We believe Australia needs a distributed, fast moving army of mixed reserve and regular forces.

Existing army assets should be distributed around Australia with a particular view of defending high-value assets such as deep water ports.

No more of these

• Main battle tanks (M1A2). At 70 tonnes these are too slow and heavy for most purposes.
• Self-propelled howitzers (K9 Thunder). As above.
• Assault ships (Canberra Class, Landing craft) as they are indefensible. (May still be needed to move defence assets to Australian islands in peace time.)

More of these

• ‘Light’ armoured vehicles (Bushmaster, Boxers, Hawkei, Redbacks, etc.)
• Long range vertical lift aircraft (ideally MV-75 or similar)
• Drones and UAVs
• Modern personal weapons systems and armour (reserves, regular & relevant AFP forces). A bias towards accurate longer-range defensive rifles rather than shorter range assault rifles.
• HIMARS and similar
• Anti-ship missiles would be operated by the Army.

Expanded Army Reserve

We believe the army reserve should be greatly expanded with more ‘casual’ reservists. Greater effort should be made to get a wide range of women and men from all sectors of Australian society.

This could be done by adding more training facilities in urban areas which would allow reservists to train after work or on their weekends on more of an ad-hoc basis. Child care could be provided.

For example:

• Gun ranges could be provided in the lower basement of CBD carparks.
• Drone training and simulated combat facilities could be created in urban industrial areas.

Reservists should train with the latest weapons (see above) including suppressors to avoid hearing damage.