The Essential Debate: Combined Arms and the ... - Australian Army

The Essential Debateoperations in complex terrain. These vehicles rely on speed, good sensors and, in thecase of the ASLAV, weapons systems that detect and destroy the enemy at stand-offrange. Unlike tanks, however, such light armoured vehicles cannot loiter in a street,storm a bunker, or survive short-range hits from anti-armour weapons. Ultimately,it is only the modern, well-armoured tank that can act as a mobile point-suppressiondevice, and be brought to bear at the right time and place to operate simultaneouslyin both fire suppression and assault roles.Besides new tanks, the Army requires a genuine assault engineer capability.Assault engineers, including armoured engineers and dismounted assault specialists,provide a potent spearhead for assault breaching, combat demolitions, and mountedmobility in urban operations. Assault engineers of this type are reminiscent of theViet Cong ‘sappers’ of the 1960s, or theGerman glider-borne engineers whocaptured the fortress of Eben Emael in1940. Armoured bulldozers may also becritical in future urban operations, butagain, this is a capability that we currentlylack within the Australian Army.There are also organisational questionsthat must be resolved. In order to beeffective in complex warfighting, we need… the four-man fire team maybecome the true building blockfor the close fight in the firstquarter of the 21st century.to task-organise at the intra-section and intra-platoon levels. Such an organisationalshift may demand the creation of more modular structures that can be ‘sliced anddiced’ in different ways in order to enable rapid and flexible regrouping of forces forany given mission. A related issue is that the section organisation of ten men mayno longer be capable of forming the basic building block for close combat. Giventhe development of enhanced weapons systems and sensor technology, and the needto operate in small, flexible groups, the four-man fire team may become the truebuilding block for the close fight in the first quarter of the 21st century.As the Israelis found in Jenin, the need for unit cohesion is the Achilles heelof the small fire team. When troops have not trained together, or are unused torapid reorganisation, battle grouping at too low a tactical level may simply damageunit cohesion and general morale. For these reasons, there needs to be a focus onensuring habitual training relationships, while tactical education—the ability toapply judgment creatively, in situations where no doctrinal approach is apparent—will become essential.Devolved situational awareness—that is, the ability for junior commandersto access the situational awareness that they need to conduct the fight—is alsoincreasingly important. Such awareness involves equipping soldiers with personalcommunications, providing capable sensors at section and individual level, andAustralian Army Journal Volume I, Number 2 page 79