How do you cover up the cover up?
The responses to all the letters written to everyone about 1st Armoured Regiment’s tanks being stripped from it and the loss of 75 years’ heritage and traditions, made no mention at all about having to make savings in the Defence budget.
The Minister made the point that 1 Armd Regt “has an important new role that will be instrumental in the Army’s transformation by directly shaping how the Army fights”. (There’s been no response to a request to explain what this means.)
The Chief of the Defence Force said that “adapting the Regiment’s role is one of a number of decisions made by the Army to meet the government’s direction”. Maybe, on reflection, this is public service code for having to make budgetary cuts.
Disappointingly, the Chief of Army said that the matter was closed, given that responses had already been provided by the Minister and the CDF.
It appears that the decision to strip the Regiment of its tanks was forced on the Department of Defence by the need to make budgetary cuts. This has been achieved by virtue of operating cost savings associated with 1st Armoured Regiment and also 3 Brigade (Townsville). The latter savings being achieved by reducing the strength of Army’s only armoured brigade by a tank squadron, a cavalry squadron and a battle-group headquarters.
The Minister has been asked, at a time when the nation’s strategic circumstances have been described as ‘most perilous’, why it is that Army’s combat power and operational capability is considered secondary to Defence’s financial targets? (A response is awaited.)
Interestingly, in times not that long ago, limitations on track mileage totals were imposed for each RAAC unit. This was a means of limiting operating costs and illustrates just how much of a cost burden these on-going costs can amount to.
One would have expected that the hefty costs associated with raising and training a tank regiment, and the essential importance of the capability, would have been a protection against cost-saving measures today. This is obviously not the case, unless the CA can be accused of being negligent; nor can it be the case that the strategic outlook is as dire as many experts would have us believe (?).
This brings us back to an immediate need to find savings in the Defence budget; the importance of which take precedence over operational capability. The Minister, CDF and CA have all sought to make it appear that this is not the case … it’s ‘just’ a matter of 1 Armd Regt being given a new role and its expertise being employed to best effect.
Why go to the trouble of concealing the efforts being made to find savings in the Defence budget? Is it because the AUKUS costs have risen to amounts far greater than anyone is prepared to admit?
Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Cameron, MC, RAAC (Ret’d)
FILE PHOTO (November 2024): M1A1 Abrams tanks during 1st Armoured Regiment’s Cambrai Parade at Edinburgh Defence Precinct. Photo by Corporal Adam Quinn.
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