Brendan Nelson’s been on quite the trip. He’s been signing deals all over the place. A defence agreement with France, but more importantly he’s signed Australia up to the next phase of the Joint Strike Fighter project, the gee-whiz all-singing-all-dancing new combat aircraft that’s due to replace our 1980’s-era F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters, and the venerable 1960’s F-111 “Pig” - originally described as a fighter but, in actuality, a tactical bomber with a combat range unmatched by any contemporary combat aircraft short of the American or Russian big-arse bomber fleets.
I know, for some of you, your eyes are glazing over at this point, but there is a point to all this and it involves large amounts of taxpayers’ dosh. The JSF, or to give it its new official name, the F-35 Lightning II, is a horrendously complicated bit of gear. And, like Collins-class submarines, and indeed the F-111 back in the 1960s, it’s taking a long time to develop. And the odds of it being ready, and our bunch to come off the production line, before 2014 or so are pretty small. This comes, by the way, as absolutely no surprise to anybody paying the slightest attention to the issue. The schedule, however, poses a problem. The Air Force is set (many might claim hellbent) on retiring the F-111 by 2010. This would leave Australia with only the Hornets - fine aircraft, but with approximately the range of a Sopwith Camel - for a significant fraction of the next decade, in fact, possibly most of it by the time the RAAF gets fully up to speed in operating the F-35.
So, what’s a government to do? Well, according to the Courier-Mail, the government is considering a couple of contingency plans - the most likely being to buy a couple of dozen of an upgraded version of the Hornet - the imaginatively named Super Hornet. That should tide us over, right?
Except that this makes precisely no sense at all. The Super Hornet, while a longer-range aircraft than the original Hornet, has less range than the F-35, let alone the F-111 it would be purchased to replace. So it will struggle greatly to fulfill the roles of the F-111. Furthermore, once the F-35 comes on stream, the Super Hornets would be inferior in pretty much every way to them (with the possible exception of the specialised electronic warfare role). So, in 2018 or so, Australia could be left with a couple of dozen near-new, but obsolete aircraft that it have to find a buyer for - and that may well be difficult, as nobody but the Yanks operate the Super Hornet. But lets say it decides, despite their obsolescence, to keep operating the Super Hornet. If that were to happen, we’d be faced with the extra expense of keeping maintenance facilities, spares, and whatnot for a small squadron of obsolete aircraft. Funnily enough, this is what replacing the F-111 and Hornet with one aircraft was supposed to avoid.
So our government, supposed genius in all matters military in nature, is considering spending another lazy couple of billion dollars on aircraft that are at best marginally adequate for the role they’re taking, and will have a useful lifespan of at best a few years before we’re left with maintaining an obsolete orphan aircraft, or have to scratch around for somebody to take the damn things off our hands.
With speculating on defence stuff, there’s always the risk that there are other issues which have been kept secret or are simply not obvious to rank amateurs like myself. But on the face of it, the fighter plane procurement, like a lot of other recent defence acquisition programs, smells like a stuffup. Kruddy certainly thinks so.
And it’s always a bit of a problem when you buy a bit of kit off the plan, as we’ve done with the F35 (and had done previously with the F111). In fact, despite the early promise of the F111, the RAAF was the only air force outside the US to operate them. The RAF cancelled their orders.
It’s also worth remembering that the F111, which was plagued by cost over-runs and technical problems, was not delivered when due, and for a number of years the RAAF ran F4Phantoms in its place.
Which probably goes to explain why Condi Rice was looking the cat that ate the pigeon the other day. And it had nothing to do with Downer’s simpering performance in declaring himself her absolute best best first best friend.
For on that very day Australia and Britain signed contracts for the next phase of the F35. Yippee! Or not. Because there are apparently some fairly crucial questions about who owns/has access to what in terms of the intellectual property contained in the new aircraft.
But you’re right. It’s the F111 all over again.
Drain, I’d like you to meet billions of dollars.
Personally I don’t care for any of these so-called fifth generation fighters. They all look like the sort of shite you’d expect to come out of a GMH factory.
To be fair, Christine, the F111 has been a hell of an aircraft for Australia’s defence purposes for a very long time, to the point where it has been argued that it would have been a better strategy to rebuild the buggers with new engines and avionics rather than junk them.
The broader issues of the suitability of the F-35 are important too, but even accepting that it’s the right aircraft for Australia it seems to me that the planning for the transition was abysmal.
Don’t disagree with you re F111, Robert. I deleted my original sentence about ‘Nice Big F**k You Bombers’ for the sake of brevity.
As for transitional planning, yes on past experience the whole sorry mess was entirely predictable. I wonder if there was anyting in the contract to cover such contingencies?
A very simplistic negative analysis of a complex situation.
What you fail to include in your assessment is the impact that the purchase of various force multiplying assets has on both the existing Hornets and the potential Super Hornet. The combination of AWACS and in-flight refueling capability and more modern stand-off weapons and avionics upgrades significantly improves the combat calculus.
You provide plenty of criticisms that are mainly a synopsis of stories in the general and industry media. What positive solutions do you have? What do you think they should have done?
The F-111 is a long-range medium strike capability. Is this required? If yes, then how? A new manned aircraft, UAV or cruise missiles?
Cricisms of delays in advanced technicl projects such as the F-35 are old hat. The F-111 and Collins Class subs are typical examples - highly complex combat systems delivered late and over initial budget but once in service they are seen as dominant weapons in the region and the envy of many of the best defence forces in the world. I have no doubt the F-35 will be the same.
My proposed solutions - we should have bought Cruise Missiles ages ago, and we can buy them now off the shelf if needed. We also should have bougth the F-22 Raptor, as well as the F-35. We also should buy the VTOL F-35 and our new Amphib ships should be capable of operating them.
The final issue I have with your screed is that you appear to think you can buy defence on the cheap. This sort of attitude puts Australian service men and women’s lives at risk. It costs a lot to buy the best equipment. Get over it.
There are questions as to what we are actually buying here too. i.e. whether we are getting the same aircraft with all the bells and whistles that the yanks themselves are getting.
These questions go to the radar avoidance technology and whether the RAAF will own the source codes for the computer system.
Niether has been guaranteed by the US in my understanding.
Well the question of source codes is an interesting one. Britain only signed because it received assurances that the Pentagon would allow an unbroken chain of command once the planes were in service with the RAF.
According to Lord Drayson, Britain’s defence procurement minister, “it will not be a requirement, for example, to have US Air Force personnel on a British aircraft carrier to deliver our operational sovereignty.”
Where does Australia fit in? Is it an issue?
RM
Huh?
Razor
Double huh??
Apart from making one hell of noise at the start of the Melbourne Grand Prix and crashing into random bits of the Australian Outback what use has been the F111?
The answer is: no use.
It hasn’t contributed at all to any of Australia’s feats of arms since the debacle of Vietnam. Ownership of it has not changed at all the conduct of major or minor powers in Australia’s region.
The JSF will serve the same non-function. It is a ticket to the US strategic banquet, not as a guest but as fellator-in-chief to the host.
But some “middle powers” like that kind of thing. Trouble is Australian taxpayers are footing the bill.
As compensation the Defence hierarchy get to play with the most expensive boy-toys in the world.
Big deal.
Dearest Katz,
Defence of the Australian Mainland 101
1. You want to hurt the bad guys before they get to the Australian Mainland.
2. If a country to our North does something that deserves a good hard slap you need to be able to do that - whether that slap was a low-level photo-recon mission or a bomb.
The “Pig” was the best medium bomber in the world to do that and possibly still is.
If you don’t think the F-111 contributed to Australia’s defence then I suppose you don’t insure your house or car, let alone use private health insurance or life insurance.
Justaguy and Christine,
I am pretty sure the US have agreed to us having alll computer codes. That was sorted before we made our last commitment to the project.
Does NZ have F111s?
Were they invaded?
Razor’s arguments make sense to paranoid delusionals.
I tend to agree, but mostly because I’ve always found pilots really annoying, and they’re the one profession I would like to see replaced by robots. And getting even less serious, I think it’s time for another link to the DIY Kiwi Budget Cruise Missile.
When your insurance bill gets too high, you go to a broker and negotiate cheaper cover.
Buying JSF insurance is like being covered by HIH.
I was just reminded of this for some reason.
Toys for the boys.
Sad.
Liam, that is just a brilliant idea. Now if we could only combine the home made cruise missile with an army of ninjas …
Katz: I believe you are quite wrong on this point. While we have never used the F-111’s directly, they are a very big stick. A specific example: the Indonesians were spoiling for a fight during the height of the East Timor crisis. The F-111’s were put on alert. President Habibe was, reputedly, talked out of it by Wiranto because he knew the Indonesians would lose. That’s what weapons systems like the F-111 buy you.
Your, and Hannah’s implied argument, that we could do without an air combat force is in any case rather orthogonal to the point I was trying to make - because of what looks like bad planning we will spend a lot more money than the already large costs on planes that are marginal for the job they are apparently supposed to do. Whether you support the retention of the present level of combat aircraft capability or not, I presume you support the idea that our leaders should be spending their money effectively.
Christine, yes, the rights to the source code for the F-35 are an issue for Australia, but there’s enough material in that for a separate post. The actual situation is presently about as clear as mud. See this article in the independent. Australia’s ability to maintain and, particularly, modify the F-35 is a less significant issue than it is for Britain, because our own indigenous aircraft industry is a lot smaller. But it’s still of concern.
Razor: we have recently bought a cruise missile to strap on the Hornets, the JASSM. Maximum range maybe 400 kilometres or so. The F-111’s range advantage over the F-35, let alone the Super Hornet or Hornet, is far bigger than that. Aerial refuelling also has some severe limitations - essentially, you don’t want to do it in range of enemy fighters. See this ASPI paper. It has some rather handy pictures of the strike radii of all three.
Furthermore, Razor, the idea of “whatever it takes” for military equipment is a nonsense. Not even the United States takes that attitude. Not to mention that us buying extra capabilities may encourage others in the region to do the same, making us, ultimately, less safe than we were before.
As to your question of what we should be doing, my key point in this post was not to argue against the acquisition of the F-35, though the merits of that purchase are quite debatable. My point was that, as you have very accurately pointed out, complex weapons systems almost inevitably take longer to develop than hoped. However, the government seems to have gotten caught up in believing in miracles, when it was clear to all and sundry that schedule slippage would occur. And their apparent contingency plan is, on first glance, one that will leave us with a relatively small number of nearly-new but second rate aircraft in 12 years time or so.
As to what should be done, the need for the Super Hornet seems to relate primarily to the desire to retire the Pig as quickly as possible. I’d be looking real hard at what would be needed to keep the Pig a) going, and b) militarily useful, for a few more years. For a start, how hard would it be to hang cruise missiles off the Pig? And how much would a new radar and jamming gear cost?
I do have some ideas of my own about how a long-range strike capability like the F-111 could be maintained at a fraction of its present cost, but that is descending into Bigglesdom of the highest order and will save it for my own blog rather than inflict it on the readers of LP.
Hannah, take home message - government incompetence about to cost you several billion dollars which could otherwise be spent on education/health/the arts/puppies for all.
Robert,
I am aware of the JASSM purchase and thought that it was a good idea. However it isn’t in the same leaague as the Tomohawk.
As for the idea of budget constraints - Australia’s Defence budget needs to be significantly increased.
So was the US Pacific Fleet.
The Indos took more notice of that.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against strategic air power in the right circumstances. And those circumstances are to sink an aircraft carrier bent on attacking Australia.
At present, no power capable of being stopped has a carrier fleet worth sinking. When that happens, we will need a strategic air arm.
To employ JSF fighters in bombing terrorist bases is a huge waste of money and a stupid misapplication offorce.
Personally I’d be glad to have the Bigglesdom at LP. Someone commented once here that defence matters weren’t highlighted on political blogs and they should be. Obviously it’s something I myself have zero expertise in, but these are important decisions and debates and I’d love to learn from the debate between those who do have knowledge of them.
Well Mark: Tally ho, I say.
What was that cool but subtly still post-colonialist Sharpe of India with the stirring music and the homosocial relship with the Seargent thingo on the tele, Christine? Rather enjoyed that martial tale…
Jolly stuff and should be more of it Mark. Bunch of stout chaps doing the right thing for Empire while giving sundry cads and bounders a bit of what for and keeping local natives in check.
Best thing since that young Bomber Harris showed those ungrateful Mespotamian rebels what a few Vickers Venoms could do. Why don’t they make a series about that then, eh?
No pretty Indian princes and princesses to entice the eyes?
Duke of Wellington not involved? Actually modern era politicians descending in a direct lineage grasping with similar imperialist courses on which one must stay?
Of course. Heaving breasts. Lots of heaving breasts.
Yes there were breasts.
Plus they heaved on princess/damsel in distress to be saved both from her browner skinned co-freres and an English bounder of the most blackguardly nature!
And then there were the certain resonances with “It ain’t half hot, mum”.
Just sayin…
Rollicking good fun really and no political subtext… Really.
Just a general comment: some TNI hotheads were certainly spoiling for a fight, but would have got their arse roundly kicked, and knew it too. F-111s didnt come into it. TNI just didnt fancy themselves mano a mano with the ADF. Plus Clinton had Habibie face down in the diplomatic equivalent of a chokehold.
TNI is an internal security apparatus and corrupt business venture, and couldnt go two rounds with a revolving door. Too used to beating up civilians. And this is critical: if TNI started to look like a loser against a well-discipline smaller force, the whole eastern wing of the Javan Empire goes boom!! Plus they know their every time they fart in Timor its monitored in Darwin.
I never tire of mentioning: TNI were outfought for a good two years by the hopelessly outnumbered, but better trained and armed Africa vets among the Timorese in the former Portuguese colonial army. And this was before they turned to guerilla tactics and cells in the 80s.
The Portuguese “forgot” to take a rather well-stocked NATO arsenal with them with they split in 75, you see. Better than any equipment the Indos then had.
TNI never made much of an impact against Fretilin/ Falintil until the Yanks lent them some jungle-buster napalming planes, and other hi-tech gear, a few years later.
Don’t worry, Lefty. Mark and I have cracked the whole ADF thing. We know a couple of really good Irish cavalry officers who used to be with Wellington in India and …
Mark, at this point of time it’s pure, rank speculation rather than a fully-formed idea.
But the basic observation is that the reason it’s important to have the very best military planes, rather than ten times as many cheap ones, is that pilots are far too valuable to treat as an expendable commodity.
If there’s no pilot in a plane, that is no longer of any great concern. Therefore, massive swarms of cheap, largely expandable uncrewed aircraft might be a more sensible option than a few super-duper strike aircraft hewn from solid unobtanium.
Excellent post, Robert. Following on from the Vanguard post, you have evidently taken up the mantle of LP defence correspondent!
I suspect you are a bit too harsh on Defence, who have had a long time to plan for this circumstance (i.e. this is not one of those Howard government “impulse buys” a la the M-1 tank).
The fundamental problems are the aging of the F-111 airframe and the slippage of the F-35, between them creating a gap that Defence just may not be able to do anything about, other than its Super Hornet scheme (which I agree is problematic). I will be very interested to read on your blog what you suggest about extending the F-111.
Cruise missiles are an alternative, but one problem is that if the missiles can carry a >500kg payload over >300km, then they fall foul of an arms control regime: the MTCR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Technology_Control_Regime
“Razor on 15 December 2006 at 4:27 pm
Justaguy and Christine,
I am pretty sure the US have agreed to us having alll computer codes. That was sorted before we made our last commitment to the project.”
My understanding is that there is no such commitment. Still if Lord Downer and Brendy have their mates’ nod and wink on the issue, she’ll be apples.
Putting it on paper seems so unnesessary. We’re “mates” and it’s only taxpayers’ money anyway.
Yes, Defence have had a long time to plan for this. Everything written publicly about the process, including the ASPI’s reports on the matter, have been predicting precisely this problem. The government and Defence have continually said “it’ll be right”. Well, guess what, it wasn’t right. And their contingency plan is rather sucky.
If you want to read voluminous material about extending the life of the F-111, might I suggest Carlo Kopp and Peter Goon’s Aus Air Power. They aren’t exactly dispassionate about the issue - however, it’s clearly possible to keep old aircraft in the air indefinitely - heck, the USAF plans to fly the B-52 until 2050, 95 years since the type entered service and roughly 90 years since the actual airframes in use were built. The question is, of course, at what cost, and whether they will still be militarily useful.
Robert, while you’re here, can you or anyone else explain what’s with the trend towards barely distinguishable grey insignia on military aircraft?
Stop panicking, the thing can take off and land already
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20936660-401,00.html?from=public_rss
That’s a big plus as far as planes go.
Christine,
MIL-STD-2161(AS) for USN and US Marines aircraft state it is a “color scheme to reduce visual detection comprised of shades of flat gray with exterior markings in a contrasting shade of gray”. Land camouflage scheme consists of “flat green, black and gray colors with exterior markings applied in a contrasting color”.
As a reality check for all those armchair field marshalls out there who think that weapons procurers and the dominant school of military strategy have the slightest grasp of military reality, read this Tomdispatch story about US retired General Paul van Riper.
It all begins with a 2002 Wargame called Millennium Challenge 02 (cost: US$250,000,000) designed to prove the invincibility of US weapons systems and Rumsfeldian strategy against Iraq.
Gen van Riper lead the “Red Team”. Result:
But Rumsfeld got his US$250,000,000 worth.
Millennium Challenge 02 was hailed as a vindication of Rumsfeld’s “Revolution in Military Affairs.”
I wouldn’t buy aluminum cladding from these guys. But Ratty wants dependent interoperability. Criminal recklessness.
I loved the quote on another thread:
“The US has proven itself to be an impotent enemy and a treacherous friend.”
Everyone:
Interesting postings so far ….. sorry I can’t respond to each of you in turn. Now where do I start? ……
Who let the RAAF/Defence wallahs out there in the big bad world of the armaments/defence market without their mummies but with their daddies’ signed cheque-[= check-]books in their hands? This is 2006 - and soon 2007 - so why are we being put in peril by buying what is essentially only renovated and fragile ‘Seventies gee-whiz technology when our defence needs scream out for entirely different and very robust technologies and for the strategies to go with them? Ones that would make any potential aggressor decide that attacking Australia and its friendly neighbours would be too costly to even think about.
Before committing us to the potential for easy defeat and ruin, did the aforementioned wallahs bother to get together a few focus groups from among our ex-”freedom-fighter” migrants and “undisciplined” teenagers and put the simple question “How would you destroy one of these lovely F-35 aircraft for less than a thousand dollars and get away alive?”? No? The answers would no doubt horrify RAAF brass - and you can bet our enemies have already got THEIR answers to the same basic question.
Once commited to make this foolish purchase, why on earth didn’t the RAAF and Defence send off everyone they could to be seen wandering around Russian, Chinese, E.U. ….and Belorus …. defence/air shows and appear deeply interested in buying the latest goodies. We would have got a better price if Yanks had seen that we were looking seriously at the competitors too. It’s all in Day 1 Week 1 of Elementary Marketing 1.001!! Instead, we have the farce of a monoply supplier selling dodgy goods to a captive buyer …. Hey, hang on; isn’t that what used to happen under Communism?
I have to say I’ve been loving Katz’s posts on this thread.
One of the most interesting themes of post-WW2 military history is the impotence of air power. [In fact, there’s not necssarily a lot of evidence to suggest that air power was decisive in the second world war either - important yes, but hardly more important that 20 million Russians pouring over the Vistula and Oder.]
One of the best examples is the most recent - the utter failure of the Israeli Defence Force’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. After several years of digging in and careful preparation, the might of General Dan Halutz’ air force was of little use against the canny Hezbollaah guerillas. The bridges, roads and civil infrastructure of poor Lebanon were pulverised, but the aerial bombardment proved so ineffective the Israelis had to send in ground troops - straight into well-prepared Hezbollah ambushes.
One of the recent conflicts where air power was supposed to be decisive - the 1998 action against the Serbs - was in fact a triumph of diplomacy, as internal political pressure forced Milosevic to back down. In Lebanon, where Hezbollah actually gained political advantage from the bombing, air power was actually inimical to Israel’s cause.
Air power can be very useful against a conventionl army massed in numbers in conventional terrain, but time and again has been shown to be ineffective against guerrillas in cities.
None of which is to say that having a long-range sttrike capability won’t be useful in the infinitesimally small chance that a northern neighbour masses an invasion fleet. But Joint Strike Fighters, Super Hornets and F-111’s will be little more than expensive junk in the sort of “fourth generation warfare” the ADF is likely to face in the Pacific. Cable TV news makes it highly unpopular to bomb cities, and in the end, as the Americans are finding to their cost in Iraq, what matters is what happens on the ground.
Australia should be investing in more infantry (which we havve started to do), because the vast majority of our future conflicts will be low-intensity, dirty conflicts in our Pacific near-abroad. As Katz so amusingly points out, NZ abolished their air force, and no-one has invaded yet.
Ben, you’re quite right about the uselessness of planes against guerillas, particularly urban guerillas.
However, the assumption that Australia won’t ever fight against a conventional army immediately to its north is a little too pat for my liking. Historically, there have been a number of border incidents between PNG and Indonesia, and there are claims (the veracity of which I have no evidence for) that there are Australian troops on the border right now (see link at bottom of post, WP breaks URLs)). Even if this specific report is false, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where we might well want to deploy troops there (or East Timor) to encourage Indonesia to stay its side of the border.
The Indonesians have air support (crappy, but likely to improve as they intend to purchase more Su-30 fighters) available to them if it ever came to a shooting war. Without air support of our own to call on if the pooh hits the fan, it would be suicidal to risk Australian troops there, and thus we would have no ability to interfere with any incursions.
* http://www.fpcn-global.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=186
BenEltham:
Agree.
Furthermore, Australia’s most successful aircraft purchases in the past half century were the Hercules, the Caribou (even with it’s engine maintenence requirements); the UH-1D helicopter and the BlackHawk helicopter …. and, guess what, they are all sub-sonic mundane flying trucks. And Australia is still in a position to produce or resurrect very useful aircraft: AirTruk, AirVan, Stratos, Seabird Seeker, Slepcev’s Storch ….. all of which fly slower than a bullock-dray.
Then there are the two very nice bits of air defence technology we might have had as our own exclusive, to keep for ourselves or to sell to the rest of the world at outrageous prices - if it hadn’t been for dimwits in Defence who tried to get into the record books for the world’s worst commercial and defence decisions by failing to recognize winners even when they jumped up onto their laps!. (Bet they were paid “productivity bonuses” too).
A application of little bit of CDF by those in authority - after all, that’s what we pay them for! - and we wouldn’t need to buy any flying crown-jewels like the F-35.
There is no doubt that Australian troops in these circumstances require tactical air support. However, extraordinarily expensive, high-tech planes are inappropriate.
Let’s say there was confrontation in ET or WP with Indonesia.
Absent military support from the US, Australia could expect to make only symbolic resistence to a determined incursion.
A show of strategic air power and even the destruction of an armoured vehicle on the ground may be enough to cause an Indonesian backdown. But I doubt it.
Were the Indonesians to push on, very quickly it would appear that Australia’s F111s. Hornets, or JSFs are incapable of flying from an Australian base and maintain a credible threat.
The next phase would be to take out some important Indonesian infrastructure like port facilities or an Indonesian combat or support vessel. F111s are at present more than capable of doing this.
But what is Act III? After such a serious escalation, given the tiny size of any Australian expeditionary force, the ground warfare consequences would be very ugly indeed.
No, the reality is in ET and WP Australian forces serve overwhelmingly as a diplomatic tripwire. Strategic air power of the sort that Australia can afford would simply tempt politicians to take measures that weaken the diplomatic nature of our commitments without strengthening in any sustainable way the military nature of projection of force.
It was in Japan’s case.
The bomber will always get through!
In a really serious confrontation with Indonesia a ground force would hardly be necessary. As Indonesia is an archipelago the key would be the destruction of their navy (which would not be a big ask as it is the decrepit Cinderella of their armed forces) and their ability to move troops generally. That would be sufficient to destabilise their government and to cause them to call it quits.
The F111s are quite capable of flying over Java and back from an Australian base. That was what they were bought for in the first place.
Though God forbid that such a scenario would ever be realised.
Robert - I agree that in a conventional conflict, air power will be important.
It’s just that the sorts of conflicts that Australia will face in our neighbourhood are unlikely to be conventional. This is particularly true if Australia were to abandon its Howard-era adventurism and return to Hugh White/Paul Dibb style “Defence of Australia” strategic doctrine. Of course, General Staffs must plan for contingencies and a conventional war must be considered one of the possibilities the ADF should plan for. In this instance the JSF - not a true air superiority fighter but in fact a fighter-bomber designed for close support - will prove very useful, especially in conjunction with Australia’s new Wedgtail AWACS radar planes.
[In an interestig side-note, the next generation of Russian anti-radar missiles will render our new AWACS planes highly vulnerrable to surface-to-air attack).
However the vast majority of the missions the ADF will deploy for over the next 30 years will be police actions, of the sort we are already carrying out in the Solomons as part of RAMSI. Joint Strike Fighters will be less useful than a phalanx of pikemen in this kind of engamement; you can’t bomb a gang of toughs trying to loot the local convenience store (though the Americans would probably try).
Some of you may not know who Guilio Douhet was (and those who do will no doubt be suprised at his sudden appearance in cyberspace after years in the grave).
Douhet was an Italian war theorist and airpower enthusiast whose advocacy of air power proved hhighly prescient for the Second World War. In a similar way to Alfred Mahan’s theory of the primacy of sea power, Douhet argued that air power would render modern armies irrelevant. He developed his theory in response to the horrific stallemate of the First World War’s western front, where modern technologies like the machine gun and barbed wire rendered armies dug in and on the defensive almost impregnable.
Douhet theorised that airpower would be applied to the principlesof Total War and used as a weapon against enemy infrastructure - including cities. In his classic 1921 text The Command of the Air, he predicted that aerial bombardment would rapidly lead to a collapse in civilian morale: “The time would soon come when, to put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war.”
World War 2 proved Douhet both right and wrong. Britain and America built huge fleets of bombers and openly set out to slaughter enemy civilians in cities - the raid on Dresden in 1945, at the time swollen with refugees, killed more than 100,000.
But strategic bombing did not lead to the collapse of Axis morale. As GregM alludes to, by 1945 the USAAF was razing Japanese cities in giant bombing raids - 70,000 died in one night after a raid on Tokyo in ealry 1945 - but with little impact of Japan’s war effort. In contrast, US control of Japan’s sea-lanes had almost entirely crippled Japan’s military industrial complex. It took the atomic bomb to convince the Emporer to call a halt to the slaughter (dropped from a bomber, I grant you).
Since 1945 air power has time and again proved a dangerous temptation for generals looking for a low-cost way to deploy military might. Vietnam is the most extensive modern example, but a more contemporary illustration is the US’s bungled opeation against Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001.
With years of preparation, Bin laden’s extensive bunker complexes in the Tora Bora caves proved impervious to US bombers, and the small number of US troops on the ground were unable to prevent Bin laden’s escape.
One final point of interest: it was not actually Douhet who said “the bomber will always get through” but Stanley Baldwin, the British politician, in 1932. In fact, German fighters extracted heavy losses on US and British bomber fleets well in 1944.
Oh goody. Strategic bombing policy!
It’s an endlessly contentious debate, I know, but I’d argue that it was in fact the entry of Russia into the war combined with the year-long US bombing campaign, rather than the atomic bomb, that eventually convinced the Japanese Cabinet to accept the Allies surrender conditions.
Complicated politics and events, but basically the militarists in the cabinet felt that the atomic bomb was, well, just another bomb and reasoned that the US probably only had one or two anyway (fairly prescient as it turned out).
But once the Soviets rolled across the Manchurian border at around the same time and started pounding the Kwantung Army, the game was well and truly up (well it was really up at least 18 months earlier. But that Japanese war cabinet, they crazy).
But Ben Eltahm’s right, airpower alone has too often been seen as a cheap way to victory. Most recently we’ve seen the tentative debate about ‘pinpoint’ bombing Iran.
Yugoslavia has also been mentioned. Interesting to note how quickly NATO ran out of targets in Belgrade and moved south into Kosovo.
Also interesting to note how difficult it was locate the main targets - Yugoslav tanks. The former Communist state had had years of practice in camouflaging their tanks against just this sort of attack. Except they expected the attack to come from the Soviet Union.
“there’s not necssarily a lot of evidence to suggest that air power was decisive in the second world war either -
It was in Japan’s case.”
Effectively put Greg M in response to one the of the sillier statements this weekend.
Katz, Perhaps you should stick to other topics, your knowledge of Defence and the TNI in general is not your strong point.
“Absent military support from the US, Australia could expect to make only symbolic resistence to a determined incursion.”
In fact, if push came to shove, we could be expected to do very well. Whilst hugely numerically superior, the TNI (with the exception of a very few units) is plaqued with corruption, poor leadership and low morale.
Additionally, despite some glaring errors, Australia’s main advantage is there has been considerable effort in making the oz forces logistically supportable whereas the TNI procurement is heavily dependent on payoffs, whims and regional commander wishlists usually supported not by government coffers but TNI run business both legal and illegal with little regard for long term viablity or capability. This has resulted any number of unsupportable “one ofs” or technically unsuitable equipment.
Of course, this is not to mention that significant parts of the TNI are just too busy with internal issues to be used eleswhere.
This is not to say that any trouble would not be ugly but to say “symbolic resistence” displays an ignorance of history and current affairs.
If Oigal wants to argue with a straw man of his own creation, I’d thank her/him for not giving it the name “Katz”. Or is that too much to ask?
Everything I said about actual military conflict between Australia and Indonesia was consequent to and contingent upon aggressive use by Australia of its strategic bombing capabilities.
Oigal seems to assume that the Indonesians would be reluctant to change and perhaps incapable of changing their shambolic way of going about their business in the aftermath of such a direct insult to national pride.
Given that in the scenario I was talking about (note this scenario did not entail the much more achievable defence of the Australian mainland against attack and occupation) Australia would be compelled to maintain a military presence of a very small force in a remote and difficult terrain adjacent to where the TNI has bases and support structures (West Timor and West Papua). Under such conditions the fighting capabilities of any Australian ground force would be steadily eroded.
I make personal comments only in retaliation.
May I therefore return the compliment to Oigal by suggesting that s/he doesn’t attempt to make any comment until s/he actually demonstrates an ability to read for meaning.
_____________
I agree with GregM that it is absurd to say that air power has never been decisive in warfare. However, it is worth noting that, given the fact that US war aims entailed the unconditional surrender of Japan, the decisive use of air power against Japan entailed use of the A-Bomb. US military planners had previously estimated that an assault on the Japanese mainland would have cost the US a million men. These planners were imagining what the US later got in Vietnam and Iraq — an insurgent, decentralised guerrilla war.
That is one reason why at Yalta in January 1945 Roosevelt was so keen to have Stalin commit Soviet forces to the war against Japan. FDR believed firmly, and probably on very good grounds, that the job of defeating and occupying Japan to enforce unconditional surrender would be too big for the US alone.
Well the Showa Emperor, for one, would disagree with you and I think he knew more about the deliberations of the Japanese War Cabinet than any of us. He specifically mentioned the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as being the reasons that Japan chose to accept the Allies’ terms in his surrender speech.
The Japanese War Faction had argued after the bombing of Hiroshima that America could only have one nuclear weapon, but they were disabused of that bit of wishful thinking by the dropping of the second bomb. It left the Japanese in the position of not knowing how many such bombs the Americans had but knowing that, however many they had, they were prepared to use them. That discredited the War Faction and gave the Peace Faction the upper hand in the War Cabinet.
That said, having the Red Army bearing down on the Kwantung Army could not have come as good news, especially as it presaged occupation of the Japanese home islands by both the Americans and the Soviets, both with murderous intent, if Japanese resistance continued.
It is indeed a contentious debate, but I agree with GregM: the atomic bombs were more decisive than the Soviet invasion (and the Nagasaki one more so than the Hiroshima one). Navy Minister Yonai described the bombs as a “gift from heaven”, because they gave the peace faction the necessary leverage to get the war faction to agree to an unconditional surrender.
BTW, the Dresden raid did not kill more than 100,000, as Ben Eltham suggests. Most historians now agree it’s somewhere around 30,000. David Irving is one of the few who still trots out the 100,000 figure.
An interesting sidelight on this is the nature of the US authorisation to use nuclear weapons.
Truman gave the authorisation to the US Army to use the A-bomb as they saw fit.
In other words, Truman did not dictate its use nor did he determine where is was to be used.
However, after Truman was given the best available information (which wasn’t much) about the extent of the damage done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki he withdrew authorisation for further use.
Of course the Japanese Cabinet were in no position to know this and by surrendering unconditionally acted with belated prudence.
If the Japanese had refused to surrender unconditionally Truman would have been faced with the difficult decision of whether and how to allow additional use of the A-bomb.
Paulus [4.47am 16th]
Yes ….but you’ve overlooked Australia’s undisputed leadership in breaching all sorts of international agreements and conventions whenever convenient. Don’t bother with the weapons system experts, just send in the lawyers! Seriously though, what we need is the best range of stand-off weapons (i.e.: cruise missiles replacements) we can buy - as well as completely different technologies that can be adapted readily and cheaply to become weapons systems.
Katz [5.18pm on 16th]… and Oigal too:
Okay, I’ll stick my neck out and ruin my chances of ever getting another visa to enter the United States by saying here what a lot of Australians have already whispered in private ….. America is seen as an UNRELIABLE ally. Anyone who develops a defence of Australia based on a naive belief in the unchanging kindness and generosity of the United States is a fool who puts us all in danger. By all means, work closely with the United States where our interests do coincide …. but the rest of the time, make sure the padlock on our cookie-jar is snapped shut.
Sorry Gre M, Katz, and Brett. My original formaulation of words re the bomb was pretty clumsy in hindsight. I was merely trying to point out that there were other factors involved other than the bomb alone which led to the decision to surrender.
However on going back over the dates, the Soviets invaded on August 8, so the war cabinet, meeting on August 9, could have had no idea of the scale of the attack (which was significant).
Hirohito had in fact made up his mind by June 22 when he advised the War Cabinet:
Robert Guillain, in I saw Tokyo burning: An eyewitness narrative from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima reports that it was the destruction wrought by the firebombing campaign, especially after the March raids on Tokyo, that confronted him the emporer with reality.
At the crucial cabinet meeting on August 9, nothing much had really changed. The war cabinet, in which decsisions were meant to be unanimous, was split down the middle and the militarists remained determined to fight on.
But it seems that Prime Minister Suzuki, through some adept bureucratic sleight of hand, managed to wangle the situation so that the cabinet would accept a majority vote. Hirohito stuck up his hand and, well, game over.
But it’s all probably nitpicking, anyway.
Sorry. Crucial cabinet meeting August 13. Meh.
Good points CK.
And to complicate matters further, the Japanese Cabinet had already agreed to concede defeat, but not to surrender unconditionally.
Before Hiroshima, some Cabinet Ministers point blank refused to surrender if that meant losing the Emperor, and those who were willing to allow the Emperor to go, of course could never say such a thing in Cabinet discussion.
Nevertheless, the Japanese asked Stalin to communicate to the US the Japanese desire to surrender on terms.
Stalin, wanting the Japanese to survive long enough (three months after the surrender of Germany, as agreed at Yalta) to enter the war against Japan, did not send on the Japanese message. (Chiang Kai-shek also wanted Japanese humiliation and added weight to Stalin’s reasoning.)
However, the US intercepted the Japanese message and there was discussion at Cabinet level in Washington about offering terms.
As it turned out, the Hawks, led by Secretary of State James Byrnes, won the day and the unconditional surrender demand remained, with world-altering effects.
Well to be fair, Katz, much of the debate about retaining the ‘emporer system’ also had much to do with the military retaining its power.
And for a country that went to war with the US on the basis that a settlement would be reached within 12 months, they had a pretty cockamamie idea of peace initiatives. Using the Russians as honest-brokers after they’d just crushed Germany and given the historical emnity between the two nations? What planet were these people living on?
If events in the bunker were weird, the behaviour of the Japanese government in 1944-45 just makes you shake your head in wonderment at the butt-headed lunacy of it all.
Katz, as I recall it Truman accepted to advice of the committee that he set up to examine the use of the bomb that it should be used on a Japanese industrial city with military facilities (which was just about all of them) without prior warning but, with one exception, left it to the military to decide which city and when, which is as you said. The one exception, at the insistence of Henry Stimson, the Secretary for War, was that Kyoto not be a target because of its cultural significance to the Japanese.
If Australia’s strategic requirements are merely to scare Indonesia by way of outspending that country with outlandishly priced weapons then the JSF is a brilliant idea. If it is to be a genuine piece of defence gear, say like the useful Sabres were, or the Mirages (both proven in battle) then JSF is not a terribly intelligent choice. There are many cheaper aircraft, available right now, which, with a mix of predators and predator-like aircraft would be far more useful.
A Saab Gripen, for example, can take off in 800 metres from an ordinary bit of blacktop. It requires minimum ground support, unlike the JSF and acts as its own AWAC. Australia could afford a couple of hundred of them, if not more, creating a real deterrent. It’s a multirole aircraft so it’s both a bomber and air defence plane. It could easily utilise makeshift bases on Christmas and Cocos if need be, so it need not have a big range to fly from Tindal (near Katherine, NT).
Then there is the Eurofighter.
The idea of dedicated bombers is long passe so the buzzword is multirole, especially for a country the size of Australia.
Of course if Australia really wanted to replace the pig with reasonably priced aircraft and wanted value for money as well as something that can fly to Jakarta from Adelaide and return, with a little toilet for the pilots and even a galley to cook up a bit of yummy borsch with pelmeny dumplings and sour cream while the thing navigates itself to target, it would buy a couple of dozen Sukhoi Su-32/34s. Now that would really scare the Indons.
Let’s face it, we are buying the JSF (and the ridiculously overspeced M1 Abrams main battle tank) for the same reason we are pretending to be in Iraq (with our boys quarantined against casualties), and why we went to Vietnam, and that is to jam our head as far up Uncle Sam’s botty as it will go. Because, the thinking goes, if someone threatens us, we get on the phone to the White House and say, help. In the meantime, we’ll do anything to get someone to answer that phone. You know I’m right…
Sure. It’s like this: They fire off the rocket - BANG! - It flies through the air - WHOOSH! - It hits the water - SPLASH! - It sinks to the bottom - BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE! - Along comes a great, big whale - GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE! See?
And don’t forget the gift of Hershy Bars after it was all over.
Everyone:
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has criticised waste and inefficiency in Defence but he stopped short of using the obvious word “Corruption”.
Corruption probably isn’t as widespread in Defence and the ADF as people seem to think. My opinion is that Gullibility and the Unwillingness To Abandon Cherished Beliefs are far more dangerous problems. The decision to go ahead with the F-35 fantasy is yet another dismal example of this. We taxpayers can stop this sort of idiocy by sacking all those associated with recruiting and appointing defence and ADF personnel - the Clone Seekers - and replacing them with recruiters who ensure that nobody gets into Defence and the ADF without passing a stiff test to exclude the gullibile and those easily bewitched by pretty toys.
Razor [3,10pm 15th]
Agree with much of what you said but not this
Yes, you can buy defence on the cheap, defence with very sharp teeth …. but to do so you need real leadership, a willingness to have a go and to try anything at all that might work. In fact, there is an inverse correlation between the amount of money spent on a particular weapons system and its overall effectiveness.
Robert Merkel:
Jet Jackson [on 17 December 2006 at 8:52 pm] seems to have answered your question pretty well.
The technology may be as old-fashioned as the F-35 but such weapons systems are a available now, have far fewer problems, give more pilots more flying time, are a more credible deterrent and cost a fraction of the price of any masturbatory Flying Maginot Line.
The F-35 old fashioned? It has the downgraded stealth capability from the F-22.
However the F-35 is the wrong purchase because it’s the wrong weapon system. The problem is that it’s designed for operating conditions that the US might expect - forward air bases, and significant top cover by air superiority fighters (F-22). In other words, in an environment in which it is fairly easy to establish battlespace dominance.
We do not have that luxury.
Many of our neighbors are buying high-capability Russian aircraft, against which (all other factors - like crew training - given equality) the F-35 cannot hope to compete (read; shot out of the sky).
Large numbers of low-capability aircraft can be struck out on another basis; crew levels. Personnel retention is already an issue in all defence branches. If we suddenly need twice as any fighter pilots what do we do? Massively increase the money on offer? Lower our standards?
I believe we should be buying smaller numbers of high-capability aircraft and wait the decade until pilotless drones of the necessary type are available to fulfill close-in strike functions. Even small frigates will find it possible to carry a reasonable payload of short and medium-range strike capability.
A hypothetical Australian expeditionary force in our region would be comprised of surface units deploying ground forces and launching unmanned strike capability (ground units themselves will also have some of this capability), with AWACs providing theatre-level battlespace sensors protected by high-capability air superiority fighters which also add significant recon and long range strike functions if necessary.
All defence wallahs seem to suffer from hardware fetishism. Also, it is a truism, military planners fight the last war. This was as true of WWI, as it was of WWII - Polish campaign, French, Brits early on and in first stages of African campaign, the Soviets until 1943, Brits under Percival in Singapore, Korea, Vietnam, and now Seppos in Iraq - what is it with those people?
There isn’t the space here to properly ventilate this subject but I urge those interested to check out this link:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/indexprint.mhtml?pid=147614
Our purchase of the F111 was to put the frighteners on the Indons. So the spin goes. But tactically it was pointless and pointlessly complicated for the task. Originally, we were going to buy the much better Brit TSR2 but the Yanks knobbled us, and by so doing pretty much killed off the Brit warplane industry until it got together with the Europeans in the 90s. The TSR2 would have been much cheaper and better.
The F111 was designed to get to its target by flying under enemy radar by flying very low and slow. It achieved this by having wings which swung out from the normally fully swept position that modern jets have and by using the then newfangled terrain-following radar connected to the control column. This was so it could hug the ground as much as possible but without running into church steeples, hillocks and tall buildings. It was designed to deliver a nuclear bomb across Eastern Europe into Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet Union. Once it dropped the big one, its wings would go back to swept position and it would piss off quick.
But when the medium range and therefore accurate nuclear tipped missiles were stationed in Turkey (to which the Soviets retaliated by stationing some of theirs in Cuba) the F111 rationale went out the window. Come in Mr Menzies, how lovely to see you, take a seat, have we got a deal for you!!!
To fly to Indonesia Ichabod and I would take off from Learmonth base in WA, specially created for that purpose (that’s why we in the profession called it “a strategic base”) and fly low over the ocean. No church steeples, no hillocks, no highrise. A Canberra bomber would have done just as well, or even a 1944 model Bankstown-made Mosquito.
We wonder who does the commonsense planning for defence purchses. Someone said the only explanation is corruption. Well,