ORIGINAL ARTWORK
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For more than two decades, BrandNet has commissioned original artworks to tell Australian military stories. These paintings became the source of limited-edition prints, medallions, collectables and gifts that found their way into thousands of Australian homes. The original paintings themselves were never sold. They have remained in the BrandNet Archives ever since.
Now, for the first time, the originals are being offered to collectors. Unlike the numbered editions that came after it, the original is not one of a limited edition. It is a true one of one. There is only one original, and once it is sold it leaves the BrandNet Archives and will never be available again.
Combined Arms Contact Vietnam 1969 is the original acrylic on canvas by Drew Harrison, commissioned by BrandNet and Military Shop in 2013 and developed with military historian Graham Wilson. Rather than depicting one named battle, it is a carefully researched representative engagement in Phuoc Tuy Province in 1969, showing how Australian combined arms worked together: infantry of the Royal Australian Regiment fighting from the jungle floor, Centurion tanks of the 1st Armoured Regiment and an M113 of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment bringing direct fire and protection, machine gunners moving forward, and RAAF No. 9 Squadron Iroquois helicopters entering the fight overhead. The painting turns the idea of combined arms into a single, readable scene.
This artwork was commissioned by BrandNet in 2013.
For Australian infantry in Vietnam, much of the war was fought on foot: long patrols through jungle, rubber plantations and villages, followed by sudden short-range contacts against an enemy skilled at concealment and ambush. From 1966 the 1st Australian Task Force operated from Nui Dat, and by 1969 its supporting firepower had become formidable. The Centurions had arrived in 1968 and proved their worth in terrain where many doubted heavy armour could operate, while the M113s gave infantry mobility, protection and fire support.
The value of that combination was demonstrated repeatedly, most famously at Binh Ba in June 1969, where infantry, tanks, APCs, artillery and helicopters fought a fierce two-day action and official histories record the Centurions as a battle-winning factor. Harrison’s scene is not Binh Ba, but that battle shows exactly the kind of mutually supporting action the artwork was commissioned to explain.
Almost 60,000 Australians served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1973 across the Army, RAAF and RAN. The painting narrows that much larger story to the battlefield relationship between infantry and supporting arms, showing why a contact could change when armour and air support were brought into the fight. The original is the unique source work behind the Vietnam limited editions that followed and has remained in the BrandNet Archives since the commission.
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