Question Australian army "Rank bloat"

[InterestedParty]

An interesting, to a non-service person, in today's Australian, by Clive Williams, a former army officer, titled - Brereton exposes army's expensive case of "Rank bloat"
Australia has 29,511 regular personnel plus 18,738 active reservists,and 86 officers of 1,2,3 or 4 star rank, only the CDF is a 4 star. There are another 98 generals in the army reserve
He compares to the US army which is capped at 231 active-duty generals.
He says that the US achieves this by having lower ranking officers performing duties that the Australian army would assign to a 1-star or above, for example a US brigade is commanded by a full colonel
Is this just an issue of economy of scale as the US army being much larger organisation.
I am not sure if this is an apple's to apple's comparison but I would be interested to hear from those who know if this is a sign of something being wrong or just the reality of having a relatively small army

 

[buffy9]

Link below for ease of access:

NoCookies | The Australian

www.theaustralian.com.au

Transcript:

We should find out this month whether action will be taken against commanders in the wake of the Brereton inquiry. There’s been resentment among the lower ranks of Australian special forces because of a perception the Brereton inquiry targeted junior non-commissioned officers and failed to assign culpability to those further up the army’s rank structure or even to their political masters.

The key question is where does one stop when determining responsibility? Is it at the unit commander (lieutenant-colonel) level or with successive prime ministers responsible since 2002 for our demanding and clearly unwinnable Afghanistan commitment?

Some have suggested Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell should accept responsibility and fall on his sword. That’s hardly likely to happen. After all, ministers don’t accept personal responsibility and voluntarily step down when transgressions are exposed among their staff. (Nor, for that matter, do they do so when caught out themselves.)

While not wishing to pursue the responsibility issue further, I thought it would be useful to look at the implications of the hypothetical loss of several very senior army officers — and turned up some surprising facts.


Army generals are graded at “one-star” to “five-star” levels. A one-star is a brigadier — or in US parlance a brigadier-general. That’s the level of Australian officer who would command a brigade of roughly 3000 soldiers. A two-star or major-general commands a division (three brigades). A three-star or lieutenant-general commands a corps (two to five divisions). A four-star or full general commands a field army. A five-star or field marshal commands an army group, which may comprise several armies.

The Australian CDF is the only four-star officer in the Australian Defence Force (ADF). We have no five-stars.

The Australian Army has 29,511 regular personnel, plus 18,738 active reservists. It could field a division-minus sized force, or the field command of a major-general. Notionally, however, we have the structure for two divisions.

The Australian Army’s 1st Division comprises a deployable headquarters, while 2nd Division under the command of Forces Command is the main home-defence formation, containing Army Reserve units. The Australian Army has not deployed a division-sized formation since 1945 and does not expect to do so in the future.

The Australian Army currently has 86 regular officers of general rank, while the Army Reserve has 98.

By comparison, size-wise, with the Australian Army, the US Army had (in December 2019) 472,595 active-duty personnel, with another 191,007 in reserve, and an Army National Guard of 331,881. The US Marine Corps is a separate service with 180,958 active members.

In the US military, the total number of active-duty general officers is capped at 231 for the army and 62 for the Marine Corps.

This means that the US Army has one general for every 2045 soldiers and the Marine Corps one for every 2919 marines.

By contrast, the Australian Army has one regular army general for 345 regular soldiers. If you add the Australian Regular Army and the Active Reserve together, you get around 50,000 personnel and 184 generals, or one general for every 271 soldiers.

The US has managed to keep the number of generals down by having lower-ranking officers performing tasks that in the Australian Army would be performed by a one-star or above.

A US brigade, for example, is headed by a full colonel, not a brigadier. It’s also not uncommon for a senior officer to be working for a more senior officer of the same rank.

Australian “rank bloat” comes at some expense, given that a brigadier has a minimum annual salary of $200,000 and a three-star has a maximum salary of around $500,000.

If we brought our rank and responsibility structure into line with that of our major ally, the US, we would need no more than 15 regular army generals for an army of 30,000, and perhaps 10 reserve generals for an active reserve of up to 20,000 personnel.

In conclusion, Australia could probably afford to lose more than 150 army generals and be none the worse for it!

Clive Williams is a visiting professor at the ANU’s Centre for Military and Security Law (and former Army officer)

Probably belongs in the Australian Army thread, or ADF General thread (though no provided data for navy or RAAF, unfortunately). Still an interesting topic given the numbers however, notable also after coming after the Brereton report.

I don't have much knowledge of how things work at that level - how bureaucratic it may or may not be and how well red tabs communicate between one another when it comes to the job. It's probably also worth looking into other Commonwealth armies and armies in general to see their own stats - the low number of US generals per soldier may be a symptom of operating more at the global level, requiring less overhead for the sake of an organisation so it can actually work with so many functions in mind.

EDIT: On this, an article in relation to the British Army and how "top heavy" it is. I'm not a subscriber and am not familiar with the sites bias, but it's a start.

Top-heavy British Army halves number of generals

Britain’s army is getting stronger because it has nearly halved the number of generals, the head of the armed forces has said.Responding to criticism that the army is top-heavy, General Sir Nick

www.thetimes.co.uk

Something perhaps worth considering, though I don't imagine it will be popular with officers at a lot of levels - especially with those who have reached that rank. I can also say the same thing for the number of warrant officers army wide - there is certainly some feeling that a lot of positions are created so that some WOs can remain in army, as opposed to being discharged because there is no room for them to be promoted.

I'd argue a leaner, more decentralised army could be beneficial from my own narrow perspective. This subject could be interpreted as asking for less oversight however, which may not fly given the current situation/climate.

 

[Redlands18]

An interesting, to a non-service person, in today's Australian, by Clive Williams, a former army officer, titled - Brereton exposes army's expensive case of "Rank bloat"
Australia has 29,511 regular personnel plus 18,738 active reservists,and 86 officers of 1,2,3 or 4 star rank, only the CDF is a 4 star. There are another 98 generals in the army reserve
He compares to the US army which is capped at 231 active-duty generals.
He says that the US achieves this by having lower ranking officers performing duties that the Australian army would assign to a 1-star or above, for example a US brigade is commanded by a full colonel
Is this just an issue of economy of scale as the US army being much larger organisation.
I am not sure if this is an apple's to apple's comparison but I would be interested to hear from those who know if this is a sign of something being wrong or just the reality of having a relatively small army

The thing you do need to remember though is, it takes somewhere in the vicinity of 20+ years to qualify a 1 Star Officer and then add a further 3-5 years for each subsequent Rank, same as Warrant Officers. A JG Lieutenant about 2-4 years and then add 3-5 years per Rank. A Private about 6-8 Months depending on trade, again add 3-5 years for each subsequent rank.
Having to many Senior Officers pops up every few years, but the Australian Army is currently a peacetime Army trg for possible future Wars, it relatively easy to quickly build up your junior ranks in time of war, Senior Officers not so much.

 

[FoxtrotRomeo999]

Redlands, I agree. An Army is not primarily about "efficiency", it is about National Survival. The "extra" officers and ORs hopefully give us a skills base to quickly enlarge and yet remain effective if required.

Cheers, Foxtrot.

 

[Volkodav]

What I find frightening is the number of incompetent officers who tap out at O-3 or O-4 (Captain, Lieutenant, Flight Lieutenant or Major, Lieutenant Commander, Squadron Leader) because they know there is no way on the face of the planet they will ever progress higher (despite a higher proportion of officers who do progress in the ADF) and waltz into a job in the private sector where they are appointed straight to management because of their "leadership and people skills".

You see passed over O-3s would would never be trusted in a senior uniform engineering role slotting in as engineering managers for a defence contractor at equivalent to an O-5/6 without any of the additional training, professional development and experience they would have received had they been good enough to be promoted while in uniform. They are the worst of both worlds, they failed in uniform, never receiving much needed development, and then skip all the junior years learning the ropes in the private sector. They think they know it all but know nothing, as the stuff defence teaches later is the stuff the private sector teaches first, these clown miss both chances to actually be useful.

 

[old faithful]

God I’m sick of hearing Australian officers translated to one star etc.

 

[Redlands18]

God I’m sick of hearing Australian officers translated to one star etc.

I will apologise for using that on my post above, should have used Flag rank instead. Thought about it later, but was to late to edit my post.

 

[ngatimozart]

God I’m sick of hearing Australian officers translated to one star etc.

Be that as it may, it does simplify things across services and nations.

 

[Volkodav]

Be that as it may, it does simplify things across services and nations.

definitely easier than typing the full rank for each service each time or having to explain abbreviations every time you use them. I still get a little confused as Australia dropped 2nd Lieutenant and Staff Sergeant meaning we skip O-1 and E-7. I am more across Public Service equivalents though it means nothing in practice. This is one of the reasons for the large number of senior officers, equivalence to Public Service Levels. i.e. a given role with a required level of technical or financial delegation may require an EL-1 or EL-2 (Executive Level) Public Servant or equivalent uniform or private industry person.

Private sector is more flexible in appointing the right person for the job but can also more easily appoint unsuitable people, i.e. you have a Chief Engineer or SPO Director who is an EL-1 or EL-2, O-5 or 6 (Commander Lt Col, Wing Commander or Captain, Col, Group Captain) or occasionally even a SES Band 1 (Senior Executive Service) / O-7. These Public Service and uniform personnel, while not always perfect, have at least completed a raft of certified training and development, and can be expected to meet minimum standards of competence. You then get a contractor hiring a washed out O-3, or even an E-6 or an E-8 with a corn flakes packet Engineers Australia Charted Technical Officer status because they completed Sub 4 WO2 training (I think that was it but could be wrong). They don't even have an MBA (as much as I despise the things and the elevator to senior management they provide some pretty dodgy people) yet are appointed to senior technical roles where they report to a non technical, non defence director who thinks they are geniuses because they know the defence jargon and are chummy with the other defence washouts the company has hired over the years.

Anyway gone off topic, a big part of the large number of senior officers in defence was the need to formally recognise their experience and skills, remunerate them appropriately and give them parity to the equivalent Public Service Levels just to retain them. This can also be traced back to the dumbing down of defence technical training to save money over the years, as well as reducing the facility for suitably qualified and experience civilians and foreign defence members to enter laterally. It meant it took longer for the new people to get up to the required standards, many not being trained or certified to the same levels as their civilian equivalent unless they undertake additional (not required by military) training in their own time or rise to senior NCO or staff officer ranks. The older people trained under the old systems and the more ambitious and capable of the newer people who have sought additional professional development need to be retained, they are rarer than they used to be and much harder to replace (which is why Mid Career Entry Options have opened up).

 

[Raven22]

An interesting, to a non-service person, in today's Australian, by Clive Williams, a former army officer, titled - Brereton exposes army's expensive case of "Rank bloat"
Australia has 29,511 regular personnel plus 18,738 active reservists,and 86 officers of 1,2,3 or 4 star rank, only the CDF is a 4 star. There are another 98 generals in the army reserve
He compares to the US army which is capped at 231 active-duty generals.
He says that the US achieves this by having lower ranking officers performing duties that the Australian army would assign to a 1-star or above, for example a US brigade is commanded by a full colonel
Is this just an issue of economy of scale as the US army being much larger organisation.
I am not sure if this is an apple's to apple's comparison but I would be interested to hear from those who know if this is a sign of something being wrong or just the reality of having a relatively small army

In answer to your question, I’ll copy an answer from a different forum:

That article isn’t really comparing apples to apples. Australia, like all commonwealth countries, has brigadiers, not brigadier generals. A brigadier is not a general, but is the most senior of the field ranks (essentially a senior colonel). A brigadier general is just that - a junior general. Australia employs brigadiers in roles the US employs colonels, including brigade command.

The only difference between Australia and the US is that the senior officer bloat starts at colonel for the US, and brigadier for us. For example, Australia has about 3.5 colonels for every brigadier. The US has about 28 colonels for every brigadier general. Any comparison of senior officers must therefore start at the colonel level to compare apples to apples. The Australian army has one senior officer (colonel and above) for every 106 soldiers. The US Army has one senior officer (colonel and above) for every 106 soldiers. The ratio is essentially identical.

You can argue that Australia has too many senior officers, but we’re not alone - every army has the same problem. And if you think the army is bad, both the navy and Air Force have far worse ratios of star ranked officers to ORs.

While I share the skepticism of most when looking at the number of senior officers, any discussion has to be based in facts and reality. Armies (and navies and air forces) are complex beasts, and only getting more complex. With complexity comes the need for more people to manage that complexity (at least until the robots take over).

For example, on this thread there has been a lot of discussion about helicopters. The army has suffered from immature procurement practices that bought the wrong helicopters in the first place, and struggled to cope with the complexity to sustain them ever since. What do you think the solution to this problem is - more senior officers, or less?

 

[Volkodav]

In answer to your question, I’ll copy an answer from a different forum:

That article isn’t really comparing apples to apples. Australia, like all commonwealth countries, has brigadiers, not brigadier generals. A brigadier is not a general, but is the most senior of the field ranks (essentially a senior colonel). A brigadier general is just that - a junior general. Australia employs brigadiers in roles the US employs colonels, including brigade command.

The only difference between Australia and the US is that the senior officer bloat starts at colonel for the US, and brigadier for us. For example, Australia has about 3.5 colonels for every brigadier. The US has about 28 colonels for every brigadier general. Any comparison of senior officers must therefore start at the colonel level to compare apples to apples. The Australian army has one senior officer (colonel and above) for every 106 soldiers. The US Army has one senior officer (colonel and above) for every 106 soldiers. The ratio is essentially identical.

You can argue that Australia has too many senior officers, but we’re not alone - every army has the same problem. And if you think the army is bad, both the navy and Air Force have far worse ratios of star ranked officers to ORs.

While I share the skepticism of most when looking at the number of senior officers, any discussion has to be based in facts and reality. Armies (and navies and air forces) are complex beasts, and only getting more complex. With complexity comes the need for more people to manage that complexity (at least until the robots take over).

For example, on this thread there has been a lot of discussion about helicopters. The army has suffered from immature procurement practices that bought the wrong helicopters in the first place, and struggled to cope with the complexity to sustain them ever since. What do you think the solution to this problem is - more senior officers, or less?

One of the best SPO directors I've ever come across retired recently, tapped out at O-6 when the rumour had been that he was going to be bumped up to O-7 and keep fighting the good fight. Don't know what happened or why, he's probably perfectly happy with the move but it is a loss to defence. When it comes to retaining talent I am all for promotions and recognition to keep them, the cost of not keeping them, or perhaps losing them to an industry outside defence, is far greater than the cost of an additional O-6 billet.

I've had issues with a minority of new O-4 and below as well as E-5 (plus the occasional new E-6) and below but have pretty much always found the older and wiser (more senior) members to be very good. I think its a shame that some of the best are limited how high they can go because of limited billets.

 

[old faithful]

Bill, I can not believe that you are comparing public servant pay levels to military ranks.
Major differences there. Like public servants doing courses in their own time, and applying for promotions, then appealing if they don’t get what they want etc
Oh, and what’s your definition of a “defence wash out” I’m curious about that term, don’t much like the sound or tone of it.

 

[DDG38]

Bill, I can not believe that you are comparing public servant pay levels to military ranks.
Major differences there. Like public servants doing courses in their own time, and applying for promotions, then appealing if they don’t get what they want etc

I've got some bad news for you, there is an official Australian Government website (on the protected network not public) that has a rank equivalency chart between APS levels and ADF ranks. I don't know who created it but it's not based in any reality I'm familiar with.

 

[CB90]

One of the best SPO directors I've ever come across retired recently, tapped out at O-6 when the rumour had been that he was going to be bumped up to O-7 and keep fighting the good fight. Don't know what happened or why, he's probably perfectly happy with the move but it is a loss to defence. When it comes to retaining talent I am all for promotions and recognition to keep them, the cost of not keeping them, or perhaps losing them to an industry outside defence, is far greater than the cost of an additional O-6 billet.

I've had issues with a minority of new O-4 and below as well as E-5 (plus the occasional new E-6) and below but have pretty much always found the older and wiser (more senior) members to be very good. I think its a shame that some of the best are limited how high they can go because of limited billets.

There is definitely a point though where some people need to move on, or you start to create problems with advancement for your junior personnel.

It is very easy for senior officers to stick around forever in staff roles (it’s not hard on the body) towards the end of their careers, but simply keeping them around for too long is counterproductive as well.
It’s unfortunately a hard balance to strike though -I worked recently with a RAN officer who passed mandatory retirement age, and came back on Reserve time, but he easily had the energy to outwork folks decades his junior and his mental acuity was still faster than most around him. That said, he would have also likely been just as useful in a defense industry role.

 

[Volkodav]

I've got some bad news for you, there is an official Australian Government website (on the protected network not public) that has a rank equivalency chart between APS levels and ADF ranks. I don't know who created it but it's not based in any reality I'm familiar with.

My last role down south could have had a uniform, APS or industry person in it, I was industry, my replacement was an EL-1 professional officer. The role I had before that was APS-6 / O-4 equivalent, with the other individual doing the same job on another part of the project being a Lt Commander.

There is equivalency in terms of technical and financial delegations as well as reporting chains, and performance reviews. It can work well but it can be totally circumvented to a degree, i.e. your actual supervisor needs to be your level or higher but their is nothing stopping that person delegating authority to pretty much anyone else to task, supervise and manage you. All well and good if done responsibly and with a bit of commonsense, an absolute cluster when a senior para professional is gifted to a bunch of twenty something ORs as an admin b!TCH by a clueless junior captain because said baby O-3 doesn't actually understand what the person was hired to do.

Don't get me wrong, it happens to uniform members too as well as civilians, but can be mitigated at senior levels by ensuring key roles are occupied by people at the appropriate rank / level. It give the person more weight if not actual authority.

 

[Volkodav]

Bill, I can not believe that you are comparing public servant pay levels to military ranks.
Major differences there. Like public servants doing courses in their own time, and applying for promotions, then appealing if they don’t get what they want etc
Oh, and what’s your definition of a “defence wash out” I’m curious about that term, don’t much like the sound or tone of it.

It's not pay levels as such but delegation level, i.e. financial or technical authority related to the role. It is also related to reporting lines where you will have issues if you have people pushing back because they out rank or have been delegated by someone who out ranks a person in a role. Very dangerous when the push back is against people working in technical safety, governance compliance etc.

As a civilian I could to a degree stand up to higher level people on technical matters where a uniformed member would have been forced to back down or be charged. It was still hard but my job and freedom were never on the line, to do what I had to do a uniform member would have to be the same rank or higher than the appointed manager I was confronting.

As for washout, I am being judgemental and derogatory. I am not referring to people who move onto better things, or people who move on because of health or family reasons, or even those who just need a change. What I am referring to is those who prove themselves unsuitable after getting in, who continually underperform, who boss rather than lead, who do less, achieve less and disrupt others from their work. People who need to be worked around, require subordinates to manage upwards, who constantly need to be directed by their superiors and only survive because the organisation can afford to replace them yet.

 

[Volkodav]

There is definitely a point though where some people need to move on, or you start to create problems with advancement for your junior personnel.

It is very easy for senior officers to stick around forever in staff roles (it’s not hard on the body) towards the end of their careers, but simply keeping them around for too long is counterproductive as well.
It’s unfortunately a hard balance to strike though -I worked recently with a RAN officer who passed mandatory retirement age, and came back on Reserve time, but he easily had the energy to outwork folks decades his junior and his mental acuity was still faster than most around him. That said, he would have also likely been just as useful in a defense industry role.

I've said it before and still believe it, good people should be retained, even if it means creating new positions and promoting them.

Whole this discussion is about senior officers I can also see utility in not just commissioning senior NCOs but allowing them to subsequently be promoted / appointed above the usual O-3/4 level.
There probably needs to be a para professional / professional officer category for senior technical NCOs and civilians to join and contribute. Not command appointments but more your critical speciality roles that if anything need long encumbrancy and detract from career progression for those heading for high ranks.

There are a number of WOs I know who are indistinguishable from Cols I know when out of uniform. The difference is, when confronted with a smart a____e junior officer or up themselves public servant (or worse an ex defence washout 0-3 E-6) they have to kowtow. Why not acknowledge their experience, demonstrated competence and appoint them to an appropriate level while still in uniform.

An added benefit of these extra, non chain of command staff and technical officers, is they can groom and mentor junior members while flagging those who are toxic.

 

[Anthony_B_78]

This is a typical news story at a slow time of the year. The data is, of course, not new. You can read it in the Department's Annual Report, page 117, link here: https://www.defence.gov.au/AnnualReports/19-20/DAR_2019-20_Complete.pdf

It would be a useful question for an opposition MP to ask in Estimates what roles every one of these star-ranked officers are engaged in. I also wonder, do we have an "up or out" model like in the US? If not, should we?