The Principles of War - Lessons from Military History on Strategy, Tactics, Doctrine and Leadership.

This episode of the podcast sees the transition from the encounter battle through to D Coy moving to being completely on the defensive.

11 Pl becomes decisively engaged, with enemy flanking to the north whilst being engaged by 3 MGs from the front. As 11 Pl starts the call for fire, MAJ Smith calls for reinforcements in order to regain the initiative.

As the tempo of the artillery support increases, the audience at the Little Patty concert moves away to support the Coy in contact.

10 Pl moves towards the foot hills to the north, observing a force attempting to flank 11 Pl.

The Task Force initially refuses to reinforce the NZ 161 Bty, requiring time consuming switching between targets and adjustment. On later is 161 reinforced with 2 further batteries.

2LT Dave Sabbens 12 Pl detaches a section to provide security to CHQ and moves off 2 up to attempt to marry up with 11 Pl.

By now 2 hours into the battle, each Pl has a bty in support. 10 Pl is down to 50% ammunition and requests and ammo resupply. This is initially refused. The pilots who had bought up Little Patty to Nui Dat.

The US resupply would be 30 minutes which could be too late. Moral and physical courage is shown by the RAAF pilots as they ignore restrictions from Canberra about flying into contact in order to provide supply to the troops in contact.

The situation is so desperate that SGT Bob Buick, the PL SGT in 11 Pl calls in artillery on his on position. The FO refuses to bring the artillery onto their position, but brings the rounds in as close as possible.

11 Pl moves back marry up with 12 Pl and they commence to move back to CHQ.

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We continue our discussion with Dave Sabben, picking in the in the second half of July.

The base was being heavily reconnoitered. We discuss the preparation for the defences at Nui Dat. Dave suggests that Canberra believed that the base was considered to be safe and unlikely to be attacked.

The South Vietnamese intelligence was treated as suspect, as was the US intelligence because a lot of it was sourced from the South Vietnamese.

A radio intercept unit was located at Nui Dat. They were tracking the morse code communications. With direction finding, the sigint was providing some good intelligence showing a large force moving towards the east of Nui Dat 2.

The shelling on the 17th of August by mortars, RCLs and at least one artillery piece. B Coy was sent to locate the location of the mortar base plates and attempt to track down the force responsible.

Tracking the enemy was laborious, in dangerous terrain. B Coy remained out on the 17th and D Coy was sent to relieve them.

D Coy finds bullock tracks and blood stains leading into the rubber plantation. The tracks split and 10 Pl follows one and 11 Pl follows the second with 12 Pl bringing up the rear.

An minor obstacle crossing drill is conducted by the Coy as they come across a cattle fence. Sgt Bob Buick, the Pl SGT for 11 Pl sees 6 - 7 enemy soldiers with slung AK-47s, completely non tac. He opens fire with his Armalite, hitting at least one.

Six 6 vs a platoon with 30 troops is a good troop ratio orders Maj Smith gives LT Sharp to follow up the enemy. Shortly, they are engaged by a force that looks like another Pl, so the Coy needs to to reinforce 11 Pl.

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We discuss the terrain in Phuoc Tuy, including Long Tan and the defensive base at Nui Dat.

We discuss the demarcation in responsibility between the ARVN and the Australian troops and the impact of ARVN having responsibility for dealing with the roads and villages. We also discuss the strategic hamlet program and the impact of resettling the population out of Long Tan village and the creation of a free Fire zone in the area. How did the resettlement of villagers impact their lives?

The intent for the establishment of 1 ATF was to, "Help stop the fighting the South." 1 ATF turned this into "we will dominate Phuoc Tuy province in order to help stop the fighting in the South."

The plan was to secure the base and then expand the influence out from around the base and disrupt VC operating in the bush.

We discuss the impact of Lina Alpha, the 5km line out from Nui Dat that was to act as an exclusion zone,but but the time of Long Tan, there was 1 significant issue with it - we talk about the road that runs through the defensive perimeter and how the VC could conduct recon on the suspected minefields. The road was used to access Binh Ba in the north.

This sets the scene our next Episode - The Encounter Battle.

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Dave Sabben describes his experience when he joins D Coy, 6 RAR.

Dave makes an important point, many of the officers and SNCOs were newly promoted into their roles, a function of the rapid expansion of the Army.

Fifty percent of the diggers in Delta were National Servicemen.

In March 1966, 6 RAR is notified that they will be going to Vietnam. Delta left in early July,

The first birthday of 6 RAR was the 6th of June in 1966 and celebrated it's first birthday on the beach of Vung Tau. Dave and the rest of Delta Coy joined the battalion on the next day.

Training was conducted in air mobile operations and weapons training intensified. Second hand Armalites were issued to replace the Owen guns. The Owen gun was designed in 1939,

The building of the base at Nui Dat was commenced by 5 RAR in May.

6 RAR was deployed quickly to the base after intelligence suggested that an attack was being planned for the poorly defended base at Nui Dat.

We look at the creation of 1 Australian Task Force and look at the reasons behind it's placement in Phuoc Tuy Province.

The name Nui Dat, comes from the name of one of the terrain features, meaning small hill.

We discuss the importance of the Vung Tau.

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This lecture is presented by Dr Rhys Crawley, the author of Climax at Gallipoli.

Dr Crawley compares artillery at Gallipoli with the employment of artillery in 1915 on the Western Front.

Artillery was still seen as an accessory for the artillery, rather than as a separate arms distinct from the infantry.

What lessons where learnt at the Battle of Neuve Chappelle and how were those lessons applied at Gallipoli?

We look at the concentration of artillery at Gallipoli and compare it to the Western Front.

We look at troop / gun ratios and the actual guns that were deployed to Gallipoli. What was the quality like of the guns that were used?

How many men were required to move the guns? The average incline was 9% and in some places it was twice that. This significantly decreased the mobility of the guns and limited the flexibility in the employments of the guns.

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We look at the Scheyville Experience. This is important because it highlights the process required to train junior officers to be able to lead soldiers into combat and to win.

Scheyville had 1883 graduates, 1690 were National Serviceman, 355 served in Vietnam, and 8 gave there lives in Vietnam.

We look at the syllabus at OTU Scheyville, and we talk to Dave Sabben about his experience at Scheyville, from his Officer Selection Board, through to the training that he received at Scheyville.

What was the success rate of those volunteering to be officers?

What was the training like? How did they distill the concept of Leadership into the officer cadets? Given Dave's experience in Vietnam, how would he have improved it?

In just 22 weeks, Dave Sabben graduated from OTU Scheyville. We look at his recollections of the training and how he felt prepared to graduate as a Platoon Commander in 6 RAR.

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We start our look at the Battle of Long Tan, which occured on the 18th August 1966, 4km east of the Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat. Outnumber 20:1, the Australians took 18 KIA and 24 WIA in one of the most important and most famous battles of the whole Australian involvement in Long Tan.

Our guide through Australian Military's History most famous rubber plantation is Dave Sabben. Dave was the Platoon Commander of 12 Platoon, Delta Company on that day at Long Tan.

Conscription has been used by many countries through history as they rapidly increase the size of their defence forces in response to changing strategic circumstances, circumstances that have changed quickly and require a faster response than could be achieved with the full time Defence Force.

How did the Australian Defence Force mobilised for operations in Vietnam? We look at conscription and the history of professional armies.

We start by looking at some of the components of a professional army and what the role of conscription is within the concept of National readiness. Professional armies are very expensive to maintain and so we look at 2 components of readiness that are used to decrease the cost of having a large standing force.

How was conscription for Vietnam different to conscription in Australia during World War 2?

Dave starts by talking us through the conscription process and his initial training at Kapooka.

We look at the reason for the conscription in the 1960's.

Dave discusses what the aim of the training program was and the skills that officers were to receive at Scheyville.

How was the training program designed and how were leadership skills developed at OTU Scheyville?

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Why did the soldiers hold short of their objectives on the first day of the landings at ANZAC?

The 3rd Brigade were the first to land at Gallipoli. Why did COL Sinclair-Maclagan hesitate? How costly was this action?

What was the Turkish dispositions on the morning of the 25th?

If third ridge had been taken, what would have the impact for the campaign been?

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Brigadier Muhammad Asgharpresents a fascinating look at the forgotten gunners of Gallipoli, the 7th Mountain Indian Artillery Brigade, comprising the 21st (Kohat) Mountain Battery and 26th Jacob's Batteries. These Batteries become a part of the 1st Mountain Regiment in 1947 in Pakistan.

Jacob's Battery was the only gun in action on the 25th of April at ANZAC.

On the 26th of April Jacob's Bty was reinforced with Australian gunners, creating an amalgam battery. Jacob's and Royal Kohat batteries were the only guns in action at ANZAC on the second day.

A great story of crater analysis unearths the story of Turkish rounds marked CSF@RPA (made at Cossipore and filled at Rawalpindi). How did Indian ammunition end up being fired at Australian troops?

21st (Kohat) Mountain Battery was in action for 238 dayas and fired 12,248 round. They had 11 men killed, 134 wounded, (5 died of wounds), 35 animals killed, 199 animals wounded and 1 missing.

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In 1911 the NZ Government purchases 18 pounders and 4.5 inch howitzers as it starts to modernise.

Their first deployment was to German Somoa, as a part of the Samoa Expeditionary Force, retaking the islands from the Germans.

The ANZAC the NZ guns land, howitzers, on the 26th of April, 1915 and the field guns lands on the 27th.

Constrained by lack of suitable firing positions and ammunition, they supported Australian, New Zealand and British across the Gallipoli peninsula.

The withdrawal commenced on the night of the 11th of December and the the last guns were withdrawn on the night of the 19th of December.

What were the key lessons that were learnt?