Letter to the Chief of Army

If the Chief of Army agreed to accept a letter to him (which he hasn’t previously), what would it say?

“Dear Chief of Army,

Can you please explain why you’ve made 1st Armoured Regiment an experimentation unit.

The unit’s stakeholders have tried repeatedly to engage with you and your staff, but have been constantly rebuffed.  This means that the circumstances which have made it necessary to strip the tanks from 1 Armd Regt, remain clocked in secrecy.  Maybe there is justification for this, other than simply decimating the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC) and saving on operating costs to pay for the AUKUS submarines… but who knows?  Certainly not unit stakeholders.  

Can you understand how difficult it is to appreciate why a unit which has been the Nation’s leading exponent of tank warfare for 75 years, is suddenly made a non-combatant … one without even an RAAC role? 

And what of Heritage?  It’s been stated that 1 Armd Regt’s Heritage will not be affected.  But how can this be?  The unit, for example, was the only one in the Army with an entitlement to carry a Standard.  This was granted on the basis of it being a tank regiment, the equivalent of a former heavy dragoon regiment in the British Army.  

As an experimentation unit, 1 Armd Regt no longer has an entitlement to a Standard. The only option is for it to be ‘laid up’, as befits its consecrated status.

What right do unit stakeholders have to know your reasoning, you may ask?  These are men and women who, in the main, have previously served in the unit and provide on-going support through membership of the unit association and the like.  They form an important part of the wider fabric of the unit ‘family’.

We have no ‘rights’, as such; however, many would think that there is an overwhelming courtesy associated with allowing us to understand why it was that 1 Armd Regt had to divest itself of all its tank-craft, in order to become a unit to evaluate new and emerging technologies.  Many of us were associated with the years and years of training involved.  

How can this new unit be more important than a tank regiment trained “to close with and destroy the enemy using fire, manoeuvre and shock action”? How can this combat power not be vital to the Army?

Why is it that 3 Brigade in Townsville, designated as an armoured brigade in the Defence Strategic Review, has never achieved this status?  Today the Brigade is forced to operate without a tank squadron, a cavalry squadron and a battle-group headquarters.  

Yet the Lowy Institute stated recently that the “strategic environment has changed more in the last two years than it has in the past twenty”; making the further point that the “Albanese Government has shown little inclination to increase defence spending commensurate with growing defence uncertainty”.

It is impossible for unit stakeholders to understand why, in strategic circumstances such as these, that a tank regiment is not a critical Army asset; warranting the highest priority on the ORBAT.  

As if things couldn’t get any worse, the only RAAC unit left with 3 Brigade, has been forced to accept a dual role … BOTH close fire support for infantry AND intelligence gathering.  It can be readily appreciated that these roles are totally incompatible for a single unit. 

Thank you for considering our concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Cameron  

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FILE IMAGE: Australian Army soldiers from the 1st Armoured Regiment conduct manoeuvre training on M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks in Puslatpur, Indonesia, during Exercise Super Garuda Shield 2023. Photo by Corporal Dustin Anderson.

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