An Alternative History of the Australian Army Armoured CorpsPart 2As the years progressed, the rumblings to Australia's north became louder. Indonesia, which was formerly the Netherlands East Indies until they won their independent in 1949 started agitation to take over the last of the Dutch colonies in the region, the western half of the island of New Guinea. Australia's conservative government became alarmed at this. However the Australian Army had been run down since the World War. It had only a reinforced brigade of infantry and some other units. It was unable to really, effectively do much. Even the Royal Australian Navy had been let go and only had three destroyers and an aircraft carrier to it's name.
Alarmed, the Australian Government started to increase the size of the Australian Army. They also started to re-equip it. The Army again went to the US to see what was available in 1963. They ordered M113 APCs. They also ordered M48 MBTs which were now available. The ordered 150 M48a3s. This was sufficient to equip two armoured regiments. They were the Prince of Wales Hunter River Valley Lancers and 1 Armoured Regiment. They also ordered the F-111 fighter-bomber and the Perth Class DDGs. However, none of this was to see any use against the Indonesians.
Instead of going to war with the Indonesians, Australia went to war in Vietnam. They sent initially an infantry battalion. They were attached to the US Army 173rd Airborne Brigade. The CO of the battalion was not satisfied with the way in which the US Army conducted it's COIN operations and recommended to Canberra that a Task Force (aka “brigade”) be sent and a province be allocated to the Australians. The Task Force took over Phouc Tuy province, on the coast and was reinforced by a squadron of APCs and a squadron of MBTs. There were some doubts about the utility of MBTs in COIN operations with newspaper editorials suggesting they would be “mobile pillboxes”. They were proved wrong. The M48s performed admirably. They escorted convoys, they helped perform offensive and defensive tasks.
The KitA 1/35 Tamiya M48a3. It is painted with Vallejo acrylics. Decals from Kit Spackman.
