Tonight’s 4 Corners was about the mess that is Australia’s fighter plane procurement plans, something that’s been noted previously on LP.
Most of the material has been covered elsewhere before, but there was a new tidbit in tonight’s report. According to Brendan Nelson, one of the major reasons for retiring the current F-111’s early was that testing showed that their wings might face structural failure. However, the program claims the failed test was actually the result of a flawed testing procedure. According to the program transcript:
BRENDAN NELSON (speaking at press conference – 6 March 2007): We are determined that under no circumstances will we take the risk of an aircraft having an engineering failure at Mach 1.5 at a very low level.
AIR VICE-MARSHAL PETER CRISS (RTD), AIR COMMANDER AUSTRALIA 1999-2000: Doctor Nelson seemed to imply or didn’t seem to imply he said he didn’t want to have an aircraft come apart at 1.5 on the deck on his watch. Well first of all the F-111 can’t do 1.5 on the deck but I know what he is inferring and that is that in a high speed, low level environment there’s a lot of pressure on the airframe. It’s not going to come apart.
ANDREW FOWLER: What we can reveal tonight is that the so called catastrophic wing test failure that both Boeing and the Defence Minister had exploited was caused by a mistake. Peter Criss has former colleagues at the Defence science and technology organisation which carried out the tests.
AIR VICE-MARSHAL PETER CRISS (RTD), AIR COMMANDER AUSTRALIA 1999-2000: I certainly talk to people, those that I can get access to without embarrassing them, and they acknowledge that they broke an F-111 wing in test through a bad test spectrum, in other words they set the wing up incorrectly.
If this is true, we’ve just spent six billion dollars, without a tender process (and thus quite possibly bought a dud), to replace an aircraft that was still serviceable – or, at least, wasn’t going to fail because of the faulty wings Nelson was spouting to his Cabinet colleagues and the public.
Going after the government on Defence for spending too much money on American hardware is politically risky for an Opposition sitting pretty in the polls, so I don’t expect for Labor or the smaller parties to make a big deal of it. But there might well be some fun and games in the new Parliament after the election on this issue, if it turns out that that the Tories have been as incompetent on this as they appear.
Defence Minister, Stud Nelson VC, has mastered the dark art of the “No Bid” contract. This goose would prefer to act as a Core Neo -Conservative MIC-enabler, rather than provide Australia with adequate Air Defence.
Wonder what he copped for the sling?
What the Four Corners program did not consider was why shouldn’t we buy the Russian fighter?
If it can do 2.3 mach we could do our usual stuff and modify it to suit our local purposes and for the scenario they had with the 200 nautical mile buffer after firing our missiles we could be well out of the scene before the enemy could scramble and with no chance of being overtaken.
Are we bound by military or trade treaty to only buy US stuff?
Dany: we’ve discussed this berfore.
There are several problems with buying Russian:
One thing I didn’t like was how much of it was framed in terms of a possible military conflict with Indonesia, in the next decade. That really did seem highly unlikely and only on the bounds of possibility. And if Australia looks further abroad? While the story did make a number of strong points, it really did rely on the ‘yellow peril’ angle, and fear of Indonesia in the popular imagination, just too strongly for my liking.
It would have been nice to see Australia’s risk of attack from neighbours evaluated on merit too!
The government’s defence procurement policies have been weak since the day it came to office and decided to run off at the mouth about the Collins submarine just to score some minor political point on Beasley (as beautifully highlighted by the Bomber in his valedictory speech).
The Collins-class is definitively the most capable platform we have ever operated in air land or sea, but you will never hear about its importance on the front of news limited newspapers, the most important work that they carry out is pretty much wholly classified.
But not only its procurement – also the way it sets the operational agenda for our forces. They broke the back of the Navy over the whole Tampa / SIEV thing with senior command elements at war with each other over whether the Navy’s role should involve border protection or not. But the way they hung the C.O. of HMAS Adelaide out to dry in front of a senate committee was in effect, the salutary lesson to all senior commanders about the governments attitude to them – political considerations are paramount whilst on operations in the field.
How this government achieves ’strengths’ in defence and security (want to hear about airport security?) simply highlights to me that the complete ignorance of these matters by journalistic elements and the general public – especially many of the hairy chested boys toys brigade and other cut-lunch-commandos that you find around the traps. They apparently think parading around posturing like a troop of chimpanzees constitutes a defence policy.
The fact that it is frequently the case to find journalists who can’t tell the difference between air-superiority fighters and attack aircraft or frigates and destroyers writing in the major dailies as defence specialists should alert any informed person as to the level of analysis that you will get from the newspapers.
Nonetheless, I didn’t see 4 Corners last night, but good on them for having a go. I will have to watch out for it on ABC 2.
As an interim measure how many Russian planes could you buy for 6 billion?
If Indonesia, Malaysia etc get the Russian planes I doubt it would be very difficult for anyone to get any technical details they want once this stuff is available outside Russia.If China get the Russian planes they would be copying them in no time flat and probably be able to supply cheap spare parts to the highest bidder.
Indonesia etc would also be at the mercy of the whims of V Putin.I do not think that Russia in particular favours countries which have an element of Muslim delinquency in their makeup such as the scenario portrayed in the Four Corners program.
hey it ate my response … can mods check it out for me?
Regarding who to defend against and therefore what equipment is required: Do you think that Indonesia, say within 25 years, would ever be China’s ‘deputy sheriff’ in SE Asia/Austalasia?
A man out here in this very place name,was the originator of many things to do with testing planes including the F111,and worked alongside ,on the Nomad aircraft the once head of ASIO. ……I have dotted his name out,because he may have something to say about this himself ,if still alive.I am not sure of the facts as presented, and, well, do not be surprised if other insights,historically,about material strength indicators paints a different picture again.Both …..,and the deceased out here would of known and used these testing instruments and procedures. The man out here use to do stuff with Qauntas and went to aircraft accidents and was a person who set up a library system within Defence,evolving matters also flight. I doubt he would of made mistakes.but, understandings and updating what already existed as F111,may have leadto a different summary accounting between military users and the Defence people overseers. The required skills,and historical views,and a sense of both of them on request for information….may have lead to misunderstandings.which is then a operational intelligence priority communications failure. I dont think it is reasonable to claim or blame Nelson or Liberals entirely for this,for accounting has been lax in other areas let alone operational safety matters,where we have seen with helicopters at least an unwillingness to always follow procedure,and account for those procedures followed. I think it is a very grey area,which ever spelling, that puts Ministerial incompetence up there first on this matter,and working personnel at different levels the same. However,yes, it is too much money blown!
Robert the problem of Russian weapons systems of being incompatible is being solved. From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-30
( The Sukhoi discussed on Four Corners)
“Su-30MKA Highly specialised version for Algeria is similar to the MKI, but will principally be equipped with French and Russian avionics. It will feature head-up and multifunction displays from the Thales Group and Sagem of France.” Other defence forces are also changing the Su-30’s avionics.
The Russians also wouldn’t be the only possible source of spare parts for the Su-30.
There are a number of issues that the excellent Four Corners brought up.and for some of the terms in that program see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fighter_aircraft
1. These fighters have to be considered as an overall part of our defence forces and not just as toys for the boys.( The JSF F-35 Lightning II is likely to be the last ” meat in the seat” as far as the U.S. is concerned).A key example : if in the scenario of the attack on the military communications headquarters on the outskirts of Jakarta we had used the
Super Hornets against the Indonesians Su-30s then all of the Super Hornets would have been destroyed. This may be an acceptable cost for the goal achieved if we have sufficient other defence assets. However we have to go through most probable scenario analyses and I find a direct attack on the Indonesians improbable. We might plan however for an outlying territorial dispute with the Indonesians.
2. The decision to buy the JSF appears to have been made very carelessly.
3. The JSF is also a comparatively slow aircraft against the Su-30. The scenario of an interaction between the JSF and Su-30s wasn’t explored on the Four Corners program.
4, The decison to buy the interim Super Hornet was hopelessly flawed.
Force Integration Theory: The recent spate of US equipment purchasing is related to force integration with the US military. E.g. AU tank crews or air crews can be cheaply transported to an area and provided with US hardware upon arrival – cheaper for us, increases their pool of trained personnel – something important if we ever have to fight WW2 again. This is only a reasonable strategic plan if we wish to accept the Deputy Sheriff role envisioned for Australia by the neo-con’s hard-wilsonianism – an ideology which probably wont survive the next decade.
If we accept this theory as an explanation for recent military procurements it neatly explains the Abrams tanks and the JSF, AWAC and some other purchases… But unless AU pilots are to be required to support the US Navy (who are the apparently the only US or allied force flying them), then the super-hornet purchase is inconsistent with the force integration approach.
That’s s Cool Radar System Theory: A mate in the military confided that he suspected (yeah I know, anecdotal and all that), that a prime selling point of the super-hornet was the radar system. Apparently no-one told anyone else that the radar system can be purchased separately and fitted to the f111 at some ridiculously low percentage of what the super-h’s are costing.
Anyone else got some cool conspiracy theories to share about the super-hornets? Preferably evil Dr Nelson ones (pic’s of him Dr. Evil style for pref).
Apply Heinlein’s razor: Nelson, ya just incompetent.
If the DSTO stuffed up a test, it’s hardly the minister’s fault. I don’t expect a career politician to tell flight safety engineers how to do their jobs, but do I expect him to act on their advice.
Why is anyone surprised to be told that 40yo planes, once notorious for falling out of the sky in great numbers, are close to end-of-life? The USA retired them over a decade ago. Given that they are at EOL, any government is required to plan replacements.
The obvious (but unfortunately not complete) replacement is the super-hornet. It’s a close enough match to our existing force to make logistics simpler than any alternative. There’s no point running a tender if you already know what plane you want – it’s not like there are multiple suppliers.
Another thing is, just because the DSTO (allegedly) stuffed a single test does not mean that the planes are safe. Given their age and peculiar fatigue susceptibilities I’d be starting from the opposite viewpoint.
Unfortunately the “Howard is good for national security” faithful probably aren’t 4-corners viewers, and are unlikely to have read the numerous scathing reports from the Australian National Audit Office on incompetence/inefficiency in the DMO, (lost equipment including rocket launchers, substandard gear for soldiers) . In the context of last-night’s program, the 2005 ABC report ASPI calls for better accounting procedures in the ADF, is spot on and the ANAO report on Management of Air Combat Fleet In-Service Support (2006/07) points out we lack the parts and skills for the new stuff.
At least the “spare parts” for the flying pig are available.
Whatever you think about the wisdom of buying anything still on the drawing board (the JSF), the super-hornet seems to be totally irrational from a military viewpoint, irresponsible from a financial view, but totally understandable given Peacock’s role in Boeing.
I’ll also point to a previous LP post by Robert Merkel calling for a new defence white paper is worthwhile. I’ll quote a bit here:
Contract management and procurement procedures are pretty bad throughout the federal government, but when buying such expensive toys, and with the strategic importance of long-term defence planning, oversight by the ANAO is critical.
The elephant in the room is not the super hornets per se, it’s the stupid commitment to the JSF. Without that, we wouldn’t be contemplating the super hornets and might have a clearer view of what we really require once the f-111 is retired.
Craig Mc does have a point: the f-111 fatigue profile is more or less unique due to the swinging wings. We’ve invested a lot of effort into keeping them flying, at some point there are diminishing returns which need to be accounted for.
We ought to have pulled out of the JSF project as soon as the cost overruns and time overruns started occurring. It’s an expensive, overly complicated dog with capabilities we’ll never use. Good, long range radar and satellite investments and a heaping helping of ballistic and AA missiles would have been more effective. Of course, they aren’t much use when you’re playing deputy sherriff or getting involved in resource wars.
“AU tank crews or air crews can be cheaply transported to an area and provided with US hardware upon arrival – cheaper for us, increases their pool of trained personnel – something important if we ever have to fight WW2 again. “
The Tiger tends to gainsay that argument. Attack/recon helos would the first pricey bit of kit you’d want to have 100% ANZUS ‘fungible’, of any capital purchase, given their highly tactical role and the difficulty of self-deployment.
Tho’ as it turned out I think we got spivved into funding Lockheed Martin’s Hellfire II/bolt-on launch mount testing program on ours, anyway. In the name of (partial) integation, I imagine. Bit like buying a Pepsi franchise but still locking yourself into installing Coke post-mixes, to enable/bankroll their ongoing market-expansion and new flavour testing.
In a time of ‘war’, a fool and his defence dollar are very, very, very soon parted.
I’m not particularly surprised to hear the DSTO stuffed up the test… and I don’t think that anyone else should be either.
Craig: The parts commonality is apparently a lot less than you might think, and the weapons we’ve bought for it (AIM-9X, if I recall correctly, and JSOW) are completely incompatible with our recent weapons purchases for the “classic” Hornets (ASRAAM and JASSM).
Even if the Super Hornets were the only option, the plan for integrating them into the force was non-existent, as the 4 Corners program demonstrates. Deciding to buy Super Hornets without telling the Chief of Defence Force? That’s just ludicrous.
The final point about integration with the Yanks is our air force offers them nothing that they don’t have themselves in massively greater quantities. Nouse about counterinsurgency warfare and rather useful (if small in size) special forces are far more useful to them. Of course, the most useful thing of all we offer the Yanks militarily is the political cover to say “see! It’s a coalition of forces, not just us acting unilaterally…”
George: Australia has confronted, or come perilously close to confronting, Indonesia multiple times over our history. We all hope it doesn’t happen again, but it seems imprudent to assume it won’t.
But that fantasy rationale is of course the cornerstone of our ridiculous over-spending on “defence” for the past 50 years.
Meanwhile, SBY has just released a new album of songs, including one he wrote while here for APEC. Be afraid…
Craig Mc http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:9KPJ33vi3YcJ:www.ausairpower.net/pig.html+Are+the+F-111%27s+Really+Stuffed%3F&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=iceweasel-a “Built in the late 1960s, the F-111 is a contemporary of the US B-52H and B-1B bombers, both of which the US Air Force intends to operate well past 2030″ whcih covers the period of our
supposed air defence vulnerabilities.
The only possible bone of contention then is the swing wings, and there has been no recent evidence of problems with it.
Plane thread! Plane thread! Party time, excellent!
Three points.
Carlo Kopp is a stooge for the F-22, that needs saying first and foremost. The choice between buying FA/18Es and F-22s isn’t real: it’s questionable whether the Americans would sell the latter anywhere. That $6BN for what we got was a crappy deal is the problem.
Second, the four corners transcript reads thus (my italics):
Tanker vulnerability at long range is hardly the FA/18’s fault, especially since we’re using 707s.
Lastly, the most important problem isn’t an engineering one but a political one. Australia is no longer an outpost of Westernness surrounded by tinpot third-world dictatorships propped up on either side by Soviet “assistance” and CIA slush. Our neighbours are getting rich and liberalised, and doing well for themselves—it’s bizarre irony that our market-fixated Government sees that as a defence problem. It’s not going to be realistic to maintain Australia as a preeminent military power, as we can’t outspend our neighbours, and alas, the international arms market works a lot more efficiently now than in 1960.
In the end, we can have deterrence or supremacy, but not both.
I’m aware that the parts largely won’t be swappable – even for two planes so closely related. I’d be pleasantly surprised if the percentage of shared parts was more than 20%.
Logistics go further than parts though. It goes as far as managing relationships with suppliers, and includes familiarity with design philosophy, training, and technician certification.
David, we would never be in any projects if that were the case. That’s a problem that’s not unique to any party, or for that matter, the defence industry. Working in both IT and Engineering I can tell you it’s the norm.
The element of military strategising, as portrayed on 4 Corners that concerned me was the enormous mismatch between the expense of the means adopted with the relatively small effect achieved.
So what if the RAAF were able to knock out an Indo communcations centre? The nature of the Indo threat in the region for as far as one can see isn’t military aggression of the kind that relies on high level communications. Rather, it is the low-level quasi militia activities witnessed in East Timor. These actions can go on regardless of military communications infrastructure.
Such an attack as the one wargamed on 4 Corners last night is of use if and only if Australia and its allies can and want to station assets in the Indo sphere of political control. Now it is well known that Australians can’t do that, and the only nation that can and may want to is the United States. And for the life of me I can’t see why the US would want to right now.
However, this kind of strategising does attempt to encompass long-term potential requirements. Thus the only purpose for RAAF wargaming of the the above variety is as part of a more general US scenario in the region.
Perhaps the eagerness of the US to encourage Nelson to purchase the Super Hornets is to say that Australia is surplus to US strategic military requirements in the region for the time being. The US is thus sending a message not only to Australia, but also to Indonesia.
On the other hand, the Super Hornet purchase may be the product of good old fashioned complacency and graft.
I don’t understand why Nelson went for Super Hornets instead of the F-15E.
The thing I didn’t like about the 4-corners wargames was that they assumed that there was no fighter cover for the attacking force.
I think Australian F-A 18 equipped with Amraams or other modern stand off weapons would make an absolute mess of any hostile Su 30s.
“Meanwhile, SBY has just released a new album of songs, including one he wrote while here for APEC. Be afraid…” -Ghandi
OMG, weapons of mass distraction.
Craig Mc wrote:
I know it’s the norm. The JSF project was supposed to be “different” (I suppose all of these development processes are). Other industries seem to be able to learn how to bring complicated machinery to clients on time and on budget. Defence industries? Disaster. All the merging of programs, meddling, insistence on parts commonality or adaptation of designs to tasks not properly considered by the designers. It’s not helped by the massive, sloshing buckets of money and a fundamentally non-competitive industry structure. Why we participate is anyones guess, but as stated above, Indonesia is hardly a credible threat as a nation, and World War II isn’t coming back any time soon.
I guess part of the problem is that war toys are just so *sexy* to some people. They are an anorak delight (how fast? how high? can my dog beat your dog?). At it’s base is the pimply, adolescent inadequacy of politicians pandered to relentlessly by a massively cashed up industry. I’d be proud to say Australia was the first country to say “forget it, we’re not buying any more of your expensive, late, complicated and unnecessary products”. Wishful thinking it might be, but since most of the credible threats to Australians come in fertiliser bags, backpacks, Jeeps full of petrol or Mitsubishi L300 vans driven by religious nutters, our defence dollar would be much better spent on overseas education provision (helping people) rather than trying to kill them after they’ve had a brain snap. We ought to be confronting irrationality and hokey religions and poverty in equal measure. We ought to be bombing other countries with books, internet connections, $100 OLPC’s and Hiluxes to get them to school. We ought to be parachuting brigades of teachers and agricultural experts and civil servants, lawyers and policemen, not the SAS. We ought to take a long, hard look at our oil dependency and the implications it has on global political concerns.
In short, it’s time we grew up.
‘Indonesia is hardly a credible threat as a nation’
So I guess during the East Timor operations there was no risk of regional conflagration.
David, I agree with your sentiments, but air defence is crucial to protecting Australian interests in our region.
Today it’s a backpack. Tomorrow it might be a Shenyang J-11, and anti-backpack measures will only go so far against one. It would be too late to start an air superiority program then.
Walking and chewing gum at the same time, I agree. However, what’s to stop someone taking your book money and spending it on Korans, driving the kiddies to a madrassa in your shiny Hi-Lux, and letting them network jihadi sites on their OLPCs? Other countries aren’t so receptive of the “colonial” notions you’re suggesting. Take a bible and a pulpit to Saudi Arabia and see how far you get with your educating.
Indeed. We shouldn’t choose to be weak and expect to survive by the mercies of others. We need be strong, and that means paying for our own defence, something the Europeans need to learn all over again. This involves buying the “war toys” when they’re needed – even Switzerland has them.
East Timor, timboy? To pretend that the Indonesian military’s disgraceful actions in East Timor was ever a threat to Australia is just deliberate stupidity.
Would we have sent a single soldier to East Timor if it was not for the undersea oil? And now that we have a contract signed in our favour, with a pro-Canberra government in place, what are we doing for those poor people? Nothing. And where are our troops for West Papua? Nowhere. And what about Burma? Too hard.
We are being subsumed into the US military-industrial machine. Go watch Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 to see how companies like Lockheed work the political process.
So let me get this straight: we’re getting rid of these to get these at list price + ORC, while we’re waiting for these because someone said the big end sounded like it was about to go.
I did say ‘Australian interests’ Gandhi.
Isn’t there oil in all three?
Yep, and there’s also oil beneath the Northwest shelf which is all ours.
Plenty of oil to protect
“We ought to be bombing other countries with books, internet connections, $100 OLPC’s and Hiluxes to get them to school. We ought to be parachuting brigades of teachers and agricultural experts and civil servants, lawyers and policemen, not the SAS.”
Fortunately there’s already a lab study for this proposition. For decades now, the West has been doing just what you say in Africa — smothering the place with doctors, teachers, experts, aid of every imaginable stripe. And it worked! By golly, it worked! I mean, just look at the proof, just look at the millions of people from all over the world, willing to risk their lives in rickety boats to immigrate to Africa, land of opportunity.
So you support the Bush-Howard Doctrine of pre-emptive Oil Wars, do you timboy?
You said there was a “risk of regional conflagration”. I assume you meant Australia going to war with Indonesia. Do you really think we should do that in order to procure oil that doesn’t even belong to us?
Craig Mc
This is true. We keep propping up stupid, oppressive regimes in foreign countries and plead frustration at the slowness of their progress. One hand slaps johnny foreigner down via the voracious military-industrial complex (more oil! more toys!), the other hand is shaking it’s finger at why these countries don’t rise in popular revolution against their oppressors. No wonder they turn to madrassas (lets face it, in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan it’s as close as you’re going to get to a school). Propping them up, then blowing them up seems a little counter productive if we wish to encourage liberal democracies.
There’s clearly room for debate on how many “war toys” Australia actually needs.
Whatever your view on that, I assume we’d all agree that if we decide to buy war toys, we should make sure we get the best possible value for money. And there are very serious questions as to whether, in this case, the government is doing so.
Robert, I’m arguing that the “value for money” equation is a seriously damaged way of looking at the defence arm of foreign policy (might as well rename our department to “attack” as it stands at the moment). If we decide to buy toys (and we decide this a lot it seems), we’d be saving a hell of a lot of money not buying into the relentless upgrade cycle presented as a fait accompli by US based defence industries.
We know the government does “value for money” poorly – my memory might be a bit hazy but Beazley wasn’t much better as defence minister, despite trying to re-spin the Hornet radar reworkings into a kind of “digger does good” story of good old Aussie ingenuity in the face of adversity.
The US rips us off, full stop, every time, with outdated, unwanted and expensive products we have never used in anger in the defence of Australia. When will we learn and just quit buying from them? If we at least made noises we were looking in other directions, we might get a decent deal every now and again.
Gandhi
A yet to be determined area of the Timor Gap is Australian territory.
so yes, I think Australia should defend it’s territorial interests should they be threatened.
And I don’t follow you’re argument. If Interfet forces were attacked by Indonesian forces, and Interfet forces responded in self-defence- how would that have been an oil war?
timboy,
Hilarious. How about you and John Howard sit down and divvy it up one day? Maybe you could bring John Pilger along, just for the illusion of legitimacy:
Oh, maybe you are confused because Evans was Labor?
No, you wouldn’t, would you? If you are not being deliberately obtuse, maybe this will help.
Meanwhile, breaking news:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Labor-promises-air-combat-review/2007/10/30/1193618851450.html
Gandhi
Australia’s agreement with Indonesia was based on prevailing international law re maritime boundaries at the time which placed an emphasis on continental shelves.
We may as well give all the oil to East Timor- they will still rely on Multinational and Australian companies to exploit the resources anyway.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Australia had already stitched Indonesia up in their negotiations on the border between their economic zones when Indonesia accepted the Australian argument that the demarcation should be drawn along the Timor Trench which runs parallel to Timor and is much closer to that island than to Australia, rather than halfway between Australia and Timor. The agreed economic border between Australia and West Timor reflects this. Had Indonesia been able to maintain sovereignty over East Timor the same logic would have applied in drawing its border and, because of that, most of the oil would have been on the Australian side. Hence no need to invade for the oil for we would have already had it.
One of the reasons (there were a number of others) why the Australian government, and its position was supported by the Opposition with a few honourable exceptions, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into intervening in East Timor by an unprecedented coalition of the Left and Right (the Catholic Church and RSL on the Right) was that the intervention would see that cosy arrangement unravel, first for East Timor then possibly later for West Timor.
Having reluctantly intervened to secure East Timor’s independence Australia then set about screwing them in negotiations to secure what it had with Indonesia, though the East Timorese didn’t do themselves any favours by appointing Peter Galbraith as their negotiator. Talk about an own goal there.
Your quote from Pilger captures the flavour of the whole thing perfectly and that was when Labor was in power.
However timboy is right that under the treaty with East Timor the final drawing of the boundary has been left undetermined largely I think, to protect Australia’s position re the West Timor boundary.
Let me see if I’ve got this right, timboy…
Our agreement with Indonesia was “based on prevailing international law re maritime boundaries at the time”, but the actual Australian territory involved is “yet to be determined”.
And we “may as well give all the oil to East Timor” even though we have to defend “Australian interests”. Hence the endless need for expensive military hardware. Right?
By that logic, we might as well give all the oil to the Iraqis, too. But what “Australian interests” are we defending over there, besides John Howard’s own political interests?
GregM,
Thanks for your input.
I would still like to hear timboy explain how Indonesia is a “credible threat” to our “national interests”, and how that justifies our multi-billion-dollar “defence” budget.
‘yet to be determined’=’subject to negotiations’
That’s according to the Timor Leste government anyway.
The ‘logic’ you refer to is yours entirely- so you’re right it isn’t that logical.
There is clearly no link between Australia’s maritime boundaries and the war in Iraq.
There is as GregM points out, a very close link between Australia’s maritime boundaries with East Timor and our maritime boundaries with Indonesia. And there are Australian interests to be protected as against Indonesia.
Back to aeroplanes for a second. There are a couple of realities here:
1. The “Super” Hornet is a bit of a dog, which even the USN didn’t really want, and only accepted because its preferred option (another paper plane) didnt make it into production.
2. The JSF is seriously behind schedule, way over budget and unlikely to meet its performance goals. It is not a match for the Su 30 updates which are coming into service in our region. Mainly because its relatively slow (Mach 1.6 vs 2.3 for the Su30) and seriously hampered by limited range and payload. Of course as soon as you start hanging wing tanks or external ordnance on it – there goes any chance of stealth. Oh and those tankers (they’re Airbus MRTTs Liam not 707s) – as we saw last night they are the weakest link in the chain, and will have to loiter within range of the enemy air superiority capability.
The best choice for us is the F22 or one of the European jobbies. The US is considering selling the F22 to Japan amongst other countries, because they, well unlike Australia, actually asked.
The whole JSF/Super Hornet story (they are in fact one story, not two, since one begat the other) is so riddled with incompetence and graft that it would be funny if we weren’t talking about at least 22 billion of our money, oh and actual serious stuff like defence.
People keep playing off the performance weaknesses of the super hornet against SU-30s.
But what about the differences in weapons and radar systems.
I think the US equipment has the upper hand in these departments.
But Pre-dawn is right- the F-22 would appear to be a good choice given the amounts of money being dropped.
Great post Robert. A bit like sticking with the Gloster Gladiator/Hawker biplanes in the 30s when the monoplanes were round the corner.
Billions yes Robert, but with the Sukies at half price, we’d still come out on top I think.
Politically, “detaching” Australia from the US as primary supplier would be a major coup for Russia. Cooperation would be enhanced by this move and I’m sure we’d have some expertise to trade with Ivan, of advantage to both parties. When we bought the Mirages from France, did the we not put ourselves at similar risk? (and the US going apeshit)
(Would it not also be a marker for an independent foreign policy?)
I’ll save Timboy the trouble. Threats aren’t about policy, they’re about capability. With several billion dollars worth of fragile resource infrastructure well within reach, even a small regional power like Indonesia has the capability to cause us major economic damage. Further, we’re an trading island nation, and that implies we need to project power well beyond our borders in order to secure trade routes.
The world’s full of people who look for soft targets. We don’t want to be one of them.
The one major disappointment of the show was the failure to address the matter of the comparison between the F35 and the F22. Why the hell are we buying the F35? What is the use of a single engine, short range aircraft in replacing the F111 in a country the size of Australia? The arguments about cost a rubbish, as everyone knows. The F35 will prove just as expensive as the F22 and a lot less potent. We need a DETERRENT!! The only practical option is to buy about 70 Raptors and retrofit the F111 with advanced weapons, avionics and engines. And the Super Hornet is just a waste of 6 billion – money which could have been spent on the F22. This crap about the US refusing to sell it to us is just to cover the embarrassment of the Defence department buying the wrong planes after being conned by glib salesmen from the US.
Fair point Stoka, but this was essentially a story about procurement, and the lack of oversight of a dodgy purchase which was thrust onto the RAAF by a minister who really doesn’t have a clue.
The F35 and F22 story is one for another day. One that I have no doubt is just as interesting.
But given our tie-ins with the Yanks anything other than a US product was always pretty unlikely.
And really, your talk of retrofitting the F-111 (again) for an eternal shelf-life is just tosh. While the discussion about us being the only purchaser of the SH outside the USN is entirely valid, you might like to consider the we’re also the only AF in the world still flying Pigs.
They’re a great plane, sure, but it’s a bit like arguing that we can still squeeze a few years out of the ‘75 Commodore with some new mags and a retrofitted fuel-injection system. After all, the sub-frame’s perfectly fine.
What bollocks. New Zealand has the “capability” to launch a reasonably aggressive attack on Australia – does that make them a threat? Is the USA a threat? Or is it only the little brown and yellow men we need to worry about?
Australia’s image as a racist, war-loving country has flourished under Howard. We are fast becoming the “threat” that others should worry about. Meanwhile, diplomacy anywhere outside Washington and London has become a dim memory.
Stoka, I can only agree. The main deterrent value of the F111 has always been its range and payload. As the report said last night there are still very few aircraft operating anywhere in the world that can match it for accurate delivery of a heavy bomb load to a distant target, and still get away from that target at Mach 2.5. Add that the US has hundreds of airframes and engines in the desert at Davis-Monthan, and you can readily envisage a scenario where it soldiers on for years yet. OK, its an old airframe but the electronics and weapons are state of the art, and easily upgradable. By way of precedent, the US has no plans to retire its B52s.
However, the F111 is not, never was and was never meant to be, an air superiority fighter – thats why we need the F22.
Watching the History Channel today they did have something on the F22 and I had the same thought as Stoka.
Can the military enthusiasts give a rundown on the F22 v the JSF?
Gandhi, sorry to tell you this, but since they gutted their Air Force, the only capability that New Zealand has to attack anybody, is in the Rugby.
And CK, whats wrong with an upgraded Commodore? Hell, Holden only got rid of the 6 cylinder “Red Motor” in the late 1980s! Of course the F111 cant last forever, but it can certainly make it until we replace it with a realistic option (the F35 aint it) without throwing 6 billion down the toilet on what is, an outdated dud.
Australia is the only Air Force flying F111s because the US withdrew theirs as part of the “peace dividend” after the fall of the USSR. Remember those sweet halcyon days – didn’ t seem to last long unfortunately. Way back in the beginning, (in about 1964 when it first flew) there were a bunch of countries lining up to buy the F111, then the Viet Nam war cranked up and the customers deserted the US, and the idea of European aircraft consortia started up. One of the first projects was a thing called the Multi Role Combat Aircraft – which evolved into the Panavia Tornado – have a close look at one and what does it look like? Why its an F111, only smaller!
I think Stoka has a valid point there CK, as the program discussed the F35 as a replacement for the pig and the F/A18 (with the interim being the Superhornet); it was germane enough for this thread. The point is that the F35 is a crock anyway, although 4 Corners didn’t deal with the issue. The JSF is only stealthy from certain angles. The Raptor, which has a radar signature of a blowie, as compared to the JSF’s duck, is being sold to Japan and probably Israel. Why are we being stiffed by the Seppo’s? Hasn’t Johnny slipped up the Uncle Sam jaxi far enough over these 11 years? The F22 is far better value for money. The F35 is a waste of money and will be obsolete by the time we get it.
Seriously, you AJ’s are so full of it. Your combined efforts cannot even answer this one simple question: in what way is Indonesia a credible threat to Australia?
Meanwhile, billions and billions of MY hard-earned tax dollars are being wasted on this crap every year. Meanwhile, my kids cannot get decent teachers at school. Meanwhile, my Dad dies because the local hospital does not have a bed for him, and there are not enough staff to care for him, and not enough resources to treat him properly.
Wankers, the lot of you. Seriously.
Gandhi, sorry to hear of your loss. Yes, I’m an AJ, but I lost my own father a couple of years ago too – pity we wont cough up the tax dollars for widespread prostate cancer screening isn’t it?
The truth is that Indonesia may not be a threat – certainly isnt a credible one yet, but do we want them to become one? Lets not forget that they are continually upgrading their military capability too. And while they may not attack us, they can still threaten other interests we may have. There are many lessons in what happened in East Timor between 1974 and 1999, and indeed, since.
Anyway, I don’t think any of us are directing these arguments against them specifically or singly. History is full of the stories of countries which couldn’t be bothered defending themselves, and are now parts of other countries. What makes us think we are so special so as to be immune from this?
My main beef in this whole thing is that these morons in Government are wasting serious money on crap that doesn’t deliver.
Perfectly good points PDL, and I must add that I’m not defending the SH or F35.
I’m all for big FU airpower, but the fact is that the F-111’s are so old they couldn’t get anywhere without adequate air-cover and, in their bomber configuration, couldn’t get anywhere with a full fuel and bomb load because:
a) They’d be as slow as a truck full of chickens, and
b) Anybody with a 1960’s radar system would detect.
You want a deterrent? Buy some cruise missiles.
PDL, defence lists the new flying servo as due to enter service in 2009. Which I look forward to, ’cause I’m an absolute Airbus stooge. A400M? Yes, please Minister.
On deterrence: you’ve given the perfect description of the mission profile for which the Pig was designed. Take off from Mönchengladbach, evade air defence, vaporise Minsk, return to a non-radioactive West Germany (fingers crossed), or failing that, Sweden (fingers on both hands crossed). The Cold War planners didn’t assume long-range air superiority over Soviet airspace, nor do the British planners who operate the Tornado wherever it goes. All they need is a short-range superiority over airfields, and lots of money for payload.
Personally I think that kind of long-range inderdiction capacity is perfect for a country like Australia whose real vulnerabilities are trade routes not geographical centres. It’s cheap when it’s done by F-111, and it’d be even cheaper and more effectively done by cruise missile.
That would of course mean a whole world of multilateral treaty-breaking pain, and probably the onerous task of actually engaging with our neighbours in arms détente. Listen to me, I sound like fucking John Lennon.
A fascinating hread and well done again to Robert for his usual careful research.
I’d like to toss this googly to the LP-ers on this post:
for those of you who argue we need to replace the strike capability of the F-111 – which seems to be quite a few of you – why not take the logical next step and argue for Australia developing a medium-range ballistic missile.
After all, if you really want stand-off capability, why not build missiles?
In the immortal words of Jonathon, the computer from War Games… “shall we play a game?”
Comments crossed with you PDL and CK—needless to say I think we’re all on the same cruise missile train together.
Sir Henry: “The Raptor, which has a radar signature of a blowie, as compared to the JSF’s duck, is being sold to Japan and probably Israel. Why are we being stiffed by the Seppo’s?”
Is this actually being stiffed though? From a strategic big-picture point of view, you have to admit that Israel, Japan and Australia all live in very different strategic neighborhoods, with different threat levels, response windows, and tactical and political needs. Israel is in a situational category all its own; Japan is looking right across the water from the next big threat, and has political obligations that accompany that fact. Australia’s security is vital, of course (and of course it makes sense for Australia to plan for its safety independently of US thinking), but its immediate neighboring threats are sort of second-rate and not globally or existentially menacing. Of course, things change. But if a world scenario were to emerge where Australia’s security was in serious danger of being compromised by a power with global reach, then I think US policy would shift gears rather quickly, don’t you? We’re just not there at present, and hopefully will never be. Naturally you have an obligation to yourselves to not bank on that attitude unconditionally; still, as a skeleton key to US supply thinking, it’s probably not without significance.
CK, the F111 gets into its target under radar cover (hence stealth is not an issue unless the enemy is operating AWACS) and with electronic protection from another specialised aircraft at about 500kts, drops its load (either by toss bombing and IR guidance or by using Harpoon or Popeye stand off missiles) and leaves the target at all possible speed (ie Mach 2.5), hotly pursued by the bad guys presumably. The F18 and the JSF cant do that and would tie up a lot more resources if we were to try. This is the deterrent value that both aircraft lack.
Liam, the scenarios discussed on the program last night were framed around the Super Hornet (entering service in 2010) and the JSF (entering service no earlier than 2016 – maybe). Hence, there wont be any 707s doing tanker duty.
Stand off / cruise missiles and ICBMs are great in theory, but there is a reason that the US and the USSR persisted with manned bombers throughout the cold war. All warfare is psychological and military capability is as much about threat as actually doing anything. The big problem with these automated systems is that you cant call them home once they’re launched – thats a bit tough if the bad guys cave in to your demands mid flight. Thus they have limited deterrence value because you’re unlikely to use something which has this limitation. But thats one reason why the latest generation of manned combat aircraft will be the last – we’ll see a move toward unmanned drones, flown by young guys & girls back in a bunker at home & who have trained on PCs.
Pre-dawn leftist,
Sorry to hear of your loss too, and thanks for acknowledging that Indonesia is NOT a threat. And sorry for the language too.
So how do we stop Indonesia and other neighbouring countries becoming a threat? Does anyone here really think an arms race is the answer? Really?
How about we Aussies drop all this Bush Doctrine anti-Muslim GWOT crap, for starters. How about we tell the US rightwing Christian crusaders and the Zionist Israeli neoconservatives that they are on their own now?
How about we build more social and economic bridges to our neighbours, invest a heck of a lot more in local Foreign Aid, invite a whole lot more Indonesians, Malaysians and Philipinos to come and live here, yeah – all that sort of thing… You know, “peace”.
To quote the old Mahatma:
War is over, if you want it.
I’m not sure what an AJ is Gandhi, but to address your question:
1. Indonesia straddles Australia’s major sea lanes and air routes to Asia and from there to Europe. If events turned hostile between our two countries they could and would seek to sever our sea lanes through the Sunda Strait (between Java and Sumatra) and the Lombok Strait (between Bali and Lombok) which are the major sea lanes through which we send our mineral exports to Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan. The alternative to keeping those lanes open would be to either send those exports through the Torres Strait (between Cape York and PNG) where they’d be exposed to hostile Indonesian occupied Irian Jaya (West Papua) or around the entire continent and up the east coast of Australia at such immense expense as would shut down the mining industry.
At the same time they would seek to shut down our air routes over their territory to, among other places, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. We’d have to redirect flights to Colombo in Sri Lanka and Manila in the Philippines to avoid crossing Indonesian airspace. The cost would be vast.
2. Indonesia is a complex and inherently unstable country. It is an archipelago of immense ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. It is held together by a political disposition which has been hammered out since it obtained independence after WW2 in which its Javanese elite holds the dominant position but holds the country together through a mixture of power sharing, corruption and repression. However since the 1950’s the difficulties of doing this have been demonstrated by insurrections in Sulawesi, Ambon, West Papua, Aceh and Northern Sumatra, to mention a few. History is replete with examples of elites focusing their peoples’ attention on an external “threat” in order to seek internal unity when their power is challenged. While it could hold together with benign intentions towards Australia no sane military planner would count on this in the long term planning, and military acquisitions are about long term planning.
3. Indonesia has form. In the early 1960s, partly in order to strengthen his hand internally, Sukarno launched his Konfrontasi guerilla war campaign against Malaysia, to which Australia committed troops because of treaty obligations. In 1999, during the East Timor crisis, then President Habibie wanted to declare war on Australia but was dissuaded from doing so by his Armed Forces Chief, Wiranto, on the simple basis that, if he did so, Indonesia would lose.
3. Indonesia, while it is currently internally occupied with economic development and the development of a democratic state with the rule of law, could, if the world economy turn adverse, as it did with the Asian economic crisis in 1998, which saw the fall of Suharto, very easily turn nasty towards Australia.
4. Despite its relative per capita poverty Indonesia has a large economy and a vast population and is currently on a path of expanding and re-equipping its military; hence its SU 30 aircraft purchases as well as its current refurbishment of its navy. It could easily within five to ten years pose a very credible threat to Australia.
I hope this helps.
JPZ, if the notion of deterrent is to have any meaning, i.e. we have this big bulge in our trouser so that our putative enemies will think it is that something that can credibly hurt them rather than being just pleased to see them.
Logically, none of the scenarios you describe are mutually exclusive. We need a deterrent so nobody in the neighbourhood will decide that they may help themselves to PNG in a cross border incursion because of “security concerns” (and there’s gold them thar hills); or indeed to Timor, or Lord Howe Island or Nauru, etc etc.
Because we do not have a huge standing army, nor lots of pilots, it sensible to have force multipliers rather than lots of attritable craft calculating to lose 50% per sortie.
Having a credible superiority avoids conflict in the first place. So the theory goes. Not having credible superiority, invites conflict because someone may want to try it on.
The Straw Man cometh!
I know you’re dying for someone to say that the USA is a threat, so why don’t you just say it yourself and get it out of your system?
A friendly government today can be replaced with a hostile one tomorrow. Unlikely in countries with long friendships with Australia, but possible in others with not so long friendships. It’s happened before.
Don’t take their word for their intentions, look at the stick they’re carrying and make sure you’ve got one as big. If you can’t afford one as big, get one big enough to put second thoughts into the other guy’s mind.
I think you’re projecting with the brown and yellow men jibe. Are you saying we don’t need to worry about them because brown and yellow men are too puny to threaten anybody? Or are you saying they’re inherently more peaceful than non-brown or yellow people? Perhaps you’d like to categories the countries in our region by their brown or yellowness. It seems to be important to you.
Just so we’re clear on my opinion, if New Zealand builds up its forces, starts annexing neighbouring countries, and clashes with our military in disputed regions then I’d regard them as a threat. That goes for the white, brown and yellow people there too.
It’s the eternal Australian security debate, j_p_z. If we don’t curry favour with our Great and Powerful Friends, well they won’t help us.
Hence, for various reasons our involvement in the Boer War, WW1, WW2 (“Britain is at war, therefore Australia is also at war”), WW2 again (‘Australia looks unashamedly to the United States because we’re completely freaking out and, oh fuck, the Poms have just lost Singapore’), Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s also why we buy all your kit.
Fact is the general public know enough about big power politics to realise that, for all the protestations of eternal friendship and the Governator coming from Australia, we can’t rely on youse lot for anything.
Not having a go at you of course, but the perspective is pretty much summed up by your own words:
That may be so, but Australia’s defence problem has always been one of attempting gear up in a regional conflict where the great powers aren’t dragged in, and therefore being unable to rely on them.
All arguments aside, sorry to hear about your dad Ghandi. What happened sounds like an outrage.
Geez ghandi, where did you get that from? The RNZAF today consists mainly of helicopters. Their only aircraft were a load of clapped out Skyhawks and Aermacchi trainers, most of which they got rid of years ago.
The only “capability” possessed by New Zealand to attack anyone is lobbing rock over the surfbreak.
Their navy consists of ten ships, FFS.
GregM,
1. Fantasizing about what Indonesia might do in the event of conflict does not make them a threat.
2. A warmongering neighbour and an expensive arms race will do little to help social unrest.
You are damn right there, mate. Where’s Osama, eh?
3. Germany has “form” too. Are they a threat as well?
4. Iran could have a nuke within 5 or 10 years too, but that doesn’t make it a threat today. And again, do you really think a local arms race is helpful?
Robert merkel:
And the Americans don’t???
Really???
Craig Mc,
Thanks, but really… there are a many such outrages happening all over this country, and a million such outrages have occurred in Iraq over the past four and a half years, and the kind of attitudes prevalent on this thread are directly to blame for all that.
We create the world we live in, folks. Be the change you want to see in this world. Open your hearts!
No Gandhi’s convinced me. We should just flog-off the lot.
The point being that the “enemy” is not Indonesia, but our strategic vulnerability lies north as was pretty much demonstrated during WW2.
Not to mention Antarctica – the dagger pointed at the heart of Australia.
Graham: I just report what I read…and this is in the absence of the political thing. It’s just that their supply chain is, reputedly, screwed up.
Generally, one point to keep in mind is the huge lengths of time we commit to these particular defence platforms. If we buy the JSF, we’ll be flying it until 2035, maybe 2040. Anyone want to predict the political situation to our immediate north that far out?
The short comment on the F-22: it is the greatest piloted fighter plane that will ever be built. It is the first fighter plane that can actually maintain supersonic speeds for long periods without running out of fuel. It is very agile. It has the radar signature of a ball bearing. It has a superb radar and avionics. It is the absolute duck’s guts. However, it has several weaknesses as far as the defence of Australia is concerned. It’s expansive, it can’t carry several important classes of weapons for Australia (anti-shipping and ground attack cruise missiles) without more very expensive integration work, and it’s claimed not to be available at any price. So we either still need a cruise missile carrier (what Carlo Kopp and Peter Goon suggest we retain and upgrade the F-111 for, or we could use the JSF or even the Super Hornets), or we have to pay a lot of money to adapt it for our needs. And then there’s the question of availability. Whether the Yanks’ refusal to sell it to us lasts beyond Australia threatening to buy jets from elsewhere is a very pertinent question.
Tony D:
In the absence of any available rational explanation or anything else that makes military, economic or political sense …. that hypothesis will have to do.
Mug Punter:
Hey. Didn’t the Chinese really-truly promise that job to Australia? Quick, offer them something more or they’ll give it to the Indonesians.
Robert Merkel:
Fair enough.
As I have said several times before [and am too lazy to hunt around for the links], we should rethink our whole approach to armed forces procurement. I still don’t believe we can have effective defence – or attack capability – on the cheap but we certainly can get a hell of a lot more bang for our buck …. and get it a hell of a lot sooner too. Why didn’t we go shopping for aircraft that suit OUR needs instead of …. what?
This whole deal is so dodgy and so harmful to overall Australia’s national interest that someone should have blown the whistle on it before things got out of control. Wonder how long it will be before The “C” Word is used in relayion to this deal?
The F-111 was bought because, amongst other, things it was the only aircraft that could put a bomb through the front door of tthe Indonesian President’s palace, at night and in the middle of a monsoon, and get away. Uncaught. Unrefueled. From Australia. That was the 1960s, and today it is still the only aircraft that can do that. And everyone in SE Asia knows it.
There is no feasible current replacement for the F-111. Which by the way started out as, effectively, a Joint Strike Fighter, built to meet both UASF and USN needs like the F35, but one that was far more capable in the strike, range and speed components. Our original F-111C planes have the heavy duty Naval (f-111B, that never made it to production) version’s landing gear, designed to land on carriers, and the long wings of the nuclear strike USAF version. They still have the landing hooks fitted.
With the investment in avionic upgrades, maintenance facilities, skills and almost unlimited spares available from Davis-Monthan, and with a steel fuselage, the F-111 could be kept operation far past 2020. The C versions are already rate for almost all the latest and greatest weapons, including standoff missiles, and the G versions (the old nuclear FB-111s) could go through the same avionics update carried out on the Cs a few years back to also carry anything you want.
The plane has been a tremendous investment.
Oh, one point not raised on 4-corners: our F-111s are maintained by private industry – Boeing Australia. Small world.
Well fuck it. What about the quick, simple deterrent of the Force de Akubra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_frappe
Go for broke, I say.
Brett, are you on what I’m on?
completely OT but … pre-dawn leftist, just to put your mind at rest regarding prostate screening, unless (and possibly even if) an old man has a very clear family history of aggressive prostate cancer, the screening is actually worse than useless (i.e. likely to be hazardous), and is not a cost-effective use of public money. Paying for national prostate screening rather than sinking the money into breast cancer screening or cervical cancer screening is like coming out on the wrong side of this fighter plane argument – you wasted a lot of money and probably some lives.
So whatever shit the government was blowing its money on (first home owners grants, fighter planes, cocaine and dancing boys for Johnny), the waste probably didn’t have any relationship to the chances of detecting and treating your family member’s illness any earlier.
(This is a personal gripe of mine, the campaign for early screening of prostate cancer being deeply connected to anti-feminist men’s rights movements, and some US urology specialist organisations. I like to correct it where I see it, insidious little snake of a campaign that it is. So sorry to go OT on your arse, if you’ll pardon the pun).
CK: If that’s Save the Pig, yep!
As it stands, we have two tremendous sealane protection weapons: the Collins subs and the F-111. But if you need to send the old message by gunboat, the F-111 is the quickest way to do it. And is also much more controllable than having just long range missiles, as someone else has already suggested.
Activating a missile battery as a means of expressing intent (such as another Timor situation) is a very ham-fisted way of getting the point across. You end up either having to fire the thing, or back down. It closes options, and may force the other side into actions you don’t want them to do, like actually fight back. While having a Collins class pop up in harbour may be emphatic, it’s far too risky. Subs only demonstrate intent when they are seen, but that removes most of their effectiveness. However, having a couple of F-111s stooging around just across the border gets a message across very effectively – and under full control.
You can call a manned bomber back at any point, even on the run in to the target. The local populace may never know it’s there, but the military and leadership surely will, which allows a more graceful backdown. Quite probably what happened with Timor.
And with the upcoming Airbus MRTT tankers – which finally have both drogue and boom refueling available – a minimum number of tankers can support a maximum number of F-111s from much safer distances than they would have to operate with a Hornet/Super Hornet/JSF attack fleet.
And you might well ask why you never saw hordes of F-111’s zooming from the flightdecks of the super-carriers. Because, as far as the USN was concerned, it was a dog.
Much, oddly enough, as is the Super Hornet.
Look, I love the aircraft, think it was great technology for its day, great seeing it fly, but it’s a museum piece.
I like Lancasters, Heinkels and Mosquitos as well, but the argument for seeing this aircraft in front-line service for the next ten years is non-existent.
You realise you’re talking the equivalent of Spanish Air Force Messherscmidts in the mid-60’s here?
And like the B52?
I know where you’re coming from, but I don’t think the F-111 is obsolete. If we were up against the Rooskies in our neighborhood then, sure, it’s not going to work. And it might not last too long if sent to Taiwan, should it come to that. But in our little bit of the world, and against any of our likely threats, the F-111 is still streets ahead of anything anyone else nearby has. And we still can get the best value from it for any comparable investment. Frex, $6 billion spent on upgrading to modern engines could give them even greater force projection (range/payload).
I actually hope that our F-111s never get used in anger, although I expected them to be used in both of the Gulf wars. Certainly don’t want them let loose against Iran. They are a deterrent: enough of a superior platform to keep the neighbours thinking. And, with tactics, training and the right mix of weapons and support, they should make the job too hard for the number of Su-30s any of our neighbours currently or are likely to use. For now and for a few more years. Which means that we can actually have a proper look at what we need and what is available to replace it.
SG – we now know our family has that genetic history, and boy oh boy am I enjoying the annual screening – blood tests and rectal exams and the whole nine yards.
There are mixed views on the value of screening though, and the current methods certainly are not great. One of the problems is the high rate of false positives which then need a biopsy – very hard place to get to without major surgery.
Well BrettC, you might as well get used to it. They can’t be in the inventory forever.
The argument about the F-111 seems to be about having a strategic bomber that scares the fuck out of everyone in the region.
In short, we don’t. And no-one’s in the least bit frightened.
lucky you! In such a situation you might be a beneficiary of the testing you are undergoing, but this is not screening. Screening is the mass testing of a population to identify sick people and treat them early, in the hope of getting greater success.
Besides the issue of false positives, the big problem with screening (as opposed to targeted testing) is that prostate cancer is not known to be vulnerable to early treatment – i.e. catching it and treating it earlier is not known to improve survival rates over treating it when it becomes symptomatic. Even without false positives screening (or even voluntary testing) is probably still ineffective, because prostate cancer in the majority of cases takes longer to kill a man than he has left to him when it is found, and the surgery itself is dangerous. (Studies, indeed, have shown that most men will give up 5 years of life in order to remain potent and continent – both major side effects of prostate cancer surgery).
On top of that, screening is primarily a cost-effectiveness decision, which is why cervical cancer screening is so good. You spend a lot of money to identify a disease early before it kills off a tax-payer, not before it kills off a pensioner. But because most of the anti-feminists driving screening campaigns for prostate cancer don’t comprehend the difference between voluntary testing and screening, and in any case don’t understand what screening actually is, they have turned prostate screening into a political football to attack “preferential” women’s health funding. Seeing it being pushed that way really gives me the shits, especially if conservative governments take up the message (which to his credit, as far as I can recall, Abbott hasn’t).
Anyway, that’s my OT rant for the day. I should have held it for a condemn-a-thon…
If you’re not a troll, SG, then you are certainly a very, very sick person and I suggest you seek help.
Perhaps you have dropped into the wrong thread?
F111s were used during that period to deter the Indonesian military from more active support — a few were moved to Tindal airbase in a way that quietly expressed to Indonesia that we had the ability to destroy their entire border force at any time we chose.
The point is not that you try and get a plane that can do anything in any situation. You can’t, no such plane exists. What you do instead is have a mix of more specialised platforms to meet various scenarios. When your scenario is “blow up lots of shit very quickly”, the F111 is still the best platform in the region. Only the yanks have anything better.
The $6B spent on Super Harriers could have paid for a lot of spares and a lot of refurbishment for the F111s. New avionics and engines certainly. Maybe even fancy stuff like rebuilding with carbon fibre bits or some radar-absorbing paint.
As for worrying about Indonesia, Defence would be criminally negligent not to. It’s unlikely to ever happen, but the consequences of a war with Indonesia would be quite serious. The best ways to deter and therefore prevent war are 1) trade and 2) credible military power. Most wars have started because the aggressors had little to lose and thought they would win easily.
I’m too pissed to read the whole bloody thread all the way through so I’ll just do random drink by fiskings.
Allow me to start from this default position.
Also fun to play around with various what if? combinations here.
So never mind those pathetic islamofacists who can’t offer anything except a short and loud outlet for angry young men, the People’s Republic of China which is basically now Confucius meets Capitalism, Tsar Putin (amazing how the monothilic bastion of communism so rapidly turned into far more of a ruthless capitalist meritocracy that its archrival) or all those swarming Indian hordes taking over our 7-11s, call centres and Silicon Valley.
Everyone mentioned so far, ‘cept for the fanatics who never last that long, are too busy making money off eachother and enjoying eachothers luxuries and vices to slug it out. (Mind you, I can see Japan going slightly crazy again when oil peaks and starts to dwindle.)
The big problem’s gonna be the 21st century pirates, corporate dacoits, oil and drug warlords, rogue money and date laundries and all the other nasties thrown by failed states and fucked up outer urban zones spread across the globe – driven by tightening access to resources and egged on by the globalistion of info and money.
And this archaically globalised economey is gonna be enabled by the likes of these kinda bastards. They’ll hook you up with an underage WMD like a shot if the brokerage fee is right.
An excellent point. As the scramble for resources gets tighter – whether it’s marine protein, oil or water- that enormous continent next door to us will just get more and more desirable by everyfuckingone. Antarctica’s the albino canary in the global coalmine.
It’s gonna be a wild and crazy next few decades that’ll remind us more of a early roiling and toiling 19th century than the shiny futurist dreams we keep getting promised.
Which takes me to whoever said here that policy and capability are two separate things. Another good point.
Policy is what you want to do next, capability is getting ready for what others might do next. And as I limned out above, the “others� are all over the place and getting more unpredictable by the day.
Hear! hear! The very fact you can’t track the buggers makes ‘em a massive threat multiplier. Like empty red light camera housings, you never know where and when they are active at what key intersections. The possibility is menace enough.
And judging from this docu, our Colli? are manned by some pretty cluey chess players, reef mechanics and spirited privateers. They certainly made one of the world’s oldest and most professional navies, the USN, look all at sea.
Actually just about every boy with web access in SE Asia knows it takes these days, hundreds of man-hours and pots of hi-tech glue just to get one of the poor old dears up to lighting its farts at an Airshow. Sure it could pull off one great rabbit punch but if the yanks couldn’t nail Saddam or Osama from the air, what makes you think a couple of gallant RAAF lads, crammed into a tiny F-111 cockpit and seated on wooly black nylon and very sweaty car covers for fuckin’ hours, would decapitate whoever is supposed to be the local region leadership threatening us now?
Oh yes, another good point. Maybe we should get less so we can afford the Marine S/VTOL variant instead. Would make more sense for operating off hastily rigged bush pads when everything’s gone to hell.
What people tend to forget about stealth is that it’s great for bombers using only passive sensor technology and coming in at night. But the moment a fighter starts electronically looking for its prey, then it’s radiating and therefore no longer stealthy. Sure there’s some whizzy new radar systems out there that are supposed to overcome this but a) they haven’t been proven in combat yet, b) detection of detection technology is an infinite loop and c) has the ADF properly budgeted for installing, running in and logistically supporting first generation Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) radar systems in our F-35s? Airframes these days are pretty solid. But ain’t nothing stealthy about how avionics upgrades and engine maintenence chews up your budget in the long run.
blockquote>But Pre-dawn is right- the F-22 would appear to be a good choice given the amounts of money being dropped.
And a fuckpot more money is gonna be dropped before they’re even fully operational with the USAF. Any major cutting-edge miltech project is always gonna run well over budget and timelines. But with the Raptor program, you do hafta worry about stuff like this. Kelly Johnson would have had the current Lockheed advanced project management team’s balls for dice. “Be quick, be quiet, be on time.â€? As he did with the SR-71, still 40 years later one of the greatest aviation tech challenges ever met.
Meanwhile the Russkies are cranking out 5th generation airframes where the factory bent rails to hang state-of-the-art smart munitions can be hammered back into operational shape by a drunken conscript with his boot. And who knows what those heathen Chinee, Indoos and Euros are up to next.
No, no, no. Ballistic missiles are easily spotted and traced back, consume immense resources just to keep ‘em rapid fire and undetectable and do nothing for your general global whuffie. Enhancing US-designed cruise missiles for local conditions is cheaper and more effective. Specially given our edge in lightweight materials and MEMs.
Not to mention far more accuracy than an IRBM or ICBM, and perhaps in our case enhanced for targeting by a massive pile of digital holiday snaps from peripatetic locals loaded into a Google Earth/3rd generation sat-enabled TERCOM-DSMAC targeting mashup.
And who’s to say (unless we strategically leak it) that a bunch of blokes at Fishermans Bend ain’t already hotrodding a bunch of USAF surplus AGM-129 ACMs to the point where they can basically be kicked out the back end of a C-130 busking along at 100 metres and 200 knots around 200 kms away from the action. And if you strategically leak that that capability might exist, you could also remind your listeners Australia is no slouch at biological warfare either. Seen a rabbit in the wild lately? Incidentally, did you know a AGM-129 can carry a payload of around 500 kgs? – which could well include triggered particle dispersal systems instead of yer old bog standard W80-3 variable yield nuclear warhead.
A subtly well-rattled saber can be very effective sometimes. Certainly less sweat than pulling the bloody thing out at the last minute.
Yes and yes. More to the point a stable government can be collapsed into geopolitically irresponsible warring failed statelets and warlord fiefs in surprisingly short time these days. Exhibit A: The Republic formerly known as Yugoslavia.
Or supposing the uneasy coalition currently known as Indonesia falls apart and the key shipping lanes through which pass our medical supplies, plasma TVs, designer clothes and SUVs are now being menaced and taxed by local warlords with “liberated” TNI patrol boats armed with anti-shipping missiles they bought off the Russian Business Network’s under the counter equivalent of eBay. And I personally do not want my supplies of single malt interrupted by some sleazy corsair looting a hapless container ship picking its stately way through the Java Sea.
At that point I’d really like to see an ADF P3-C, Global Hawk or something with similar range and loiter time (unmanned or not) looming up overhead to document everything through its various sensors (for insurance purposes, natch) before dropping its own nasty little smart shipkiller on the pirates. Cheers! And if they remain pernicious in the region after that, send a Collins do something nasty to make it clear it’s possibly still lurking in the vicinity like a great white shark.
Or as others here put it:
Australia needs a long ranging yet very flexible pinpoint punch for self-defense and last ditch enforcement of economic zones of influence – by air and sea. If it gets really tight and mainland invasion by mainstream military (Yeah, like, as if?), we’ll just tap the Yanks on the shoulder and go cough*Pine Gap*cough*. Adventures abroad for the ADF should pretty much be just keeping order in our backyard- the South Pacific – and the token commitment here and there to build up operational expertise.
Basically, the pointy, data-gathering and exploding and killing end will just become infinitely more mobile. All we’re debating here is whether we get the best bang for our buck about what’ll haul suchlike to the market. And debating what the marketplace will look like for such deliveries.
Which sorta brings us back full circle to policy vs capability. Cruise missiles do seem to be here the most flexible bang for a tight buck spent by a big land for an uncertain future.
Incidentally, one of Gary Francis Powers’ main claims for posterity is that he was the first person ever shot down by a guided surface to air missile. The world’s most powerful military-industrial complex didn’t see that one coming that soon.
Oh and SG, pull your finger out. There’s better things you can probe here than some wonky nerdy bang bang thread.
Thanks Rob for that bit of wildlife management in the LP Safari Park.
I really meant “data laundries” but that typo does have its own surreal integrity, doesn’t it?
I don’t think the F-111 is obsolete. Not at all. I see them outside my Gold Coast office window all the time: flying up the coast, then down the coast.
Then up the coast. Then down the coast.
Then up the coast again.
Then down the coast again.
You get the idea.
At Indy time, they really come into their own, with their constant low fly-overs. Then comes the tour de force, the majestic afterburner explosion of a few hundred dollars worth of fuel. Brilliant! Money well spent, I say.
I doubt there is now, ever was, or ever will be, any plane on earth that can do such an utterly, utterly fantastic job.
That may well have been the intention of the Australian government. You show remarkable insight into the thinking of the Indo government when you allege that the Tindall move actually deterred them from taking more aggressive action.
Could it not be argued that the arrival of the US Seventh Fleet was at least as persuasive in focussing the Indos on a course of less than maximal belligerence?
Which brings me back to my major point made above. Australian air power in the region, especially in the face of Indo interests, operates under the aegis of US aims and ambitions. US patronage of Australian purchase of Super Hornets is also a message sent from Washington to the Indos.
So maybe we should just give the money to Bush, and buy protection directly, without even bothering with the planes? Not a bad idea, Katz.
Better yet, why don’t we just give the money to Jakarta? We could pretend it’s “Foreign Aid”.
Meanwhile in the UK:
Corruption at the highest levels, folks. What did Brendan Nelson get for his money, hmmn????
Sorry, I should have said:
What did Brendan Nelson get for OUR money, hmmn????
Do you have any evidence that Nelson has taken a bribe , gandhi, or is that just paranoid ranting?
I doubt it. He’s too fucking dumb to recognise an “situation appreciation study fee” or an invitation to meet the “other’ Board Directors at a lavishly appointed Chesapeake Bay “Hunting Lodge” when they’re dangled in front of his face. On the board of a second tier Health Insurance company is about his post-political lot. And on the board of ASTA and Metal Storm if he’s really unlucky. No doubt though Lockheed will throw him a consultancy fee or two.
Let’s face it, he’s no Andrew Peacock.
GregM,
Here’s just one model for such deals, by way of example…
Michael Portillo, a former UK Secretary of Defence, became a director of BAE Systems, which secretly paid one billion UK pounds in bribes to the Saudis. When the deal was publicly revealed, the Blair government shut down investigations because they were deemed to be against the “national interest”. (NB: There’s that term again, timboy!)
Why on earth would you imagine that such things do not happen over here?
There is no evidence of personal cupidity on the part of Peacock or Nelson.
Nabs’ thesis about the mental acuity of Nelson is persuasive enough to explain the bizarre methodology and results of the most expensive armaments purchase in Australian hisotry.
Lest we forget, Nelson is the man who transported the wrong corpse and then couldn’t think up a lie to fend off the laziest press corps in the world.
The subtext of this situation is clearly that deals were done between the political and defence department heavyweights (viz, the qualified knowers) and the vested interests of the US, namely Boeing, Andrew Peacock et at. There a vast sums of money to be changing hands, therefore the apocryphal tale of the failed F111 wing – another scare campaign like children overboard.
Imagine this scenario – we buy all the remaining F111 airframes and parts from the US at a bargain price. We also buy a bunch of AGP79 top of the line radars, and to put the icing on the cake, a bunch of F119 engines. Modifying the F111, the airframe of which will last for ages with heaps of spares, gives us massive intellectual property in the high tech aeronautical engineering field (after all, the Swedes build the Gripen – why can’t we?). The result (as already proposed by those more technically adept than moi) is a lethal, long range supercruising armed to the teeth F111). Accompanying it would be a squadron of F22 Raptors, with the range and speed to escort it on any potential bombing mission. And all cheaper and way more potent than a bunch of Super hornets. Is anyone aware that the Russkys and India are co jointly working on a competitor to the Raptor? etc
Lest we forget, Nelson is also the man who blurted out that the Iraq War really was all about oil. Given that he believes that, but still maintains Aussie troops in Iraq, then he evidently thinks it’s OK to have pre-emptive wars for oil in contravention of international law. So we have already established that he is a man of no moral compunction.
Then he hands out a no-bid contract for dodgy hardware, after pretending our current F111s are inadequate for “Teh Mission” .
And y’all want “evidence”? The military-industrial machine is dependent on high-churn turnover of pubic funds. That’s how it works.
At the very least, Nelson should resign for being the man in charge of such a monumental cockup.
But on the subject of “evidence”, how does this look:
Now why would Brendan Nelson, of all people, want to block research on “social sciences and Asia and Pacific studies” hmmn?
Oh, my.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/academics-say-nelson-vetoes-were-censorship/2007/10/29/1193618796855.html
How do you do it, a bender then up again to blog a few hours later, Tavarich?
The F111 is actually an early version of stealth – it was designed to fly nape of the earth (tree top height) with its special very low power terrain following radar linked to the controls to get to the target, then climb rapidly with its afterburner to give the ordnance momentum.
At the very least the F111 should remain in our inventory in a “wild weasel” role, i.e. to take out the opposition’s radar and SA missiles. In this role a flight of four is used, two aircraft high, drawing the active radar and self-identifying their exact location to then transmit it via datalink to the two craft flying lo-lo to zap the batteries. After that it doesn’t matter what platform is used for the main mission.
The problem identified in the 4 Corners episode under discussion here was that the enemy, while it may have difficulty intercepting the Super Hornets on the way in, can and would take out the air tankers to deny the Super Hornets a return journey. Hence, in our geographic position, long-range strike aircraft are a necessity – we just don’t have enough hardware to protect the tankers as well in a top cover capacity.
The F111 wing stress problem has now turned out to be a furphy as a result of a test wrongly applied. The alleged flaw was created in a test and not cracks detected in an aircraft under flying conditions (like a Nomad, for example).
The main issue with the F111 is its datalink and computerisation to allow it full integration. The Yanks do not have anything to sell us in that way and thus, they tell us, we should throw it away. But full integration onto the RAF Tornado F3 was completed during 2004 and the Brits have just the thing to adapt for the F111.
In a not too distant future, cruise missiles hung from any old bus or from Christmas Island TV-guided will be cheap and plentiful and will be the way to go and the F111 will do until then.
But Sir Henry, what happens when we come under attack from a disgruntled young terrorist, with a dangerous weapon stashed in his backback? Are our brave politicians prepared to accept the collateral damage of an F-18 strike on the Sydney CBD?
stoke wrote:
On this episode of “Pimp My Ride”, X to the Z takes a trip downunder to Amberley and hooks up an old friend who lets X park his enormous satellite TV dish in the backyard.
XtoZ: Ah, heh, heh, heh. This is real old skool. Lookit the wing hangin’ off it. What’s that in the cockpit? Playboy seat covers? Ya never clean the bukkits of fried chicken out of the boot? It’s got a TV but it’s, wha? Black’n'White?
CDR: Now look here, Mr Z. This is the apogee of swing wing aircraft still in service! Still, it could do with a paint job.
XtoZ: We’ll do more than that dog, we’ll hook you up as you’ve still got my dish back there in the yard feedin’ my voracious TV watchin’ appetites. Gimme da keys!
CDR: (hands over keys). OH MY GOD!!!!111!!!! PIMP MY RIDE !!!!1!!!!!!!
XtoZ: Which wires do I hold together again, dude? It ain’t startin! (WHOOOSH) oh, it’s off! Those people dey look juz like ants!
CDR: Those are ants, you gotta let off the handbrake. Here, I’ll push it if you put it in second.
(back at the workshop)
XtoZ: Here it is boyzzzz… (F111 arrives on back of tow truck)
MadMike: Oh No Dog! It’s still got Truman’s fingerprints on it! Dude, can we just buy ‘em a new plane?
XtoZ: No way Dog! It’s got sum kinda sennamennal value.
MadMike: (shakes head). OK, for this ride I think it needs 47 LCD TV sets hooked up to an X Box console for the navigator, 5 subwoofers, a brand nooooo GPS, a blu-ray DVD player and a wireless networked car PC so you can see Google Earth so you know what you’re bombin!
Chipz: Hmm, I see an old skool black primer paint job with some bitchin’ red flames on the nose cone. It’s Stealth, but it’s still classy! I’ll fix that saggy wing with some araldite and a patch we made from the door of a Cadillac Eldorado!
Spanner: These engines is busted doodz. I got twin LS1 crate V8’s from Bowtie Performance here, 500 horse power each! There’s no way you’ll be losin’ a drag race against an A2A now! Schweeet!
XtoZ: Do what ya gotta!
(later, fully sik F111 revealed from covers, including neon lighting on undercarriage)
CDR: OH MY GODZ!!!!!111!!!! THANK YOU MTV FOR PIMPIN’ MY RIDE !!111!!!!
XtoZ: Slow down sucka! Here’s yo keys, you officially bin’ PIMPED! Hands of the merch dog, that’s for the ladeez only!
“F111s were used during that period to deter the Indonesian military from more active support — a few were moved to Tindal airbase in a way that quietly expressed to Indonesia that we had the ability to destroy their entire border force at any time we chose.”
No offence, JC, but outside of what you’ve read in your Tom Clancy/John Birmingham stick books, do you have a realistic idea of what long-range, fast-moving aerial interdiction can and can’t actually pull off in the messy world that is real life? Or what aircraft in general can pull off? You shouldn’t all take corporate glossies at face value. The Pig can do ‘this’ and ‘that’; the F-22 will be able to do ‘this’ and ‘that’. Yeah, well. Maybe. In optimum conditions. Sometimes. On the sixteenth go. Our would-be enemies know all this, too. They aren’t all stupid, and they do learn fast. Limitations of technology, especially.
“Sure it could pull off one great rabbit punch but if the yanks couldn’t nail Saddam or Osama from the air, what makes you think a couple of gallant RAAF lads, crammed into a tiny F-111 cockpit and seated on wooly black nylon and very sweaty car covers for fuckin’ hours, would decapitate whoever is supposed to be the local region leadership threatening us now?”
Quite. The ‘deterrent’ impact of high-tech aircraft is weakening with every failed aircraft-heavy counter-insurgency war that goes by us, with every agit-prop victory (real or staged) that shoves another red-hot PR poker up our arrogant western tech-freak bums. Big fast jets, h/c gunships bristling with pointy, swirly things, cruise missiles…they just aren’t scaring the bad guys so much these days. They’ve mostly figured out that the way to beat a superior air force is…to park your own obsolete Russian bloaters on the tarmac and wander off. Maybe join a suicide-bombing militia, or parade a bombed ambulance for the cameras. Game over, flyboy. Nice badges, but. As for CAS, well, Tex flies/hovers over, Tex drops a ton of hot shit, Tex goes home to a steak and a beer and perhaps a Presidential codpiece in three decades. Bad dude scrapes up his dead bad dudes and recruits threefold more from among their pissed-off rellies, not to mention the collateral good guy whose shop just got ram-raided from above…the trap with aircraft technology salesmanship/procurement is the way ‘performance’ parameters whitewash the prospect and consequences of operational ‘failure’ out of the doctrinal calculus, as if technical limitations can be set aside rather than them being an inherent component of the air power package, one you must consider deeply before signing on to that package. The thing about ‘force multipliers’ is that they are also ‘failure multipliers’.
This matters. It’s worrying that too many still separate capability and policy. Of course, we call it a more snazzy name: ‘contingency planning’. That’s why we’re so into multi-task platforms. Problem with ‘multi-task’ technology is that in policy terms it’s just confusing and diffusing. Should we buy a fighter that can mix cocktails as well? Why not an attack helicopter that can give you a splendid blowjob? Getting a ‘bigger bang for our buck’ is not a matter of inventing policy requirements that didn’t exist before, simply to fit a wow piece of kit. Into this category I would firmly place Australia’s cutting-edge aviation spends of the last few decades. You don’t need the very latest gear either to maintain a generic organic capability or nurture ANZUS-integration. Two big furphies spruiked by corporate spivs. In fact more often than not it works the other way around: the more tech-heavy/cutting-edge/expensive you get the more you risk losing the generic, doctrinal skillsets that really count in the long strategic run, as well as specialising your people into a tinsy box. I have a hunch that most fighter pilots of the last two decades would have been a whole lot happier about getting twice or three times the flying hours they did, even if it was in a skanky old F-16. Sound ‘bang for your buck’ is a matter of knowing exactly what you need to be able to do, and then buying the equipment that allows you to do that as well as possible.
I have a few thousand hours as an Army reconnaissance pilot, which includes the usual AOP courses, and a fair amount of (non-op, NB) experience in designating targets for fast-movers. Fifteen years ago when I was aerial tactics instructor at the SAA in Oakey and we were gearing up to replace the Kiowa LOH, which is what I flew almost exclusively, I wrote an appreciation based on Air 87. It was never a formal part of the process, more of a subby’s admin task for self, but it ended up arguing against an Apache type attack/recon purchase, based mostly on an assessment of what we needed to be able to do within the context of a stand-alone aerial recce environment. I can assure you that any occasion on which we deploy these new bloody Tigers – sanely, I mean – we’ll be surrounded by a surfeit of other attack helos. ie they’ll be reundant, anyway. You couldn’t then and can’t now parse capability from policy. ANZUS does have a direct impact on our force disposition, but it ought to be in the opposite direction to the one we’ve taken lately with aviation buys (ie since F-18, maybe even Pig). Any fast jet enthusiast who does seriously think we’re going to be long-range bombing Indonesia without both a) permission from America, and b) erm, actually, getting them to do it for us, with their gear, their full int suite, their satellite outriders, their drivers…is not even simply a pimply amateur military hardware geek (see John Birmingham’s cheesy site), you’re actually not sane. You’re not thinking sanely. The only vaguely rational argument in favour of cutting edge aviation gear for Australia is piloty-personal desire to tool about at high speed and low level in great big fuck off flying machines, blowing things up. Force disposition is a zero-ish sum game. You can say ‘multi-task’ until you are rainbow-coloured in the face, but it doesn’t work like that in operator-land. There were/are always a multitude of reasons for not getting silly with tech-heavy kit, and the least is usually the money. Big toys change your whole training posture, your attitude to and skills in particular areas (in the Tiger’s case, aerial reconnaissance), your force disposition, your fighting ethos, in fact…technology can change everything about the way a country fights. America is the perfect case in point. Compare Iowa Jima with Fallujah and you will see how technology can make nations lose wars. America’s best fighting asset is her people and they scarcely get a look-in now. Overwhemingly air power is IMHO proving a strategic disaster for Western armies, and it looks like we are going down that same sad route. One of the main reasons I’m an ex AJ/recon pilot was because I didn’t want to become a bomber pilot. Meanwhile the greatest strategic contribution Australian F-18 pilots made to the current Iraq war was not bombing a few targets on highly-publicised moral grounds. There’s MIC money well spent, eh.
To me, air superiority is the last thing I’d care much about in the kind of wars we’re now bogged down in. (You know, actual, ongoing wars, as opposed to fantasy ones.) As an AOP pilot I found getting fast jets onto the right tactical targets by far the most challenging task in the recce pilots kit bag (and I did a ton of NVG low-level recon in the LOH, which isn’t exactly circuits at Hoxton Park). My brother is an ex F-18 and FAC pilot who later served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the SASR. So he, at least, has even more grounds than me to be realistic about both ends of the CAS and strategic bombing chain on operations. He’s also got a lot of time up solving counter-insurgency problems without recourse to aerial solutions. NOw, we broadly agree on the limitations of air power, but he has a lot more operational credibility and recent experience than me when he argues (as, trust me, he would if he was into web gobfests) that an overly air power-obsessed defence posture of the last couple of decades has contributed greatly to our (ie the West’s) less than shithot strategic performance in the two main Op theatres in which we now flounder.
None of this is ‘news’. Most military professionals who aren’t easily impressed by flying suits per se will agree that overall air power is a mixed blessing. (If that is you actually care about defence policy and operational outcomes, as opposed to mere technical possibility.) Some experienced low-level ops soldiers I know fucking can’t stand air power. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. That’s not to say any sane grunt wants to be on the losing side of an air superiority stoush, nor that aviation assets aren’t fantastic strategic, logistic and tactical supporting elements. But I really, really firmly believe that aviation is not, or should not be, an ‘arms corps’, as such. The most critical aspects of applying weaponry to good strategic outcome are target selection and disciplined fire control. For me there is just too much margin for error inherent in aircraft-delivered weapons, no matter how sophisticated your target system becomes, because the size of the payload you can (mistakenly?) deliver is – must be, must be – upfront in any honest BDA calculus you do. (Although honest and all-encompassing BDA seems to be waaaay out of fashion these days, huh? Huge part of our problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, folks…) This is a fundamental debate of doctrine that needs to be addressed, because we’re building more and more ‘bang’ into our air power, and yet we are trying to use them in tactical/strategic/PR situations that demand ever more finesse and subtlety in bang-delivery.
Me, I have no beef with people who like to have purely technical arguments about technology and toys. I love military aircraft as much as anyone. (We Robertsons have been shooting shit down and getting shot down in Australia’s wars for many years now.) But it defies reality, sanity, honesty and, not unimportantly, morality to artificially cleave what an aircraft ‘can’ do on glossy corporate paper from what it can really do in the real world, including – crucially – what it can do badly, but all too easily. And has been doing – badly and all too easily – for a long time, now. In wars going on right now, under our noses. All the real strategic and political headaches coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan now, are, I assert, a lot to do with the catastrophic triple mismatch between what ‘we know‘ our technology ‘can do’, what it’s actually, really, truly doing, and what, in any case, our overall strategy needs our technology to do. (Which is mostly, I’d reckon, to eff the effing eff out of the effing way, and let the relatively tech-naked soldier get on with things on the ground. Operation Anaconda aside, where air power was critical – in both SNAFU and SNAFU-solution mind, geddit? – the tactical ‘wins’ my brother had as a patrol commander involved jaw-jaw far more often than war-war. Hard to do that from a cockpit.)
Ghandi – for what it’s worth, I think you’re talking the most sanity and sense of anyone on this thread…as an ex-AJ and a former military aviation professional myself. Admittedly I’m a decade out of touch with CE technology, aviation doctrine, aerial tactics and strategic thinking, and it’s not uncommon for military conservatives to go all gooey in their post-unform days, but I’ve come to think that air power will be seen, retrospectively, as one of the great immoral misuses of technology of human history. Just me. Tony D – sorry to go OT, but…did we once climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 3.00 am together? That you?
stoka: that’s a massive system integration job for a grand total of 35-odd aircraft, and integrating hot new stuff with old stuff is a problematic exercise – anyone remember the Seasprites?
Though the resulting machine would potentially be one hell of a weapon – a supercruising, long-range strike fighter armed with the very best the West has to offer (AMRAAMs, maybe Meteors for long-range air-to-air, ASRAAMs for short-range air-to-air, and JASSM cruise missiles), and with the world’s best radar. Perhaps even a bit of judicious signature reduction, so it can get in a bit closer before it fires.
But it would be a massive development project, and unless we could find somebody else who wants to buy a souped-up 40 year old aircraft we’d be paying for it all ourselves, and taking the risk of it not working.
I reckon there’s more than one of him—or perhaps he and Jack Strocchi take turns.
I’ve one word for you Schhwing Commander: AC-130H.
Yeah it’s a word.
Who says? I say it’s a word.
Shht.
That’s not what I read, from what I understand the Russians use drunken boots to bend rails up their operational conscripts. If they’re lucky.
Ghandi is right. Boys’ toys. So predictable, so boring, and so 20th century.
It’s amazing how otherwise intelligent people are so clueless when it comes to the future reality we will all have to face.
Are you suggesting Liam that it’s a franchise operation? Sort of like Gerry Harvey of the blogworld? A brief induction, an exam on the candidate’s correct political stance vis a vis a basket of issues and then they get issued with the N badge to go forth and earbash… Hmmm, it would explain a lot.
With mandatory drug testing, Sir Henry, natch. Only the highest achievers permitted to participate.
Nabs: it ain’t as alliterative but the PRC is Han Fei Zi meets Captialism, Master Kung doesn’t want a bar of that shit.
If you’re worried about F35 delays, they’d be nothing compared to that kind of work on a F111.
An indication of the state of the F111’s avionics and weapons sytems is genve by this admittedly outdated reference
http://www.f-111.net/CarloKopp/aup.htm
I think we’ve reached a verdict: F-111’s offed as gate-keepers, a few flying examples retained, one to the AWM, one to Point Cook, and one to Bull Creek. The rest flogged off to private collectors.
I agree with the “boys and their toys” assessment.
I wonder if anyone in the Govt has assessed GHG emissions from these toys, and whether they will be able to afford to fly them when a decent carbon tax kicks in? Of course not – the defense of the realm is paramount! And we need them to defeat the terrorists.
Karl Von Clausewitz stated, “War is diplomacy by another means .” The reverse is also true, except that diplomatic expenses (aid), even if they cost as much as expensive toys, don’t annoy anyone.
For those touting the dangers of asymmetric warfare over the next decade or so, I’d remind you that Osama Bin Laden said “If I hate democracy so much, why haven’t I attacked Sweden”?
But these, and the capabilities of one toy versus another you are irrelevant to the key question of the 4-corners program, and I believe Robert’s piece, which is why are contract and tender management processes, obviously weak elsewhere in the public service, so readily flouted in such a critical area where the Howard government has a (grossly undeserved) record?
Personally, apart from the corruption bit, I think that the Libs haven’t cared WHAT they spend money on, as long as they appear strong on security to the Australian people, who only look at how much is spent as a measure of strength, not assessing capability.
Yeah CK and you can be an advisor to Nelson
Oh look, that is just a completely outrageous statement. You’re talking as if
intelligent, well-trained, testosterone-fuelled, shortish hoons with big, expensive, pieces of kit who really, really, love flying huge expensive pieces of kit paid for by taxpayers. And who wouldn’t?fighter-jocks actually exist.I’m led to understand they’re all completely impartial professionals just interested in doing their job.
Dumber and Dumber and Dumber.
There we are a post that equals the quality of Gandhi’s post, and adrian’s and yours.
If I had to choose between have my tax dollars spent exactly for the reason you have given, CK, or on the many bleaty causes espoused by the likes of gandhi and adrian and peterc then I’d consider it money better spent on those shortish hoons, who just, maybe, sometime, might do something worthwhile for me and might in the meantime have some fun in their lives, than on an endless parade of parasites who will suck on the taxpayer’s teat, contributing nothing of value until they have sucked as much as they can out of the taxpayer then bleatingly move on.
Even if only as performance artists they deserve every tax-dollar we can give them.
I am sure that you agree.
For shame, GregM. Australia’s bludge-artists get higher, faster, cheaper.
You really are clueless GregM. Do you really have any idea how irrelevant these toys will be?
I’ll giv you one clue among many: Peak Oil.
I’m led to understand they’re all completely impartial professionals just interested in doing their job. *Chortles*
Even if only as performance artists they deserve every tax-dollar we can give them. *Chortles*
When I was ADC to Bill Hayden I toured GAC with him and then-CAS Ray Funnell, fighter pilot extraordinaire and senior air power adviser in Oz. We were standing on a walkway over a 707 getting a refit and being a complete hosing tool I stage-chuckled: ‘Be kinda fun to roll out and line up on that in a Hornet, eh, sir?” He looked at me like I was a not-quite-pretty-enough groupie in a Rolling Stones mosh pit, and dismissed me with unadorned contempt: ‘Hah! I’ve done it, mate…”
That’s an Air Vice Marshall fighter god still feeling some teen need to wave his wanger about at a nobody Army pilot captain. Alpha-male narcissism still tends to prevail at senior levels in the world’s air forces and aviation corps. You get it in bucketheads and submariners, too. Big bits of expensive equipment seem oddly…mmmm…enhancing of masculine confidence. Fine, I chubby up (in my own small but defiantly proud way) reading Chickenhawk, too. Swallowing whole Tom Wolfe’s silly gonzo-tosh about military flying is mostly harmless, mostly fun, and good for esprit de corps and unit cohesion, so long as it’s confined to the back bar and the showers. But when military pilots grow into commanders and senior force managers they can too-easily translate the I-me-myself-alonery to areas where it’s disastrous, such as framing defence policy and deciding equipment purchases. Of all miltech specialists fast jet pilots tend to have the shakiest grasp of concepts like force integration, force symmetry, capital purchase prioritising and compromise, and especially realistic strategic threat analysis…anything that fails to recognise them as modern-day Knights in Kevlar whose
jobquest is to ride out and win the day on behalf of the entire nation in single combat then nip back home for a quick jacuzzi and rub down from Kelly MacGillis. Or they did a decade ago, anyway, when I still knew what I was talking about.BTW, I’m likely to be outrageously bitter n’ biased, CK, having failed RAAF jet training early in my military flying career. (Couldn’t fly fast on instruments, what a weenie. My bro’ never lets me live it down, the little brat.) But everyone involved in military aircraft acquisition would IMHO do well at least to start the process assuming that the operating experts they go to for advice will proselytise a technical and defence policy worldview that’s shaped by little more substantial than the sort of teen-geek shit-hottery you’re (alas) seeing too much of on this thread, which should be much more grown-up than it is. ‘Cos everyone is smart and – scenario fantasies aside – seems technically to know what they’re on about. And we’ve all got big ones in cyberspace. Huge, even. So there’s no need to wave ‘em about, is there, boys.
GregM, you are the gift that keeps on giving.
Two more clues: drought and bushfires. The jets will help with these too. Maybe they could be used as water bombers, but wait, there is no water . . . and they fly too fast and only carry tactical missiles.
Now you can’t be accused of being totally clueless, however hard you try.
Oh look, the lot of you, we actually need a balanced defence force. It doesn’t all hang on the
Brewster Buffallo. Or an antiquated F-111 FFS.We are just suckers for the Americans. As another commentator says, they rip us off every single time, full stop.
And this latest purchase is extremely dodgy, with a ‘no bid’ contract. And I believe Andrew Peacock was the head of Boeing when this was announced?
Six billion dollars of public money down the plughole yet again.
Adrian:
Cheer up. Maybe we can emulate the Imperial Japanese in the last few months of the Second World War and supplement our oil supplies with whatever could be gleaned from local vegetation: they used pine oil; we could use eucalyptus oil.
It’s your choice: squeezing Mach 2.9 out of one of our brilliant defence purchases for 1.28 seconds – or – 500 sq.km. of koala habitat. No? L-O-L
Jacques Chester:
Do I detect a meeting of minds here?
Nabakov:
Do I take it you are not too keen on the Metal Storm board? Why?
As for the Metal Storm weapons system itself: failure to grab that swiftly was yet another example of the stupidity that passes for “Defence”[??] in Australia these days. Wonder if the same ditherers had anything to do with the Supper Hornet?
PeterC:
Wonder if anyone has experimented with using F-111s for putting water or pulverized ice onto bushfire hotspots? [Ooops, must stop that; don't want to be blamed for an outbreak of original thinking in the ADF].
David Bath:
They are simply emulating the Dowager Empress of China and her marble boat built on Kunming Lake in Beijing which was a substitute for a modernized fleet for the Imperial Chinese Navy. They are not emulating North Viet-Nam at war nor Rhodesia and South Africa under sanctions and certainly not Israel at any time.
“Antarctica’s the albino canary in the global coalmine.”
Actually, Nabs, that’s very good.
Interestingly, the closest contemporary strike bomber aircraft to the F111 is probably the Russian SU34 Fullback http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-34
Although it has similar size and range to an F111 maximum speed is quoted at mach 1.6.
Despite the age, an F111 is quoted at Mach 2.5
The F111 also has a higher service ceiling and range.
As mentioned by Robert Merkel
“stoka: that’s a massive system integration job for a grand total of 35-odd aircraft, and integrating hot new stuff with old stuff is a problematic exercise – anyone remember the Seasprites?”
I agree, that is a major job, however, even if it proved to be unfeasable, at least such options could be explored technically, without huge expenditure.
I’m sure the Super Hornet is basically a done deal, so there is probably no likelihood of changing that. However, as far as I am aware, if the Labor party win government, they will be revisiting the availability of the F22 from the Americans. Certainly we are not at this point totally locked into purchasing the F35.
At the very least the decision to mothball the F111 by 2010 is starting to appear motivated by vested economic and political expediency than by judicious strategic wisdom and circumspection
We don’t buy fighter aircraft for the purpose of putting out bushfires. But then we don’t build hospitals or pour money into public transport in order to alleviate drought or put out bushfires. By your logic (I’m being generous in using that word to describe what passes for your line of reasoning) we should not spend any money on them either for their lack of drought alleviation and bushfire fighting properties.
You aren’t studying for a social sciences degree by any chance, are you? If so you will do well.
“did we once climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge…?”
Can’t say that it is Jack – never climbed that particular bridge, can’t get excited about the idea.
Though I do remember climbing an old silo in melb at some point. Damn that dog really didn’t want to come down.
Dave B: Karl Von Clausewitz stated, “War is diplomacy by another means .�
This may be pedantic but von C said something slightly different.
“War is … a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means�
Which has very different connotations from the common phrasing.
It’s kinda like the truism that the best defense is a good offense – it’s damn 1960s American pro-football jargon. How it entered up in the political lexicon and then used as a basis for policy making is a bit confusing.
Hmmmm… another thought:
Shouldn’t this also be an argument over an appropriate structure for the Aust military?
I mean, planes are cool. They go fast and carry big bombs. Very, very useful for hard power approaches. Best suited to stave-v-state conflicts though.
So… do we really need them at all?
Can’t we do the same with Predator drones (or the like), cruise missiles and coastal patrol boats? Spend the rest on a sizable infantry that’s trained for urban environments (police style). Add the SAS to be the scalpel.
Do we really want to get bogged down in the security dilemma? What about NTD approaches?
You mean this little beauty?
As for the fuel used by fighter planes, it sounds a lot in absolute terms. It’s a piddle in the ocean compared to what the nation spends driving the kids to school in Toyota Prados each day.
More generally, it’s good to keep in mind that out total defence outlay is only a couple of percentage points of GDP. I wouldn’t advocate this in a fit, but upping our spending to 6% of GDP would give a budget not that far off the UK’s, and they run a couple of aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, a much bigger air force, and a large army. In terms of our living standards, it would be like sacrificing roughly a year’s economic growth. Clearly, we could maintain our current defence spending through a recession easily enough if we decide it’s worthwhile.
Now, there’s a perfectly good argument to suggest that we’re spending too much on defence, and spending it in the wrong areas. But having to shut it down because we’ll be spending all our dough on climate change and peak oil? I just don’t buy it.
Tony D, the major obstacle to abolishing pilots isn’t engineering, it’s the MCTR, to which Australia’s a signatory. If we want to start getting into cruise technology serioulsy as a deterrent, we’d actually have to start engaging with our neighbours on an equal basis, ’cause if we get them, they will too.
Look, Australian defence planning based on supremacy in the air over other South East Asian countries has gone the same way as cigarette sponsorship and moustaches in cricket. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
Very interesting talk and very impressive techno-jargon on this thread, and it’s pretty much 99.9% over my head. Still, I can’t help but be confused by this little bit of pretzel logic…
AUSTRALIANS: The Americans are ripping us off! Why won’t the greatest air force in the world sell us its top-of-the-line equipment?
AMERICANS: Uh… maybe so we can keep having the greatest air force in the world?
I dunno, it just doesn’t seem like much of a puzzler, that’un.
Tony D:
My oath it should.
We could talk about abolishing infantry battalions, integrating the reconnaisance elements of Armoured Corps into SAS, establishing independent local defence platoons. Then we could discuss replacing the quaint archaic ranks with a system more suited to our real-world needs. We could …. but you you would have on your conscience all those inflexible ADF wallahs who had attacks of apoplexy at the very thought of slack&idle civvies talking about such matters.
I’m reminded here of Field Marshal Slim once saying there’s nothing special forces should be able to pull off that a well trained regular infantry platoon shouldn’t.
“…establishing independent local defence platoons.”
So why not boil down the core of the Australian Army into an SAS standard cadre for bespoke expenditary work, with an evolving and rotating corp of short timers and reservists for peace keeping duties but with the inhererent logistical ability to ramp it all up very quickly. Remember the most tactically and strategically successful special weapons and tactics irregular engagement ever fought by the Australian Army was waged by a bunch of barely trained militia teenagers in the mountains of PNG 64 years ago. The tech may have changed since then but inhospitable landscapes and keen young blokes won’t.
Dunno about that. Yes, every armed forces can always do with less bullshit and blanco but being ordered to kill people or run the risk of being killed yourself is a pretty uncommon and unnatural state to be in. At that point a traditional combat-tested hierarchy, with all it’s built-in faults, does provide some kinda framework for going through all the crap going down. Or as I heard a USN CPO once say “Even if I’m dead, those dingleberries will still be looking over their shoulders for me.”
Latecomer to this thread I know, and very probably a hopelessly naïve suggestion, so apologies in advance, but if you kind folk could indulge me for a moment – realistically, is it completely out of the question to cancel our involvement in the JSF and renegotiate our contract with Boeing to opt out of the Super Hornets in favour of a mix of F-15 Eagles and Strike Eagles, as a long-term replacement for our Hornets and F-111s? For what it’s worth (admittedly not much), it seems to me that F-22s are overkill for us, but the USAF’s effective replacement for its own F-111 force, the F-15E, would serve our post-Pig needs well, which is not something which can be said with certainty about the JSF? The U.S. itself is keeping its own Strike Eagles in service at least until 2025, maybe even past 2030. Likewise, one imagines that F-15s would be a useful step up from the Hornets as a multirole fighter platform, and that there would be a good deal of parts convergence between the two variants?
Moreover, historical precedent tells us that projects like the JSF have a funny way of gaining weight and losing projected performance numbers as development rolls on, whilst all the while the zeroes pile on the end of the final expense account. The F-15 is ready, proven and available, and takes care of any perceived gap in our air defences.
Put it this way – South Korea paid US$100 million per plane last year for 40 F-15Ks, an upgrade of the Strike Eagle with the latest available avionics, weapons and engine upgrades. Not exactly cheap, admittedly, but let’s put it in context. The per-unit cost for each Super Hornet worked out by The Locum (or Peacock and co, more like) worked out at a whopping A$121 million, excluding training and support over the projected life of the aircraft (10 years). At the contemporaneous exchange rate of A$0.76c to the dollar, we paid over $US92 million per plane – work it out at the current rate and it’s an even more depressing figure.
Truly, we got royally shafted every possible way on this deal.
Looks like the Superhornets are in for the chop.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/axe-set-to-fall-on-fighter-jets/2007/12/30/1198949703043.html