Tanks on the Rebound: New Hope for 1st Armoured Regiment?

Lieutenant General Susan Coyle AM, CSC, DSM will soon be Chief of Army … will she resurrect 1 Armd Regt?

The ‘tank is dead’ mentality of Lieutenant General Simon Stuart may, or may not, be a thing of the past. 

There were many who sided with him in terms of the vulnerability of tanks, as supposedly demonstrated by the Ukraine War.  Drones have sounded the ‘death knell’ for tanks, they all clamoured to make known.

Now Defense’s ARMY News is championing the fact that a Ukrainian tank has destroyed a Russian tank at a range of 5.5 km; as well as: “one brave Leopard 1A5 survived a relentless 52-drone swarm attack thanks to clever ‘hedgehog’ defences like cages, nets, and pallets. These innovations turn tanks into smart, resilient networked weapons that combine firepower, drone coordination, and adaptive tactics”.

As is always the case in military affairs: new weapon one day … defence against them, the next.  No surprises here!

Trouble is, after 75 years’ service to the Nation, 1 Armd Regt has been stripped of its tanks, disbanded, and made into an experimentation unit (as was wanted by the Chief of Army at the time).  

The Heritage of a unit that had been awarded three Battle-Honours and a Unit Citation for Gallantry in Vietnam; not to mention being the only unit in the Army to have been presented with a Standard … all gone in an instant!  

How can this be allowed to happen?  It’s all too easy … if no-one’s prepared to take a stand against the injustice involved!  

What right does the current Chief of Army have to re-fashion the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC) … a Corps with a 75-year heritage?  (Not to mention the incredible Light Horse history that pre-dated it.)

RAAC is an administrative corps of the Army.  As well as 1 Armd Regt’s Honorary Colonel, there is a Representative Honorary Colonel for the Corps as whole.  

What the Chief of Army has done is to dismiss the protests of both Honorary Colonels (as well as those of the Corps Council and Head of Corps at the time) and order 1 Armd Regt to undertake a role which has nothing whatsoever to do with that of the RAAC.  [The role of the RAAC is to: “locate, identify, capture and destroy the enemy, by day or night, in combination with other arms, using fire and manoeuvre”.] 

CA ordered 1 Armd Regt to become an experimentation unit to evaluate new and emerging technologies.  As a result, it has had to forgo its once proud operational Heritage and is now a non-combatant.

How does one take a stand against a decision made by the (then) Chief of Army?  

By making his failure to do the ‘right thing’, widely known.  

By far the majority of Australians, know what it is to ‘do the right thing’; and they give their support to this end.  

Not only that; the question has been asked before … how can a unit retain the title 1st Armoured Regiment, when it doesn’t have any tanks?  It’s a title that reflects the unit’s once proud Heritage; a title that should be retired, rather than be left as a reminder of something that no longer exists.

There is no kudos to be gained by the name 1 Armd Regt being retained by an experimentation unit.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  

When an RAAC unit is once again equipped with tanks … that is the time for the title 1st Armoured Regiment to be resurrected!

Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Cameron, MC, RAAC (Ret’d)

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