Quietly, the process of spending billions of dollars on war toys that we’ll hopefully never use goes on. And, more than most areas of government policy, this is one where you can only really divine the philosophy behind it by looking at their actions. While it\s too early to draw any specific conclusions, here are some tidbits from around the traps.
Attention on the future of our fighter procurement rolls on, though the sophistication of the reportage in the mainstream media is limited. If you recall, in the dying days of the Howard era, Brendan Nelson signed off on the purchase of a squadron of Super Hornets. While the purchasing process was very dubious, the government decided to continue with the buy. Now, the broader question of Australia’s air combat capabilities rolls on, in parallel with the broader defence white paper.
One thing that keeps on coming up in these discussions is the American wonder-plane, the F-22 Raptor. The Raptor flies faster than a speeding bullet, leaps buildings in a single bound, is about as visible on radar as your average protozoan, and transforms into an American ripoff of Japanese mechs when it gets angry:
I’m just kidding about the transforming into a robot stuff - or, at least, I think I’m kidding. The Americans have been extremely cagey about precisely what the plane can actually do, and how it does it; they’ve shown even less inclination to sell it to anyone. But that hasn’t stopped Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon from repeatedly, and publicly, saying that he’d like the Americans to give us the option of buying them.
Whether we would want such a machine, however, is another question. Howard government policy, until the Super Hornet announcement in 2007, was to replace our entire aircraft fleet with the F-35 Lightning II - essentially, the F-22’s smaller, allegedly much cheaper, but still under-development little brother. This longer-term plan for the RAAF has also been controversial; various people have claimed that the F-35 isn’t going to be able to deal with the various threats we might face in the region from Russian-sourced Sukhoi fighters, and we really need the F-22.
This is where it gets enormously complicated. Whatever we buy, we’ll be flying for 30-40 years. Right now, south-east Asia’s air forces are small to nonexistent; most pertinently, Indonesia’s plans to buy a couple of Russian Sukhoi fighters has been stymied through lack of money, and their pitifully small collection of American fighter planes are largely grounded through lack of spare parts. But for how long is that going to be the case? For instance, is the scenario advanced by one defence analyst on the 7:30 report - the Chinese showing up with an aircraft carrier laden with advanced Russian-derived fighters off Suva (or Honiara, after, let’s say, another bout of anti-Chinese rioting) in 2020 - plausible? And, if so, and push came to shove, would an F-35 equipped RAAF have the ability to do anything about it - and if it can’t, what kind of upgrades will be possible to ensure that we can (which is one of the potential problems with the F-35? And how much, if anything, extra would it be worth paying for the ability to do so? And how much extra would it actually cost? And what would we do about the rather useful things that the F-22 can’t currently do - like, for instance, carrying the JASSM cruise missiles we bought recently? I don’t know the answers to any of this. But they’re the kind of questions that are hopefully exercising the minds of those doing the review.
In a final interesting tidbit on all things flying, Australia, and armed, there are reports that the air combat review is considering purchasing the F-35 later than previously planned. Essentially, the later in the production run you buy a military aircraft, the cheaper it is. A couple of years delay might save half a billion dollars or so.
Meanwhile, the Navy doesn’t appear to be satisfied with its lot, despite having three new Air Warfare Destroyers and a pair of transport/helicopter carriers/landing craft coming over the next few years. As part of this discussion on those purchases, there was debate as to how useful “air defence” was for the navy, without some “air offence” to go with it. Well, it didn’t really attract much attention at the time, but it seems that some people in the Navy were wondering exactly the same thing:
THE Royal Australian Navy has produced a secret $4 billion “wish list” that includes an aircraft carrier, an extra air warfare destroyer and long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles for its submarine fleet.
The RAN wants a third 26,000 tonne amphibious ship equipped with vertical take-off jet fighters, a fourth $2 billion air warfare destroyer and cruise missiles that could strike targets thousands of kilometres away.
The “aircraft carrier” referred to is not the equivalent of an American or even a British behemoth. Essentially, Australia is already buying two large transport ships with big helicopter decks. If you happen to have an aircraft like the Harrier jump-jet, or a special “STOVL” version of the F-35 being built for the US Marines and the British Navy, you can put a “ski jump” on the front of them and use them to launch fighters. So, if we bought another one, and made some of the F-35’s we bought the STOVL variation rather than the normal runway-takeoff version (and, again, assuming that the F-35 is up to the task and what we end up getting), voila, instant aircraft carrier.
The article claims that the new government were thoroughly unimpressed with spending even more money on the Navy; the thought of our own carrier-supported invasion force doesn’t seem to be one the Rudd government is keen to fund. But it makes perfect sense in the context of the largely “expeditionary” armed forces that the previous government was in the process of building.
We’ll have to wait until the Defence White Paper is released to get a really good sense of where Labor sees Australia’s defence acquisitions going. But the sense so far is that they’re considerably less eager to get the chequebook out than the last mob.
Navy never really liked losing their carrier in the first place.
The VSTOL F35 is going to be way less capable than the normal verison - if their are concerns about the normal version, what chance has the VSTOL one against any serious aggressor?
They may be alright for gunboat diplomacy over our pacific island neighbours or for lobbing bombs when we own the airspace, but I can’t see them being particularly of use to us.
Of course, a carrier (even a small one) is a very high value target, and will need more escorts than we currently have planned (probably Navy’s semi-secret agenda - get these big ships (the transports and a carrier)and then cry out that they can’t protect them adequately.
It seems to me that a big part of the cost overrruns on getting the JSF flying has been getting the Marines version to work.
And I wonder what their rationale for a 4th AWD could be. Still, it would be popular in SA. (Nice - our defence procurement is becoming like the Americans - propping up marginal seats.)
Tomahawks for our subs would be a quite supportable idea however, really would offset a lot of our lost F-111 capacity. I presume this is doable from a Collins class torpedo tube? Or are they talking about the next generation of subs?
wilful: I believe it can be launched from torpedo tubes, but whether the Collins-class would need any other mods to launch them I don’t know.
As for the rationale for more AWD’s, the Navy wanted the American Arleigh Burke design for its extra missile launch slots. A fourth AWD gives them the ability to deploy two of the things simultaneously. Instant doubling of launch slots…
bigbob: from what little I’ve found, the degradation in performance isn’t that great - about 20% less combat radius (from around 1000 to 800-odd kilometres) and a little bit less payload. The stealth characteristics, avionics, and manoeuverability are basically the same. So if the STOVL JSF is in trouble against modern Russian gear, so will the CTOL one.
“7:30 report - the Chinese showing up with an aircraft carrier laden with advanced Russian-derived fighters off Suva”
Are you sure that defence analyst wasn’t smiling when he said it? If that scenario ever came to be there’s not a chance in hell we would undertake any military action without the US at our back. The idea of Australia taking on any Chinese force by itself doesn’t make any strategic sense. If the Chinese want to be in Fiji, and the western world won’t unite together to stop it then the only logical response for us will be to grin and bear it. If the US is at our back then no-one’s going to care about a little insignificant Aussie aircraft carrier when an entire US carrier task force is available. And what is a Australian carrier armed with short range VTOL fighters designed to close air support to a landing force going to do against what would undoubtedly be a bigger better equipped Chinese carrier armed with much bigger, much longer ranged fighters and air borne radar?
If this sort of scenario is the best justification for an Australian carrier force then there is no argument for one at all. Maybe Fitzgibbon should promote a submarine man to the top of the Navy brass to get them focused on what they should be doing rather than daydreaming about commanding a US carrier task force.
The chinese don’t need to invade Fiji - they could just buy it. There’s only one rational reason to fear the chinese and that’s if the US government defaults on it’s debts (likely? The Russians did it and caused the whole LTCM financial meltdown). As for the Navy desiring an aircraft carrier - there’s far too many of the class of officers in the Navy who grew up making models of Fairey Swordfish and reading Biggles.
Robert Kaplan has some interesting observations on the emerging geo-political environment and its implication, especially for China as a naval power.
I have no idea how that happened.
Obviously I mneat to link to this.
[link]
Self-pwnage, Nabakov?
There are other reasons for having an aircraft carrier other than just being able to take it up to the Chinese in Fiji. As Robert says above, whatever purchases we make now, we will have (give or take a bit) for the next 30 years (40? maybe). While conceivable threats in this time might take the form of large nation states exerting their strategic muscle in the region, they could also take the form of fractured, failed or disintegrating states that have access to military hardware of their failed parents. Similarly, there are any number of smaller states that may decide that punching out of their weight division would be a great way to consolidate the power of an autocratic dictator.
The idea of a fractured China justifiably keeps its own leaders awake at night (hence the paranoia over Tibet), there are successionist movements in India, and the “United States” might not be quite as united after ten years of relative or real economic decline.
In these situations, being able to project significant fire power overseas becomes important. Whether the F-35 is the right fighter is a good question to ask, and the potential vulnerability of a large, floating tin target in the middle of the Pacific is undeniable. However, as a part of a package, in a balanced fleet, a (smallish) aircraft platform would be a definite military asset.
Of course, if we have to front up to the Chinese in a confrontation by ourselves, then it won’t matter what we have in the locker - another terrific reason for buying an aircraft carrier anyway!!
And yes, David Rubie, I did used to play with ships in the bath as a kid (never been in the Navy, though!).
Kevin Brady wrote:
Judging by what has happened in the former USSR, I don’t think that’s a credible threat either. Without the massive state apparatus, all those incredibly expensive toys become too hard to maintain and end up rotting on airfields or rusting in slipways. The biggest problem has been keeping track of the nuke warheads. If the Indonesians have trouble keeping their handful of planes flying (or, say Iran with their legitimately purchased Tomcats), I can’t see a disintegrated China being capable of fielding anything worthwhile. Tanks, maybe (cause you can fix the diesel varieties easily). Rockets, sure. Cruise missiles? No way. Every failed state reverts to an irregular army armed with kalashnikovs,RPG’s and Hiluxes, which is formidable for mounting an insurgency but not much for sabre rattling.
Oh, and I’ve got nothing in particular against airfix modellers or bathtime fun with ships, (some of my wasted youth went into spitfires and tomcats) but as a reasonable way of informing modern defence requirements, the “greatest generation” lived in a very different world to us.
Ah well David, after I finished peeling off the superglue from my fingers (I never ever got a clear cockpit), I advanced to roleplaying Twilight 2000, so there were multiple pathways towards informing your fantasies.
FWIW, the Chinese have SFA naval force-projection capability right now, and they don’t seem to be in any particular hurry to acquire it either.
David Rubie said: “Every failed state reverts to an irregular army armed with kalashnikovs,RPG’s and Hiluxes”.
I mentioned fractured and disintegrating states, too, David. Your statement is a bit too sweeping. I think Ukraine could kick our butts: [link] and even Azerbaijan could make life difficult for us: [link]. I don’t think these guys will go to war against us, but how would we deal with a splintering, fundamentalist Indonesia? Or a newly aggressive Japan? Or what would we do in the event of Burma invading Thailand? All improbable scenarios in the near to mid future I agree, but the future is an uncertain planet.
The point is, we might be able to use a platform that will allow high level force projection at some stage in the next 30 years. A moderately sized a/c carrier could come in handy.
Off to have a bath …
Personally I think the RAAF should get F-22s if possible, with the Army and Navy getting STOVL variant F-35s. The RAAF retains its role in air dominance and ground-pounding and the Army and Navy get flexible, organic air support.
There are lots of scenarios that a modern defence force needs to cope with — including AK-47s and Hiluxes — but the absolutely bottom line for the ADF is to prevent wars of aggression against Australia by making it impossible to invade and occupy.
Invaders and occupiers need large, heavily capitalised conventional armies. The sort of thing that extra subs, planes, tanks etc are useful against.
The big flaw in the old Defence of Australia plan from the 80s is that the RAAF has very little ability to fall back. The Navy have bases all around the coast and the Army is capable of moving back in a slow rearguard action. But with airbases, you have them or you don’t; and once you don’t have them you’re in deep trouble.
STOVLs would make it possible for the RAAF or the Army to keep some aerial capability near the ground forces and to keep the retreat-and-harass capability. There are lots of little airports that wouldn’t be ideal but could be pressed into service despite having short run ways.
If we’re buying stopgap planes, the Harrier GR-9s could be purchased before F-35s became available.
Subs + tomahawks would be an excellent idea; we could certainly use more submarines to improve our ability to deter any hostile naval activity.
Kevin Brady wrote:
I don’t know - those statistics in the link from 1992 don’t match numbers elsewhere on things like the Mig-29 (here says 220, your link says 35). I’m not sure if they started out with 220 and only managed to keep 35 airborne or nobody knows for sure how many of them are still flying, but the rest of the equipment isn’t exactly awe inspiring (scuds? Roadside bombs made from fertiliser are shedloads more impressive in real combat). All of which is a bit off topic I suppose. How many of the ICBMS that the USSR scattered around the place are still serviceable? Sure, the trucks might still be rolling around, but I bet the avionics are full of rust and cobwebs and nobody remembers the pin number to get them launched. No bucks, no buck rogers as they say.
Robert, didn’t you work out the optimal force structure for the ADF, like, seven milnerd threads ago? Maybe you should run the one giant thread and occasionally update it - kinda Missy Higgins Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell style - until all these weighty defence issues are resolved conclusively for all time?
In the meantime, here are some suggestions to run up the flagpole and see if it cops a salute from your resident presbyterians.
I suppose the point was to note what the new government’s doing - essentially, it doesn’t seem to be as keen on buying new toys as the last lot.
“FWIW, the Chinese have SFA naval force-projection capability right now, and they don’t seem to be in any particular hurry to acquire it either.”
Well, what was interesting from the Kaplan Foreign Policy Review tour d’horizon bonbon that I linked to above was his conclusion that China is putting some effort into subs, antishipping missiles and fucking up satellite resources - basically not to project force abroad but to rebut anyone have a go at their ports and shipping lanes (perhaps the US and certainly India).
And like others here, I’m quite baffled about the concept of a Chinese aircraft carrier in Suva Harbour.
a) why?; and
b) everyone on shore leave would just end up in major punchups with Korean and Japanese fishing factory crews at the Golden Dragon (Is it still going? Note to self, do not verify this through a Lonely Planet Guide). Seen it happen with USN carrier task forces there too. A USN CPO who definitely looked like he knew what he was talking once told me that the Shore Patrol dudes would draw lots not be on duty when the fleet hit Suva.
And Fyodor’s suggestion about one vast milnerd “Is Missy Higgens is a Raptor?” thread definitely has some merit. For starters, the subject matter alone would make it a real thread of doom.
Personally I reckon long term Aus defence planning should be based on three core principles:
a) Don’t even think about it mate;
b) The spice must flow; and
c) Oh hi! We live next door. Say, you wanna turn the music down a bit? Don’t make us come back and do it for you.
Actually, our existing strategy could be lolled:
OH HAI, SWAPSIES ROKS FOR DUD HELICHOPPERS? KTHXBYE
And let’s think a bit laterally here too. Take those Su-35s or whatever they were that Indonesia ordered but couldn’t pay for. Let’s buy ‘em instead. That’d really fuck with a lot of heads.
The Russkies would make out like bandits, keeping the initial Indo deposit while selling the aircraft on again. And I betcha they’d take a big part of the balloon payment in contra.
And we get to now own what was once a looming threat. Mothball most for emergencies, keep a couple operational for red team training, crate one to Fishermans Bend to be picked apart by aerospace boffins and pop another in the RAAF Museum at Point Cook where it can be ogled by small planestruck boys like me.
I reckon this could be done for under a billion out of some Commonwealth Government reptile fund.
Nabakov wrote:
The US did that with MIG-29s from Moldova - mostly to stop them falling into existing belligerent hands like Iran. And there’s a precedent on MIG-29s with NATO friendly avionics that the Germans sold to Poland (full of US knowhow). Not sure about the SU-35 though, it’s a bit different and we don’t have many (any?) allies that have run or owned them.
“Not sure about the SU-35 though, it’s a bit different and we don’t have many (any?) allies that have run or owned them.”
But we will have a great stash of Su-35 spare parts - available on eBay. And if you sell spares to someone else, you soon get a good idea of why and where what they have got is not working.
Robert Merkel and all:
So what do we call our present situation?
The sixth year of the Third World War or the outbreak of the First Malthusian War?
Our glorious defence wallahs are still still trying to fight the war-before-last with the weapons-systems developed in the war before that [rebadged, of course, and sold in shiny new packaging] and generations-old organizations [Hey, Colour Sergeant, guess what? They’ve go magazines on rifles now so every time you operate the bolt a new cartridge comes up].
Getting a bit of real forward-thinking and flexibility would be nice …. and getting them before we are annihilated would be even nicer.
Nabokov [19]:
Like your three core principles.
What’s the carbon tax on a carrier fleet?
Nabakov: The “Don’t even think about it, mate” principle would look a bit silly when we front up to the Chinese in Suva. A bit like the mouse giving the two finger salute to the eagle. I think our principles should be:
1. You can come and sit on our beaches as long as you are nice to us;
2. We’ll give you lots of stuff for lots of money.
3. If you try to hurt us, you will at least get a bloody nose.
Oh, and maybe threaten them with Barry Hall.
On reflection I think the best approach might be the formidable RNZAF - 5 Beechcraft filled with burly “Once were warriors” types in a bad mood. That ought to give the Chinese some pause for thought