Ethos behind demise of 1st Armoured Regiment

Ethos, from the Greek word for ‘character’, refers to the guiding beliefs or values of a person or group.  It is often linked with Aristotle’s other two modes of persuasion: pathos (emotion) and logos (logic).  

Convincing an audience of the worth of one’s argument, requires all three elements: credibility; evidence; and emotional ‘resonance’.  This means that the person making the case has to be acknowledged as a reliable source; have their facts accepted; and create empathy within the audience.

How does this apply to 1st Armoured Regiment?

The evidence speaks for itself: a tank regiment with 75 years’ service to the nation, made a non-combatant overnight; the unit removed from the ORBAT without concern for either its heritage or traditions; zero consultation with stakeholders; and planning all done in secret.  

The 1 Armd Regt Association noted that: “To be combat effective, tank crews and their support need to train under the unified command of a tank regimental structure. It makes absolute sense to relocate the headquarters and command structure of 1st Armoured Regiment to Townsville…”.  That was the recommendation of both the 2024 and 2025 RAAC Corps Conference.

To what degree is an emotive element involved?  In a submission protesting at making 1 Armd Regt an experimentation unit, the 1 Armd Regt Assoc pointed out that:

“The veterans believe the Army’s decision is the ultimate betrayal of their service. They are gutted as they watch all that 1st Armoured Regiment has been during its 75-year history, is trashed on what appears at face value, to be simplistic and transactional decision making. 

They see an Army where esprit-de-corps is being traded for branding and organisational form no longer matches training for combat function. Worst of all, they sense the risk to the lives of soldiers in training and on future operations.”

Finally, the reliability of the source.  How credible am I?  

I commanded a troop of 1 Armd Regt Centurions tanks in action in Vietnam; thereby establishing some degree of credibility, at least.  But what of my motivation … why would I seek to have 1 Armd Regt re-formed, urgently, as a tank regiment?  

Because the insulting manner in which a regiment with a 75-year heritage was suddenly made a non-combatant experimentation unit, without regard to heritage or tradition, was unbelievable.  How could this be allowed to happen?  

The Chief of Army needed to save money to pay for the AUKUS subs.  The RAAC became the sacrificial lamb, with a tank regiment being forced to give up its tanks and 3 (Armoured) Brigade forced to operate short a tank squadron, a cavalry squadron and a battle-group headquarters.  So what?

So it is that Australia is less prepared to defend itself: less responsive and less capable.   Nobody seems to care about the loss of combat power, or the time needed to rebuild a combat-ready tank regiment, or the loss of skills resulting from an ‘ad hoc’ organisation.

The interim ‘fix’ is to give the 2nd Cavalry Regiment two squadrons of recon vehicles and two of tanks.  But tank (close fire support) and recon (intelligence gathering) roles are incompatible for a single unit. 

The question has to be asked: ‘Can the decimation of the RAAC be attributed to the pressures on the CA to make savings in the defence budget … or are other [secret] factors at play?’

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

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FILE IMAGE: M1A1 Abrams tanks from the 1st Armoured Regiment exit the parade ground following the Cambrai Parade 2017. Photo by Corporal Craig Barrett.

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