The Human Cost of Stripping Tanks From 1st Armoured Regiment

The RAAC RSM acknowledged in the 2024 IRONSIDES (just published) that the decision to strip the tanks from 1 Armd Regt “had been at some cost to the veteran community and those serving alike …”. There’s no doubt that he’s absolutely right, but what did he actually mean by “some cost”?

Members of the 1st Armoured Regiment Association made it clear on 15 Jan 25, exactly what ‘some cost’ meant to them:

“The pain that Army’s decision has caused the 1st Armoured Regiment veterans, particularly those who served in combat in South Vietnam, cannot be understated.

“To be frank, they all feel gutted as they watch the Regiment stripped of its soldiers, tanks and armoured warfighting capability.

“They see the demise of the Regiment’s esprit-de-corps that they feel they spilt blood to create.

“They believe that the tanks are being moved into a unit structure that is incapable of training and sustaining the tank capability, let alone commanding it in action and raising rotatable sub-units.

“To them, it feels like betrayal and has generated fear and bitterness.

“They sense the risk this poses to the generations of soldiers who will fight and die in the future defence of Australia’s interests.

“The veterans believe the Army’s decision is the ultimate betrayal of their service.

“They are gutted as they watch, as all that 1st Armoured Regiment has been during its 75-year history, is trashed.”

One can’t but wonder whether or not WO1 Adams was thinking along the same lines.
Leading up to this, he had said “As a Corps, we will continue to drive innovation, and that’s why 1 Armd Regt is now Army’s lead for innovation and experimentation”.

BUT, is this really true … is the RAAC the lead Corps driving Army innovation to such an extent that this is the reason that, after 75 years’ service to the nation, 1 Armd Regt was selected to be stripped of its tanks and heritage, and made a non-combatant?

Interestingly, the Chief of the Defence Force said the same thing, albeit in a broader context: “Armoured regiments have been on the forefront of military innovation for more than a century …”.

This, of course, is a broad generalisation, as evidenced by the drastic stalling of tank development, following the First World War. Like that of all weapon systems, Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) development is linked with advances in technology, some revolutionary, but most not.

Military innovation certainly hasn’t followed on the coat tails of AFV design; nor has the RAAC been the driving force behind it.

All of which, leaves the question hanging: what was the real reason that 1 Armd Regt was selected to become the Combat Experimentation Group: to save money in the defence budget; or because of shortfalls in ADF recruitment?

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

 

FILE PHOTO: Soldiers of the 1st Armoured Regiment are briefed while sitting in front of their Centurion tanks at Vung Tau in South Vietnam during 1968. Photo by Starry, Donn A. Mounted combat in Vietnam. Department of the Army, via Wikipedia.

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