What units should the ARA RAAC comprise?

Feedback from Ukraine: “Properly protected, integrated with drones and supported by electronic warfare, armour remains indispensable, particularly when taking ground.”

When infantry assumed command of mechanised infantry, the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC) relinquished command of an APC (armoured personnel carrier) unit.  Current manpower constraints now limit the RAAC to two full-time units.  

Should this limit be simply accepted, or should it be challenged?  What is the right Australian Regular Army (ARA) strength for the RAAC?

The 2023 Defence Strategic Review designated 3 Brigade in Townsville to be an armoured brigade.  This means that a tank regiment and a cavalry regiment, the RAAC’s total ARA establishment, have to be based there.  

Unit seniority, designates 1st Armoured Regiment and 2nd Cavalry Regiment, as the units involved. (The actual unit circumstances are suspended for the purpose of this letter.)

2/14 Light Horse Regiment (QMI), based in Brisbane, would have to return to being an ARes (Army Reserve)(or integrated ARes) unit.  

But, can a case be made for 2/14 LHR (QMI), to continue as an ARA unit, i.e. for the RAAC to have three ARA units?

Very little has been made known about the awful shemozzle that resulted in 1 Armd Regt being made a non-combatant.  Surely, however, geographical location is a factor in military preparedness.  

Is it not desirable that a cavalry regiment continue to be based in Brisbane?  Would this not also provide ‘balance’ in terms of defence assets?

Hopefully, the horrible 2 Cav Regt dual-role fantasy can be consigned to the ‘past’.  

Both roles (close fire support and intelligence gathering) are specialities in their own right and it’s impossible for a single unit to adequately focus on both at the same time. 

As an aside … one has to wonder what has happened to the RAAC in recent times?  

The 1 Armd Regt non-combatant fiasco is hard to imagine happening under what we know to be the strong leaders that we had at the time.  

Of course, we know now that everyone was lulled into a false sense of keeping quiet and not inflaming matters.  Even so, how could it have possibly have happened?  

Did the former Chief of Army really ‘con’ everyone to the extent that he did, or were his orders blindly followed by those who knew no better?

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