Historical weaponry of the Australian Army

Since the formation of the Australian Army on 1 March, 1901, it has used a variety of weaponry and equipment, sourced mainly from British, American and less frequently, other European manufacturers, but also weapons and equipment produced by local Australian manufacturers.

The Australian Army came into being when the six British colonies of Australia all held referendums to join together, and voted in favour of forming a federation, creating the modern nation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January, 1901. Prior to doing so, each of the Australian colonies were responsible for their own defence, and all had separate colonial armies. As each colonial army was responsible for the defence of their own colony, each colony separately contracted the purchase of their own equipment, so at the time that each colonial army merged into the newly formed Australian Army, there was a variety of incompatible equipment used by the various interstate units.

One of the first tasks of the newly formed Army following restructure and the creation of unified hierarchy and command chains, was to uniformly equip the new national army. This was no easy task, as at the time of the foundation of the Australian Army, all six colonial armies were in the field involved in the Second Boer War. Whilst badge changing ceremonies were performed, and hats and uniforms supplied, it proved impractical to fully re-equip in the field. Consequently, the Martini-Henry which was favoured by the majority of colonial units, was persisted with for much of the first decade of the twentieth century.

Second Boer War to World War I

The Australian Army was founded by a merger of the six separate armies of the six independent Australian British colonies. At the time of the official merger of those forces on 1 March, 1901, all six colonies had troops already engaged in combat in the field during the Second Boer War in South Africa. It was obviously impossible and unnecessary to completely re-equip and re-uniform the forces whilst they were deployed, and most of the colonial armies wore similar looking Khaki uniforms anyway. A symbolic ceremony to replace colonial badges was held in the field, with Australian soldiers being adorned with the new symbol of the Australian Army - the Rising Sun Badge, for the first time.

Infantry Weapons

ide-arms

*flagicon|GBR Beaumont-Adams Revolver (.450 calibre)
*flagicon|GBR Enfield Revolver (.476 calibre)

Long-arms

*flagicon|GBR Martini-Henry Rifle (.577/.450 calibre)
*flagicon|GBR Snider-Enfield Rifle (.577 calibre)

Horses

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World War I

By the outbreak of World War I, the equipment of the Australian Army had become standardised, and was essentially the same as most of the armies of the British Empire. The one major difference was the preference of kangaroo leather over canvas for webbing and other equipment, straps and belts.

Korean War

The Korean War began with many Australian units still equipped with weapons that they had used during World War II. Whilst there was minor changes such as the replacement of the British 4.5 inch Howitzer in favour of the American built 105 mm Howitzer M3 as the primary artillery piece the most dramatic changes to Australian equipment during the Korean War period actually came in the form of the aircraft used by the Royal Australian Airforce. Despite this, important lessons learned duirng the Korean War would influence the way the Australian Army re-equiped to adapt to the needs of modern warfare in time for the Australian Army's insertion into the Vietnam War.

Recent Equipment

References

*Skennerton, Ian (1975). "Australian Service Longarms." ISBN 0-9597438-0-4
*Skennerton, Ian (1989). "100 Years of Australian Service Machine Guns." ISBN 0-949749-12-5