why was there only 2000 australians in iraq during the war? isn't

>>32585591
https://www.army.gov.au/our-history/history-in-focus/australian-army-in-afghanistan

26,000 in Afganistan

It wasent Australia's oil. They should of staid home

>>32585591
Correct me if I'm wrong but Australia did not have a big role in Iraq. They were mostly in Afghanistan.

Still these >>32585602 numbers don't add up since the total military size is at least double what they had in Afghanistan. Perhaps the numbers add up in small amounts and groups when you account for the Navy and Air force.

I don't know if it had any impact on numbers, but the Iraq War was very controversial and had a lot of opposition here. In fact, basically everywhere. There were coordinated protests around the world, I think the largest one day event brought in something like 20 million protesters across a couple dozen or so cities.

There were weekly protests in cities across Australia and around the world, sometimes more than one a week. People knew the war was bullshit, and knew it was going to turn into a giant clusterfuck.

With Afghanistan, there was a sense that we actually were bringing justice to the place. The protests against that were pretty minor in comparison, and the level of repression there was huge, North Korea huge. At least Iraq had fucking radios.

When talk of the Iraq invasion came along, there was also a very real sense that this was going to turn into a rolling war, where we would invade Iran next, then maybe in a few years time North Korea. This was at the height of the talk about an "Axis of Evil" and if we're invading one, it was only reasonable that we would invade them all.

>tl;dr because Iraq was a stupid idea

Think off the top of my head a bit over 20,000 served in Iraq over the years

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>>32585591
ADF in Iraq was basically only 1 x Battalion Group plus a National HQ of brass sucking the US dick in Baghdad.
Same with Tarin Kowt in Afghan with HQs in TK plus regional in Kandahar plus National HQ in Kabul, so more HQs than boots OTW.
1 x Infantry Bn out in FOBs and getting in a few contacts but only 1 x SAS Sqn and 1 x Commando Coy out actively hunting Talibs.
The 41 casualties were about half SF and the rest mainly Engineers clearing roads for IEDs, and one Cook and a few grunts killed in green-on-blues
ADF HQ and Parliament overstated the figures by including having 1 x FFG sailing around betwwen the Gulf and Indian Ocean in the figures.
>boat sailors cruising between Iraq AO including Gulf and Afghan AO off Paki coast with no Taliban Navy still got both Iraq and Afghan campaign medals
Only a handful of Navy Divers actually went to Afghan to do land EOD

>>32585957
Iraq
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Muthanna_Task_Group
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwatch_Battle_Group_(West)

Afghan
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentoring_Task_Force_One
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_Defence_Force_casualties_in_Afghanistan

Australian Army has 2 divisions
1st Division, active duty
2nd Division, reserve
And logistical support

The 1st division is comprised of 3 brigades

It is capable in a surge situation of deploying a Brigade
Last time it did this was in Vietnam
East Timor in 1999 came close with a Brigade HQ and two battalions and cavalry and SAS

It is tailored towards Battalion sized battlegroups

The Iraq War contribution consisted primarily of the SAS, a premier fighting force respected around the world and worth far more above their weight per man

The Army was already in Afghanistan with SAS, Commando Regiment, combat engineers, trainers, air traffic control, logistics, etc

It simply doesn't have the manpower or resources for two front operations

Nor should it

>>32585957
>boat sailors cruising [...] Afghan AO
>boat
>Afghan
wut
>Navy Divers in Afghan
What sort of SF training do the Clearance Divers do? I've read they were part of the team that boarded that North Korean freighter.

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>>32586025
RAN Clearance Divers do SF-role Maritime Tactical Ops and Ship-boarding, some also are in TAG East with 2 Commando.
CD Petty Officers all do both Land and Maritime EOD, so some were in Joint EOD in Afghan, others did sea mine clearance in Gulf2

>>32585957
Did you go over there? We lost Infantry Soldiers in contact with the enemy also, do not talk down their role.

They never deployed a Battalion element of Infantry, it was always a Company Plus element (sometimes 2 Companies).

The role changed significantly throughout the course of the campaign.

06-08 - Reconstruction Task Force was a Company of Infantry lead by an Engineer CO whose job was to go out and build, reconstruct things in and around the TK bowl. 1 and 2 RAR were involved in Significant contacts during that course as they were used as Perimeter security while Engineers built stuff.

08-10 Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force was a Company Plus worth of Infantry who have been split in to elements such as OMLT (Observation Mentoring Liason Team) who trained and lived with the ANA, Force Protection Company Team were the 3 Infantry Platoons out on constant Operations (This is also when the Aus Gov extended Deployments to 9 months from 6), this increased in size as the ANA created more areas and the presence of OMLT needed to mirror that. Infantry were used often as Perimeter security elements for OMLT lead Operations against the Taliban, resulting in again, significant Contact with the enemy. Some battles were the largest in scale since the Vietnam War.

10 - 12 Australian Task Force was a scaled back Deployment where they handed bases back to the ANA, withdrew OMLT teams, did significantly less Operations and eventually ATF1 and ATF2 (2012-2014) were sent to pack these bases up and sit around.

Now, the reason behind this was the considerable amount of Casualties sustained during 2010/11 when 6RAR were in country.

Our Army is very small, our Deployment to Afghanistan was very large considering the size. A lot of Infantry guys did 3+ Deployments if they had skills that other Battalions lacked numbers in (Snipers for instance), our SF guys some where up to 12 Deployments (Given, those are of shorter length).

>>32586749
>our SF guys some where up to 12 Deployments
Been deployed so long, they could probably meet the residency length for Afghan citizenship! :^)

>>32586749
not forgetting getting shot in the back by ANA

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>>32586749
Yeah, I went there on 2 tours.
6RAR MTF1 did take more than a few KIAs, but even then 43 over 10 years is a lot less than 500+ in SVN in the same timeframe.
>>32586803
SOTG tours were short 4month rotations and some guys did 2 in a year so they racked up.
I worked with a US CWO2 in Kandahar who had done 9 years of almost backtoback tours in Afghan, apparently 10years was citizenship.

>>32586892
I also did 2 as Infantry. That's an unfair comparison, we faced Battalions of NVA and VC in Vietnam on 12 month rotations there. The nature of the two conflicts are polar opposites, add to that the massive increase in technology equipment and training. Americans lost, 58k in VN so one could draw a comparison in figures given the overall deployed COMBAT personell at any given time.

In the end casualties shouldn't be a dick measuring contest, we still suffered 230 wounded and those injuries horrific for the most part.

>>32585591
The Aussie Army only has 1 active division and is located on the other side of the world and a relatively tiny Air Force and Navy (compared to the USAF and Navy). No offence, but a military calling itself a "Defence Force" isn't exactly the US Military

>Some battles were the largest in scale since the Vietnam War.

Since....
1RAR had a couple of random contacts in Baidoa and McAliney got killed by his mates ND
2RAR got lost and brassed up the Indons at Batugade by mistake, Jones died from an ND, a Raafie died of aids/malaria, and one later suicided.
Somebody might have thrown a rock at 2RAR in Honiara and later one guy fell down a mineshaft.
AMTG had a few contacts and SecDet got a few IEDs but one fuckwit NDs or suicided with his own 9mm and the PM turns up at his funeral personally as if he was Monash himself.
Even Derapet wasn't exactly Paschendaele or Isurava.
>still it was better skills training than another 10 years of ExCroc/Hamel

>>32587105
*not a Raafie, a Truckie with 'respiratory illness', although the rumour was a raafie died after being medivaced back to Oz after he deployed outside his med class

Why wasn't every single soldier of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines deployed in the conflict?

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too busy practising killing chingy

>>32587105
Yeah fair point mate, I've been blinding pushing that narrative so long now I can't even remember why anymore.

Number of killed in Afghanistan
USA: 2,271
UK: 453
Canada: 158
France: 88
Germany: 57
Italy: 53
Poland: 44
Denmark: 43
Australia: 41
Spain: 35
Georgia: 31
Netherlands: 25
Romania: 23
Turkey: 15
Czech Republic: 10
New Zealand: 10
Norway: 10
Estonia: 9
Hungary: 7
Sweden: 5
Latvia: 4
Slovakia: 3
Finland: 2
Jordan: 2
Portugal: 2
South Korea: 2
Albania: 1
Belgium: 1
Lithuania: 1
Montenegro: 1

TOTAL: 3,407

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>>32587288
>kek he said negro

>>32587309
>ebic meme

>>32587288
and over 26k civilians. A really clean war, as always, by the americans.