Five Challenges for Future Infantry: Thinking about ... - Australian Army

Concepts • Colonel Chris Field
10 LAND 125 will preferably, for example, be scoped to include interoperability with
LAND 400 – CAFS. ‘LAND 125’ in Defence Capability Plan 2009, (Public Version),
p. 159.
11 Defence White Paper 2009, ‘Amphibious Capability’, para 9.23–9.25, p. 73.
12 ‘JP 2048’ in Defence Capability Plan 2009, (Public Version), p. 92.
13 ‘Expeditionary Warfare School’, Marine Corps University Foundation website,
accessed 14 October 2009. A possible
model for an ADF amphibious centre of excellence is The United States Marine
Corps Expeditionary Warfare School, which was established at Quantico as the
Amphibious Warfare School in 1921. It offers a nine-month course providing careerlevel
professional military education, with emphasis on combined arms operations,
warfighting skills, tactical decision-making, and Marine Air Ground Task Forces
in amphibious operations. It prepares Marine captains to function as commanders
and staff officers at appropriate levels within the Operating Forces and Supporting
Establishment. In addition, it provides career-level professional military education to
selected officers from the Marine Corps Reserve.
14 For more detailed descriptions of each of these attributes, see Australian Defence
Doctrine Publication (ADDP) 3.2 – Amphibious Operations, Second edition,
29 January 2009, Chapter 1, para 1.22–1.25.
The Author
Colonel Chris Field is the Director of Future Land Warfare and Strategy, Army
Headquarters, Canberra. This article is based on a presentation to the August 2009
Infantry Corps Conference, and is the result of collaborative work and ideas from many
fine Infantry personnel and other warfighters in Army.
page 40 • Volume VII, Number 1 • Australian Army Journal