Royal Australian Armoured Corps


The Royal Australian Armoured Corps is an administrative corps of the Australian Army. It provides the Australian Defence Force's Armour capability, which performs the function of mounted combat. Armour combines firepower, mobility, protection and networked situational awareness to generate shock action and overmatch in close combat. Armour is an essential element of the combined arms approach that is employed by the Australian Army.
The RAAC is the senior arms corps within the Army and the custodian of the customs and traditions of Australia's mounted soldiers. The members of the corps are Army's experts in the theory and practice of armoured warfare and operation of armoured fighting vehicles. While all RAAC members are trained in the technical and tactical employment of armour, they specialise in either the Armoured or Cavalry career streams. Both male and female soldiers and officers serve within the RAAC as armoured vehicle crew. The corps includes both full-time Regular and part-time Reserve units and members. The RAAC provides policy guidance, trade management representation and administrative support for its members.

Origins

The RAAC's origins can be traced back to the Australian Tank Corps, formed in 1928. Around this time the distinctive headdress of Commonwealth armoured corps members, the black beret, was adopted by the ATC which was affiliated with the Royal Tank Corps.
For most of the 1930s the ATC remained an embryonic organisation containing only a small cadre of permanent staff and the militia 1st Tank Section. At the outbreak of the Second World War the ATC had grown to two militia light tank companies. These, in conjunction with the militia 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions, which included the Australian Light Horse regiments of First World War fame, comprised Australia's mobile mounted combat forces. In the early stages of the war, the ATC and ALH provided many personnel who formed the basis of the mechanised divisional cavalry and armoured regiments. In order to administer the growing number of units, including the 1st Australian Armoured Division, the Australian Armoured Corps was formed on 9 July 1941.
The AAC absorbed the ATC and certain other personnel whose primary function was to operate, instruct or manage AFVs. As a result of the increasing mechanisation of the army, and commensurate waning of horse mounted troops, the ALH was also absorbed into the AAC on 8 May 1942. By this time many ALH units had converted to motorised units, such as reconnaissance and motor regiments, others had mechanised as armoured and tank regiments. At its height the AAC included the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Australian Armoured Divisions, the 3rd Australian Army Tank Brigade and various training centres and regiments, located at Puckapunyal and Singleton ranges. While many individual units served overseas with distinction, by the end of the war these large formations were broken up and much of the wartime AAC was demobilised with the rest of the force. The Australian Armoured Corps was granted the Royal prefix in recognition of its service during the Second World War on 14 December 1948.

Role

The role of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps is to locate, identify, destroy or capture the enemy, by day or night, in combination with other arms, using fire and manoeuvre.

Unit types

To perform this role RAAC units are structured into two types:
Armoured Cavalry. Each contains an Armoured, two Cavalry and a Support Squadron which provide mounted close combat, formation level reconnaissance, surveillance and security and integrated combat service support capabilities.
Light Cavalry. Each contains Light Cavalry and Protected Mobility Squadrons which provide mounted and dismounted reconnaissance, surveillance and security and protected mobility capabilities.
In 2023, the corps has three Regular Armoured Cavalry and five Reserve Light Cavalry regiments and a Regular training unit.

Training

The School of Armour provides mounted combat and combat communications training to officers and soldiers in the Australian Army and selected individuals from abroad. It executes both tactical and technical training for AFV and armoured support vehicle crews. Training at the School of Armour is conducted in the following sub-units:
  • Training Squadron
  • *Corps Training Wing
  • *Communications and Surveillance Wing
  • *Driving and Servicing Wing
  • *Gunnery Wing
  • Tactics Wing
  • B Sqn 3rd/4th Cavalry Regiment provides vehicles, equipment and crews to enable Training Sqn and Tactics wing to conduct training.

    Major vehicle types

RAAC units are primarily equipped with the following vehicles:
  • M1A1 Abrams Integrated Management Situational Awareness Main Battle Tank. The Abrams equips Armoured Squadrons and is used to conduct mounted close combat.
  • Australian Service Light Armoured Vehicle. The ASLAV Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle equips Cavalry Squadrons and is employed to conduct medium surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.
  • M113AS4 Armoured Personnel Carrier. The M113AS4 is an upgraded M113A1 APC which is employed in support roles in Armoured Squadrons.
  • M88A2 Hercules Armoured Recovery Vehicle. The Hercules conducts recovery and maintenance tasks in Armoured Squadrons.
  • Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle-Medium. The Bushmaster PMV-M provides protected lift within Reserve regiments.
  • Hawkei Protected Mobility Vehicle-Light. The Hawkei PMV-L is progressively equipping Light Cavalry squadrons to perform command and control, liaison and surveillance and reconnaissance roles.
  • Mercedes Benz G-Wagon. The G-Wagon is a general service utility vehicle employed in all regiments.

    Modernisation

The Australian Army is undertaking major modernisation efforts over the next decade to upgrade or replace all of its AFVs and supporting infrastructure, facilities and equipment. The next generation of AFVs will be delivered via a number of projects, these are:
  • Land 400 Phase Two: This is replacing the ASLAV with a modern Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle and associated family of vehicles. The Rheinmetall Boxer CRV, derived from the Boxer Multirole Armoured Fighting Vehicle was selected as the replacement for the ASLAV.
  • Land 400 Phase Three: This project will replace the 1960s vintage M113AS4 Armoured Personnel Carrier and associated family of vehicles with a modern Infantry Fighting Vehicle capability. In July 2023 the Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicle offered by Hanwha Defense Australia was down selected as Australia's infantry fighting vehicle.
  • Land 907 Phase Two: This project will upgrade the General Dynamics Land Systems M1A1 AIM SA Main Battle Tank system to an M1A2 Systems Enhancement Package Version 3 standard and upgrade the M88A2 armoured recovery vehicle system to a more capable variant.
  • Land 8160 Phase One: This project will deliver an armoured engineering system capability based on the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. This includes armoured breaching, bridging and engineering capabilities.
  • In an approach combining both Land 907 and Land 8160 acquisitions, in early 2022 Australia announced it planned to acquire one hundred sixty M1 tank structures/hulls from US stock in order to produce the following vehicles and spares: seventy-five M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks; twenty-nine M1150 assault breacher vehicles; eighteen M1074 Joint Assault Bridges; six M88A2 Hercules Combat Recovery Vehicles; and one hundred twenty-two AGT1500 gas turbine engines.
These combined AFV acquisitions will result in a very significant capability increase for the Australian Army which, under the Defence Strategic Review, will create a combined-arms, amphibiously deployable Armoured Brigade. This capability is being delivered in conjunction with other major projects such as which will deliver a range of littoral manoeuvre vessels, Land 8113 delivering self-propelled howitzers, Land 8116 which will deliver a light multiple rocket launcher capability and delivering the AH-64E Apache helicopter gunship. It will be complemented by command, control and communications systems and existing logistics capabilities.

Organisational history

The first Regular Army Armour unit created after the Second World War was the 1st Armoured Car Squadron, created in 1946 to serve as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. It was retitled the 1st Armoured Regiment in 1949, in conjunction with a broader reorganisation of the existing Citizens Military Force. While additional 'numbered' Regular RAAC units were created in the following decades, e.g., the 1st Armoured Personnel Carrier Squadron, CMF unit titles continued to reflect the numbers of amalgamated former Light Horse regiments and their territorial affiliations which signify their links to their recruiting catchment areas, e.g., the 6th New South Wales Mounted Rifles, 7th/21st Australian Horse and 8th/13th Victorian Mounted Rifles. During the early 1950s Army maintained two CMF armoured brigades, the 1st Armoured Brigade in New South Wales and the 2nd Armoured Brigade in Victoria. In addition, divisional reconnaissance and other specialised mechanised units, such as an amphibious armoured assault unit, self-propelled artillery, and motorised infantry were also part of the force. However, as a result of the adoption of the Forward Defence Policy and subsequent restructure of the Army, the brigade headquarters and various units were either disbanded or amalgamated by the end of that decade.
Since the 1960s Army has maintained three principal types of Armour unit: Armoured regiments equipped with tanks, Cavalry units equipped with reconnaissance vehicles and Armoured Personnel Carrier units equipped with APCs. The latter's role was to provide armoured mobility to elements of its parent brigade such as infantry, engineers and artillery observers. While various structures combining these unit types were trialed or even adopted for short periods, such as the RAAC Regiment, Regular Armour units generally conformed to these singular roles. From the early 1970s the 1st Armoured Regiment served as the Australian Army's sole tank unit, building and maintaining Australia's conventional warfighting capability in conjunction with mechanised infantry, combat engineer and medium artillery units. The 2nd Cavalry Regiment primarily served as a formation reconnaissance unit with B Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Cavalry Regiment performing the Armoured Personnel Carrier role. Army Reserve units generally adopted a composite structure of Cavalry and Armoured Personnel Carrier squadrons.
The 1980s witnessed the amalgamation of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Cavalry Regiments into the 3rd/4th Cavalry Regiment in 1981, followed by the reduction of the regiment to a single squadron based in Townsville in 1986. Brisbane-based personnel of the regiment were transferred to the 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment which integrated both Regular and Reserve personnel. While there were fluctuations in the size and part-time/full-time nature of the units throughout the 1990s, this period was generally stable for the RAAC. Changes to the Army force structure in the 2000s resulted in the 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment becoming a Regular unit in 2005, the removal of the Armoured Personnel Carrier role from the Regular units, and the adoption of the Protected Mobility role within Reserve units. This resulted in the corps adopting Armoured, Cavalry and Light Cavalry unit structures.
The implementation of Plan Beersheba from 2012 led to significant changes in Army's force structure which impacted the corps. First, this led to the transfer of 2nd Cavalry Regiment from 1st Combat Brigade based in Darwin to the 3rd Combat Brigade in Townsville. This meant that each brigade had an Armour unit within it, which offered the promise of improving the combined-arms training of these brigades. Second, the Armoured Cavalry Regiment structure was adopted by the three regular regiments. This resulted in each regiment restructuring to an Armoured Squadron, a Cavalry Squadron and an Armoured Mobility Squadron, however these units lost their organic supporting Headquarters and Support Squadron capabilities. This was short lived, as this approach was reversed in 2017 with the armoured mobility role divested to newly raised mechanised infantry battalions and mechanised combat engineer squadrons. As these elements contained their own organic mobility in the form of APCs, the Armoured Mobility Squadrons were converted to Cavalry and reequipped with ASLAV. The Regular ACRs have maintained this structure since. The third aspect of note was the relocation of 1st Armoured Regiment in 2018 south to Adelaide to collocate with the 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. Both units initially remained part of the 1st Combat Brigade but were later transferred to the Reserve 9th Combat Brigade in 2022 under the plan. This approach integrated 1st Armoured Regiment, the 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, 144th Signal Squadron and elements of the 1st Combat Service Support Battalion into the 9th Combat Brigade in late 2022; and was earmarked to introduce into service the self-propelled artillery capability to be acquired under Land 8113.