page_title: Australian Army during World War II
section_title: Equipment
hierarchical_section_title: Australian Army during World War II / Equipment
caption_attribution_description: 6th Division Ordnance QF 25-pounder Short guns being towed behind jeeps during a parade at Wondecla in Queensland.
context_page_description: The Australian Army was the largest service in the Australian military during World War II. Prior to the outbreak of war the Australian Army was split into the small full-time Permanent Military Forces and the larger part-time Militia. Following the outbreak of war, on 14 September 1939 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced that 40,000 members of the Militia would be called up for training and a 20,000-strong expeditionary force, designated the Second Australian Imperial Force, would be formed for overseas service. Meanwhile, conscription was introduced in October 1939 to keep the Militia at strength as its members volunteered for the AIF. The Australian Army subsequently made an important contribution to the Allied campaigns in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa fighting the Germans, Italians and Vichy French during 1940 and 1941, and later in the jungles of the South West Pacific Area fighting the Japanese between late 1941 and 1945. Following the Japanese surrender Australian Army units were deployed as occupation forces across the South West Pacific. Meanwhile, the Army contributed troops to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan from 1946.
context_section_description: The Australian Army generally had a long-standing policy of using British-designed equipment, but equipment from Australia, the United States and some other countries was introduced into service in the war's later years. Pre-war defence policies favoured the RAN, which received the majority of defence spending in the interwar period. The result was that when war came in 1939, the Army's equipment was of World War I vintage, and Australian factories were only capable of producing small arms. Most equipment was obsolescent and had to be replaced, and new factories were required to produce the latest weapons, equipment and motor vehicles. Some 2,860 motor vehicles and motorcycles suitable for military use were purchased in 1939 for the Militia and another 784 for the 6th Division, but since a division's war establishment was around 3,000, this was only enough for training. In February 1940, the Treasury urged the War Cabinet to slow orders of motor vehicles to save the shipping space used for sending them to the Middle East for wheat cargoes.
  Throughout the war, Australian infantry units were largely equipped with British-designed but Australian-made small arms and support weapons. The standard rifle was the SMLE No 1 Mk III*, manufactured since 1912 at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory. Small quantities of the Lee–Enfield No.4 Mk I/Mk I* rifle, made by the Long Branch Arsenal in Canada and Savage-Stevens Firearms in the US, were used in New Guinea although most of these rifles were provided to other branches of the Australian military and to the Volunteer Defence Corps in order to free up No.1 MkIII* rifles for frontline infantry units. American-made M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles and M1 carbines were also issued to some Australian infantry units attached to US Army formations in New Guinea. Direct fire support was provided by a mixture of machine guns, including the Vickers machine gun which was produced at Lithgow from 1929, which were utilised by specialised machine-gun battalions and, later, also medium machine-gun platoons within infantry battalions. The Bren Gun replaced Lewis Gun as the standard automatic rifle in the early years of the war, and within infantry battalions was utilised at the section level. Their manufacture in Australia started in 1941. To improve rates of fire, the American Thompson submachine gun was introduced but it was eventually replaced by the Australian-designed Owen Gun and the British-designed but Australian-modified and -made Austen submachine gun. Infantry platoons were also equipped with M36 grenades. The Boys anti-tank rifle was the standard infantry anti-tank weapon at the start of the war, but was replaced with the PIAT in 1943. The heavier support weapons used by infantry battalions the war included the 2-inch mortar and Stokes 3-inch mortar. Infantry battalions were also equipped with Universal Carriers until being converted to  the tropical warfare establishment in 1943, when the organic carrier platoons were consolidated into companies assigned at divisional level. A man-pack flamethrower was also introduced in 1945.
  Not until 17 January 1940 did Richard Casey obtain Cabinet's approval to spend £400,000 to construct a plant to manufacture 25 pounder field guns and 2 pounder anti-tank guns. Until the 25 pounder could become available in quantity, units in Australia and the Far East were equipped with the old 18 pounder. Some units in the Middle East operated the 18/25 pounder, an 18 pounder that had been re-bored to take 25 pounder ammunition, until they received British 25 pounders. The old 4.5 inch howitzer also saw service, with the 2/10th Field Regiment employing them in support of the 9th Division during the Siege of Tobruk. A collection of captured Italian guns, known as the "Bush Artillery", were also employed. These were rendered obsolete when the 25 pounder became available in quantity. Eventually, 1,527 were manufactured in Australia. A special light weight version known as the Short 25 pounder was developed for jungle warfare. The requirement for a portable field piece in
caption: QF 25-pounder Short guns being towed behind jeeps at a parade held in 1944. The jeeps were sourced from the United States and the guns were an Australian variant of a British design.
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