RAA Liaison Letter 2024 - 2025 Edition

RAA Liaison Letter – 2024 / 2025 Edition 83 stories of a variety of soldiers and officers, the book also recognises that operating and employing artillery is fundamentally a human endeavour, and so points to the Australian artillery’s soul. Authors Paul Stevens and Nick Floyd were asked to deliver a single, up-to-date, succinct and accessible reference, and they have succeeded admirably on all fronts. The narrative covers all the milestones in the Australian artillery’s journey to modern times without delving too deeply into particulars. It strikes a nice balance in the weight given to each part of the tale, with less well-known achievements receiving as much attention as more famous exploits. Crisp introductions prepare the reader for each chapter, and thoughtful conclusions prompt reflection before proceeding to the next section. Technical explanations are simple enough for the novice but contain sufficient detail to satisfy the more advanced reader, while photographs, maps, diagrams and call out boxes support and illuminate the text. The appendices include a wealth of additional detail that will prove a rich resource for those who want to know more. Action! Action! Action! is cleverly constructed and will appeal to a range of audiences. It is at once a fine primer for the uninitiated, a useful handbook for the Gunner professional, and a sound starting point for the more serious scholar. It is sure to be found on bookshelves wherever right and glory lead. Reviewed by Major General Chris Field DSC, AM, CSC Australia’s national aspirations, reverberate in the history of the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery. This work, by Lieutenant Colonel Nick Floyd and Major General Paul Stevens AO (Retd), supported by the Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company, forensically creates a shared understating of artillery’s role in maturing and enabling Australia’s national policies, particularly in the 150 years between 1871 and 2021. These aspirations include how leaders of Australia’s artillery fused, and continue to fuse, the changing application of technology, tactics, command, control, performance, and people to support the most widely-employed and persistently-lethal arm of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Today, the role of the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery is to maximise the combat power of the ADF through the provision of offensive support coordination and indirect firepower, surveillance and target acquisition and ground-based air defence. Enabling an understanding of this role, Action! Action! Action! A Short History of the Employment of Australian Artillery, 1871 – 2021, delivers a seventeen-chapter masterpiece analysing, defining, and describing the role and employment of Australian Artillery from European settlement in 1788 to the present day. The 2024 National Defence Strategy makes four references to fires, including: land based long- range fires and deployable strike capability; Precision Strike Missiles to extend the range and variety of targets for land based long-range fires; increasing stockpiles of land based long-range fires munitions; and, Government priorities for hypersonics, directed energy, trusted autonomy, quantum technology, information warfare and long-range fires. This twenty-first century strategic preference for deployable long-range fires, resilient logistics, and integrated science, is echoed throughout Action! Action! Action! Indeed, Floyd and Stevens deftly explain that artillery has always delivered effects more than guns. From inception, the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery employed an adaptive mindset, excelling at orchestrating a vast array of capabilities and their effects. At various epochs, these capabilities, included Australian artillery leading change, doctrine, and employment of fires, logistics, and science for anti-aircraft, anti- tank, anti-ship, counter battery, close and deep support, missiles, ammunition logistics, meteorology, radar, searchlights, survey, uncrewed air systems, professionalised headquarters, and liaison staffs. Action! Action! Action! achieves its premise, complementing, through historical analysis, the professional education of serving members of the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery. Thanks to the efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Nick Floyd, Major General Paul Stevens, and the Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company, Action! Action! Action! now proudly recounts the first 150 years of Australian Artillery. Reviewed by Dr Albert Palazzo Whenever I read a book that aspires to be a short history of what is a long complex story I do so with a degree of trepidation. What would the authors leave out, would they achieve the right balance and, most importantly, would they do justice to the account. It is with relief that I can