Australian Army - Exercise Chong Ju

thats not how we play now....

In theory...

we're a light footprint organisation. WE go in with the minimum kit possible and use whatever we can get locally to augment....

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Originally Posted by BBC

Lotz-A,

It is not a matter of how many times did the Leopards need to cross a river when in service...it is a matter of....they could.

The ADF Abrams can't. There is an operational need to be able to cross gaps. The ADF should only ever be looking at deployment under their own command. If so, make sure all the tools are in the tool box.

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So what you're saying is that neither the Abrams nor the rebuilt M113 can cross rivers?

Then that is an oversight (but typical of Defence procurement * ), I wonder if they are believing the Global Warming hysteria and believe there won't be any rivers left that need crossing? (the last bit is flippant I know :( )

Are the Auslavs at all amphibious or are we a completely dry land Army now?

* our last two defence helicopter purchases are all grounded - Yes the Eurocopter is currently grounded too.

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Originally Posted by Sly

The M113 s have come a long way since I drove them. I saw a refitted one at the S of A a while back and it had almost all the things the boffins promised to us in the early 90s. It was also a shock to see all the kit / tech we used ,to be in the museum on display. Theres a set of mine rollers looking just like the day we uncrated them out side SEQT hangers. Put them on a panzer and quickly realized that you can go fowards but not backwards with them on, I bet the gouges in the concreate are still there.
All things aside I still think that M1A1 rebuilds that we bought as a MBT were a dud deal !.
Please dont jump on and rave about it, unless you have lived in the shadow of the tank regiment. Uninformed comment only cheapens the argument.

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I've never been a tanker but have talked to-read the books written by people that are and what they say about the Abrams is quite different to the spin given by comanders on TV.IMHO we should have replaced the Leo 1's with Leo 2's. Pat

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Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

So what you're saying is that neither the Abrams nor the rebuilt M113 can cross rivers?

Then that is an oversight (but typical of Defence procurement * ), I wonder if they are believing the Global Warming hysteria and believe there won't be any rivers left that need crossing? (the last bit is flippant I know :( )

Are the Auslavs at all amphibious or are we a completely dry land Army now?

* our last two defence helicopter purchases are all grounded - Yes the Eurocopter is currently grounded too.

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the M1A1 does not have the deep ford capability of the leopard nor can it cross on our current bridging equipment (max bridging the ADF currently has is a 50T limit engineers pontoon) While it would probabley be able to carry the M1A1 You wouldnt want anything to go wrong.

The stretched M113 (which is specced as the M113A4) now has too much weight on it to be able to float but it can still use all the existing portable bridging equipment that it could before it was stretched.

I believe that the mortar and fitters varient not having the turret might just make the grade for boyancy but as the trim vane is now omitted they would be limited to fording in reverse as going forwards with the trim vane missing or retracted leads to sinking. I also suspect that the new grouserless Track would be pitiful for propulsion as the Buckets relied on the track for propulsion.

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Originally Posted by weeds

gotta agree, the defence is being a little smarter these days and aligning our equipment with other countrys so that we don't have to deploy our equipment and that our guys can hop straight into say an american tank

i glance over the latest ARMY rag and some gunner received medals for serving with the brits and pretty sure they used there guns and were trained on them during pre-deployment training, once you know the basics your halfway there

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When you say guns are you talking field artillary or do you really mean rifles as in the 556mm sa80 plastic spastic ?

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Originally Posted by lardy

When you say guns are you talking field artillary or do you really mean rifles as in the 556mm sa80 plastic spastic ?

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artillery guns

nothing wrong with the plastic fantastic rifles........F88's

you seen the RODUMS that are out on the new version of it?

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Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

* our last two defence helicopter purchases are all grounded - Yes the Eurocopter is currently grounded too.

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Someone must not have told the pilot of the Tiger I watched flying yesterday...

MRH 90 and sea sprite but we sent the sprites back or are they still at nowra:)

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Originally Posted by akelly

Someone must not have told the pilot of the Tiger I watched flying yesterday...

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The grounded/cancelled purchases I'm referring to are the MRH90 Eurocopters Defence grounds new chopper fleet - ABC News and the Navy's 1 billion $ SeaSprite debacle Bureaucracy killed Seasprite deal: Defence Association - ABC News