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Old 05-22-2018, 07:18 PM
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StainlessSteelCynic StainlessSteelCynic is offline
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Location: Western Australia
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I know this is a relatively minor issue but I think it's worth pointing out that whoever created the orbat in the original post was not using proper information.
Regardless of the right or wrong of the orbat, some units in it are labelled differently to what they are in real life and some are obvious extrapolations of the real world army.

For example, 2nd Cav is listed as a reconnaissance unit in the orbat. In real life it is a mech infantry transport unit - a vastly different role.
The major reconnaissance unit of that time on the east coast (where 2nd Cav is located) is not even mentioned, the 1st/15th Royal New South Wales Lancers (my original unit) and neither is the associated Armoured Recce Troop, the Hunter River Lancers.

At that time, 1st/15th was a regimental sized unit with two Squadrons of Medium and Light Reconnaissance Vehicles. 1st/15th also had its own M106 mortar vehicles plus a medium truck transport section and a RAEME support section (with M113 Fitter's vehicles). The 1st/15th ommission is significant because it was the single largest recce unit (armoured or unarmoured) on the east coast during that time period.

Another example: we have never had any self-propelled artillery in that time period and despite discussions about it, there was never any decision on what SPG to purchase. The favourite for some time was the M109 in one of its later versions but as mentioned, nothing was ever finalized.

The author has decoupled some units to make individual regiments, for example in the 13th Brigade there are the 11th Battalion and the 28th Battalion, which Targan pointed out somewhere earlier are one unit, the 11/28 Battalion.
-- In Australian practice, the nomenclature 11/28 indicates the 11th and the 28th, not the 11th unit of the 28th as in US practice. Units tend to be coupled together to preserve the history of both units, so rather than decommission one or the other, the two are amalgamated --

Now it is certainly the case that should that Battalion ever get large enough then the two would be separated to form their respective units so that in itself is not a fault of the orbat. However, making all those units mechanized is, as has been pointed out earlier in the thread by my fellow Australians, incredibly unlikely given the lack of funds to actually buy all the vehicles that would be necessary to make an Infantry Brigade into a Mechanized Infantry Brigade, let alone the dozen or so listed in the orbat.

As an aside, Australia had experimented with mounting M40 106mm Recoilless Rifles on M113 APCs to be used for support of the infantry once deployed. This was during the time of the Vietnam War but the information was still floating around in the 1980s when I was in the 1st/15th.

1st/15th also had the only fully operational Centurion tank in Australia (still does as far as I am aware, it's still used in parades) as part of its historic vehicle collection - the unit had operated the Centurion Mk3 during the 1960s before its role was changed to a Cavalry Regiment in the 1970s.
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