A bureaucratic reorganisation TL.

I'm thinking about going back and weaving in a small, experimental Boiling Water Reactor for experimental power generating instead of OTL Moata training/research reactor, into the TL. It would require handwaving the initial decision, but after that would develop a momentum of its own that would weave in and out of the Defence sphere.

Would that be pushing the friendship too far?
 

Pangur

Donor
I'm thinking about going back and weaving in a small, experimental Boiling Water Reactor for experimental power generating instead of OTL Moata training/research reactor, into the TL. It would require handwaving the initial decision, but after that would develop a momentum of its own that would weave in and out of the Defence sphere.

Would that be pushing the friendship too far?

Maybe not - with the right timing and content as it were for that hand waving it should work
 
Just thinking about what the ADF can do that can be both plausible and make the ADF stand out. Not a lot of scope between 75 and OTL 99.
 
Larger intervention in the Tanker War in the 80s, intervention in the Falklands is a hard sell. Perhaps the Thai Vietnamese border clashes become larger, necessitating Australian involvement?
 
Namibia in late 80's, 1st gulf war (more ships, possible carrier, boots on ground, RAAF strike capability), Somalia, Cambodia, Rwanda, on going Middle East Iraq no fly zone, Bougainville.
 
Maybe F111C/SAS on Scud hunts in 1991, maybe even an armoured battalion group/small brigade with the Marines or British.
 
Since this is such a good piece of work, and since you've been talking about revising/revisiting it I've had a few thoughts as I read along:

  • One is, while the services tentatively explore "jointness" in the Sixties and consider amphibious operations particularly the business of mounting either sudden raids-in-force on locations (I'm talking about more than a troop or two of SAS slipping through the underbrush) or theatre entry, perhaps a regeneration of 1 Commando Regiment as a predominantly regular formation, trained in the British "commando" tradition rather than the more modern school of special operations (or rather leaving that to small SAS teams), as an earlier manifestation of a force cross-trained in parachute and amphibious operations. They could retain their links to the CMF/reserves on a regimental scale, say three companies with regimental leadership (in effect a battalion) in the Regulars and a company or even two (one NSW, one Victoria or Queensland?) in the militia to mobilize for a large-scale conflict or as casualty replacement if the regiment found itself stuck in a sustained deployment. This would give a shock-assault strategic reserve to the Army, freeing up the RAR from any specialist assignments to concentrate on generating as much mass, both for concentration and for rotation through taskings, as its limited number of battalions permits. They could become in some ways more significant after Vietnam than during it, since the tasks there are very much advising/small-team CI per the AATTV and independent SAS elements, and relatively-conventional deployments of the RAR's battalions with attached armo(u)r, artillery, sappers, etc.
  • Since Vietnam ITTL is not quite such an elemental drain on resources, money, and political will, and since there may be a desire to find ways (1) to project power and (2) to limit the scope of direct involvement (hello Nixon Doctrine in miniature...) afterwards perhaps rather than taking the purchase offer on Phantoms that money and a little more down the back of the sofa is put into a larger buy of F-111s (say, 35 instead of 25 as IOTL) so that you can actually mount two 12-a/c front line squadrons plus an OCU that develops some recce capabilities later, rather than one and OCU/recce as IOTL? Say, 1 and 6 Sqdns on the line and 2 Sqdn stood back up as OCU. It seems in some ways more practical to push resources that are more available ITTL into a single objective rather than spreading them and, among other things, confusing the role of the Mirages even further.
  • Just because it's in my nature I'm still going to push for a small "boutique" buy of Buccs with the purchase of Hermes. Say about ten airframes while we're spending money like water ;) That could give the new HMAS Australia an air group of 12 A-4Gs, 6 Blackburn Buccaneers as a long-range strike package, 6 S-2Gs for ASW, 5 E-1/C-1(four of the former and one of the latter) and 1 helicopter as ship's flight/overboard SAR. A proper small carrier for the navy which along with the submarines would become a principal asset. And when you combine good basic fleet air defense with Buccs' strike capabilities and sea control with SSKs and two proper strike squadrons of F-111C then you really have the core of the ADF's short notice strategic capabilities. Then it's time to start thinking about lift capacity for the regulars.
  • Possibly a full-on diversion in the brigade formations through whatever white paper circulates in the Seventies? A lighter, deployable, essentially air-assault brigade with three RAR battalions, 3 Cav on light vehicles, 105mm guns, engineering concentrated on austere operations and "pioneer" skills, and a Joint Helicopter Command to provide lift in the field would be one formation. The other would have 1 Armoured in tanks (and while the Leo 1 was relentlessly reliable, I wonder about having that procurement process slowed down by the Whitlam government and its messy death, and getting in on M60A3s thereafter with their improved drive train and outstanding optics, those optics were better than the Abrams' until the mid-Nineties), 2 Cav in "ASLAV"/really it's Australian Cougar AVGPs, and two RAR battalions in M113s, and maybe if there's any money a buy of either FH-70 off the Brits to tow or early-model M109s from some National Guard armory somewhere. That would be a total of nine roughly battalion-sized formations (one armored, two cav, one commando/entry, five infantry) for the force and support forces organic to the two brigades. There could even be occasional exercises staged to bulk out the lighter brigade with the addition of 1 RNZIR (2/1 RNZIR and QAMR would be roled into a large battlegroup assigned defense of NZ proper or a strategic reserve for PNG.) One leading assumption -- not the only one about how those forces might be employed -- is that the heavy bde would act as the capstone for the mobilization of the reserve brigades into a large division assigned the defense of Australia itself while the lighter brigade was designed to forward-deploy to PNG or Timor Leste, or rotate battlegroup contributions to other missions.
  • Then there's ANZUS and the issue of possible Nuclear Sharing. Other than NATO ANZUS is the one alliance I could see a bipartisan American interest in developing Nuclear Sharing with. Both F-111C and any RAN Buccaneers could readily be converted to drop "dual-key" B61s (probably the Mod 4 "dial-a-yields" that ran from a really-it's-a-neutron-bomb at 0.3kt killing with penetrating radiation to 170kt, a large "tactical/theater" yield. That could be interesting in terms of doctrine and a real political football.
  • Looking to Eighties procurement there may begin to be helicopter issues to address, there's following through on the RAAF AEW capability, there's sealift issues, and perhaps Marconi actually manages to get Foxhunter working on schedule (the early Eighties, not the end of the decade) so a Mirage replacement by two squadrons of ADV and one of IDS for close support (F-111C still does proper "strike") looks attractive? (ETA: Or, rather like wanting Anglo engines in Mirage IIIs, maybe there's an effort to customize and integrate Harpoon and the dropping of simple "iron" bombs from ADV -- dumb bombs still have their moments on the battlefield, and Harpoon would magnify anti-shipping capability -- and just get three squadrons of those, a superior version of Tornado anyway?)
Then of course there are all the variables for lower and higher intensity ADF deployments:
  • Timor Leste has soured some relations with Indonesia, depending on its internal politics maybe there's a later war scare over Timor or PNG and that adds to shaping Australian thoughts about both defense and about trying to stabilize relations with their hugely populous northern neighbor.
  • Australia takes on more of a leadership role in the transition force in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia. Or, more Libyan troops than IOTL are sent to Uganda during the Uganda-Tanzania War in early '79 and maybe Amin is even crazy enough to pick a fight with Kenya as well, and the Commonwealth gets involved either in actual combat or in resupplying the "good guys" (doesn't really need quotes when you're fighting the likes of Amin) and in peacekeeping/stability ops in Uganda once he's ousted.
  • There is some kind of militarized crisis in SE Asia, either Thailand-Cambodia or maybe Malaysia/Brunei, that calls into question strategic and operational assumptions for the ADF.
  • Vanuatu's flirtation with the hard left reaches a point where a policy of either intimidation or intervention is pursued to hasten a change of government.
  • The Bougainville situation goes very south and a volatile mix of separatism and millenarianism sets off armed banditry and chaos with attacks on foreign nationals, and the ADF is called on to restore order and evacuate noncombatants.
  • Maybe when it comes (and Polynesian-vs-Indian conflict in Fiji was coming, it was a "when" not an "if") there is just enough real disorder in Fiji after a nativist coup that Operation Morris Dance is activated. Or, since there was a lot of push at first from the Lange government for a decapitation strike against Rabuka and the coup leaders (just, obviously, NZ lacked the resources to stage such an operation) there is some contingent ATL mix of political inclination and local volatility that makes Australia back such a play?
  • Then there's the Gulf. Definitely a chance for deploying the F-111Cs (American F-11s "plinked" more Iraqi armor than any other US aircraft type but got next to no credit for it, and most of those smart-bomb photos in Schwarzkopf's famous briefings were from F-111s not F-15Es, but again no love.) Also definitely SAS Scud-hunters. Possibly a larger naval deployment as well. And perhaps rather than Oz's relatively light armor, the heliborne brigade is deployed forward either integrated with 1 UK Div as a mobile strike force against bunkers and supply lines, or to make the US's 101st Air Assault Division an even more massive formation? Or, at least, a battlegroup from that brigade could be attached to either one of those formations, with organic RAAF helicopter support, in that role. So then plus an F-111C squadron plus a larger flotilla plus an airmobile battlegroup would be a substantive contribution.
  • More involvement in any number of post-Cold War UN ops around the turn of the Nineties from Somalia to elsewhere.
  • It's not really on that scale, or in the broader style of the TL, but perhaps at just the propitious time a crisis develops somewhere that allows the SAS's TAG to stage one of those daring hostage rescues that puts the Forces in the good books just in time for a significant procurement cycle
Just some thoughts, anyway.
 
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