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This article seeks to review the relationship between suppression and manoeuvre in infantry platoon tactics. It is argued that current Australian Army doctrine has not paid sufficient attention to the advent of precision munitions, the development of all-arms combat teams, and the introduction of information technologies such as intra-section communications. Nor has Australian military doctrine fully appreciated how these new developments have ‘force multiplied’ the combat power of an infantry platoon. In …

The Australian Army’s current organisational structure is reminiscent of the fable of the rally driver who would not change his Cooper S Mini after he gave up racing and married. When the rally driver’s first child arrived, he retained the Mini as the family car on the assumption that he would eventually return to racing. A second child soon followed and the family could barely fit in the car. Yet the rally driver refused to dispose of his beloved racing vehicle. A third child duly arrived and the family …

This article presents the case for the development of a multi-mission ship (MMS) in the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The author argues that, by combining the investment of Sea 4000 (the Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) Project costing between $4 and 6 billion) and Sea 1654 (the Maritime Operational Support Capability project costed at between $600 and 800 million) and blending these with an appropriate design, a viable MMS could be produced. A multimission vessel has many attractions for the ADF. First, such …

For Australia, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was the first effects-based or ‘whole of government’ response to restoring law and order in a failed state in the South Pacific. RAMSI collected and destroyed some 2627 weapons and 6561 munitions while the mission’s military support component enabled the police to undertake thirteen successful arrest operations. The rebuilding of the Royal Solomon Islands Police force has commenced, and there has been a reduction of the military …

* The author wishes to dedicate the article to the memory of Captain Richard Gannon II, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, United States Marine Corps. More than democratic institutions, a civil society or economic reconstruction, Coalition leaders consider that the ability of the interim Iraqi Government to enforce its own security is essential to the resuscitation of the Iraqi state, and—at least at this point—a precondition to Coalition troop withdrawals from Iraq. 1 Recruiting, training, …

The land force’s development towards the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Seamless Force of 2020 embraces the Hardening and Networking the Army (HNA) initiative. The HNA scheme is designed to deliver land power through the use of combined arms teams of infantry, armour, artillery and engineers to a battlespace defined by networks and interdependence. Yet, as the ADF moves towards the Seamless Force, there are several HNA capabilities that will increasingly enable the Army to begin thinking about its role as …

Editor's Note Coalition warfare has a history that stretches back at least as far as the Trojan War. Homer’s epic, The Iliad , details how easily the members of coalitions can fall out over matters of policy or clashes of personality. Australia’s military history is deeply rooted in coalition operations. The very first mission of the Commonwealth’s armed forces, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force’s successful seizure of German New Guinea in late 1914, was a coalition operation with both …

Kokoda Commander   Written by: Stuart Braga, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN: 9780195516388, 374 pp. Reviewed by: John Donovan Since at least the 1930s, the friction between regular and citizen soldiers has remained an enduring element in the historiography of the Australian Army. This book sheds much light on that friction, while rehabilitating the reputation of Major General Arthur ‘Tubby’ Allen, one of Australia’s more notable citizen soldiers. It is a valuable addition to the work sponsored by the …

To Villers-Bretonneux with Brigadier-General William Glasgow, DSO and the 13th Australian Infantry Brigade   Written by: Peter Edgar, Australian Military History Publications, NSW, 20061 ISBN: 9781876439460, 284pp. Reviewed by: Lieutenant Colonel Miles Farmer, OAM (Retd) Readers interested in the study of the battles on the Western Front in World War I will be familiar with the battle of Villers-Bretonneux on 25 April 1918—said by many to have been the turning point of the war. Be that as it may, it …

Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China   Written by: Paul Monk, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2005, ISBN: 9781920769376, 309 pp, notes, index. Reviewed by: Anthony Robinson Too often strategic analysts and the business community focus on the ‘inevitable’ rise of China as an economic superpower, casting away any sensible analysis of a very complex nation with a rich and varied history. Simply by extrapolating linear trends it is possible to come up with a number of outcomes, most of which bear …