The initial projections of a 1000-strong 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment Group (1 RAR) group in 1965 and of an independent 4500-strong task force to Vietnam in 1966 exposed problems with force projection that echoed deficiencies evident in 1942 (New Guinea), 1950 (Korea) and 1955 (Malaya). The Americans assisted the 1 RAR group in 1965. However, they were not in a position to do so for the task force in 1966. A seven-month military planning embargo (from August 1965 until March 1966) imposed by the government crippled tactical training and logistic preparations for the task force and, according to the official historian, Ian McNeill, ‘important matters were overlooked’.[35] These matters increased risk and put unnecessary pressure on those working at the tactical level of command.[36] This accumulation of risk could have resulted in Australia losing a tactical contest at Long Tan near the Australian task force base in August 1966 that would have had significant political and strategic consequences.[37]
Australian operations in Vietnam continued for another six years. Aside from a two-battalion sized operation outside Phuoc Tuy province in 1968 that also almost ended in military disaster, operations involved a slow, inconclusive attrition of Viet Cong guerrilla units in Phuoc Tuy province.[38] The army became proficient in the mechanics of force rotation. Battalion groups shed their national servicemen on return from Vietnam and most regular personnel moved on to other appointments in the army. Concurrently, other battalion groups reconstituted and prepared for their next tours of duty.
[35] Ian McNeill, To Long Tan: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1950–1966, The Official History of Australia’s involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1975, Allen and Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 1993, p. 191.
[36] Australian Army, Contingency Planning paper ‘Lessons Learnt from Operation Hardihood: The Deployment of the First Australian Task Force to South Vietnam in 1966’, Annex B, undated, p. 4. This paper appears to be an annex to a parent document that focused on logistics aspects of the deployment of 1 ATF. Probably written in 1971 for a CGS Exercise as part of a presentation by Major General G.F.T. Richardson CBE, Quartermaster General, ‘Logistics Aspects of Operation Hardihood’, AWM 101, item [10]. Copy held by author.
[37] Breen, ‘Australian Military Force Projection in the late 1980s and the 1990s: What happened and why’, pp. 32–52.
[38] See Ian McNeill and Ashley Ekins, On the Offensive: The Australian Army in the Vietnam War 1967–1968. The Official History of Australia’s involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1975, Allen and Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 2003.