![]() It cannot be ignored that the world’s communist forces have been inflating army, navy, and air forces with assets and personnel while ‘annexing’ the occasional friend as practice. This should worry lingering China-apologists, who continue to see the increasingly hostile developing nation as the ‘victim’ rather than ‘aggressor’ in global unrest. We are being given specific, urgent equipment orders. Imagine if we had spent our trillion-dollar Covid debt on something useful, like a few hundred planes for our wilting air force…įor those with half an eye open, it has become obvious that America and the UK are rapidly arming Australia in preparation for conflict with China. This is a lot more practical than the fanciful 2040 delivery date of the now cancelled French submarines. This purchase includes 75 M1A2 Abrams tanks tricked out to resist improvised explosive devices, 29 assault breacher vehicles, 17 joint assault bridge vehicles, and 6 armoured recovery vehicles – all due for delivery in 2025. Defence Minister Peter Dutton is sensible enough to take the hint from America and accept whatever’s being offered under the AUKUS trilateral agreement. So I totally agree with the army’s commitment to buying 75 of these tanks because soldiers with real combat experience know their value.’ĭifferent types of warfare require specific equipment, and it would be foolish to imagine that ‘tanks are a thing of the past’ when the world’s most formidable military forces are stockpiling armoured vehicles. ‘I am an infantryman by trade but if there was the likelihood of a serious fight, I would always take tanks. ‘When I fought with the US military in Iraq, we had hundreds of exactly the same kind of battle tanks that Australia now plans to purchase from the Americans, and we used them every day, notably during my time in the battle of Fallujah,’ said Senator Molan, writing in The Australian. Such dangerous naivety is how peaceful nations end up dead. Australia has become lazy, imagining that our glittering oceans serve as an impenetrable moat against all land-based threats. Being an island nation is a speed bump – not a roadblock – to this eventuality. As Senator Jim Molan points out, if you’re fighting with an infantry, you need tanks to protect them. When a true army sets its sights on Australia and decides to ‘play for keeps’, the first thing to roll out are the tanks. Australia is starting from behind, so whatever we buy now has to count. These are one of the hardest things to put out of action, which is why America wants us to have lots of them. If the naysayer commentators came nose-to-nose with a shiny new M1A2 Abrams tank they may think differently about their effectiveness in ground warfare. There have been accusations that lives were lost unnecessarily because of our reluctance to drag existing assets onto the front-line, preferring instead to let them rot in a shed out in Woop Woop. It has been noted by those on the ground during recent insurgencies that even though Australia did not deploy tanks, we certainly made use of America’s. ![]() We were fighting terrorists and a hodgepodge of mercenaries in the desert – not a disciplined army intent on capturing home soil. Australia has spent recent decades embroiled in foreign conflicts and proxy wars as a collection of specialist units. These are easy things to moan about from the comfort of an armchair, but their assessment of tank warfare is wrong. ‘We haven’t deployed tanks in anger since Vietnam!’ ‘Who uses tanks anymore?’ Went the predictable outrage. Australia splashed out $3.5 billion on 120 specially re-enforced US military tanks and armoured vehicles, causing prominent political reporters to immediately groan and call it ‘a waste’.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |