Talk:Australian Army

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 Australian Army is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
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Question. Why doesn't the Australian Army have the Royal prefix like the Navy and Air Force? -Penta 06:48, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Possibly for the same reason the British Army doesn't have the "Royal" prefix. But I don't know what that reason is. Geoff 06:55, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
My guess would be that the Army did not have a unified command - units originally tended to be under specific lords quasi-independent of the king. We note that a number of individual old units are "Royal" though, those being the "King's Own". The Navy was always more like the personal fleet of the king - no "Duke of Lancaster's Frigate Squadron" :-) or the like, and then RAF copied consciously. Stan 07:56, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Question. Why doesn't the Australian Army have the Royal prefix like the Navy and Air Force?

The Answer-

The answer lies in the fact that the Navy and the Air Force are homogeneous bodies whilst the Australian Army is an elemental organization made up of a number of corps, services and departments. Our Defence Force is based on the British system where a person can enlist straight into either the navy or the air force but one cannot join the ‘army’. In the United Kingdom a person is enlisted straight into either a regiment or a corps (eg. the Royal Regiment of Artillery, the Grenadier Guards, or the Royal Corps of Transport)and recruit training is carried out by that formation. No one joins the ‘Army’ as such.


Why is it that Longhair placed this in the category of Royal Australian Army then (see link at the bottom of the main article, I'm having trouble putting it in here)? - Bambul 04:36AM, 22 June 2005 (UTC)
The Army does not have a Royal prefix (I don't know why), although the Royal Australian Regiment and several other units do. The category currently reflects this. --Scott Davis Talk 14:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
The army does not have a prefix, because it is not "the army". The Australian army is broken down into a series of corps, such as the Royal Australian Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, Royal Australian Ordnance Corps etc. That's where all your royalty is!

Contents

[edit] WW1

We really need details of 1916-18 battles, and of campaigns other than Gallipoli and the Western Front, including German New Guinea and the Middle East, if anyone would like to help with this. Cheers Grant65 (Talk) 13:09, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

I prefer having the detailed history in the 1st AIF article and a more concise version in this article. Otherwise the WWI section is going to outweigh the neighbouring peacetime periods. Certainly there is no need to duplicate paragraphs. I am happy to work on the WWI content. Geoff/Gsl 00:13, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Thanks Geoff. I think the WW1 section does need trimming down, but I do think we need mentions of battles there, which -- after all -- is what many people are interested in. I think the "war sections" should be bigger than the peacetime ones, considering that the article is about an army. (By the way, I like the pages on Generals Bridges and Bennett.) Grant65 (Talk) 11:36, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. As I said, I am happy to work on WWI but didn't want to butt in while you were fleshing out the article. I do intend to write a Military history of Australia during World War I which should provide an intermediate level of detail between this article (plus navy & political content) and the specific battle/unit/officer articles. As for the generals, Bridges isn't one of mine but I had a need for an article on Bennett so when I noticed you needed one as well, I got it started. I will do his WWI career but feel free to write the WWII sections (of which I know little). Geoff/Gsl 05:01, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The page is looking good, well done. Most of the significant battles are now there. I'll be too busy with other things to do much with it in the near future.Grant65 (Talk) 12:23, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Equipment

Compare Modern equipment and uniform of the British Army. Alphax τεχ 07:17, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Hrm, still nothing on the Army website. Alphax τεχ 03:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)


The section under infantry says that the RAR is one large regiment of six battalions. This is a bit misleading as the infantry regiments aren't the same as other regiments. I'm not sure how to word this. Brettr 08:52, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Simply mention that the Australian Army is modelled after the the British system, so that infantry regiments contain multiple battalions but that armour, artillery, engineer, special forces, etc 'Regiments' are the size of a single battalion. LamontCranston 04:31, 2005 Aug 20 (UTC)

Why does this article mention a possible increase in the number of Australia's Bradley armoured fighting vehicles? I am sure the Australian Army never had any, nor does it currently have any plans to acquire them.

[edit] Length of article

  • This article is starting to get quite long (or so the warning says every time you edit it). Perhaps it's time to make the History and/or Structure section(s) a separate article and collapse the relevant section(s) in this article? I would recommend making structure of the army a separate article and just including an overview of it in this article with a link to the new article (e.g. Stucture of the Australian Army). - Bambul 11:40, June 15, 2005 (UTC)
    • Military history of Australia seem to have been started, coincidentally, at around the same time as my expansion of the history section. I guess the two should be merged somehow, but I'm not sure how to go about it and don't reall have time at the moment.Grant65 (Talk) 13:04, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Hammersfan

Please do not fill the article with html comments. Comments should be made on this page.


[edit] Units of the Regular Army

This section is a mishmash of corps and units. Are the terms "combat support arms" and "Combat Service Support" (used under the heading "Units of the Regular Army") part of army doctrine. The terms I was taught are simple combat arms (inc sigs, sappers and aviation) and service corps. These terms sound very dubious to me, I can't imagine labelling the new attack helicopter units as "combat supprt".

Yes, they are... for example "10 FSB" (10 Force Support) "3 CSSB" (3 Combat Service Support Battalion). Also, 5/7 RAR is becomming demalgamated.

To back up the last note, yes the terms "combat support" and "Combat Service Support" are officially used as part of army doctrine. As for saying that you cant see the new attack helicopter as being "combat support" its not. I have it on good authority that Aviation is now designated as a combat corps. However, relegating the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery as "combat support" Figure that one out!

[edit] Counting the Leopards

To whoever (IP 203.16.225.80) keeps changing the statistics to only 71 Leopard tanks, the ADF has 90 Leopard gun tanks. Or at least the Anzac Steel page on the Leopard thinks so: http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/Armoured%20Vehicles/leopardph_1.htm

As does several other sites such as Defense Industry Daily: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2005/11/gd-receives-final-416m-delivery-order-for-australian-m1a1-tanks/index.php

and a couple of more important pages like the Australian Army's own newspaper: http://www.defence.gov.au/news/armynews/editions/1060/topstories/story11.htm

and the Australian National Audit Office: http://www.anao.gov.au/WebSite.nsf/Publications/555F03062BE2B6B7CA25700B0077785A see under Section 4 "Track Manoeuvre Systems Program Office" which incidentally also indicates only 59 M1s are being bought.

The ADF has 71 Leopard 1 Main Battle Tanks, the other 19 are recovery vehicles or something. Everything I've read says 71 Main Battle Tanks, not 90. Suck shit.

  • Straight to abuse, how nice. Obviously you haven't bothered to read the 4 links I provided. There are 90 AS1 gun tanks, 5 bridge layers and 8 ARVs. Ways 05:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

ROE people!!! be nice. im going with 90 Eevo 21:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick have your bloody 90 Leopards I don't really even care!

  • Eloquent to the end I see, the tanks aren't mine they belong to the Australian Government and you very clearly did care or you would not have spent the time to edit the number in the first place. If Wikipedia is to be at all useful it had better at least be accurate and not based on the ill-informed opinion of an anonymous editor. Ways 14:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Look I'm sorry for the harsh language, I was a bit pissed off being challenged about my knowledge of the Australian army. Its just everything I've ever read said 71 Leopard tanks, but it looks I was wrong. Lets move on.

  • Fair enough. If it helps any I have a distant memory of being told once they only operate around seventy of the ones they have, the balance are either in storage/rebuild/overhaul or issued as replacement vehicles when one needs to be overhauled, or at the School of Armour. But I couldn't tell you which. Ways 05:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well where getting rid of them now, we should of got Leopard 2's in stead of Abrams. And besides, why did we only buy 59 Abrams?

  • I'm not really sure, I think it works out as around 4 squadrons (3 operational plus 1 for the School) plus an HQ section. Depending on which way the political wind is blowing there may be a subsequent purchase of aditional vehicles as there was for Centurion and Leopard after a couple of years, but I wouldn't count on it. It's a bit late to change now anyway, the first Abrams have arrived [1] Ways 06:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Well I guess we'll have to wait and see. Besides, Tanks are expensive to run, seeing as the amount of fuel they consume. Apparently Abrams take 40 litres of fuel to start up. Won't be to good when fuel becomes really expensive.

[edit] Recruiting issues in article

In regards to the bit about recruiting in the main article. Despite the media beatup about falling recruitments the facts are that recruitment is falling in PROFESSIONAL occupations in the Army, like Doctors, Nurses, Dentists etc They are still recruiting the dumb ones ;)

Numbers especially for infantry are that large that the School of Cool, aka the School of Infantry is actually full and that Diggers are getting their IET training directly at the Battalions now. I'd suggest checking this fact out and amending your article :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.167.215.163 (talk) 16:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

If the article's wrong, why don't you correct it yourself? This is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" after all. --Nick Dowling 22:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Ratings

I believe the start class and low importance ratings of this article should be re-evaluated. Especially the low importance rating, considering articles such as Fremantle Prison, 2006 Australian Grand Prix and 2006-07 Australian Capital Territory budget are rated high importance.

Totally agree! The Bryce 11:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The article hadn't recieved a rating. I've just rated it as being of high importance. --Nick Dowling 11:11, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Nick, I actually removed the low importance rating with my edit. I thought it was pretty offensive.RP Bravo 11:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
OK - my mistake. I wonder why it ever received such a low importance rating ? --Nick Dowling 11:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] ?Regular Force?

"Regular Force" is the templates name given to the link to the basic article "Australian Army" which is misleading; as the article (as it should) gives an overview of both Regular Army and Army Reserve elements.

If some regular member is keen to create an article specifically on the ARA (excluding the reserve elements) in addition to the overall "Australian Army" that would be good. Linking the entire army, under a reg only link is inappropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TInTIn (talk • contribs) 06:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Articles with specifically-marked weasel-worded phrases?

Where?--mrg3105mrg3105 06:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In Australian Army#Current recruiting issues, third parragraph:
Along with this announcement, many claim{{Who?|date=November 2007}} that a need for more and better equipment is required, possibly meaning an increase in the numbers of M113 APCs, Bushmaster IMV and M1A1 Abrams tanks being ordered.
Hope that helps. - BillCJ (talk) 06:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Guess what...http://www.warveteransaustralia.com.au/index.php?page=adf-army seem to agree by using the Wikipedia weasel words as a wholesale quote :O)--mrg3105mrg3105 07:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)