page_title: Australian Defence Force
section_title: Current equipment
hierarchical_section_title: Australian Defence Force / Current equipment
caption_attribution_description: English: 160628-N-ON468-159 PEARL HARBOR (JUNE 28, 2016) HMAS Canberra (L02), a Royal Australian Navy landing helicopter dock ship, arrives at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for Rim of the Pacific 2016. Twenty-six nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC from June 30 to Aug. 4, in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2016 is the 25th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Navy Photo By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeff Troutman/RELEASED)
context_page_description: The Australian Defence Force is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia and its national interests. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and several "tri-service" units. The ADF has a strength of just over 85,000 full-time personnel and active reservists and is supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies.
  During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established the armed services as separate organisations. Each service had an independent chain of command. In 1976, the government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the services under a single headquarters. Over time, the degree of integration has increased and tri-service headquarters, logistics, and training institutions have supplanted many single-service establishments.
  The ADF is technologically sophisticated but relatively small. Although the ADF's 58,206 full-time active-duty personnel and 29,560 active reservists make it the largest military in Oceania, it is smaller than most Asian military forces.
context_section_description: The ADF seeks to be a high-technology force. Although most of the ADF's weapons are only used by single service, there is an increasing emphasis on commonality. The three services use the same small arms and the FN Herstal 35 is the ADF's standard hand gun, the F88 Austeyr the standard rifle, the F89 Minimi the standard light support weapon, the FN Herstal MAG-58 the standard light machine gun and the Browning M2HB the standard heavy machine gun.
  The ADF is equipped with conventional weapons only. Australia does not possess weapons of mass destruction and has ratified the Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Australia is also a party to international agreements which prohibit land mines and cluster munitions.
  As of October 2019, the Royal Australian Navy operates 45 ships and submarines. The Navy's main surface combatants are eight Anzac-class frigates and three Hobart-class destroyers. The RAN's submarine force has six Collins-class submarines. There are 13 Armidale-class patrol boats for border security and fisheries patrol duties in Australia's northern waters. The RAN's amphibious force comprises the two Canberra-class landing helicopter docks and the dock landing ship HMAS Choules. The Navy's minesweeping force is equipped with four Huon-class minehunters. The replenishment vessel HMAS Sirius and six survey vessels (the Leeuwin and Paluma classes) support these combatants. Non-commissioned ships operated by the RAN include the sail training ship Young Endeavour and two Cape-class patrol boats leased to the RAN from the Australian Border Force. As of October 2017, the Fleet Air Arm's helicopter force comprised 24 MH-60R Seahawk and 3 S-70 Seahawk anti-submarine helicopters, 7 MRH 90 transport helicopters and a training force equipped with 15 EC 135T2+and 4 Bell 429s. The S-70 and Squirrel helicopters were retired in December 2017.
  The Australian Army is equipped with a wide range of equipment in order to be able to employ combined arms approaches in combat. As of 2016, the Army's armoured fighting vehicle holdings included 59 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, 1,426 M113 armoured personnel carriers (of which 431 had been upgraded, with many of the remainder being placed in reserve), and 253 ASLAV armoured reconnaissance vehicles. A total of 995 Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles were in service with more on order. The Army's artillery holdings consisted of 54 155 mm towed M777 howitzers, 188 81 mm mortars, RBS-70 surface-to-air missiles and FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles. As of October 2017, Australian Army Aviation operated over 100 helicopters. These included  including 23 Kiowa reconnaissance and training helicopters and 22 Eurocopter Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters, as well as 33 S-70A-9 Blackhawk, 10 CH-47F Chinook and 40 MRH 90 transport helicopters. The Army also operated 10 RQ-7B Shadow 2000 unmanned aerial vehicles in 2016. The Army's fleet of watercraft at this time included 13 LCM-8 landing craft.
  The Royal Australian Air Force operates combat, maritime patrol, transport and training aircraft. As at October 2017 the combat aircraft force comprised 71 F/A-18A and B Hornets, 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets, 12 EA-18G Growlers and 2 F-35A Lightning IIs with another 70 on order. The Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance force was equipped with 13 AP-3C Orion and 4 P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft as well as 6 E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft. The air transport force operated 12 C-130J-30 Super Hercules, 8 C-17 Globemaster IIIs and 7 C-27J Spartans with 3 on order. A further 16 Super King Air 350s were used in both the transport and training roles. The RAAF also operates 3 Challenger and 2 Boeing 737 aircraft as VIP transports. A total of six KC-30 Multi-Role Tanker Transports were in service with another on order. The RAAF's training units were equipped with 62 PC-9s, 10 PC-21s (with another 39 on order) and 33 Hawk 127s.
caption: Canberra-class landing helicopter dock HMAS Canberra
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "160628-N-ON468-159 PEARL HARBOR (JUNE 28, 2016) HMAS Canberra (L02), a Royal Australian Navy landing helicopter dock ship, arrives at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for Rim of the Pacific 2016. Twenty-six nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC from June 30 to Aug. 4, in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2016 is the 25th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Navy Photo By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeff Troutman/RELEASED)", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3X", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Artist": "Petty Officer 2nd Class Jeffrey Troutman", "Image Copyright": "Public Domain", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "966", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4678", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "16", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "870723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "125", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "6048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4032", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "125", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "5010535", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[80, 200, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "80.0-200.0 mm f/2.8"}