Australian Army Discussions and Updates

vonnoobie said:

Why would we buy more modules then trucks to fit them on, why would we buy more modules then there is room on the ships for them. We do so to increase or decrease on an as needed basis (as I understand it) and that same approach can very well be useful with the future CRV.

As a blue tag you are more knowledgable then me but cnsidering the way we have been moving in acquiring other modular capabilities short of a crystal ball I don't see how you can garauntee with 100% certainty so for the mean time how about agree to disagree?

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You're comparing apples and oranges there. Of course trucks have modular systems - they whole reason they exist is to carry all sorts of different things. That's why they have a flat bit on the back.

An armoured fighting vehicle is a very different thing. What are the circumstances you would want to change out the mission module on a Boxer? I can't think of one. The mix of variants has been specifically chosen to provide the capability required. Except for a first principles change of the Orbat of the Army, why would you need to change the capability mix?

Perhaps you can highlight a practicle application of this? How specifically do you foresee this modular system being useful?

Raven22 said:

The mix of variants has been specifically chosen to provide the capability required. Except for a first principles change of the Orbat of the Army, why would you need to change the capability mix?

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But would that approach be a limiting factory in itself ? being restricted because there is no flexibility to be able to change out modules, so you limit yourself by a pre determined mix that can't be changed and has no ability to do so ?

Having spare modules would do several things, and I am not saying having hundreds laying around waiting for a what if, but spare modules available for swap out for maintenance, role variation for units for specific training and targeted requirements etc ? Having extra modules to ramp up for HADR or whatever the case may be ?

With spare modules, if there is an issue, it can be swapped out for a spare to be fixed with an operational module, which would potentially give better availability ?

Just my thoughts

aussienscale said:

But would that approach be a limiting factory in itself ? being restricted because there is no flexibility to be able to change out modules, so you limit yourself by a pre determined mix that can't be changed and has no ability to do so ?

Having spare modules would do several things, and I am not saying having hundreds laying around waiting for a what if, but spare modules available for swap out for maintenance, role variation for units for specific training and targeted requirements etc ? Having extra modules to ramp up for HADR or whatever the case may be ?

With spare modules, if there is an issue, it can be swapped out for a spare to be fixed with an operational module, which would potentially give better availability ?

Just my thoughts

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I would have to hear a specific proposal of exactly how these would be useful before I saw any merit in it. Again, its one of those things that seems useful on the surface, but when you look at the practical application it rapidly loses its attraction.

For example, exactly which mix of extra mission modules would you acquire? Where would they be stored? There will be four+ locations the vehicles are based, each thousands of km apart. Would you have a set of spares at each location, or expect them to be shipped around the country as needed? It is no easy thing to move a 15+ tonne mission module around the country. Would the spare mission modules be fitted with everything the in service ones would have (radio harness, BMS, weapons, sights, ECM etc), or would they have to be fitted each time you swapped one out? If you had to swap them out, it would take far more than 30 minutes to swap mission modules (think days at third line repair with civilian contractors, minimum). If they stayed fitted the whole time, do you then have to continually upgrade the spare modules the same is the in service ones? Does BMS need its yearly software upgrade? Who services the modules? Who ensures that there are enough qualified soldiers for the spare mission modules? etc etc, ad infinitum.

With all this, I still don't understand the advantage. How does having spare modules help with maintenance? How is swapping out a mission module possibly going to be quicker/more efficient than simply fixing the problem in the first place (noting you still have to fix the problem anyway, and have to transport the spare mission module around the place as well)? The only advantage at all that I see is for battle damage. Say you get a mine strike and damage the chassis, you could put the mission module on a spare chassis and crack on. However, even this would only be useful at fourth line repair (ie, once the blown up vehicle is shipped back to Australia to be fixed). The practicalities would mean its not something you could do in theatre.

Remembering, of course, that all this costs money. I don't know what the split of cost between the chassis and mission module is, but lets say its about 50/50. Each of those spare mission modules therefore cost about $5 million to purchase, plus the ongoing costs of maintenance, upgrades, storage, transport, security etc. It's a big price to pay for no clear advantage.

Raven22 said:

You're comparing apples and oranges there. Of course trucks have modular systems - they whole reason they exist is to carry all sorts of different things. That's why they have a flat bit on the back.

An armoured fighting vehicle is a very different thing. What are the circumstances you would want to change out the mission module on a Boxer? I can't think of one. The mix of variants has been specifically chosen to provide the capability required. Except for a first principles change of the Orbat of the Army, why would you need to change the capability mix?

Perhaps you can highlight a practicle application of this? How specifically do you foresee this modular system being useful?

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I am not sure if this discussion is precipitated by the article in the June 17 Defence Technology Review because it has a whole article discussing how the module system could be useful. The article picks the Ambulance variant to give examples.
First thing to note is the Ambulance module weighs 8 tonnes. So much easier to deliver a new module than to deliver a new 30+ tonne Boxer, if the drive module is damaged. Could be delivered rapidly in a C-130 for example.

DTR June 2017
"If an Army Unit has only one ambulance in location and its drive module is damaged, they can change the module over to another drive module."

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The same thing would obviously apply to command modules. If a command module was on an incapacitated Boxer it could be moved to another hull to retain a mobile command capability in a unit. i.e. One gun car might be sacrificed for example to retain a mobile command capability.

But there is another, potentially much more interesting, way modules could be used.
A Boxer ambulance (or command) module can mounted on a flat rack with an attached APU. It retains the same ballistic/NBC protection but can function performing it's primary role sitting on the ground. Or it can be loaded onto any of the new HX trucks by a single operator in a couple of minutes. Therefore any armoured HX truck can become an armoured command vehicle or an Armoured ambulance. You don't need the Boxer drive hull. This is not a hypothetical it has been done already in Germany. For that matter an APC module could be loaded onto an armoured HX truck and you have a highly protected troop carrier. All with the ability to unload that module in not much more than 60 seconds freeing the truck for other uses.
A few extra modules may be useful for units without Boxer but access to HX trucks.

While it may have some niche uses the modularity isn't really an advantage worth the extra cost. If you want armoured HX modules then a purpose designed product will be better than a Boxer mod that comes with its own limitations. If additional vehicles are needed then just continue the production run.

The mention of the cramped nature of the Boxer is interesting. This seems to be a common trait of German designs if commentary on the Puma IFV is to be believed.
This could be a strong argument for the AMV35 given the nature of tasks this vehicle will need to conduct.

Do the rules allow for the AMV35 to be selected but with a 30mm gun? Alternatively, the reduced number of 35mm rounds would require a larger focus on logistics which is good thing. This has been a weak point for the Army historically.

Plan Beersheba evolution?

Article in today's Army News Current Edition : Army News Paper : Department of Defence from Chief of Army on our Combat Brigades on pages 10 and 11:

Each Brigade will have
Two Cavalry Squadrons;
One Infantry Battalion mounted in APCs;
One Infantry Battalion mounted in PMVs.

Rationale is for better integrated mounted capability and joint operations with other forces.

FoxtrotRomeo999 said:

Rationale is for better integrated mounted capability and joint operations with other forces.

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In reality it was done as a way to reduce the number of soldiers in a combat brigade. Having the infantry crew their own vehicles is more efficient than having the ACR do it.

Raven22 said:

In reality it was done as a way to reduce the number of soldiers in a combat brigade. Having the infantry crew their own vehicles is more efficient than having the ACR do it.

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Would your pick be the AMV35 over the Boxer Raven22?

I still don't understand why we don't just purchase 1 vehicle for Land 400?...

Just purchase the CV90 and be done with it....
Would it not be cheaper to operate a single vehicle ?

Cheers

FoxtrotRomeo999 said:

Article in today's Army News Current Edition : Army News Paper : Department of Defence from Chief of Army on our Combat Brigades on pages 10 and 11:

Each Brigade will have
Two Cavalry Squadrons;
One Infantry Battalion mounted in APCs;
One Infantry Battalion mounted in PMVs.

Rationale is for better integrated mounted capability and joint operations with other forces.

Click to expand...

Interesting news

I thought one of the advantages of Plan Beersheba was flexability.
Movement of a Infantry group,( Platoon , Company or Battalion ) across various means of transport. B vehicle,PMV, APC, and aviation.
Many scenarios come to mind. Move Infantry via B vehicle to link with PMV to conduct high intensity contact riding APC. Finish contact, airlift out with APC's picking up another infantry group who may of been dropped off by the exiting helicopters.
The scenarios are endless, but the key is that all infantry are comfortable and trained to move from and with all transport assets;wheeled,tracked rotary and fixed wing.
I do see the benefits of speciality and economy but I'm guarded if this new structure is the way forward.

A second Cav Sqn is good news and probably should always have being in the mix.

Will watch with interest. and welcome any further news on 2 RAR's structure and future.

Regards S

the road runner said:

Would your pick be the AMV35 over the Boxer Raven22?

I still don't understand why we don't just purchase 1 vehicle for Land 400?...

Just purchase the CV90 and be done with it....
Would it not be cheaper to operate a single vehicle ?

Cheers

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I would buy the Boxer. The feedback coming from trials troop is that it is a significantly better vehicle. It's normally expressed as the Boxer is a Mercedes while the AMV is a Commodore. In addition, I think the Boxer has a better stablemate waiting in the wings for Phase 3. It's only real disadvantages are size/weight and cost.

As to one vehicle type for Land 400, that would severely reduce the flexibility of the Army. With both wheeled and track vehicles, we will have vehicles suitable for pretty much any situation. If you only have one type of vehicle, such as CV90 as you say, you would have an army very capable at some things, but not very capable at all at a lot of others.

Stampede said:

Interesting news

I thought one of the advantages of Plan Beersheba was flexability.
Movement of a Infantry group,( Platoon , Company or Battalion ) across various means of transport. B vehicle,PMV, APC, and aviation.
Many scenarios come to mind. Move Infantry via B vehicle to link with PMV to conduct high intensity contact riding APC. Finish contact, airlift out with APC's picking up another infantry group who may of been dropped off by the exiting helicopters.
The scenarios are endless, but the key is that all infantry are comfortable and trained to move from and with all transport assets;wheeled,tracked rotary and fixed wing.
I do see the benefits of speciality and economy but I'm guarded if this new structure is the way forward.

A second Cav Sqn is good news and probably should always have being in the mix.

Will watch with interest. and welcome any further news on 2 RAR's structure and future.

Regards S

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Having the ACR provide lift for the infantry is far more flexible, but at the cost of efficiency. With any organisation, flexibility and efficiency are two sides of the one coin - if you increase one you decrease the other. When Beersheeba was first dreamed up the powers that be decided flexibility was more important. Now that the army are trying to reduce numbers in the combat brigades to reinvest elsewhere, efficiency is deemed more important.

The second cav squadron is just the first cav squadron cut in half (three 4-vehicle troops instead of four 6-vehicle troops). With the addition of an extra SHQ and A1, two squadrons are far more flexible than one, as it essentially means you can have cav on two different axis at once. It won't mean any more vehicles are purchased - the current scope of Land 400 Phase 2 is more than enough.

The future of 2 RAR is decided. It will lose its rifle companies, and maintain only specialist amphib capabilities (pre landing force mainly). 2 RAR will be an infantry battalion in name only. For the future amphib capability, the ground combat element will simply come from the ready brigade.

Stampede said:

Interesting news

I thought one of the advantages of Plan Beersheba was flexability.
Movement of a Infantry group,( Platoon , Company or Battalion ) across various means of transport. B vehicle,PMV, APC, and aviation.
Many scenarios come to mind. Move Infantry via B vehicle to link with PMV to conduct high intensity contact riding APC. Finish contact, airlift out with APC's picking up another infantry group who may of been dropped off by the exiting helicopters.
The scenarios are endless, but the key is that all infantry are comfortable and trained to move from and with all transport assets;wheeled,tracked rotary and fixed wing.
I do see the benefits of speciality and economy but I'm guarded if this new structure is the way forward.

A second Cav Sqn is good news and probably should always have being in the mix.

Will watch with interest. and welcome any further news on 2 RAR's structure and future.

Regards S

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I thought the other reason to remove the AFVs from the infantry battalions was so they could concentrate on their core skills without the significant distraction of training for and maintaining a very complex bit of kit.

Raven22 said:

The second cav squadron is just the first cav squadron cut in half (three 4-vehicle troops instead of four 6-vehicle troops). With the addition of an extra SHQ and A1, two squadrons are far more flexible than one, as it essentially means you can have cav on two different axis at once. It won't mean any more vehicles are purchased - the current scope of Land 400 Phase 2 is more than enough.

The future of 2 RAR is decided. It will lose its rifle companies, and maintain only specialist amphib capabilities (pre landing force mainly). 2 RAR will be an infantry battalion in name only. For the future amphib capability, the ground combat element will simply come from the ready brigade.

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So am I correct in understanding that of 225 CRVs to be ordered, only 72 + shq and some support variants will actually be in the ACRs? Seems rather light on...

WRT 2RAR, surely it's appropriate to change the name to something more appropriate and reflective of its new role...Any suggestions?

Richo99 said:

So am I correct in understanding that of 225 CRVs to be ordered, only 72 + shq and some support variants will actually be in the ACRs? Seems rather light on...

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Only 72 in the sabre troops, yes. Each Sqn will have 12 CRV in the sabre troops, plus five in SHQ plus three in the A1. There will be about another dozen spread over RHQ and Support Sqn. So there will be about 50 CRV per ACR, for 150 or so spread across the three ACRs.

Raven22 said:

Having the ACR provide lift for the infantry is far more flexible, but at the cost of efficiency. With any organisation, flexibility and efficiency are two sides of the one coin - if you increase one you decrease the other. When Beersheeba was first dreamed up the powers that be decided flexibility was more important. Now that the army are trying to reduce numbers in the combat brigades to reinvest elsewhere, efficiency is deemed more important.

The second cav squadron is just the first cav squadron cut in half (three 4-vehicle troops instead of four 6-vehicle troops). With the addition of an extra SHQ and A1, two squadrons are far more flexible than one, as it essentially means you can have cav on two different axis at once. It won't mean any more vehicles are purchased - the current scope of Land 400 Phase 2 is more than enough.

The future of 2 RAR is decided. It will lose its rifle companies, and maintain only specialist amphib capabilities (pre landing force mainly). 2 RAR will be an infantry battalion in name only. For the future amphib capability, the ground combat element will simply come from the ready brigade.

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Thanks Raven.

We all have budgets and I guess we work with what we have.
Two smaller Cav Sqn's out of one as described is probably not a bad result.
As to the Amphib side of things with 2 RAR ,I'm sure that will ebb and flow in the years ahead. But the constant will be that the ready Brigade will step up and be the main work horse in any boots on the ground maritime action.That said I still would not be too surprised if events in the region near and far get hostile that 2RAR's numbers may improve. At least a battalion HQ and framework exists for expansion and training as well as testing new equipment, methods and amphib doctrine.

Still a bit guarded about battalions having labels as motorised infantry ( PMV )or mounted/heavy/infantry (M113 APC ). It can become cultural and tribal and probably not the way forward for a numerically small army.
Our Brigades will have to do everything from HADR to heavy war fighting and everything in between.
The structure may suite small scale commitments but unsure it does justice to brigade level flexibility.
As I said we all have budgets.

Regards S

Raven22 said:

The feedback coming from trials troop is that it is a significantly better vehicle

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Then again, several other countries which have tested or evaluated the Boxer against the AMV (and other 8x8s) have come to different conclusions.
Or at least concluded that the slightly better capability didnt justify the vastly higher cost.

It's normally expressed as the Boxer is a Mercedes while the AMV is a Commodore.

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With the caveat that i dont have any actual experience with the Boxer itself, and that it might very well be the superior vehicle, i would like to add that this initial impression of high quality german engineering can be quite misleading.

+10 years of operating and maintaining german armor and weapon systems have taught me that driving a "Mercedes" isn't always what its cracked up to be.
I have often found them to be overly complex, temperamental/finicky and very maintenance intensive. And wrt armored vehicles in particular, ludicrously expensive to buy and even more so to operate.

I am intimately familiar with KMW and their spare parts prices make even BAEs seem cheap in comparison!

US equipment and/or vehicles in particular might seem crude or downright agricultural in comparison with their german counterpart, but will IMO often deliver equal or even superior capability .... and at a lower cost.
Whether the same applies to Finnish vehicles i dont know.


But in some cases a Commodore(or Chevy) can actually be better than a Mercedes.

In addition, I think the Boxer has a better stablemate waiting in the wings for Phase 3.

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What....the Lynx ?.....a warmed over Marder that has barely left the prototype stage yet. I think it is a little premature to proclaim superiority over its competitor.
The CV90 mk IV for Phase 3 is going to be a significantly improved version and will likely have little in common with the current mk III cv9035s.

A lack of growth potential has often been mentioned as a disadvantage for the CV90s , but it is frankly BS......7-8 years ago we successfully tested the CV9035 at 40,4 metric tonnes to simulate a future uparmored variant......and that was with a bog standard 2008 spec mk III, with stock suspension, running gear and power pack. As these test showed that the platform could easily cope with this weight increase , i see no reason why a further upgraded CV90 could not achieve the same ~43 tonnes GWV rating as the Lynx 41; ASCOD 2 and Puma .

With 2 RAR losing its rifle companies, and maintaining only specialist amphibious capabilities (as mentioned by Raven 22), it is likely they will be outfitted with specialist amphibious equipment (if they haven't already)?

I came across this yesterday:

Airbus proposes upgrade for Australian attack helicopters

One would think that the upgrade would need to improve the servicing and availability significantly and be fairly cheap too for the Tiger to have any significant future in the ADF?

Raven22 said:

The feedback coming from trials troop is that it is a significantly better vehicle

Click to expand...

Then again, several other countries which have tested or evaluated the Boxer against the AMV (and other 8x8s) have come to different conclusions.
Or at least concluded that slightly better capability didnt justify the vastly higher cost.

It's normally expressed as the Boxer is a Mercedes while the AMV is a Commodore.

Click to expand...

With the caveat that i dont have any actual experience with the Boxer itself, and that it might very well be the superior vehicle, i would like to add that this initial impression of high quality german engineering can be quite misleading.

+10 years of operating and maintaining german armor and weapon systems have taught me that driving a "Mercedes" isn't always what its cracked up to be.
I have often found them to be overly complex, temperamental/finicky and very maintenance intensive. And wrt armored vehicles in particular, ludicrously expensive to buy and even more so to operate.

I am intimately familiar with KMW and their spare parts prices make even BAEs seem cheap in comparison!

US equipment and/or vehicles in particular might seem crude or downright agricultural in comparison with their german counterpart, but will IMO often deliver equal or even superior capability .... and at a lower cost.

So in some cases a Commodore(or Chevy) can actually be better than a Mercedes.

In addition, I think the Boxer has a better stablemate waiting in the wings for Phase 3.

Click to expand...

What....the Lynx ?.....a warmed over Marder that has barely left the prototype stage yet. I think it is a little premature to proclaim superiority over its competitor.
The CV90 mk IV for Phase 3 is going to be a significantly improved version and will likely have little in common with the current mk III cv9035s.

A lack of growth potential has often been mentioned as a disadvantage for the CV90s , but it is frankly BS......7-8 years ago we successfully tested the CV9035 at 40,4 metric tonnes to simulate a future uparmored variant......and that was with a bog standard 2008 spec mk III, with stock suspension, running gear and power pack. As these test showed that the platform could easily cope with this weight increase , i see no reason why a further upgraded CV90 could not achieve the same ~43 tonnes GWV rating as the Lynx 41; ASCOD 2 and Puma .

weegee said:

I came across this yesterday:

Airbus proposes upgrade for Australian attack helicopters

One would think that the upgrade would need to improve the servicing and availability significantly and be fairly cheap too for the Tiger to have any significant future in the ADF?

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Can't blame Airbus for having a go.
The balls in their court to improve the platform in the immediate years ahead. which may, just may, be achievable!!!!
. Is there time to salvage creditability with ARH Tiger.

Up to you Airbus.

Regards S