According to the SMH, the government is about to conduct a review of its entire fighter plane program, and “everything is on the table”, apparently:
All projects in the $30 billion program will be scrutinised “with fresh eyes”. That includes what aircraft are to be bought, how many, when and at what price. “Absolutely everything is on the table,” a Government source said.
Even if contracts have been signed, as is the case with the Super Hornets, the Government is prepared to break them if the case is compelling. This is a shift from previous Labor thinking.
There’s a number of posts about this issue on LP. Basically, in 2002 Australia joined the
development of the American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which was to replace Australia’s entire manned fighter fleet of F-18 Hornets and F-111 Pigs. However, there was substantial doubt that the F-35 would be ready on time, causing lots of questions about what Plan B was. Then, in 2007, Brendan Nelson suddenly announced that Australia would purchase 24 Super Hornet fighters from Boeing, at a cost of well over six billion dollars, to tide us over until the JSF was ready. This decision was enormously controversial, because there are doubts about whether it’s the right plane to buy, and the decision was apparently made without going through the usual scrutiny a project of this scale would entail.
As the quote from the newspaper story indicates, Labor promised before the election to keep all existing contracts, so this is a change of policy.
One of the problems such a review faces is that any decision to cancel the contract on the Super Hornets pretty much has to be made in the next few months, if indeed it’s not already too late. But the government won’t be able to complete its new defence White Paper, the first comprehensive review of Australia’s strategic situation and military requirements, until the end of the year. That people are even considering ditching the program at this stage seems to me to give some idea of how bad the process has been.
Of course, there is another dimension to reviewing fighter procurement plans. We’ll be able to find out whether the previous Defence Minister a) made the right decision, and b) whether he followed the proper procedure in doing so. That the previous Defence Minister is the current Opposition Leader makes such questions particularly fascinating…
NOTE: story edited slightly after posting.
I say, hooray. The decision to buy the hornets was a stupid, not to mention non-transparent one. A close friend of mine just did the tour of the Australian War Museum up in Canberra, and the guide was an aircraft carrier flight tech. As he observed - buying the hornets would be the first time in Australia’s defense history that the airforce was purchased planes it didn’t want.
This should hopefully save us about $6bill, minus the cost for breaking the contract
Robert, I think we should wait and see whether these planes really will be cancelled. Let’s hope they are, for all the reasons you mention.
Now, can we cancel the Air Warfare Destroyers and Joint Strike Fighters too? Those two programs together total nearly $30 billion!
Thanks for putting up a thread that doesn’t set out to ’sting’ the Rudd Government, Mr Merkel.
The Rudd ALP govt decision is a good one. Nelson’s decision to purchase a fresh batch of Hornets was bizarre and an indication that the Howard govt was on the nose and out of touch. It deserved to be reviewed and revoked.
THe LNP’s defence procurement was a classic example of the inefficiencies of old-style, Old Economy centralised socialism. Also revealed than in the Bush admins bungled and botched nation building follies.
THey were trying to make us more inter-operable with the USA for reasons that are not entirely clear. Most of our defence requirements are in the form of regional neo-imperialism, which means boots on the ground rather than hi-tech gadgetry.
More generally I think that the traditional concern with hi-tech standing armies misreads the new strategic environment. Most new-style threats are small-scale and pervasive (drugs, aliens) rather than large scale and invasive (panzers).
Strocchi’s Law of War: Super-state war against totalitarianism is obsolete. Sub-state war against terrorists is a waste of time.
I dont feel threatened by IND or PRC, so long as we are allies/assets of the USA they will leave us alone. I dont feel threatened by terrorists, so long as the liberal-Left keep their hands off civic policy and stop inviting and inculting them.
I do feel threatened by the diseases occurring as one stumbles into middle age: misfiring neurones and dysfunctional oncogenes. Spend the money on cancer research, stem cell and gene therapy. Lets beat our swords into genomic code breakers and neural implants.
I also have an intense allergy to border insecurity. Good fences make good neighbours so lets ramp up the ramparts.
If we really need more toys for boys I suggest robots, death rays and nuke. No point in muddling about with half-measures.
Robert Merkel’s coverage of this issue has been first class and prescient. His criticisms and reservtions have been thoroughly vindicated.
Ben: I honestly doubt they’ll be cancelled; I suspect we’re pretty much already committed.
As to your broader questions, it would be nice to have a sensible debate over those issues, and I’m hoping one emerges in the process of putting out the white paper.
It was always such a bizarre idea. I’m sure the super hornet is about the best current generation carrier fighter there is. Now if only we had some aircraft carriers…
If we truly do need a gap filler, the F-15E would be a far better choice. Though i, as a non-expert, would like a thorough, independent (outside the Defence Department?) look at Carlo Kopp’s proposal to keep the pig flying forever, and ask the yanks as nicely and as forcefully as possible if they’re ever going to sell us the Raptor.
Robert, if you are correct about Australia’s being locked into the Hornet deal, and presumably also the JSF deal, then a process must be adopted to expose the mistakes of the past without turning it into primarily a witch hunt directed at Stud Nelson.
As gratifying as such an exercise may be, a price tag of $30b is far too high a price to pay for a bucket of odium for tipping on Nelson.
At the root of this issue is interoperability which is a very prickly nettle for a Labor government to grasp.
Apart from the Super Hornets it now seems some of the smaller boats bought for the Navy are duds as well. Sorry I can’t be more specific. Caught it out of the corner of my eye on the Midday ABCF News.
As has been noted in one of the newspaper articles Labor ditching the Hornets (if that’s possible) will cause all kinds of commercial and diplomatic problems with USA. Tough!
I find it hard to believe that we can be totally locked into a contract where we haven’t paid and haven’t received an item yet.
Nice terms to be in business on. What would Boeing do, take us to court for the full $6 bn?
Hooray,
Rudd & Co will be keen not to appear weak on defence so they must think they have a real issue to use against Nelson if they’re willing to break the contract. Presumably something has come up in briefings to Fitzgibbon since he got his feet under the desk. That Nelson’s decision was poorly made and/or dodgey enough for the civil servants to turn him in to the new regime should surprise nobody.
Wilful: the problem is that we have, apparently, started the process of winding down F-111 operations. Reversing that may prove very difficult. Not to mention that Boeing and their associated pet US Congresspeople would be peeved.
Robert - lets hope the contract does get canceled, at least then the remainder of that money can be spent on something more useful (like keeping the pigs going - Carlo is dead right on this one).
Wilful - unfortunately the way modern defence contracts are written (just about everywhere a private company is involved) ensures heavy penalty clauses for pulling out. Nelson probably just had one to many drinks at the corporate tent at Avalon and the F18 sales bod pulled a swifty.
As the contractor in this case supplies a massive amount of hardware around the world they can very effectively “go slow” on any future gear we need from them. The problem is this might include useful gear.
Realistically we should keep the current F18’s going, buy all the spares we can get for the Pigs and wait a few years ’till the yanks have supplied the Japanese with the F22 (funnily they can get these and we can’t - so much for “favored nation” status!). When this happens we should be able to get the damn things instead of paying a private company to do R&D (overseas nonetheless).
If we want to stop an invasion, more/better subs with Pigs as the icing. If we want to stop AQ, more troops and WELL-PLANNED foreign aid.
I have very strong doubts that this cock up was all down to Nelson. I am certain there is a lot more to this story and many more culpable participants than we know of so far. Time and some first class journalism will hopefully bring it all out. Labor might not be very interested in exposing the full story. Much better for them to sum it up as a bad decision by the current oppostion leader driven by egomania which seems to be how its playing out, so far.
“would be the first time in Australia’s defense history that the airforce was purchased planes it didn’t want.”
A first for Australia but its almost normal for the US military. The reason I am convinced that there is more to this story is that the entire sorry debacle looks like Howard and Co imported it straight out of sordid politics that are par for the course in American Military/Pentagon/Congress procurement process. In such politics there is always a pay off. We still don’t know anything about who that pay off was going to, or what it was going to be. It stretches belief that the tightly controlled Howard government would spend 6 billion dollars with the only pay off being a massive head for Nelson. What was the pay off for the Howard government?
To their credit it appears that no uniformed officers in the Australian Defence Force have compromised themself by supporting this bad decision in return for a lucrative post military role something, that is quite common in America (ala Bob Carr). Another decade of these kind of shenanigans by Canberra and its likely that the ADF itself may have become corrupted the way some of America’s senior Generals have. Oh and thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we are finally going to get a White Paper. Rudd government off to as good a start as you could hope for in the Defence portfolio.
Swio,
Couldn’t agree more. At $6B there had to be a pay off somewhere. Maybe it was Bush staying 4 days at
OpecApec and saying “I wouldn’t write the guy off”. If so, wasn’t that money well spent?I have no idea what sort of a sway Peacock really has in the ‘corridors of (conservative) power’, but surely his role has to be looked at closely.
While on defence, it is very interesting that the Navantia ships can and may have a ski-jump - which would be of particular use for the STOVL JSF. Who said we were getting a fleet air arm back, when was this discussion had?
well why don,t we buy the Russian one instead,seen a few Docos that say its a better aircraft,through translating the instruction manuals might be a bugger.
If my experience with Japanese cars in the early days is anything to go by
Wilful: the possibility has been discussed a number of times. For one thing, if you’ve loaded up your troop transport ship as a mini aircraft carrier, you can’t use it to, well, transport troops.
John Ryan: as has been discussed a number of times, there are several issues. For a start, reliability and spare parts support is a concern. Secondly, all the avionics is incompatible with everything else we - and the Yanks - operate. Thirdly, it means making Vladimir Putin a partner in the defence of Australia.
So what is new? Australian strategic thinking over the decades since Federation has hardly covered itself in glory. In the first part of the century - up to and including WWI - it appeared as though our political leaders did little more than place their faith in Mother Britain and offer to support her “to the last man and the last shilling”. By the 1930s, after the appalling casualty figures of the first global war our political figures signed up for a deal that saw us lose what bluewater naval capacity we had, while running the army down and refusing to even think of air power. By the time WWII came around we were hiding desperately behind the Churchillian lie that a British fleet would be despatched post haste in the event of real threat to this part of the world, and meantime, could our boys go and fight the Italians in Libya, the Germans in Egypt and Greece and the French in Syria. For some lunatic reason Menzies was even trying to make tanks in Australia - doubtless for use in the middle east. Meanwhile those aircrews that were trained here were siphoned off to the European theatre where they were squandered in largely useless area bombing operations against Germany. So when the shit actually did hit the fan and the Japanese Empire came steaming south, Australia was left naked and almost defenceless. This meant that we had to tie ourselves to the apron strings of the Americans for strategic purposes, a posture that we continued through the idiocy of the Vietnam war and the latest geo-political adventures in Mesopotamia. From what I can see the decision to purchase the Super Hornets is a decision right up there with the proud tradition of incompetence that marks so much of what Australia has done at the strategic level. Anyway. One could go on, but what is the point?
Cheers…
The neutrality movement has so many hurdles I’d be LOLing, if it weren’t so depressing.
The Superhornets are a DUD. Aerial Schmendricksville.
Nelson is a nincompoop now, and was when he made the “decision” to purchase. And quite possibly a bent one, knowing how Boeing(who sideline in Rendition Specials) do business with humanitarians such as BlackwaterUSA, The Imbecile’s Mercs of the Month. Or maybe Boeing’s powerfully persuasive sales team twigged early that they were duchessing a dope and didn’t have to grease Brenders at all. Anyway ya look at it, the Hornet order was dodgy from the buzz-go. Sooner or later somebody was bound to get stung.
Sling the raptors at Boeing a lazy 300 mill(easymeat for them, just another carcass really) and let’s have a decent squizz at what’s on offer from the rest of world’s manufacturers.
Or perhaps the new mob in Canberra will be intimidated into following through on the SH order, thereby permitting Indonesia’s Migs to have the last say on the matter.
Let’s hope the White Paper flies, swio.
My advice to Greg Combet (parliamentary secretary to defence minister, with a special emphasis on procurement) is to get a couple of dozen of Strike Eagle F15 Es with FAST PAK Conformal Fuel Tanks for the interim, and as a loaner.
Jack Strocchi, my old darling! Welcome back to your natural home, baybeeee! Those libs were not only stupid but corrupt as well couldn’t agree more. I wonder what Andrew Peacock (Mister Boeing these days) and Brendan got up to when the current Leader of Her Maj’s Opposition went over Stateside to do the deal. Saaaay no more.
Robert Merkel:
We do expect reasonable defence, against harm and loss, for our taxes - and all we get is the squandering of immense amounts of our money on useless war-toys by a bunch of foolish or dodgy wardroom warriors who have been sucking on the public tit for all their working lives.
Here is what we can do:
[1] Sack, expose and ostracize the boofheads who committed all these defence procurement blunders; why the hell do we keep rewarding them???
[2] Breathalyze and drug-test all those currently involved with defence procurement; [if for no other reason than to exclude chemical emhancement as a cause of weird procurement advice and decisions].
[3] Apologize to the families of all ADF personnel killed by dodgy equipment [tails falling off Nomads and stuff like that].
[4] Return-to-sender all the dodgy equipment already bought - free of charge. That would be far, far cheaper and safer than keeping it.
[5] Sit down and work out what WE need for OUR OWN defence and for the projection of our own armed power [only as part of an international peace-restoring force, of course].
[6] Ignore the whinges of soothsayers pretending to be economists and make what we can make ourselves - and what we can’t make, buy overseas.
[7] Next time, for a complete change, shop around for the cheapest, hardest-hitting, most effective equipment we can buy - with a full inventory of spare parts in perfect condition. If that means buying or countertrading from Belarus or Brazil or Belgium then so be it.
[8] Oh yes. lucky last …. Set up a new organization and system for the selection and training of ADF officers but DO NOT employ anyone who has had anything to do with the current system. We need officers who can be trusted to drive very tough deals to get us the most effective equipment in future; we do not need or want any clones of the show-ponies who are too gullible to be sent out to buy a bag of lollies, let alone aircraft, ships or weaponry.
[[Mark: sorry about not sticking to the LP three-paragraph rule this time]].
Jack Strocchi [4] and Mick Strummer [18]:
Well put, both of you.
Robert Merkel [17]:
Buying Russian equipment would make Vladimir Putin a partner in the defence of Australia? Not if we are the ones driving the hard bargain and not merely the ones copping a hard bargain, as usual. Besides, what’s the qualitative difference between that and being the adventure-partner of Mr Air-Guard-AWOL? Same could be said of Lula if we buy Brazilian stuff or of Fukuda if we buy Japanese.
“I do feel threatened by the diseases occurring as one stumbles into middle age: misfiring neurones and dysfunctional oncogenes. Spend the money on cancer research, stem cell and gene therapy. Lets beat our swords into genomic code breakers and neural implants.”
Jack brilliant stuff,excellent comments.Could I humbly suggest that we could also follow the Mussolini’s Governments great strategic planning in the middle of WW2,and turn our great battle flag into the glorious white cross on a white back ground.Peace I say, peace.
Everyone:
] [link]
Worth reading about a related topic on a now-closed ABC News discussion page today; [watch out for Howard-huggers in uniform there
I like Sir Henry Casingbroke’s suggestion … though I agree with Robert that F-15’s are not really the solution - most of them are in fact only a few years younger than the F-111. And I’d be amazed if the US ever *lent* us any fighter planes.
The only suitable fighter for Australia is the F-22. This is the plane that will provide air security. It’s still a very expensive option. But the F-22 is in production right now and could be arriving nearly as soon as the Super Hornets. It would certainly be interesting to see how long the US resisted a concerted diplomatic effort by Australia for permission to buy the Raptor. The truth is, because the Pentagon is buying many fewer F-22’s than originally envisgaed, the USAF would love more F-22s in the Pacific theatre. It would be an example where Australia could actually meaningfully contribute to joint defence needs, if we so wished.
Will Australia chart a new course in defence policy with the forthcoming white paper? I certainly hope so, but I doubt it. Ironically, the true impacts of the JSF/Super Hornet fighter purchase decisions may be strategic, not merely budgetary. As Australia’s air strike capability degrades, other service arms may be asked to respond to the capability gap. The development of a ballistic missile submarine fleet may be the unexpected long-term outcome of these air procurement decisions …
Ben Eltham [26]:
Whether or not the F-22 is the most suitable fighter for Australia is definitely NOT the question …. and any discussion of its suitability or otherwise [or whether the Sukhoi is a more reliable option] is a hell of a long way down the list of topic.
What is on the high-priority list of questions are ones like: [1] Can Australia be defended by military means while its business yobbos are giving the country away piece-by-piece for trinkets? [cf: Batman’s treaty with the Jaggajagga, Jaggajagga and the rest of the tribe]. [2] If it can then what equipment, systems and methods are best suited to Australia’s own specific needs? [3] Why does such equipment have to be fighters? Yes, “Top Gun” on SBS-TV was wonderfully entertaining - now let’s come back to earth …. we in Australia, even with our manufacturing industry in ruins and our best-and-brightest still fleeing overseas to work, could still develop and build our own very cheap and nasty ultralongrange, groundhugging cruise missiles within an incredibly short time [mind you, so too could some “third world” countries so get ready to duck-&-cover].
It’s time to break out of all this “Western Front 1916″ mindset - or military mass delusion, if you like - and start taking an innovative approach to defence.
I often wondered why attack fighters were considered of much use at all in terms of defending Oz - our fleets are tiny, the country’s very big & I’m not quite sure who we think we’re defending ourselves against at the moment. Or in the next twenty years. Presumably its far more about who we attack (or bring democracy to, or save from themselves..) Which would mean we’re about maximising integration with US forces presumably. Handy we now have a Mandarin speaking PM when Taiwan heats up…
Bernice, by the standards of our region our fighter fleet is the biggest and most modern by far.
As to why we have an air combat capability, it’s pretty much all about Indonesia. Our fighter planes (and the Collins-class subs) can sink the Indonesian Navy, shoot down their air force, and bomb the crap out of their army, were they ever to (say) decide they want East Timor back, or a chunk of PNG, or start committing genocide in West Papua.
While we all hope it doesn’t happen, it’s certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. Remember, Australia secretly went to war with Indonesia in the 1960s, and came within a hair’s breath of doing so again in 1999. The further point is that the knowledge that Australia has this capability is a considerable deterrent to any Indonesian politician with funny ideas.
Furthermore, our current air combat capability is a 100% deterrent against anybody attempting an invasion of Australia. Nobody except the United States and its carrier fleet could pull it off. Yes, it’s unlikely in the current geopolitical situation, but things change over decades, and it takes a very long time to reconstitute an air combat capability from scratch if you go down the New Zealand route. Remember, the F-111’s were bought in the 1960s, and the F/A-18’s in the early 80’s.
This is good news, and I hope Labor take the time to rub Nelson’s face in it. Boeing could be sweetened up with some F111-related contracts — updated engines and avionics, say.
As for F22s, we should just keep repeating the point that more sales means more pork in congress districts and of course a lower price per-unit for the USAF, which they might like.
The F-22 ‘Raptor’ is a suitable fighter for us. It’s an air superiority classed fighter designed to replace the F-15 ‘Eagle’ with Air-to-Surface capability to boot. Our closest threat is the Indonesian Su-27 ‘Flanker’ and I believe they have an order in for Su-30’s (was MiG-29SE’s but the Sukhoi out-performed) so the F-22 is a match. Bundle them with the couple of E-3 AWACS’ we purchased and we’re back on top.
I was disappointed that the Eurofighter ‘Typhoon’ was glossed over in favor of the F-35 ‘Lightning’ as it seems a more suitable fighter for the challenges presented by our unique part of the planet. I may be wrong but I was pretty sure that part of the brief was that a multi-role ‘dual engine’ fighter with good range and loading would be best. Instead we have a single engine plane with lesser range and reduced loads, a choice quote:
“Weighing in at up to 60,000 lb the F-35 will be the heaviest aircraft of any type ever to fly with only one engine.”
The Typhoon would have been a good cross between the the F-35 and F-22 and still be more than a match for the Su-27/30.
The ’super-hornet’ is probably a good two/three generations behind the aforementioned aircraft. It’s like they have finally given us what we asked for back in the 1980’s.
Don’t get me started on those inappropriate lumps of technology known as the M1 ‘Abrams’ tank. They bought the C-3 ‘Galaxy’ as an afterthought once they relised they couldn’t move anywhere in Australia without them, too heavy/large for road/truck. I’m not up with the selection process but I thought they were going for the new version of the German Leopard tanks (Leopard-2) that have served us so well.
On arrival in 96 Howard & co publicly and actively derided some good pieces of kit — most notably the Collins. It was never as awful as they made out at the time, as a key purpose of the affair was to junk Bomber Beazley’s oppo leader credibility and claim credit for the platform as their own.
You could say history is repeating itself here with Nelson, except the super hornets are a far more objectively awful waste of money. At $6bn for two dozen stop-gap planes, the cost is on par with the entire blown-out cost of the Collins class fleet — what a farce!
While I feel “Bombin” Bob Merkel is perhaps going slightly over the top vis a vis the Indo threat (They can barely keep their squabbling archipelago together let alone threaten anyone else) his point about a loaner of a couple of squadrons of Strike Eagles with long range conformal tanks is well put. If it’s good enough for Japan, it should be good enough for us too. It’s all in the avionics and munitions anyway. There’s a precedent there too. The yanks loaned us a bunch of F-4s until the F-111s were deliverable.
Then in about three years time when Lockheed Martin is desperate to keep the F-22 production line open, we can negotiate with them at our leisure while getting all coy and flirty about our JSF commitments too. Should be a fun hand of cards ahead for Combet if he can keep his nerve.
In the meantime, more subs and patrol sloops, beefing up Norforce and a few million more into DSTO for those weirdo cruise missile experiments.
And also a discreet reminder to our uglier neighbors we know about vaccines than they do.
“we know about vaccines than they do.”
should read
“we know more about vaccines than they do.”
Also speaking of immunology, why the pink puffy fuck do I have to keep reentering “name” and “mail” every third comment or so? I’m an alpha male and A/B consumer. I should be exempt from this shit.
So… a review of Air Force and Navy purchasing, what about the Army?
I’d like to see a new white paper before anything major is undertaken, although I have to agree with the sub fleet - my armchair admiral’s opinion is that they’re far more effective for national security than carriers.
“although I have to agree with the sub fleet - my armchair admiral’s opinion is that they’re far more effective for national security than carriers.”
Even the hint of a whisper of a suggestion that a modern stealthy sub well equipped with a range of subsurface and above surface munitions could possibly be in the vicinity immediately chokes off a range of options and consumes immense resources for anyone not giving orders to that sub.
That includes you New Zealand. Don’t even think about it.
I’ve told you Aussies sux to tin times, we’ll not be treated like an old beg of fush and chups.
“I’ve told you Aussies sux to tin times, we’ll not be treated like an old beg of fush and chups.”
Au contraire mon ami, you guys do some of the best smoked salmon and gourmet potato mash with a dash of truffle oil in the world.
Just don’t get ideas above your station and stick to being the Australian colony where we send gap year backpackers from Sussex to experience spinal injuries in Queenstown.
Otherwise we’ll put HMAS Dechaineux up your fjords.
Robert Merkel [29]:
I really do wish I could share your optimism about our capabilites and about potential threats but there’s just one thing stopping me …. The Enemy.
Just try looking at things from the point-of-view of potential Enemies:
You want to conquer Australia, plunder its natural resources and generally enrich yourself and also prevent armed Australians becoming allied other countries to frustrate your ambitions …. but there are a few tens-of-thousands of highly-trained ADF personnel with some hitherto up-to-date weapons systems [with few more on the way that could make things awkward for the next generation of your compatriots]. What do you do?
Basically, there are only 3 choices:
[1] Attack head on now, suffer the casualties and maybe get forced into bothersome negotiations to end the conflict. [2] Build up your capability over the next decade or two and be assured of triumph - trouble is, one of your economic rivals will probably hop in for their chop first and you won’t even get to pick over the bones. Or …. [3] take a good hard look at the various Australian strengths and slip through all the cracks between, using innovative strategies and weapons [not all of which go “bang!”] best suited to your ultimate objective …. then sell off all the captured F-111s and FA18s, Abrams tanks, warships big and small on the international second-hand weapons market.
Easy ….And if an impoverished old ex-digger way out in the bush can see obvious way that this could come to be …. just think of what could be seen by a potentially [or actually] hostile national government with its highly-trained and brilliant general staff served by a well-informed intelligence service.
Back to the drawing board on defence. A re-think is long overdue.
Which will frighten those sheep off the cliff tops, with untold consequences, to our sheep farmers. Spoilsport!
(Actually, New Zulland was where first flight took place, and you gave us some almost freeby Skyhawks, so there! Not that were of much use to you on HMAS Melbourne, unless spotting for friendly destroyers in front (ie on the lookout for USS Frank E. Evans and HMAS Voyager)
We feel quite safe in New Zulland, but safer if you Aussies replace the Melbourne, and then in no time at all, you’ll have no navy at all. Ha Ha!
I see your point Graham.
But basically Australia is uninvadable in any conventional sense.
Where would you start? What would you seize to bring the nation to its knees? Canberra? The Snowy Mountain River Project? Uluṟu? The 20th Century Fox Studios at the Sydney Showgrounds? Alcoa’s Huntly operation? Chloe at Young & Jacksons? Not to mention extremely long supply lines wide open to everything from regular forces to hoons on dirt bikes with a shottie.
What we have more to fear from is our Northerm Coast becoming a smugglers and pirates haven and generally de facto failed statelet. And beyond that the Pacific doing the same on a larger scale.
To deal with that we need a flexible and canny bunch of bods in boots, a mess of small fast flexible air and sea power units from UAVS to Super Hercs to patrol boats to amphibious landing vessels. And lurking like a old cricket bat near the front door, a few tanks, subs and long range strike planes.
And if the worse does come to the worse, we can always remind the Yanks that Pine Gap, Nurrangar,Shoalwater Bay, etc, etc are located here in
AustriaAussieland.I reckon our greatest security threat lies in not dealing intelligently with our Pacific neighbours. The possibility of an archipelago - Pacificstan - must not be discounted.
David Lange has a point.
Australia’s possession of a blue water navy is a standing temptation for a power-crazed Australian PM to indulge in some nasty neo-colonialism.
And you know how zealously millions of Australians have long coveted New Zealand for its bungy-jumping industry, its famed film locations and its broad-loom carpet technology.
This is an international war crime just waiting to happen.
Oi David, don’t knock HMAS Melbourne. That vessel sank more tonnage than any other RAN ship over the past 50 years.
Katz
Actually much of the world could do with a huge dollop of “neo-colonialism.”
No Nabs.
The Belgrano (9575 tonnes) was sunk by a British nuclear submarine in 1982.
The combined toonage of the Voyager (2830) and the Frank E. Evans (2200) is only 5030 tonnes.
“…than any other RAN ship over the past 50 years.”
Fell free to give me a back rub and foot massage by way of apology.
Was this guy paid per word or what? I have very little idea what he’s saying, except that there are lots of big word misapplied, and he thinks we should buy fighters without an air-to-ground capability in case we offend someone.
Damned middle vowel!
Will that be with patchouli-suffused almond oil sir?
Australia invadable? It used to be thought c.1929-1945, that the best way to defeat Australia was to occupy the major industrial areas of Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong. If these regions were lost to the enemy the country would lose its capacity to wage war, and hence be defeated. (And hence, also, the idea, though not the reality of the Brisbane Line was born.)This has changed since the mid-80s. We now have significant areas in Queensland that must be defended in the event of invasion, eg, Gladstone, and in the south, eg Bass Strait oil fields, and in the West, Natural Gas resources. Furthermore, we can no longer rely on the expectation that a motorised invader would die in the desert or get lost in the jungles of North Queensland. (This was taken very seriously during WW2, incredible as it may sound.) Our biggest advantage is similar to Russia’s. The distance between towns, especially moderate size towns, eg Armidale, Townsville, etc, among very many, is too great for an enemy to successfully occupy, and such towns would successfully become centres of resistance.Any potential invader would probably come to the same conclusion the Japanese did during WW2, its just not worth the effort.
And in case anyone decides to tell me the Japanese were going to invade and occupy Australia in WW2 read the relevant easily available article by Dr. Peter Stanley on-line before you do.
Wilful: what a load of complete tosh.
Clearly, we should immediately remove the torpedos and Harpoons from the Collins class as well.
Nabs, I’m not saying it’s likely, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility either. Let’s hope to hell it doesn’t happen.
41 Nabakov says Jan 4th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Dealing with conventional invasions is no longer a strategic priority. As Steve Reich might say, if an enemy took over AUS, where would they put it?
Still, conventional weaponry could damage AUS badly for a while. We are basically an archipelago of six or seven island cities floating in a sea of sand. Vulnerable to interdiction.
It would be relatively easy to disable the major metro centres on the East coast with a few well placed bombs on key power stations, bridges and highways. Plus poison in the dams. Throw in some strategically plased arson attacks in the heavily vegetated outer metro areas and you could cause a perfect storm of chaos for long enough to extract mineral concessions.
Lets not forget bottom-up threats. A savvy enemy could cause mayhem by whipping up some kind of ethnic based insurgency or separatist movement, perhaps amongst indigenes or unsettled immigrants. Rely on the Cultural Left to provide the Canon fodder in that case.
Our dearly unbeloved Culturati accorded the traitor-terrorist Hicks a heroes welcome. So it would not surprise me if, at some time in the uncertain future, a Sudeten-style movement emerged like a Phoenix out of the ashes of the Culture War. I would put nothing past that lot.
Nabakov says:
Its true that the worst threats are micro-pervasive rather than macro-invasive. Especially coming from “the Arc of Instability” (Ben Bohane’s coinage ? and beat). Drugs, slaves, viruses, dirty money etc. can leak through unless stern measures are adopted. Failed states can easily abuse the privilege of sovereignty to facilitate international hanky-panky.
This requires hi-tech fences and pervasive and perpetual surveillance. Aerial, naval and terrestrial or celestial eyes, no doubt run through DSD. Long range patrol platforms, either naval, terrestrial or aerial, are probably the ticket. Cops on the Beat.
AUS still has some large assets that emerging superpowers would like to get their hands on. The prize would be mineral resources located in the Western and Northern regions of our continent and its shelf. That is why we have the SAS in WA. Their core mission is to protect mines and rigs.
Nabakov says:
Most of our capital asset defence procurement projects seem to be undertaken with an eye to inter-operability with the US military. Big Ticket, Bang-for-Buck, Toys for Boys like Abrams tanks, AW Destroyers, JS Fighters et al. This looks suspiciously like putting the US military-industrial horse before the AUS national security cart.
My gut feeling is that we need more infantry and engineering units to provide boots on the ground for regional security. I suspect that our subs will pack enough punch to deter main force attacks from larger threats.
I dont like the idea of manned capital assets like fighters, tanks or ships. Manned stealth weapons are just too expensive and clunky to run. Too many moving parts to service and too vulnerable to technological step-change.
In the longer term we need to go to AI systems with directed energy weapons. You just cant beat a smart robot armed with a death ray. Wouldnt mind some strategic WMDs up our sleeve, bio- and nucleo-weapons, just in case. So yes, the DSTO is the best long term defence procurement investment.
Better still would be to beef up our medical establishment to super world class standard. As the FDR found when dealing with the USSR, no superpower threat is going to kill the goose that laid the golden coronary bypass operation.
Nabakov says:
The US could always move bases or open new ones elsewhere. Our greatest bargaining chip is that we are a strategic and economic asset to the US. Our minerals and our ports are very helpful to have around, for greedy businessmen and randy sailors.
More to the point they would be very harmful to the US if they fell under the control of a hostile power.
So getting back to the notion of Army reform and tied into Nab’s small, mobile forecs concept for air & sea… would an infantry corps primarily trained for peacekeeping/policing/customs be advantageous? Add some Sharp-End-of-the-Stick items like the sub, SAS, attack planes, missiles etc? Back it up with lots of intel gear like spy drones & sat’s maybe.
In other words, a recognition that we won’t be ‘breaking things and killing people’ so much in years to come, but needing to be building things and helping people.
Occupations are near on impossible without the support of the occupied and it is unlikely Ozians would submit to such a thing.
Tony D,
Spot on about occupation and OZ geurilla resistance. Which is one of the specific reasons the Japanese ruled it out in WW2. I’ve read a translation of the Japanese document. While the rest of us might not learn from history, the military always do, which is why they’re very big on it.
Jack,
No invading force I’m aware of would have the manpower to do what you suggest to our vital industrial areas. And you can bet your bottom dollar the ADF has an exercise plan to deal with all those possibilities which would very swiftly be put into action if there was the remotest chance of it happening, even if the Government (Coalition or Labor) hasn’t told us about it.At the risk of sounding gung-ho, we don’t have one of the best military (all branches)in the world for nothing. While the cock-ups over the Hornets, helicopters, guided missile frigates etc., are serious, come a real war, everything would be in order within 12 months.I wouldn’t rely too much on the Yanks, though.If we can’t provide a useful offensive base, they’d drop us like hot-cakes.MacArthur was ready to do it in WW@, if the Japs had invaded the Northwest,which was a bit of a false alarm at the time, and I suspect things haven’t changed that much. If they were serious they wouldn’t be trying to palm off all this useless equipment.
Jack Strocchi[ 52] and Nabokov [41. on pirates; flexibility]:
Agree with some of your points …. up to a point.
Paul Burns [54]:
The Yanks themselves are generally nice people …. but in 2008, only a complete idiot would base any defence planning on the Yanks rushing to our rescue, even if they really wanted to do so. The world has changed and we had better adapt fast - or perish.
…. and on [50]:
Believe me, the whole ADF would be flat out defending - for example - just the Gladstone-Callide area and associated sealanes at present. Not a lack of will or of expertise …. but a lack of people and equipment to do the job.
WTF Jack, indigenous/immigrant insurgencies assisted by the cultural left supplying Canon photocopiers and the “savvy enemy” posting fliers all over the nation addressed Dear Wog/Blackfella???
Our dearly unbeloved Rednecks said fuck 400 years of English jurisprudence namely habeas corpus, inadmissable hearsay/torture evidence and for good measure, the rights of POWs under the Geneva Conventions. (And bring on retrospective law to boot.)
I’m relying on you Jack to draft the Stern Measures (Drugs, Slaves, Viruses, Dirty Money) Leakages Act (Cth) as soon as possible.
(Reminiscent of a legal notice in a Chinese hotel I saw in 1992: “The Rules for Foreign Barbarian Devils Visiting The Middle Kingdom: No Gambling, Spying, Drugs, Prostitution.” But the coffee shop was full of hookers.)
[Shorter Jack: I’m with Canute.]
Graham,
In that case we’re in exactly the same position we were in 1938, when Blamey (I think) made a remark along the lines of us being a flock of mindless gazelles unaware of the lion ready to pounce. Unfortunately I don’t have the exact quote to hand.
“You just cant beat a smart robot armed with a death ray.”
Battlemech’s FTW!!!
Everyone:
Great news yesterday. Cause for celebration!
ADF is going to make postings longer and more family-friendly.
That is the sort of stroke-of-the-pen, low-cost measure that will really upgrade our defence capability [the sort I have advocated for years and that got me a bad reputation among oxygen-wasting fuddy-duddy wardroom warriors and mess commandos
]. It’s a measure that has the military value of at least 3 or 4 SuperHornets.
Keep up the good work.
No day is perfect - even a great day like yesterday - and of course the good old Dept. of Veterans Affairs can be relied on to keep as many keen potential recruits as possible away from the ADF …. this time with the incredible news that they are trying to rip-off the poor old surviving ex-Prisoners-Of-War of the Imperial Japanese. How many cents did they save? Good one fellas, Osama bin-Laden and his ilk will be delighted.
Paul Burns [57]:
Your quote sums it up beautifully.
Being well prepared does not mean panicking and becoming paranoid but it does mean re-thinking our situation, taking effective measures and then relaxing by watching the cricket or going fishing. There was a story or parable in the old Queensland school readers about the farmboy who slept well on windy nights …. they story doesn’t seem to be widely circulated at all at ADFA.
hi……this is very nice
Australia’s decision to buy the FA 18F Super Hornet was an extremely wise decision. Do we as an Australian nation want to be left vonerable and without the air capability to protect ourselves? I think not!! The F111’s are long past there due date for retirement and a suitable aircraft is needed to keep Australia at World air combat capability. The decision was not entirley B. Nelsons!! I just glad he had the balls to actually make a decision!! If the programme is axed, like John Howard it will be a bad day for Australia!!
MW, care to add something to support the contention that the purchase was ‘extremely wise’? On what grounds?
And while the decision may or may not have been entirely Nelson’s, he was the minister at the time and theres a thing called ministerial responsibility.
“I just glad he had the balls to actually make a decision!!”
Oh yes, like George The Lesser, Brendan is such a great decision maker… what a track record eh?!
Yank Allie.
As a Former Member of the US Navy Deployed around the World
In Support of FA-18 C/D and Super Hornets of all Flavors
Flying around the clock Non-Stop from Land and Sea These
Machines are made for WAR Air or Ground.
SUPER Hornets are Secret Weapons used only by the Greatest First Day of
War Force on Earth!
The United States Navy
Australia is an Aircraft Carrier Surrounded by water
Mr. Brunson: So was the F4U Corsair. Doesn’t mean it’s the best option currently available to the RAAF….
Seriously - if you had the choice for an air-to-ground strike mission, would you prefer an F-15E Strike Eagle with the latest avionics, or the Super Hornet?
To be fair Rob, the F4U Corsair was never really used for CAP or high altitude interception.
“would you prefer an F-15E Strike Eagle”
Maybe.
Or thinking really laterally now, why don’t we just offer a cash-strapped Indonesia a deal whereby we lease off them the bunch of SU-27s they ordered but can’t really afford. Then when we finally get our F-35s or whatever, we can return the now obsolete planes we wanted to guard against. And the Indos get their fast jalopies back in probably better condition than when they were first delivered by the Russkies, albeit perhaps with a mess of prawns hidden in the plumbing that pipes warm air into the cockpit.
It’s a win-win situation I tell you!
“the Greatest First Day of War Force on Earth!”
Whenever people say shit like that, it’s usually followed by the last day of peace in some benighted corner of the planet.
Bob,
F-15’s are fragile they can not operate in a Salt Water Environment if they could USAF Bases Would be near Water, Super Hornets alone will not save you .
Nabakov,
War:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
War is any large scale, violent conflict. War grew from the almost universal tribal warfare that has occurred throughout history, to wars between city states, nations, or empires. By extension, the word is now used for any struggle, as in the war on drugs or the war on terror. It was once thought man was the only animal who fought wars, but closer observation of animal life has discovered wars between ant colonies and chimpanzee tribes.
Nabs, no one says we have to be buying 25 year old second-hand F-15s, like the one that disintegrated embarrassingly in your video.
We could instead pick up brand new F-15E derivatives like the Singaporeans and Koreans are getting, with all sorts of neat combat systems and electronics.
Willie, if any modern combat aircraft can’t operate over water, just put it back in its box and write “return to sender” on it. You may wish to think about why the version being delivered to South Korea, the ‘F-15K Slam Eagle’, is designed to carry the AGM-84 Harpoon anti-shipping missile.
Oh, and if the F-15 “can not operate in a Salt Water Environment”, as you put it, then presumably the Su-27 (designed as the Soviet counterpart to the F-15) can’t either. In which case, Australia has nothing to fear from the Indonesian AF and we don’t need to buy anything!
I wouldn’t expect any plane to operate in a salt water environment, Catalinas excepted, but I don’t think that it would be a sound idea to build our air defence around them. We keep a navy to operate in a salt water environment.
Willie H. Brunson you may not have noticed this but the United States has eleven (or is it twelve ?) aircraft carriers. Among the planes that have flown off them is the F15N “Sea Eagle”. Could they not operate in a salt water environment?
That would of course be in the hope that the first day of war didn’t include the opposition’s “secret weapons” ie Sunburn/Yakhont. Their Mach 2.5 arrival would mean carriers doing a SuperDive and SuperSloths not long after doing a SuperSplash (with delayed pike).
Kinda like history could repeat itself, Admiral Phillips style with Repulse and Prince of Wales:
I agree with Nabs, bring on the Sukies from Indonesia. (If we got 100 of them them directly from RasPutin, at a fraction of the price of SuperSloths, they might throw in 100 Yakhonts and Sukie attaching brackets and bolts for about the same price as 1 Superhornet? Wouldn’t we then be the “coolest” people in the “arc of instability” with the capacity to bust [heaven forbid], even Uncle Sam’s “tin can” arse?)
Incidentally, the F-35 (aka the JSF) is a single-engine fighter.
How this is supposed to be safe to operate over water I’m not too sure…
Don’t get me wrong Mates; the F-15 of any flavor is an Awesome Platform my View
(And this is a forum) is that Australia will by no means face any outside threat
alone. The entire region is covered by Brits, Yanks and Aussies from a place call ’Diego Garcia’ which has everything from Barbs to B-52’s, ask the RAAF Pilots
Who have flown in combat and training in there New Hornets what they think
Speed is not an advantage if I you see you before you see me.
Don’t Forget Your Buying a System Not an Airplane!
Mr. Brunson:
while we value our alliance with eh USA enormously, the fact is that the USA’s strategic interests are not always perfectly aligned with our own. If you look into our history, we had our imperial protector pre-WWII tell us “thanks for all your professional troops, thousands of airmen, etc. etc. - now go fend for yourself”. Speaking for myself, it’d be nice to have enough independent capability to ensure that, whatever the USA docides to do or not do, we can look after ourselves.
As for fighter pilots, not to knock them because clearly to make it through the extensive selection process you must have some pretty special skills, but they all tend to think that their plane is the best plane ever made.
While you certainly have a point that speed is certainly not the be-all and end-all, that’s true. However, it’s relatively straightforward to fit a new radar, ECM, and weapons to an old plane; it’s much tougher to make a plane go faster or fly further on a tank of fuel.