Points of Reference for the Australian Armies Vehicles in the 1980s

[Brummie]

Afternoon

Is anyone aware of any website or book that provides a comprehensive look at Australian military vehicles in the 1980s?

I am starting a 15mm Cold War to Current day project and I'm kicking it off with the Australian army in the 1980s with the aim of doing a What-If conflict with the Aussies deployed to a nearby island after a container ship runs aground containing weapons from N.K. However I am having a lot of problems finding anything that lays out their entire inventory for this period. I understand they had Leopard 1s to replace the Centurion (I may be cheeky and frankenstein a few up armoured Cents as a reserve unit) and then a lot of M113s, but I can't find details about anything else, like armored cars, artillery etc.

Feels like there is a black hole until about 1990 when LAVs turn up with an increase in varied equipment from then up to now.

I may drag the New Zealanders into this new Op to add more variety.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Hopefully this should cue Carlos.

[sultanbev]

IISS Military Balance 1985-86 for Australian army totals:
103x Leopard 1A3
48x M113 with Scorpion turret
15x M113 with Saladin turret
727x M113
227x 105mm how
36x 155mm M198 how
51x 106mm M40 RCL
12x Milan ATGW
Redeye SAM
20x Rapier SAM
1 Infantry Division: 3 Brigades@ 2 infantry battalions
1 Armoured Regiment of 3 Squadrons
2 Cavalry Regiments
1 Medium Artillery Regiment
2 Field Artillery Regiments
1 Air Defence Artillery Regiment
1 Locating Battery
1 Field Engineer Regiment
1 Construction Regiment
1 Field Survey Regiment
5 Signals Regiments
1 SAS Regiment
3 Transport Regiments (1 reserve)
On order: 59x 105mm Light Gun
60x RBS-70 SAM with 150 missiles

Older copies from the 1970s of the IISS Military Balance often turn up on Ebay for low prices.

See also MicroMark lists :
 AS35M: Australian Mechanised Brigade, 1985-1995, Asia
 AS36M: Australian Infantry Brigade & 1st Division Support, 1985-1995
 AS37M: Australian Reserve Infantry Divisions, 1985-1995

available tariff free on the Wargames Vault.

[carlos marighela]

That IISS summary looks about right. I could dig out the defence review journals from the period and check but it seems generally kosher witha few hits and misses.

Armour. Circa 90 Leopard AS.1 gun ranks plus a small collection of bridgelayers and ARVs and at least one driver training tank. These were split between 1 Armoured Regiment and the Armour School, both located at Puckapunyal in the 1980s. The Cents went in 1977/78. They were worn out by then having seen both long service with the Army and hard service in Vietnam. The only ones left in the army by the 1980s were gate guards.

The MRVs (M113 with Scorpion turret) were spread across the various cavalry regiments. 2 Cav, 3/4 Cav (the regular recce regiments) and a number of reserve regiments like 4/19 Prince of Wales Light Horse (AKA PWLH, Pull With Left Hand) 12/16 Hunter River Lancers, 2/14 QMI etc. Back in the 1980s the Australian Army had more corps level recce elements than it had corps.

Not sure about the Scorpion turreted FSVs. I suspect they were in reserve stocks by the 1980s, having been something of an exigency for 1 ATF in Vietnam.

Save for fitters vehicles, mortar tracks and the M577s pretty much all of the buckets (M113s) were fitted out with the T.50 turret by the 1980s.

M113s appeared not only in the cav regiments but also in dedicated APC regiments. There was nominally an APC regiment per state based brigade for example the Victorian 4 Brigade had 8/13 VMR (Victorian Mounted Rifles) as its dedicated APC regiment.

There was one other user of M113s in numbers and that was 5/7 RAR. They were fully mechanised in 1985. They trialled partial mechanisation in the late 1970s (about a company's worth IIRC) and kept  a handful of buckets afterwards before going all trac mounted in 1985. Amusing story:  The Defence Research and Development Organisation wanted to test the durability of new boots for the Army and somehow chose 5/7 RAR, the only track mounted infantry unit in the army. Go figure.....

Softskins or what were otherwise known as 'B Vehicles' were largely Landrovers of various makes and  Unimogs. There were still a bucket load of ACCO trucks in service, particularly in reserve units, dedicated transport units and of course specialist vehicles (RAEME). The Landrovers were mostly Series 3 with the odd hold over Series 2 As until the mid to late 1980s when the 110s came in under Project Perentie. That's also the time frame for the stretched six wheel 110s used by the SASR. There were a number of Series 2 Gun Buggies with the 106mm RCL hanging around in regular battalions until probably the end of the 1980s.

There were a few odds and sods in the mix. NORFORCE, the mostly indigenous recce unit based up in the Kimberley, preferred modified Toyota Landcruisers as their recce vehicles.

Not armour but IIRC there were still 5.5" guns on strength into the early/mid 1980s at least with ARes artillery units. Pretty sure that 2/10 Medium Regiment RAA had 5.5" guns until it re-roled as a field regiment in the 1990s(?).  The ARes field regiments were all still equipped with the old M101 105mm howitzers. No L5 pack howitzers left, their shortcomings had been revealed in Vietnam.

Now if you are painting up a force for the early to mid 1980s just remember that everything is still in Drab lustreless OG. On exercise the Leopards and occasionally other vehicles would get wet mud daubed on as camo.

You will probably find this site handy:

http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/armourframe.htm

[bluewillow]

I served in the Field Engineers regiment in the mid eighties then SF after 90. 1 field was the largest regiment in the army at the time well over strength at around 1800 personnel, it was split in around 88-89 to become two regiments, each with 2 field squadrons and 1 support squadron. It changed again in 91 to three regiments, one Combat engineer regiment, one support regiment, one light construction, water and bridging regiment and each regiment received Army Reserve Sqaudron. The 2lt were normally still at Sydney Uni completing their Engineer degree (in my case survey).

1 Field Engineer Regiment HQ Brisbane
1 x colonel, 3 x captain, 3 x 2nd lt, RSM, 2x SGT, 4 x Cpl, 16 OR, 2 medics, 2 sigs
HQ
Staff cars x 4
Land rovers series 3 and 110s x 4
Ambulance series 3
3 Ford supply trucks
Unimog GS
Various trailers

1st Field Squadron (we make, we break) Frog Hollow, Holdsworthy, Sydney
Squadron HQ
1 x major, 2 x captain, 1 x 2nd lt, SSM, 2x SGT, 4x Cpl, 4x lcpl, 20 OR, 2 medics, 2 sigs, 6 x Regimental Military Police, 2 x surveyors.
HQ
5 x staff cars
5 x Land rovers series 3 and 110s x 4
2 x motorbikes
3 x quad bike and trailer
Ambulance series 3
3 Ford GS supply trucks
3 x Unimog GS
Various gs trailers
Generator trailer
Boozer trailer
Cooks trailer
The HQ regularly had drivers attached to Sydney Brigade HQ for staff drivers for airport runs. Somehow we had a small fleet of Ford staff cars. Two land rovers and the motorbikes were for the regimental police for traffic control and heavy vehicle escort. The qaud bikes were in supply as part of the airborne element. As usual engineers had a boozer trailer for exercise, basically a bar, and freezer/ fridge unit. Cooks trailer similar except cooking bays and refrigerator unit.

1 troop (supported 5/7 RAR mechanised) over strength Sydney

1 x 1st lt, 1 x 2nd lt, 1 staff sgt, 1 sgt, 2 sigs, 2 supply Cpl, 2 orderly
HQ Land Rover
M577
M113 palfinger
4 sections  M113 x 4 T50 turret
M60, SLR

2 troop (parachute airborne attached to 3 RAR)  over strength platoon Sydney

1 x 1st lt, 1 x 2nd lt, 1 staff sgt, 1 sgt, 2 sigs, 2 supply Cpl, 2 orderly
3x Land Rover series 3 or 110
3 x qaud bikes
Unimog transport
4 x 8 man sections 8 Mag 58 or M60 & SLR or m16-203, m16, 4x Carl Gustav, LAW66 (they copied  3RAR practice of 2 x Mag 58 in a section around 89, and added the M16at the same time as 3RAR were swapping over to the styer 88, the M16 was a welcome weight reduction)

3 troop (water, construction, mine warfare and bridging) over strength Sydney
1 x 1st lt, 2 x 2nd lt, 1 staff sgt, 3 x Sgt, 6 Cpl, 6 lcpl, 2 sigs, 5 orderly
3 x Land Rover series 3 and 110
3 x Unimog dump + generator trailer, 2 x compressor trailers
1x Mack dump + water treatment unit
1 x Mack GS palfinger + trailer light sawmill
4 sections x 8, m60, SLR, F1 (drivers)

Often 3 troop was used as the training and deployment troop so on paper was way over strength, in theory it should have been two troops on paper 50 odd ORs. It had carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers in each section, light concreting equipment, clearance divers, mine clearance specialists, explosive nuts,  and general construction teams who worked around the brigade area of Holdworthy and Moorebank often maintaining married quarters and building defence buildings along with the 17 construction regiment (17 Engineer Construction Regiment who were next door) , often nicknamed the “skivers”. Most of the platoon were often on rotation to UN peacekeeping programs or in rotation in Malaysia (RAF Butterworth), Singapore or Borneo/Sabar with the rotating Australian Infantry Battalion company, plus lots of O/S deployment removing mines in Burma, Thailand, pacific islands or with the commonwealth War-graves commission in the pacific and Asia. Often posted in America, New Zealand or England on Officer, NCO or OR exchange, or just on course, so was regularly under strength on the ground in Sydney. (I remember my time in 3 troop, I commanded less than 10 men on the ground in Sydney at one time) it also run the training for the regiment, new 2nd Lt, Ncos, for regulars and reserve, plus specialist training. The carpenters, bricklayers and plumbers were removed in 88-89 and all were posted to 17 construction. The troop then rotated army reserve engineers through two sections.

18 field Sqaudron
18 Field Sqn was split between Brisbane and Townsville, same structure as 1 field Sqaudron, 4 troop was in M113 supporting 2/4 RAR, 5 troop they were heliborne with 6 RAR, and 6 troop were the same construction, water and bridging, training.

1 Field  Support Squadron (plus experimental equipment troops)
A great Squadron again overstaffed regularly as training army reserves, this is we’re driver training was conducted, car, light truck, motorcycle, bus and heavy truck and recovery, light fire fighting (regular fire fighters were posted in Moorebank) , heavy and light bridging training plus rotation of NCOs and officers regularly to get experience, it often had its own rugby team and yearly had a grudge match with the FE troops, which caused numerous injuries

Light vehicle support 2 x troops  often overstaffed
(Broken up in 88-89, some going back to Moorebank School of Military engineering, some going to new regiments, it returned to one light support troop, losing a lot of capabilities, bridging for example )
2 x Staff cars (yes more)
4 x Unimog Light dump
4 x Unimog GS palfinger
1 x Acco winch truck and trailer (wire braiding light foot bridge)
4 x Mack dump
4 x Mack GS, large palfinger crane
Gs truck Trailers
4 x large and small generator units
3 x water treatment trailers
3 x John deer backhoe and bucket
2 x skid steers, bucket, leveler, rippers
2 x John deer tractors, various attachments, light trencher (for drainage), ploughs, 4 way blade, which, power take off, rail ripper, fork lift.
3 x mine ploughs attach to tractor or m113
2 x mine rollers attach to m113
3 x trenchers John deer
2 x Fuel trucks and trailers 
3 x Water trucks
Light Cement mixer truck (Acco) (also used for anfo explosive mixing)
Large lumber milling saw (2m blade) lumber trailer, jinker, light railway and trundles, steel cable, pulleys etc
Steam tractor (regimental mascot, often used in lumber mill role in expedition events)
Bailey bridge x 2
MGB bridges x 2
Transfield heavy bridge x 1
Light 4wd Fire truck (Acco)
Fire water trailers x 4
Dog handlers
( 1 troop trailed a lot of vehicles and pieces for the Australian army, so some weird gear would show up from time to time, I remember South African made Buffel/Moffel anti mine truck based on the unimog being in the Sqaudron )

Heavy support troop road and airfield construction
6 x Mack dump trucks and GS or Dump trailers
3 x Rollers
2 x caterpillar scraper
3x Caterpillar graders
Caterpillar dozers D4 pat blade, D6 & D7
Caterpillar excavators 16T, 20T and 30 T
30T crane
Light Jinker crane x 2 (Acco truck)
3 x Mack water trucks

Heavy Transport troop
Mack low loaders x 10
6 x Mack trucks GS with heavy equipment trailers

(This troop was small around 20 ARs, at some stage in 1989 the Regimental police reported to this troop rather than SHQ)


RAEME Workshops support Sqaudron
Land rovers
3 x Mack heavy Recovery
Grease trucks x 4
M113 recovery x 2
12 x unimog trucks supply trailers
Light recovery Acco x 2
Generators
Workshop milling truck
Fuel trucks and Trailers
From memory this was split between 1 Field Squadron and 17 Construction Sqaudron. 

[Battle Brush Sigur]

I'm starting to very much value this section of the forums. Thanks for all the info, guys!

[Callsign 21]

My 2c worth as a Field Artillery gunner from exactly that period: Field Regiments were equipped with the venerable M2A2 105mm gun howitzer. Basically the same as the M102, though. Totally soldierproof, but not the greatest range. Later in the decade the L119 started entering service. Same as the British L118 Light Gun, but fired the same ammo as the M2A2 ('cos we still had heaps).

[Brummie]

Thankyou all

Much appreciate the insights, its very much helped clean up my primary issue and given me some references for future!

Cheers!
Ben.