Different Australian involvement in Vietnam.

IOTL the Australian involvement in Vietnam was mainly an army show; 3 inf batns, with armour, aviation and SAS in support. The Navy slotted in a destroyer much of the time and the RAAF had a sqn of 8 Canberras.

WI instead of expanding the army the govt decided to put more RAAF and RAN assets as our commitment? The RAAF could have put 16 Canberras plus a sqn or more of the new Mirages into combat. The RAN could have kept 2 or 3 ships on the gunline, and as mentioned in other threads, sent the carrier Melbourne over for a visit or two. As for the army, their commitment could have been kept much smaller than 3 btns+, but perhaps could have been armour heavy with 2 Centurion sqns instead of 1, Saladin/Saracen armoured cars as well as APCs.

Such an approach may have meant that conscription was not adopted, and Australia took a more capital-technological intensive approach to it's armed forces, instead of just recruiting a bunch of riflemen in emergencies. Without a bunch of national servicemen, let alone regulars, dying on the ground Australian support for the war may not have waned when it did. Also Australia may have ended the war with a very high tech military and the widespread belief that this was the only way to go.
 
IOTL the Australian involvement in Vietnam was mainly an army show; 3 inf batns, with armour, aviation and SAS in support. The Navy slotted in a destroyer much of the time and the RAAF had a sqn of 8 Canberras.

WI instead of expanding the army the govt decided to put more RAAF and RAN assets as our commitment? The RAAF could have put 16 Canberras plus a sqn or more of the new Mirages into combat. The RAN could have kept 2 or 3 ships on the gunline, and as mentioned in other threads, sent the carrier Melbourne over for a visit or two. As for the army, their commitment could have been kept much smaller than 3 btns+, but perhaps could have been armour heavy with 2 Centurion sqns instead of 1, Saladin/Saracen armoured cars as well as APCs.

Such an approach may have meant that conscription was not adopted, and Australia took a more capital-technological intensive approach to it's armed forces, instead of just recruiting a bunch of riflemen in emergencies. Without a bunch of national servicemen, let alone regulars, dying on the ground Australian support for the war may not have waned when it did. Also Australia may have ended the war with a very high tech military and the widespread belief that this was the only way to go.

Well judging by how the Mirage 3's of the Irsreali air force did against syryan and egyptain Mig's, i think the reds would have been in for a bit of a shock.
 
Did the Mirage have the range to fight over NthV in the early 70s, or would we have to use IFR? Would the RAAF quickly get some tankers into service to allow Mirages to fight if this was their chosen contribution, or maybe rely on USN Hercules? Our F111s were built in 1967 and warehoused until delivery in 1973. If the RAAF was a major contributor to Australia's Vietnam commitment would we push to get them fixed and delivered earlier than 1973?

If the Army contribution was purely Regs would the use of more armour and artillery than OTL make up for a lack of infantry btns?
 
Well, boys, wouldn't a greater RAAF/RAN commitment also mean that Phuoc Tuoy province doesn't get pacified as extensively, or at all, as happened OTL- since there'd be no large-scale Australian ground force presence to guard against and defeat the VC ? Anyways, wasn't the main reason why Canberra deployed the ATF to Vietnam due to the experioence of COIN ops in Malaya and Borneo where it was at the grassroots winning hearts & minds level ?
 
Yes Phuoc Tuoy won't get pacified, but that will hardly matter in the grand sceme of things. Nor will that bloody minefield get laid, which was a problem. And yes we used our co-in experience gained in Malaya/Borneo, but Vietnam was hotter than both of those. What's more we pretty much abandoned co-in after we left Vietnam, so all that experience went to waste when we re-configured our forces in light of the Guam Doctrine.

My thoughts are that post-Vietnam we re-configured the ADF in light of the Guam doctrine. So wouldn't it be nice if, in an effort to avoid conscription in 1964, we did our re-configuration by accident during the Vietnam period and came out of it with all 3 forces highly experienced in fighting at the higher levels of warfare. It was this experience that we sorely lacked when trying to stand on our own two feet post-Vietnam.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Did the Mirage have the range to fight over NthV in the early 70s, or would we have to use IFR? Would the RAAF quickly get some tankers into service to allow Mirages to fight if this was their chosen contribution, or maybe rely on USN Hercules? Our F111s were built in 1967 and warehoused until delivery in 1973. If the RAAF was a major contributor to Australia's Vietnam commitment would we push to get them fixed and delivered earlier than 1973?

If the Army contribution was purely Regs would the use of more armour and artillery than OTL make up for a lack of infantry btns?

If they were launching from South Vietnamese airfields, I don't see why they wouldn't have the range. South African Mirage IIIs operated at ranges way farther than that in the 70s and 80s, flying from Cape Town up to Namibia and back, and doing it with no inflight refueling capabilities.

I hate to say it this way, but it almost seems that the F-111s might be pushed in sooner just to keep the strength up if there are any attrition losses in the Mirage fleet.
 
The Sabres operated from Udon in Thailand, so I assumed that Mirages would also and operate against the North from there. But I suppose a wing could be formed to operate in the south where the Canberras operated from.
 
Melvin Loh said:
Well, boys, wouldn't a greater RAAF/RAN commitment also mean that Phuoc Tuoy province doesn't get pacified as extensively, or at all, as happened OTL- since there'd be no large-scale Australian ground force presence to guard against and defeat the VC ? Anyways, wasn't the main reason why Canberra deployed the ATF to Vietnam due to the experioence of COIN ops in Malaya and Borneo where it was at the grassroots winning hearts & minds level ?

Riain said:
Yes Phuoc Tuoy won't get pacified, but that will hardly matter in the grand sceme of things. Nor will that bloody minefield get laid, which was a problem. And yes we used our co-in experience gained in Malaya/Borneo, but Vietnam was hotter than both of those. What's more we pretty much abandoned co-in after we left Vietnam, so all that experience went to waste when we re-configured our forces in light of the Guam Doctrine.

My thoughts are that post-Vietnam we re-configured the ADF in light of the Guam doctrine. So wouldn't it be nice if, in an effort to avoid conscription in 1964, we did our re-configuration by accident during the Vietnam period and came out of it with all 3 forces highly experienced in fighting at the higher levels of warfare. It was this experience that we sorely lacked when trying to stand on our own two feet post-Vietnam

Arthur Calwell wins the 1961 election and his government is re-elected in 1964*. Some form of National Service is possible, but there's no way in hell Arthur allows militiamen or nashos (whatever they're called) to serve overseas (and in OTL they had to voluteer for service in Vietnam). So no reinforced brigade is being sent to Vietnam if Calwell gets Australia involved in that war**, because the Army isn't as big/doesn't have the reserves of manpower to send overseas.

At Chat I just wrote something about Calwell's love of White Australia (in the thread about George Soros, of all things), and I've previously written about the man's susceptibility to the Kennedys; I believe he would have sent the AATTV (Australian Army Training Team Vietnam) if JFK's administration had asked him to become involved. (I also suspect a Calwell Vietnam commitment would be based on reciprocal acknowledgment of the WAP from Saigon.)

So Australia sends a light infantry force, maybe a 'special services brigade'; Phuc Tuoy is probably secured by ARVN rangers led by the team, fighting alongside this smaller group of diggers; after all, if Vung Tau is to be used by the RAN the province around it has to be cleared. Anyway, the whole show is still as unwinnable as OTL, but at least there would be fewer Australian casualties. What price glory.

I guess Menzies and his successors went with the taskforce-sized deployment because they thought they were fighting a war just like 1940 or 1950. I suppose that's why we sent tanks etc.


*Which is the difficult part. Having a successful multi-term federal ALP government in the sixties really involves no Evatt-inspired Split. Hmmm, Ted Serong was very close to the DLP; in a no-Labor-Split TL he could be an influence on, say, a defence minister Gough Whitlam!

**Domestically, a Labor government that gets us into Vietnam is going to have a lot of Blair-like problems with the base, but the party machine itself wouldn't really care, while the partyroom Left can't do much to stop it.
 
IOTL the Australian involvement in Vietnam was mainly an army show; 3 inf batns, with armour, aviation and SAS in support. The Navy slotted in a destroyer much of the time and the RAAF had a sqn of 8 Canberras.

WI instead of expanding the army the govt decided to put more RAAF and RAN assets as our commitment? The RAAF could have put 16 Canberras plus a sqn or more of the new Mirages into combat. The RAN could have kept 2 or 3 ships on the gunline, and as mentioned in other threads, sent the carrier Melbourne over for a visit or two. As for the army, their commitment could have been kept much smaller than 3 btns+, but perhaps could have been armour heavy with 2 Centurion sqns instead of 1, Saladin/Saracen armoured cars as well as APCs.

I don't see why a Coalition or Labor government that adopted a different Vietnam policy would send more MBTs (as well as buying & sending these armoured cars) but less infantry. A truly AH deployment would be an un-armoured force IMHO, save for the APCs. Think of the infantry & commando forces in the Pacific War.

Riain said:
Such an approach may have meant that conscription was not adopted, and Australia took a more capital-technological intensive approach to it's armed forces, instead of just recruiting a bunch of riflemen in emergencies. Without a bunch of national servicemen, let alone regulars, dying on the ground Australian support for the war may not have waned when it did. Also Australia may have ended the war with a very high tech military and the widespread belief that this was the only way to go.

The introduction of conscription pre-dated the Menzies commitment of the RAR by about a year (it's almost as if it was all planned that way...)
Anyway, as to your point about a different war prompting local technological development, the sixties in OTL was when Australia did decide to build those Mirages under licence; but it's a moot point, for if any Australian aircraft were sent over N.Vietnam it wouldn't have been the newer fighter-bomber or carrier models, it would have been the Canberras. The Mirages and the Skyhawks weren't meant for forward deployment in a war that even John Gorton admitted was being fought merely for alliance-related political reasons. The yanks could afford to waste their best equipment in a brushfire war--I can't see Australia as the only other Western nation sending its highest tech aircraft to a campaign like Operation Rolling Thunder. None of the other NATO countries ever did such a thing during the Cold War.

Riain in the HMAS Melbourne thread said:
In Australia Vietnam's popularity followed similar lines to the US, possibly lagging by 6 months. So in the mainstream it had popular support even after Tet, despite the students and hippes carry-on.

It was probably more like a year, but then it's not as if our commitment to Vietnam was ever that strategically serious, regardless of the lives lost. Though I'd argue the US wasn't serious, either--and their casualties were much more shocking.

I think the greatest impact Australia could have had was to train a larger section of the ARVN than we did OTL. Perhaps no large taskforce means a lot more personnel for the team? Perhaps Nui Dat could have been the headquarters for a training battalion or NCO/officers school?

So, we end up buying the Republic of Vietnam an extra month of life because of its slightly better trained army.
 
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Prior to Vietnam we had 130ish Centurions, 30 Saladins, 15 Saracens and 12 Ferret armoured cars, so those were around while conscription was debated and enacted.

What I'm suggesting isn't overly radical, we did send bombers, tanks, warships, but not until we'd introduced conscription and built up a large force of infantry. I'd suggest that during the debate about introducing conscription in 1964 some bright spark suggest that instead of sending conscripts overseas we accompany regs with RAAF and RAN combat units. These could equal another btn in terms of servicemen numbers.

Gotta go.
 
A few thoughts. Australian strategy in Vietnam was never annunciated, the choices being to seek out and engage main enemy units, or to control the local forces and work with local populations, so in the end we did a bit of both. The first option would need more armour and the latter more civil assistance. Perhaps if a strategy of engaging the enemy main forces was set out at the beginning a machine-intensive commitment would be chosen instead of an manpower-intensive commitment.

Australia had a lot of commitments in the SEA area during the Vietnam period. There was a Sabre sqn in Udon Thailand 62-68, Mirages in Butterworth from 68 onwards. The RAN had ships deployed with the Far East Strategic Reserve for the entire time too. If these deployments were changed from OTL exercises etc to war tours in Vietnam Australia could easily sustain quite a powerful force in Vietnam without recourse to conscription to fill infantry btns.
 
Riain said:
Prior to Vietnam we had 130ish Centurions, 30 Saladins, 15 Saracens and 12 Ferret armoured cars
I didn't know that about the wheeled vehicles.

Riain said:
so those were around while conscription was debated and enacted.
As the recently departed Peter Howson made clear in his political diaries there wasn't a real debate about conscription in Ming's cabinet. Everyone of them just assumed that as in 1940 and 1950 the Army would need conscripts to deal with the 'Domino Theory'.

What I'm suggesting isn't overly radical, we did send bombers, tanks, warships, but not until we'd introduced conscription and built up a large force of infantry. I'd suggest that during the debate about introducing conscription in 1964 some bright spark suggest that instead of sending conscripts overseas we accompany regs with RAAF and RAN combat units. These could equal another btn in terms of servicemen numbers...

A few thoughts. Australian strategy in Vietnam was never annunciated, the choices being to seek out and engage main enemy units, or to control the local forces and work with local populations, so in the end we did a bit of both. The first option would need more armour and the latter more civil assistance. Perhaps if a strategy of engaging the enemy main forces was set out at the beginning a machine-intensive commitment would be chosen instead of an manpower-intensive commitment.

Australia had a lot of commitments in the SEA area during the Vietnam period. There was a Sabre sqn in Udon Thailand 62-68, Mirages in Butterworth from 68 onwards. The RAN had ships deployed with the Far East Strategic Reserve for the entire time too. If these deployments were changed from OTL exercises etc to war tours in Vietnam Australia could easily sustain quite a powerful force in Vietnam without recourse to conscription to fill infantry btns.

There was talk at some point of increasing the Australian commitment to divisional strength, during the erratic Gorton period; this would have met the criteria of engaging more NVA regiments (and there was already one such unit in Phuoc Tuoy IIRC), but moving into different provinces, possibly returnng to Bien Hoa, all this increases the need for conscription and reduces the resources given to the RAAF etc. The Coalition government didn't want that. National Service was always more unpopular than the war. Until the war was almost totally rejected, that is.

Removing all forces from Malaysia was not politically viable, unless Doc Evatt is PM in the late fifties and he abides by the Labor platform that was changed by the hard Left in 1955. But that reduces the possiblity of Australia even becoming involved in Vietnam.

If you're looking for a POD where an Australian government goes with a small, high-tech force for service in a brushfire war, a force with the best naval and airforce weaponry, yet without much infantry (but with more armor), I think things have to change dramatically post-World War Two.
 
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"'Ming' cabinet", now there's an obscure reference if I've ever heard one.

I just think that an 'infantry last' deployment schedule could have been used instead of the OTL schedule. So before we send another btn in 1966 we send tanks, APCs, med arty, armoured cars, RAAF sqns and RAN ships.
 
I just think that an 'infantry last' deployment schedule could have been used instead of the OTL schedule. So before we send another btn in 1966 we send tanks, APCs, med arty, armoured cars, RAAF sqns and RAN ships.

The likes of Pemberton have written much about the culture of the military brasshats of the era, and I think it's worth considering just how conservative the officer corp and the public servants they worked with were. That is, they weren't very imaginative.

F'rinstance, the SAS and the commando squadrons were only established in the fifties, they were not standing units that had existed since the Second World War (those special forces had been disbanded). Also, until well into the nineteen-fifties the main contingency plan for Australia's military was to send a force to the Middle East for service with the British, as had been the case in 1914 and '39. Vietnam was an improvement on that thinking. It was at least based on refighting Korea and the Malayan Emergency, not the world wars.

Anyway, if Australia had to make the mistake of getting into Vietnam then the government should have overridden the desire of the Army to have a 'proper' campaign, one where the chaps of the RAR and tank corp would earn their battle honours the old fashioned way. Giving Brigadier Serong a blank cheque and more regulars for his very unarmoured operation; sending the Melbourne to operate off of Cochinchina (and no further north) while the Canberras were used in Rolling Thunder to appease the yanks; these are things that would have been preferable to what was done, IMHO.
 
Wasn't the whole point that regular forces were what was needed to combat the VC, much like in Malaya and Borneo, and that training irregulars wasn't going to cut it? If that was the case, hence the OTL conscription and boosting the Army right up, I personally would use the most balanced force the ADF could deploy and avoid the reliance on infantry forces. Half the infrantry but double the armour, warplanes and warships would give a similar level of commitment to OTL without the multiple hassle of conscription and forge a more modern and relevent ADF for the post-Vietnam era.

How's that for a neat solution to the ADFs problems!!
 
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