Submarines protect Australia and it's sea lanes.  They are excellent deterrent forces.  Nuclear submarines are the best at this, they are a step up from conventional powered submarines being able to remain submerged for extended periods of time.  We presently do not have any nuclear powered submarines in our navy.  When we get some we will become a 1st world naval power.  Our COLLINS class submarines are ageing and require replacement.  The nuke boats will do that.

We have a long, extensive coastline.  We could not afford sufficient missile batteries to station them all along it.  They would be useful but expensive, hideously more expensive than the AUKUS boats.  They also would be more easily countered.  Submarines complicate an effort to attack us.  You need to be trained in anti-submarine warfare to counter them and that is enormously expensive and very difficult to achieve.  Missiles just need a surface to air missile to counter them, followed by a CIWS such as a Goalkeeper system or even a Cepter missile system to destroy them.

We presently do have a, "defence in depth", strategy.  We possess at present the largest, most complex air force in the neighborhood.  We possess a reasonable size and complex, naval fleet.  We possess a moderately sized and complex Army.  We are constantly improving matters by acquisition of new technologies.  We are transitioning the army from primarily an infantry force to a mechanized armoured force.  Just as the nature of warfare has changed in the last 60 years, so has the Australian Army.  We have gone from being a very professional infantry force to a professional mechanized armoured force.  We are the equal if not the superior to all the nations in our neighborhood. 

The amateurs speak of strategy, the professionals talk about logistics and how we can supply our forces no matter what the terrain is.  When we exercise overseas, our opponents tend to find our forces where they do not expect us and we defeat them.  On our last exercise at the US National Training Center in Arizona, we were the only foreign force to defeat the OPFOR units facing us.

Aid to the Civil Power is what that is called officially.  Defence personnel are a ready source of manpower and equipment.  They are semi-trained in the tasks they are asked to perform.  Some are well trained, such as Engineers and Signalers.

I was involved in the Ash Wednesday bushfire way back in 1983.  I drove my unit's water tanker which the CFS needed in face of the overwhelming bushfire they were facing.  The Army was not properly utilised in that event.  The CFS thought we were untrained and had us sitting on the sides of roads rather than fighting the bushfire.  The CO of 4 MD saw this and asked some very difficult questions of the CFS which they really couldn't answer.  We could have been used to clean up after the fire front had passed, putting out spot fires even if we were not trusted to fight the fire directly.

The Army regularly has bushfires on defence ranges which occur every year and trains personnel in fire fighting.  For Cyclone recovery we are quite able to cut up downed trees and rescue stranded people across flooded creeks/rivers.

Brian Ross wrote on Mar 18^th, 2025 at 8:03pm:


Like you, I was trained in firefighting, was a member of 2 Base Workshop Fire Brigade [was the OIC a Brigadier?] and we practiced once a week with the engine and pumps especially, making sure that they were ready at all times.
Typically jobs were small bushfires caused by artillery on the field firing range, with unexploded shells as a bonus.