Abrams arrives

Earlier this year when I tried to get my LR Discovery on the Indian Pacific railway from Sydney to Perth I found I had to load it at Adelaide. The reason? The vehicle was too high for the rail link from Sydney to Perth. So I’m not surprise when I read in the Australian article that the Abrams tank is likewise to high to go on the same line. It is also too wide and too heavy. Not only am I not surprised but neither are the military, the government nor the railway companies. The only people surprised are the media; at least that’s my interpretation of the tone of article.

THE army’s newest frontline weapon, the Abrams battle tank, arrived in Australia yesterday and immediately encountered problems, with no rail transport available to carry the tank to the Northern Territory.

It didn’t immediately encounter problems at all. The problems were long known and plans already in place to impliment additions to rolling stock to carry them. The fact that they aren’t in-service today reflects on the speed of the Abrams purchase and the subsequent need for logisitc tail to catch up; it doesn’t reflect poor planning. The article also mentions the weight limitations of the bridge at Katherine, a fact I remember well from my army days, but since then I have travelled extensively in North Queensland and the Territory and have often been forced to the side of the road by alarmingly large low loaders carrying trucks and plant to mines that make the Abrams look like a mere baby. But still, the tone of the article serves its purpose; to make the military look guilty of poor planning and of having made the wrong decision in the first place to buy the Abrams. As if the journalist, Mark Dodd knows better. He is of a politiical conviction that damns the Abrams project from day-one. It’s American, it’s defence orientated and the purchase was initiated by a conservative government. Mark’s most recently ran his colours up the flag pole with Martin Chulov; the defender of the indefencable “Israel deliberately attacked an ambulance” hoax. He is tainted with an anti-military/Howard/Bush/US brush and would be better employed at The Age, rather than at the Australian. I posted previously on the Abrams tank deal and comments were left doubting the wisdom of the the purchase but they were by people who know and make their calls based on experience, knowledge and training; not ideology. UPDATE: Lt Gen Peter Leahy, Chief of Army agrees with me;

THE article on the Abrams tank by Mark Dodd (“Army’s $500m tanks in the wars”, 23-24/9) is disappointingly negative and ill-informed. With regard to rail transportation, when the next shipment of 41 tanks arrive by sea in Darwin in March 2007, Army will have in process the acquisition of rail carriages to move them on the north-south railway. There is no need to acquire these carriages yet. The tanks that arrived in Melbourne will be stationed in Puckapunyal and used for training at the School of Armour. There is no need for these tanks to move to Darwin.