While visiting the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) exhibition in Washington for the first time as Head Land Capability, Major General Richard Vagg took some time out to speak with ADM about his reason for making the long journey from Australia and his vision for the future.
MAJGEN Vagg explained that, given Army’s close relationship with the US – and US Army in particular – he considers AUSA a good opportunity to understand what the latest developments are, in terms of emerging and developing capabilities.
“AUSA is a great opportunity for Australian companies to showcase their wares,” he said, noting that around 60 local businesses attended the show under the Team Defence Australia banner.
“Some of these companies are offering world best capabilities, in the areas of communications, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), additive manufacturing and the like,” he added. “So, it is an opportunity to both support these companies and understand exactly what’s out there.”
With Army undergoing a rapid restructure and accelerating modernisation in the wake of the recent Defence Strategic Review (DSR), MAJGEN Vagg said that it is important to understand where trends are heading in the future.
The AUKUS partnership is also on his radar and he told ADM that he wants to break down barriers in terms of technology transfer. “That goes two ways,” he said, “Australia has world-leading technology in some areas and research in others, especially in technology areas such as hypersonics, additive manufacturing, and resilient autonomous systems.”
MAJGEN Vagg added that AUKUS aims to leverage the best efforts of all three partners to maximise capability outcomes, and that, if AUKUS isn’t the best vehicle to realise this, then it may be beneficial to maintain alternative bilateral co-development programs. It is about leveraging the best partnership architecture for the capability in question.
“It is about freeing up technology transfer so we can exchange and share knowledge,” he explained.
“But it’s two-way and also opens the door for Australian Industry to display their technology on the world stage.”
With regard to the recently announced restructure of Army, MAJGEN Vagg said that strategic circumstances have changed and the ADF needs to adapt to meet the challenges.
“The Army, built around like brigades, served us really well when we were rotating troops through the Middle East on a six-monthly rotational basis. That model and that system is no longer fit for purpose.
In addition to refocusing Army’s combat brigades, MAJGEN Vagg added that the restructure allowed Army to form a brigade in Adelaide, focused on long-range fires, that can project force to a point of need, providing the organisational architecture to realise DSR direction.
It also enabled the establishment of an innovation and experimentation unit to accelerate the adoption emerging and disruptive technologies. The experimentation force idea builds on the exploration work that has been undertaken by the Future Land Warfare Branch and scales up live force experimentation. Scaling up will accelerate understanding and inform user requirements for the future, and ultimately enable faster transition of new capability into the hands of soldiers.
“Enabling Army to apply emerging technology, such as autonomy and quantum technologies, informs our organisation, our concepts and importantly how we counter the adversary technologies; these are the key outputs from the experimentation unit,” he explained.
“Finally, we have a unique opportunity, a nexus in time. A number of our major capability programs are in the process of delivering, which can now be coupled with organisational change through Army’s rapid restructure. As an Army we can ensure as new world class equipment is being delivered from next year, our teams are postured and focused to rapidly realise the capability uplift. I can focus equipment to support focused capability uplift in the right location and rapidly assure Army is postured for the future.’
One of the new capabilities MAJGEN Vagg refers to is the DSR’s recommendation that Army expands and accelerates its Littoral Manoeuvre acquisition program under Land 8710. He said that Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart is realising Government’s intent that we will become a “littoral manoeuvre Army”, as opposed to having the landing craft as a niche skillset.
“We’ll seek to acquire enough landing craft to have a littoral manoeuvre unit in each of the brigade locations, so we have a habitual relationship with that brigade and so it becomes normalised,” he said.
“Why is it important? It’s important in competition, it’s important in crisis and it’s important in conflict.”
MAJGEN Vagg was coy about the Land 8710 schedule however, saying that Army will shortly be taking its plans to government for consideration.
When asked about how Army will mitigate the battlefield lift capability lost with the recent grounding of its MRH 90 Taipan fleet, MAJGEN Vagg told ADM that his intent is to introduce the Sikorsky UH-60M as quickly as possible and supplement training through “a number of mechanisms.”
In the meantime, however, utility lift capability will be provided by Army’s Boeing CH-47F Chinook helicopters.
With the introduction of the Black Hawk and, in the near future, Army’s Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters, he points to the synergies that can be realised.
“It allows us to leverage global synergies for each of those three fleets (Black Hawk, Chinook and Apache), which brings down the cost of ownership and also makes sustainment easier. It links us with our US allies and partners, enabling interoperability both through operations and through weapons systems,” he explained.
“As part of the Army restructure, we will consolidate attack aviation (Apache and Chinook) in Townsville and we’ll have the Black Hawks in south east Queensland (at Oakey) and in Sydney.
“That allows us to develop two industry hubs: one based on Boeing up in Townsville, which will service the AH-64 and CH-47 fleet; and one in south-eastern Australia, which will look after the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky fleet of Black Hawks and (Navy MH-60R) Seahawks. It gives a density of aircraft in both of those locations, so it becomes a genuine industry hub and they will then become legitimate industry hubs for our partners to leverage in the Indo-Pacific region.”
When asked by ADM how Army will balance the new capabilities such as long-range fires and littoral manoeuvre with its core mission - which is essentially to seize and hold ground, MAJGEN Vagg said that the mission will remain the same – albeit with the new capabilities - as part of an integrated force.
“Armies don’t deploy as individual entities in conflict, they deploy as a package, a team of teams – what we call an integrated force, where we will need to leverage and apply effects across the five domains (Land, Air, Sea, Cyber and Space),” he responded.
“We’re acutely aware of the lessons that are being learned out of Ukraine and part of that is understanding how industry is looking at those emerging trends and as part of our integrated team trying to deal with the more complex and challenging problems that have been put in front of us.”