisations.
So we're looking for the inherent flexibility from the structure that you've described, quite accurately, to provide us a much greater capability of combined arms teams.
QUESTION:
Thanks Sir. And, sorry, a final question, with - at the moment C Squadron is a reserve squadron - with particularly the extra number of driver simulators and gunnery simulators, do you see a greater role - well, either will C Squadron remain reserve or will you move to a greater reserve role?
GENERAL LEAHY:
We'd be seeking to maximise the use of the reservists in the tank. C Squadron has been valuable to us. But I think C Squadron and others would recognise that it's difficult to get the sort of time for the reservists to train. This tank will be a little more difficult to drive - we'll have improved training systems, but we'll be looking to make sure that the skills are there, that people who can contribute to that will make a valuable contribution.
I think it'll be difficult for reservists to do it, but we'll looking to maximise their contribution.
QUESTION:
Neil James from Defender. Nick just stole my first question, in fact. I've got two questions. The first one is, is the new improved armour as good as depleted uranium armour - yes/no?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Duncan, you want to take that?
COLONEL HAYWARD:
The armour that we're getting is very close to depleted uranium armour. In some aspects it is better against some types of threats. But I'm unable to discuss those in this forum.
QUESTION:
Okay, let's assume that the new armour is not as good as depleted uranium armour. Is the only reason we're not getting depleted uranium armour because of political concerns in Australia, and therefore are we running the risk of Australian soldiers being endangered in the future because political considerations prevent them having the best protection?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Oh, I think Neil, you know me well enough that I wouldn't endanger our soldiers lives for a reason like that. We're getting very good armour. One that I have every confidence in, and one that I'd be happy for our soldiers to fight behind.
QUESTION:
Thank you chief. I just wanted to get that on the public record. And the last, my last question is a simple one - most of the comment by so-called strategic commentators in the press, on the tanks, has portrayed profound ignorance about warfare and often not a good grasp of strategy.
Why isn't the ADF going on the attack against stupid comments like by Professor Dibb and Mr [indistinct] Smith on Saturday, why is the ADF just sitting back and copping silly arguments against its capability?
GENERAL LEAHY:
I think Neil we come out and talk sensibly about things that are important. I think we are not sitting back, we are ready to engage and I think today is part of that engagement. You know that we're prepared to talk to your association, I'm prepared to talk to journalists, I think there's an active debate. People can make their own judgements about the validity of people's opinions.
QUESTION:
Trevor Thomas, Australian Defence Business Review. General, just a couple of questions on logistics. I may have missed it but replenishment of the tank rounds once you've gone through the 40 120 millimetre rounds, how are we proposing to do that? Does the Hercules carry replenishment rounds or is there another vehicle? If there is, what is that vehicle? How many of those are we going to buy?
GENERAL LEAHY:
The Hercules is specifically a repair and recovery vehicle. It doesn't carry ammunition to replenish the tanks. Currently we use a variant of the M113 to carry ammunition and we also use wheeled vehicles, trucks. And we have a replenishment system where the tanks will reverse back, pull up next to one of those two vehicle types and receive the ammunition replenished from those vehicles.
There is an issue of the armoured logistics vehicle, the M113 logistics vehicle, which will be part of first armoured regiment and part of its establishment.
QUESTION:
So are we going to retain the current M113s but do a bit of a refit so they work better with the Abrams?
GENERAL LEAHY:
No. As part of the upgraded M113 project there is a variant within that new upgraded fleet that is called the armoured logistics vehicle. That vehicle will be used to replenish the tank.
QUESTION:
Can I just enter a couple first okay? The next one was the simulators, I'm assuming we're not regenerating a simulator with like with the [indistinct] CPTs, we're just going to be buying off the shelf simulators, same issue standard brand as the US forces?
GENERAL LEAHY:
That's correct. It's a brand new simulator, it's a Lockheed Martin product and it is a new simulator. We are doing nothing special to it, it provides us the requirement that we need.
QUESTION:
And the last one for me, just with the Navy about - you're talking about the 70 ton cranes. Are we to assume that you'll be holding the Abrams on the deck and craning them over the side? That they're not going to be used internally in the current LPAs?
COMMODORE DUTOIT:
Okay we've got a whole range of ways that we can carry them. Tobruk in the first instance was built as a heavy lift ship with her crane. We can embark both current generation and indeed the Abrams into the tank deck of the ship so they can be embarked and disembarked via the stern door. And indeed they can be craned and uncraned from the ship, either onto a landing craft alongside, or if we're doing an administrative lift to a wharf if that's possible. So we've got a range of means.
The LPA, similarly over the stern door and indeed they could be carried as a cargo on the foredeck. They could again be craned using a shore side crane from the aft hatch either onto or off the ship. So there's a range of means of embarking and disembarking.
QUESTION:
I know I'm going to get questioned from the ABC in Darwin on this so I better ask you the Darwin question. Is it - just to clarify - is it the argument that the tanks as they move around the Northern Territory are going to be able to go anywhere that a road train would go? Is that the proposition you were putting?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Essentially that's what we see. We've got a variety of means - one by road - these things can self-deploy. We've also got a beaut railway up there and we'd be looking at using that railway and you've seen us use it with deployment out of Adelaide of 16 Air Defence Regiment, we've got training areas in the south. We see that there are a number of possibilities for deployment in the Northern Territory.
QUESTION:
Anywhere a road train can go, these tanks can go?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Duncan have you got anything to add to what I've said?
COLONEL HAYWARD:
[indistinct]
QUESTION:
At the risk of being seen as an ignorant commentator I'll ask this question. On a scale of one to ten, one being least likely, ten being most likely, how likely do you think it will be that in the next 20 years these tanks will be deployed on an operation and fire any shots in anger?
GENERAL LEAHY:
I think I'd rather put it in terms of preference. My preference is that we would not deploy them and we'd not fire shots in anger. But what I'm seeing is a rather unpredictable, complex security environment into the future and I for one want to be prepared if we're asked to do that. This better prepares us.
UNIDENTIFIED:
Final question.
QUESTION:
Can I just ask one final...
GENERAL LEAHY:
We've got one other here. We'll have one more last question then we'll come down to Geoffrey.
QUESTION:
Brendan Nicholson from The Age. Was there any particular episode that decided you that the military needed this capability? Would you have liked to have had them in East Timor for instance, or was there any other occasion effecting our forces or other allied forces that you're aware of that made you, that led to this decision?
GENERAL LEAHY:
If there was any one issue that brought us to the conclusion I think it was the culmination of a whole series of work in the experimentation and the war gaming and the historical analysis that's come out of our forced development group in Puckapunyal in Victoria.
The land warfare development centre has been set up for some time and we've asked them to look very carefully at our force capabilities and our mixes. Their work has led us to the conclusion that Leopard was vulnerable, that the sort of capability we need into the future is a balanced combined arms team. We're out of balance; we needed to restore that balance.
So I would say it's more of an intellectual realisation than anything that said this is happening out in the environment, hypothetical or actual. It was to provide a whole range of options to government and make sure that the force we put into the field is both effective and survivable.
UNIDENTIFIED:
Graeme you had a last question?
GENERAL LEAHY:
Last question down here.
QUESTION:
Graeme asked the Darwin question, I'll ask the financial question. Do you know - I'm not clear - who will do the through life support on these tanks and can you give us any numbers on what you expect that contract to be worth? And can you give us any idea of the operating costs of these vehicles?
GENERAL LEAHY:
John are you the best guy to answer this do you think? John Pluck is from the [indistinct] down in Melbourne, the project office and I've asked john to come up and talk to you about that.
JOHN PLUCK:
The cost of supporting these tanks depends very much on how much we actually use them, this is mostly self-evident. We are committed to operating the tanks at a total operating cost, which covers maintenance, spares, ammunition, fuel, people, for no more than the current fleet of Leopards. Very round figures, that total figure is around about $30 million at the moment.
QUESTION:
Sorry I couldn't hear that.
JOHN PLUCK:
Total round figures, that's about $30 million.
QUESTION:
A year?
JOHN PLUCK:
A year, yep. Now the balance between repair and maintenance, ammunition and so on will vary with the Abrams form what is with the Leopard at the moment because we'll have a much greater use of simulation to try and reduce our training costs and operating costs. So at this stage we're not able to give you a specific figure of what the repair and maintenance on it we're likely to contract is going to be, that's still being refined at the moment.
QUESTION:
The contract's been let?
JOHN PLUCK:
Not yet no.
GENERAL LEAHY:
Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for coming along, it's been a pleasure to be able to give you some more detail and I look forward to other opportunities in the future. I think you know we've got a beaut new helicopter arriving soon and if you're agreeable we might try and do something similar to talk you through the introduction of the arm reconnaissance helicopter at a date sometime in the future. But thank you for coming.
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