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.

The Army needs to be ready to fall back to guerrilla warfare if faced with overwhelming force.

Less tanks

The Army’s main task is defending Australia, not fighting wars elsewhere.

Tanks are not that useful for defending an island compared to missiles and drones.

• 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.
• Less tracked vehicles such as the Redbacks

Agile forces with a long reach

• ‘Light’ armoured vehicles (Bushmaster, Boxers, Hawkei)
• 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.
• X-BAT or other runway-independent drones may also be operated by the Army.

Expanded Army Reserve

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.

Anti-Terrorism

Rapid response teams should be on stand-by in all capitals to respond to incidents involving military weapons in consultation with relevant police forces.

These would be likely to be embarked in helicopters or other vertical-lift aircraft.

Snipers may well operate from these helicopters to target active shooters.

In cooperating States or Territories, Army communication officers would need to be present in police command centres to provide seamless integration.