Australia's first guns were landed from HMS Sirius and a small earthen redoubt built, near the present-day Macquarie Place , to command the approaches to Sydney Cove.
The deployment of these guns represents the origins of artillery in Australia. These and subsequent defences, as well as field guns, were operated by marines and the soldiers of infantry regiments stationed in Australia.
Unlike their British and Canadian equivalents, there are no regiments of horse artillery in the order of battle of the Royal Australian Artillery. The First World War saw the raising of 60 field , 20 howitzer , and two siege batteries along with the heavy and medium trench mortar batteries. The Regiment today consists of Regular and Reserve units. To maximise the combat power of the Australian Defence Forces through the provision of offensive support coordination and indirect firepower, surveillance and target acquisition and ground-based air defence.
To fire long range weapons to inflict casualties, to destroy equipment and fortifications, and to cooperate with infantry and armour to eliminate enemy resistance. The first Royal Artillery unit arrived in Australia in and began a succession of gunner units that garrisoned Australia, which ended with the withdrawal of the imperial forces in The Australian Regular Army came into being in , while prior to this artillery units were predominantly militia based.
During the Second World War, the RAA raised in excess of 70 regiments of field, medium, anti-tank, anti-aircraft and survey artillery, and in excess of anti-aircraft and coast artillery batteries with their attendant anti-aircraft group or fire command headquarters in the fixed defences. Many saw action in the Middle East, Malaya and Southwest Pacific theatres, with two field regiments, one anti-tank regiment, one independent anti-tank battery, an anti-aircraft battery and two coast batteries being captured by the Japanese in Singapore, Ambon, Timor and New Britain while serving as part of the 8th Division.
