Land Warfare: Winning the war on crap kit | ADM October 2012

This might be a courageous call but it seems Defence has finally cracked the near impossible task of acquiring and issuing kit which soldiers find wholly satisfactory. Gone seem to be the days when soldiers derided at least some items of their equipment, most often boots and webbing, as complete crap.

This dissatisfaction with the issue gear, plus a decade of conflict and the rise of the private security contractor sector, created a boom in sales of after-market equipment, which now appears to have plateaued.

Getting its act together appears to have taken Defence most of a decade, with the latest refinement the creation of the Diggerworks organisation which aims to work out just what the troops need, then get it to them quickly. This is modelled on the US Marine Corps’ Gruntworks and is headed by Colonel Jason Blain who commanded the Mentoring Task Force One (MTF-1) in Afghanistan in 2010.

So what do soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan reckon?

“We came over without doubt the best prepared and equipped task force that the Australian Defence Force has ever deployed on operations,” Lieutenant Colonel Kahlil Fegan, CO of MTF-4, a unit based around the Brisbane-based 8/9 RAR, said. MTF-4 operated in Oruzgan from January to July, a period covering winter and summer and the opening of the 2012 campaign season.

Well, as CO, he would say that wouldn’t he? But it’s a view echoed by his diggers. Four sat down around a table with ADM inside Patrol Base Hadrian, near Dehrawud, west of the main Australian base at Tarin Kowt, to give their views on the kit.

All wear the new US-made Crye Precision Multicam combat uniforms. This is exactly the same uniform worn by US troops and one consequence is that at any distance, US and Australian soldiers are indistinguishable.

It wasn’t like that with the distinctly Australian disruptive pattern combat uniform (DPCU), initially developed in the 1980s for operations in northern Australia but subsequently produced in different colour combinations for Middle East operations. An Australian Multicam is on the way.

For Afghanistan, the challenge was to come up with a camouflage pattern effective in both the arid desert and the lush green zone which can only be 50 metres apart. The US Army approved use of Multicam in 2010 and after trials by Australian Special Forces, the government announced in November 2010 at the last Land Warfare Conference that all soldiers operating outside the wire in Afghanistan would use Multicam.

Multicam wearing soldiers of MTF-4 deployed into Afghanistan in January 2012.

Sergeant, 28, a veteran of multiple deployments: “I haven’t seen anything that actually blends in with the environment, with the dasht, the desert, and the green zone, as well as this stuff. We have people patrolling on the high ground in the dasht and blokes down in the green zone. It’s one of the best bits of cam I have ever seen.

Another soldier said you could look at someone wearing Multicam 200 metres away and barely see him.

“On the ground, it doesn’t matter what pattern you are wearing as long as it does help you out and does work. We have seen for ourselves how well this works,” a second special forces operator said.

A third added: “The cam top breathes really well. It’s easy to access pockets and pull things out when you need them. It’s certainly comfortable to operate in, that’s for sure.

Durability

The only gripe is that the stuff isn’t perhaps as durable as it should be. That was famously illustrated by an image in the Sydney Telegraph newspaper showing a soldier with the crotch ripped out of his Crye trousers. Defence is aware of this problem.

Soldier: “We could be wearing chain mail and it would be ripped up. We go on very hard terrain, rocks. I would be surprised if they could provide something that wouldn’t rip, very surprised indeed.”

Fegan adds a commander’s perspective. He said some of his soldiers aspired the cool look of special forces by rolling their sleeves up – these days a no-no on operations for OH&S reasons, not least sunburn and the minor injuries than can afflict bare skin in a harsh environment.

“If I see a bloke with his sleeves rolled up, I say `if you can’t wear the uniform properly, I’m going to take that off you’. But I say `I can’t do that that to you because then the insurgents will target you because you look different. So what I’ll do is do is take it off your whole section. You can all hand in your uniforms’.”

Fegan said he had never had to carry through on this threat.

“They love this uniform. It is just more practical, better cut and you have all these internal pockets. It is very high-tech, very expensive. I find these really comfortable.”

Fegan said for the first time in his experience soldiers didn’t want to trade their kit for stuff they thought was better.

“That I can use the threat to take their equipment off them is a legitimate testimony to the fact that they like it. In the old days if you said `I’ll take the issue equipment off you’, they would have said ‘there you go’.”

He added that he first deployed on operations into East Timor in 1999.

“There is not a single thing I am carrying now that we carried then. Everything is new, right down to the socks.”

That certainly applies to the body armour. Soldier: “This is my fifth deployment all up across the space of my career. I have pretty much had each different body armour. I can 100 per cent say this is the best stuff we have ever worn. It’s comfortable, it’s well made, it’s the best thing Army has had so far.”

Lieutenant: “They have given us a platform that is suited perfectly to the environment. We carry a lot of weight when we are out on the ground, just by the nature of the job, and they have made it so it facilitates that and makes it a lot easier for the guys to move around, whilst still providing the safety they need from it.”

Another soldier, a machine gunner, said he carried the gun, 600 rounds of 7.62 link, a spare barrel and depending on the type of patrol, three litres of water, food, helmet and pistol, as well as the body armour.

“The TBAS allows you to take fire positions and gives you just that extra range of movement. You are able to move around so much easier, get up off the ground when you need to. That’s a big thing on the big patrols we go on. It certainly makes the day a lot easier,” he said.

Soldier: “The fantastic thing about TBAS is it can be changed in so many ways to suit all the different people on the patrol. There are people that can carry near on 50 kilograms if necessary, then you have backpacks thrown on it all. We have medical qualified personnel also carrying quite a lot of weight. Then you have radio carriers. From person to person it can vary between 20 and 50 kilos.

“The fact that TBAS can be moulded to each individual wearer as they see fit is just fantastic. Obviously there’s still a lot of weight there. The fact that our soldiers are as fit as they are... the TBAS allows them to do that.”

TBAS stands for Tiered Body Armour System and weighs around five kilograms. For frontline combat use it replaces the older and heavier MCBAS (Modular Combat Body Armour System) which weighs around 11 kilograms. MCBAS was the standard body armour for troops in Iraq but in Afghanistan it attracted substantial criticism because its weight and cut hindered the movement of heavily laden troops operating mostly on foot rather than in vehicles

Both types provide a high level of protection but for some applications, such as soldiers static at a checkpoint which could be targeted by suicide bombers, MCBAS would be a better choice. Defence still emphasises that body armour needed to provide a balance between protection and mobility and did not provide 100 per cent protection.

With perhaps a few exceptions – soldiers shot dead in green-on-blue incidents inside their patrol bases - all Australians killed in Afghanistan were wearing body armour.

Boots on ground

Perhaps no piece of kit has prompted more controversy than boots. Against the wide range of high quality mostly US-made after-market combat boots, the issue Australian-made Terra boot, were judged by many soldiers to be inferior.

Or as a reporter for the Army newspaper, colourfully and with tongue firmly in cheek, explained during a tour of the Terra factory in Sydney: “This is the place – the Redback factory, where men like these, made fat and rich off the pain and suffering of soldiers, sit and cook up schemes to make the worst combat boots money can buy.”

He concluded this was actually an Aussie firm working hard to produce a quality product. In-mid 2011 in the face of relentless grumbles from the soldiery, defence relented. If soldiers weren’t happy with the issue boots, they could buy their own from an approved list, with defence providing reimbursement of $192, the cost of a pair of Terra boots.

So what boots do members of our panel wear? Of the four soldiers, one was wearing the issue boots. Your correspondent’s (Navy) media escort officer was also wearing Terra boots - a 20 per cent strike rate.

“I have gone back to wearing the good old faithful issue boots,” explained one soldier. “That’s my choice. With the range of boots that are now signed off by Army, each individual can pick what is best suited to them. Everyone likes something that is lighter or provides more support. If you don’t like the boot, go and change them.”

Lieutenant: “I don’t find the issue boot comfortable at all whilst patrolling. Now we have the list out there, I can find a pair of boots suit me perfectly. That’s the same with near on everyone.”

Soldier: “That’s the same with the TBAS. Everyone wears their TBAS differently for the job they do. The boots are no different. Everyone’s got different feet and a different job."

Some of the other new kit also gets high marks. Fegan happily shows off his Steyr rifle fitted with the US-made ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight).

“I reckon this sight is the greatest invention for the infantryman since the advent of the machine gun. We have had blokes dropping targets out to 300 metres. They are a very effective sight,” he said.

Soldiers now wear protective eyewear whenever they are outside the wire. Fegan again: “I know of three instances where the glasses have probably kept a bloke in the field. I had two blokes who had bullets land within feet in front of their face while they were on the ground and blow rocks and stuff into their faces. They were able to shake it off and keep firing.

“Another soldier copped the backblast of a RPG or an 84 to the face. At the very minimum they would have been incapacitated for quite some time, flushing debris out of their eyes. In the best case their eyesight has been saved.”

Armoured undies

Another new piece of kit has attracted some attention, the armoured undies worn by all soldiers operating outside the wire. Actually these are akin to thick silk weave bike shorts, comfortably but unquestionably hot for soldiers operating in Afghanistan’s baking summer heat.

These are a recent innovation and follows from the experience of the British military in Helmand province where IED blasts left a significant number of soldiers with traumatic groin injuries including complete loss of genitalia. Among soldiers so damaged there was a distressingly high suicide rate.

“You can live without your legs. You cannot live without your old fellow,” observed RAAF Squadron Leader Ken Kemp, a trained nurse and head of a new defence organisation called AS CASPEAN - Australian Casualty and Protective Equipment Analysis.

Their job is to assess how well Australian equipment stands up to being shot and blown up, a concept drawn from a Canadian model. The aim is to find any problems with kit and to make it even better. Assessments and the damaged equipment, even damaged vehicles, go back to Australia to Diggerworks and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

Some images show how protective equipment works. One series shows a very sore Australian soldier sporting a large and livid bruise on the back of the leg, immediately below his backside. This is where a metal IED fragment penetrated his uniform but not his armoured underwear.

Another series shows multiple nonpenetrating bullet strikes on the ceramic plate of body armour worn by an American soldier. That occurred where an insurgent opened fire at close range with an AK-47. Unfortunately, the US soldier also took a number of non-survivable hits to the head, emphasising that body armour provides a high but not total level of protection.

A significant amount of CASPEAN’s work involves assessing blown-up Bushmaster vehicles, routinely damaged by insurgent IEDs. No Australian soldier has ever died in a Bushmaster and the Australian- made vehicle has attracted high praise.

As the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says in its 2012-13 defence budget brief: “Credit where it’s due. Despite significant development problems, the Bushmaster has been a vehicle in the right place at the right time for Army.”

Kemp, who has assessed the effect of Taliban home-made explosive against Australian-made steel, agrees.

“It’s certainly a vehicle I’m more than happy to travel around in. The life support systems and design of the Bushmaster are excellent,” he said.

Bushmaster has been steadily upgraded to enhance protection. The interior now features a spall liner and seating designed to better absorb impact.

Soldiers contribute to Bushmaster safety - body armour, protective eyewear and helmets remain on while travelling in Bushmasters outside the wire (see P64 for more on Bushmaster and other vehicles).

Diggerworks

Organisations such as CASPEAN and Diggerworks point to how a decade of experience operating in Iraq and Afghanistan has changed procurement practice, with the Army now willing to buy smaller quantities of equipment more often, rather than big quantities less often.

The Diggerworks “adaptive acquisition” approach emphasises buying less kit more often, enabling change to occur more quickly. No longer is everyone to be outfitted the same, with close combatants treated differently and those with special jobs different still.

Central to that process is getting feedback from the soldiers on their experience of the kit. That occurs during and at the end of each deployment.

Diggerworks has a range of other projects on the go. That includes integrated hearing protection. Cumulative exposure to loud noises such as gunshots or explosions can produce hearing loss, as many old soldiers can attest.

Water purification is another issue. Water is essential in hot climate operations but it’s heavy and can add to the burden of already heavily laden soldiers. So anything to allow soldiers to replenish along the way has to be a benefit.

One enduring problem remains in meeting the power needs of the modern digger, who relies on radios, night-vision equipment, GPS navigation systems, laser weapon sights, portable computers and chemical detectors, all requiring perhaps multiple battery changes in the course of an operation.

This isn’t just our problem. During the 2003 Iraq war, the US military was consuming a couple of tonnes of the common BA5590 radio battery a day and was hard-pressed to keep up supplies. Each BA5590 weighs a kilogram, lasts a day, is non-rechargeable and cost Uncle Sam around $US100 each.

Among the possibilities now under investigation in Australia are flexible solar panel battery chargers which form part of the digger’s uniform. Diggerworks emerged after years of soldier grumbling, punctuated by intermittent newspaper stories accompanied by accusations from Labor and the coalition, each blaming the other for ineptitude in ensuring those at the frontline received the equipment they needed.

In 2006, the army’s Report on Defective or Unsatisfactory Materiel (RODUM) system was in the spotlight with soldiers complaining that their gripes about dud equipment simply vanished with no action ever taken. Defence stood by the system but an inquiry found it inadequate for upgrading or improving items of equipment, although OK for reporting defects.

The RODUM inquiry report, released in late 2010, made some pertinent comments about the changing procurement environment in which defence found itself and the rising number of complaints about kit.

“One reason for this rise in concern is that there is an increasing amount of information available about alternatives on a range of websites which market and sell specialised products directly to combat, police and security personnel,” it said.

“Another reason is that new ADF members are increasingly used to doing their own research and to making informed choices. As a result they are more informed about alternatives.”

Soldiers, plus everyone else in the community, are used to a retail sector which responded speedily to changing demands. That could not be said of the military procurement system and the report said even if RODUM system was perfect, it wouldn’t stop ADF members being frustrated with the kit available and wider changes were needed. The key recommendation was that the Army, DMO and DSTO should establish and invest in a joint approach to testing, evaluating and improving combat clothing and personal equipment.

“This approach needs to capture the experience of ADF members who have recently returned from deployment,” it said. And that’s where Diggerworks comes in.

However, there were signs well before this that change was needed. The 2006 review of defence clothing procurement found not much right, thanks to a significant period of neglect coupled with heavy workloads to meet army needs, resulting in a culture of expediency, failure to consistently follow published procedures and heavy handedness when dealing with industry. The consequence was that neither suppliers nor the customers in uniform were happy.

It recommended a wide range of reforms to get the system back on track, warning that the problems would only get worse if there wasn’t prompt action. Other reviews followed, including the over-arching Mortimer review and then the RODUM review.

That raised one intriguing possibility which could spell the end of the traditional Q-store. That’s a system now being trialled in the UK where personnel order their kit from a comprehensive on-line catalogue and have it delivered to an authorised address worldwide. Sort of like amazon.com for soldiers.