Garret, pre-election, was right: they are “just changing it all” after being elected. This will be lots of fun for we on the conservative side of the political spectrum, an ALP government headed by a million and whose policies are (monetarily) further right than Howard – for me uncomfortably too far right. What say you?

MarkL
Canberra

Short clear sentences and Babelfish. We get by.

MarkL
Canberra

Phillip, if you’re reading this, a few minutes editing your posts to make them clearer would mean it would be much easier to engage with you. It’s not that we don’t like you, we just can’t understand!

Don’t ask, don’t tell. Seems to be the policy.

COMMENT: gear gets outdated and worn, and high level skills have to be kept up. The F-111 force is simply past it – we cannot complain, we got nearly 40 years out of them. If you gap the strike skills, you’ll lose the people who have them. Rebuilding them is then a really expensive task that will take a decade. Look at the problem the Navy is facing with trying to rebuild the anti-submarine skills it lost in 1982. Rebuilding them will take 10-15 years and mucho dollar.

#3 philiptravers
COMMENT: Can anyone explain what Phil was on about?
#4Swio
COMMENT: The ‘conspiracy’ side of it does not really wash. The root issue is the F-111. To be blunt, it was a great bird, but it’s getting very, very old. Think of you still driving a car designed in 1963 old, and still racing it at Oran Park old. That is what we are talking about. Nobody else flies it any more and we are in unknown territory with it in age and (IIRC) structural stress terms. Old planes are like old cars, they are less reliable and break more often. This is a bad thing in supersonic strike aircraft and tends to kill the aircrew. This upsets their mates a little. The thing has a huge radar cross section as well – not good. BTW, the cost of operating the things is very high and rising quickly – older gear has to be checked and repaired more often.

#6 Katz
“The cost of dumping this project was too high to be financially prudent, which is not the same as saying that it is militarily prudent to proceed with the Hornet.”

COMMENT: I had suspicions on the announcement that there was something missing from it. Janes have since confirmed these – there is a lot more to this acft than meets the eye because it has been given full data compatibility with F-35. That is most surprising, and it changes everything, and indeed changed my own personal opinion about the concept. What it means is that both can probably use each other’s sensors, and fire each other’s weapons, and receive and utilise the same offboard situational awareness feeds in the same manner. I cannot overstate the importance of that.

“Unfortunately, the Rudd Govt was left with no other politically viable course of action but to crack hearty and to laud the “capabilities” of the Hornet, which in a different strategic setting may have been real.”

COMMENT: No, I do not think so. This is a government which happily took the knife to Seasprite, carers, pensioners etc. This is a razor gang FAR more hard headed and ruthless than anything Howard’s government ever achieved IMHO. If this acft had not offered something extraordinary, it would have been cut. What I am beginning to suspect is that it offers a way to reduce F-35 numbers in that subsequent buy, saving a hell of a lot of money further in and spreads expenditure across the F-35 design spiral. That would also retire a LOT of risk. If that is true, then the original decision to buy them was extremely good. Think not buying 100 F-35A in one massive lump as we did with F/A-18A (hellooo bloc obsolescence) , but buying 24 F-18F, then 12 F-18G, then 24 F-35A, then 24 F-35 B, then 48 F-35 C (while backtrading the F-35A, say, or maybe some Hornets, to lower costs), all over a 15 year period. Much, much lower risks.

“As others have said, the Howard Govt Hornet decision represents a subversion of many tenets of sound government.
Unfortunately, cabinet secrecy appears to be an impenetrable veil for Howard government incompetence and/or cronyism.”
COMMENT: Again, these opinions no longer appear to hold any water. If this had been a ‘duff deal’ of some kind, they would have cut it and blamed $400 million or so of ‘waste’ on Nelson personally – what a GREAT way to score a political win! And what a win! But they didn’t. So the points above cannot be correct.

#7 Robert Merkel
COMMENT: Agree
#8 David Rubie
“What problems? Aerodynamics science hasn’t changed much since the 1960’s, but electronics shrunk orders of magnitude. Most of those era’s airframes have enormous holes in them for all sorts of funky electronics that used to barely hold a radio. Think of all the crusty old bombers that ended up as “wild weasel” platforms. We should ship those f-111’s back out of retirement and fit them with as much electronic suppression garbage we can buy along with some big, fat fuel tanks.”

COMMENT: It’s a bit more complex than that. This has been looked at years ago and it was extremely expensive, cheaper to buy SparkVarks as the USAF retired them. We didn’t. New systems into an ancient airframe – shades of Seaprite! I am informed that the RAAF is actually looking hard (and with Rudd Govt approval) at a second buy of F-18 F and G – the Growler. This is the new standard USN EW (old parlance – Wild Weasel) machine.

10 derrida derider
“If the SHs were a disaster the Rudd government would not have missed the chance to beat up on the Libs.”
No, because beating up on the Libs here would mean beating up on both Defence and their US friends. Fitzgibbon is acting like most Defence Ministers – a plaything of his department.

So he’s grinning madly – and unconvincingly – while he swallows the shit sandwich.
COMMENT: And missing the political opportunity to smash Nelson? I do not think so. Again, this argument just does not hold water, quite the opposite. Finding a dud deal of this size would wreck Nelson and let the Minister truly stamp his authority on the Department. This argument just does not wash.

Overall, there is still a lot we do not know about the F-18 buy. But one thing we can now confidently assess. It is far more capable than we knew previously, and it ties into F-35 in some way not yet fully clear..

MarkL
Canberra

The cat doesn’t have their tongue. There is no way the government could be prevented from exposing what it thought were mistakes by their predecessors. After all, it’s not like they’re ignoring the Sea Sprite mess.

swio: no specifics about the SHs, and people here are asserting they exist. That quote doesn’t support the hypothesis. People here are saying that the new government won’t criticise the super-hornet decision because: a) they’re in on it – the corrupt bastards; or b) the previous government made a binding deal for all future governments to just STFU and smile when discussing the SHs.

In case you were wondering why we need this kind of things when we supposedly live in a benign threat environment, with no prospect of going to war any time soon – its precisely to prevent us needing to go to war and preserve that benign environment that we need these kinds of things. I wonder how long it would take for “friends” to become unfriendly if we didnt?

The ancient art of deterrance still applies.

It’s hardly like we’d be defenceless for the period between 2010 and 2018.

Did you read the press release? He doesn’t sound like he’s singing the former government’s praises.

“There has been a lack of sound, long-term air combat capability planning decisions by the former Government over the course of the last decade.”

“The former Government’s decision to leave Australia’s air defences in the hands of the Joint Strike Fighter project was a flawed leap of faith in scheduling terms”

That the official minister

Unless he’s backed into an impossible corner by said skills.

I still dont think the Super Hornet stacks up on any realistic measure, but I suspect that Fitzgibbon was put into a corner by the poor negotiating skills of the previous mob when dealing with Boeing.

If that were the case, Fitzgibbon would be taking his free kick at the opposition for said skills.

Not cancelling the Super Hornets may have been a locally optimal decision, but been very suboptimal from a global perspective.

The ancient art of deterrance still applies.

I still dont think the Super Hornet stacks up on any realistic measure, but I suspect that Fitzgibbon was put into a corner by the poor negotiating skills of the previous mob when dealing with Boeing.

So in other words, they believe it was the right choice. Don’t you think the purported conspiracy is becoming unsustainably big if Fitzgibbon is in on it too?

H&R: yes, it was definitely good money after bad, followed by another shovel of great money with those SSs. Paradoxically crap like this happens because people try to get away with cheap. Spending too little can cost more than spending too much.

Furthermore, purchasing the Super Hornets may mean we have to rebuild less of our classic Hornets early next decade, which will offset some of the cost.

It’s still quite a lot of money, of course.

When you’re paying 6.6 billion dollars to escape a 400 million dollar fine sounds like the perfect time.

No, because beating up on the Libs here would mean beating up on both Defence and their US friends. Fitzgibbon is acting like most Defence Ministers – a plaything of his department.

So he’s grinning madly – and unconvincingly – while he swallows the shit sandwich.