It’s not a lazy couple of billion like I guessed here previously. Instead, the government’s decision to buy a couple of dozen Super Hornet jet fighters to cover the delays in the Joint Strike Fighter project will cost six billion dollars.
Yes, that is indeed 6,000 million dollars. For an interim gap-filler that the government has insisted, for years, would not be necessary.
In what other area of government would it be anything even vaguely approaching acceptable for the government to go “oh, whoops, got that one wrong” and hastily spend 6 billion dollars to cover their mistake?
Relevant commentary at the ABC by Andrew Davies of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. There’s also this anonymous article that appeared in the journal of the Australian Defence Association a little while ago, which claims that there is no technical reason why the F-111 could not be kept in service and viable for at least another decade.
UPDATE: Cam weighs in at Polemica. He points out, rightly, that the Super Hornet is in no way a replacement for the F-111 because of its far inferior range and payload capabilities.
But the jet-jockeys just love it!
What is it with you Christine? You give former Minister for Defence Johnny Profumo one, and all of a sudden you’re Edwina the Expert on all things fly-boy?
No wonder the general public don’t like paying taxes. $6bil = $1500 for every person in Oz (roughly)! That is 1/16th of my annual salary!
Absolutely fucking outrageous.
That’s A$250m a pop, which is MORE than the incremental cost (c. A$150m) of the superior F-22.
Nelson, you’re a total, complete and utter fucking wally.
Mr von Clouseauwitz: your point is also made (slightly more politely) by Davies in another report.
BTW, the numbers you’re comparing aren’t the same number. The F-22 number is probably “flyaway” cost, the Super Hornet the whole kit and kaboodle.
Even so, the cost differential is starting to look smaller and smaller, and the massive extra bang for your buck (if you’ll pardon the pun) you get with the F-22 is starting to look very attractive.
“The National Interest” had a good segment on the whole JSF fiasco in their last podcast. You can find it here
Careful EC, I’ve still got the Webley given to me by that lovely Sergeant in the Shanghai Police tucked under my pillow.
CK the full drum from the Webley wouldn’t stop EC if he’s on jungle juice and ibogaine.
Robert, I’m well aware of the on-costs, but I can’t see how that total cost can be justified on any reasonable accounting.
Moreover, the estimate of the cost has increased by 50% in just the last MONTH. That has to be a record, even for our abysmal history of defence purchases. A month ago, the package was costed by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency at “UP TO” US$3.1bn (say A$4bn). Now it’s A$6bn.
Who’s in charge of this Michael Mouse operation? Is Humphrey B. Bear negotiating on behalf of us taxpayers, or is it Dr Nelson’s negotiating SOP to drop his daks and bend over every time he sees the Boeing salesman?
Try Howard on Monday announcing the unpreferred route of the Ipswich Motorway at double the cost and $1 Billion dollars more than the preferred route. They are having a bad week! Economic Managers Indeed!
Hands up anyone who believes $6bn will be the final cost anyway?
No wonder the smart part of the Transfield group got out of infrastructure contracting and into defence years ago. The government doesn’t even pretend to work to normal standards of accountability.
They should have just left Bronwyn Bishop in charge of defence procurement … she couldn’t have possibly done a worse job than the alternative clowns.
Well, let’s for a minute ignore the rank insanity of the price. Come in DoD, Russell Sq. ACT, will you please take your Minister’s staffers out the back and apply Rule .303?
The Super Hornet’s not a bad little fighter/bomber, especially with the aerial refuelling capability, which extends the already increased range a great deal. I don’t know whether the tendering process includes consideration of possible targets—I presume the RAAF has plans filed away to strike everything including the RePelican Guard units eating fish at Fraser Island—but on paper it seems to stack up pretty well against anything else in the vicinity.* Best of all, it’s designed to carry the AGM-84 Harpoon, one of my favourite anti-surface missiles. Can we get the Block II Harpoons as a throw-in from the
Pentagondealership? Ooooh yeah.In any case, in the post-USSR environment stealthiness and air superiority are both rather overrated. There’s no strategic mission anymore to overfly large distances of enemy territory to hit hardened targets, and missile technology is more and more relegating fixed-wing aircraft to the role of bog-standard launch platforms. Rocketry works best when it’s cheap and in large numbers: expensive aircraft to launch them limits their usefulness. Personally, I’d design the next Australian tactical missiles to be deployable from the back of Toyota utes; and at a less crazy price, the FA-18E/F is a handy little utility aircraft.
Someone just needs to give Brendan Nelson a spine.
*On the ChiComs. I’m not saying we should get into an arms race with the PRC, but if we do, they’re rather ahead of us, by decades, in the way of long-range ballistic nuclear missiles. Just a thought.
I like the way you think, Frisco Kid – straight as piss.
My own, modest, solution to this “air superiority” debate-malarkey is to place heavily armoured spheres, bristling with Phalanx-type CIWS (for shooting down missiles), and equipped with AWACS sensors and the next generation of over-the-horizon AAMs, all suspended in the air oop North using advanced dirigible technology. We could call them “Lead Zeppelins” or – my favourite – “Death Stars”.
Unsinkable Floating Fortresses, comrade Farkov, should be able to keep the Eastasian forces at bay, with the side-benefit of requiring vast amounts of industrial consumables.
Robert, as you can tell, I seriously question the extraness of the F-22′s bang-for-buck. That’s not to say that $6bn is anything like a good deal, but the F-22 in my opinion is vastly overrated. The elderly P-3 Orions the RAAF operate, for instance, can deploy anti-ship and anti-radar missiles in a pinch, and whoever is at the other end isn’t likely to give a shit what kind of plane launched it.
As Cam points out, the range issue is serious, but it’s not technically a ‘force multiplier’ (spit, spit), it’s a range multiplier, and a requirement of the missions strategically demanded. A few modern aerial refuelling aircraft would go a long way—unless of course they’re expected to serve from forward US bases in future cabinet wars. We’re smarter than that, right? Right?
In either case, the US should operate their own F-22s if they’re so fucking flash.
The F22 would clearly be a better buy for the dough.
From what I’ve read there’s nothing in the sky that can match it.
Despite this, the Government gets us the 1980′s Super Hornet. Shitty range and easy meat in a shooting fight with some of the foreigh hardware in the region.
I guess if the pollies’ kids were pilots in the RAAF, we would have gone top shelf, but as things stand, their electors’ kids can fly second-rate aircraft, while they slap themselves on the back for their cleverness and foresight in covering the capability-gap.
Hope the poor RAAF-ies never have to use the bloody things in anger.
If they do, there’ll be quite a few not returning from their sorties.
Evan, I wouldn’t be too easy with ’1980s’ as a term of abuse. The lovely AMRAAM air-to-air missile and its Soviet equivalents (R-77 and R-37) were all designed in the early 1980s. They’re the same complement of rockets your ‘foreign hardware’ (Indian? Indonesian? Samoan? Pitcairnian?) would presumably be deploying.
For air superiority, yes. For long-range strike and force projection, categorically no. The F-22 isn’t designed to carry any modern anti-ship or long-range AGMs, and though it can drop JDAMs (aka smart bombs), it’s rather a waste of its capability: flying across an ocean, stealthily at Mach 2, to drop a maximum of two smallish smart bombs on presumably unhardened unstrategic non-nuclear targets begs the question of price effectiveness once again. For regional force projection, give me a bunch of AGMs deployed on frigates and on the Collins Class submarines any day of the week.
As I said before, cruise missiles and the lack of a Soviet Union are rather taking away the need for strategic air. Or, more to the point, the need for pilots.
For ‘R-37′ above, read ‘R-73‘.
Fiasco da Gama, the trouble with your fiendish frigate-based cruise missile plan is what happens when the other side cottons on and figures two can play at that game. That results in sunk frigates very, very quickly. Yes, your gee-whiz Phalanx/Sea Sparrow/funky radar cruise missile defence system will probably knock down the first 20. But the 21st will get you, and your adversaries have sunk your billion-dollar frigate (and probably killed a significant fraction of the 170-odd sailors on it) with 5 million dollars worth of missiles launched off the backs of Toyotas.
As to cruise missiles out of the Collins class – great, except you’re hardly going to save money delivering conventional cruise missiles by submarine. The Collins-class can carry 22 torpedoes or 44 mines. At a rough guess, a missile and a torpedo are roughly the same size. You’d barely be able to carry a dozen safely, then you’d take a week to sail back to port and load up again.
Furthermore, you might only be able to carry 2 large bombs on the F-22, but it will quite happily carry eight Small Diameter Bombs, by all reports.
Your broader point about cruise missiles is sound. But ships are too vulnerable and submarines too costly, small, and slow to deliver lots of them at a reasonable price. That’s one of the reasons why I reckon we should look seriously at keeping the F-111 – it would make an exceptionally handy delivery vehicle for the affordable weapon – a $50,000 cruise missile.
This must be another one of those ‘my wartoy suggestion is bigger and better than yours’ threads.
Just remember how 6 billion might be spent. Think pensioners who are waiting 12 months for basic dental care, just for a start.
Sorry I interrupted the flow.
I thought the problem with the Super Hornets was their radar profile – like a man running down the street with tin foil on his head. & given the 18% increase in PRC defense spending – most of it for developing fighter planes, very very interesting new planes – well the tin foil aint lookin’ so good…
& does anyone seriously think this government cares about pensioners’ teeth? only if they’re strung as a cute little necklace around the coconut’s neck…
Joe2: quite….
One of the points that we’re making, on and off, in these threads is that big, expensive military toys like manned fighter planes, and naval ships, are possibly sitting ducks for dirt-cheap countermeasures – in a nutshell, missiles of various sorts. If so, the questions arises – what’s the point of having them when we might equally well spend the dough on pensioners’ teeth and whatnot.
Or, on a more disaster prevention oriented note, we could spend a few hundred million more on epidemic prevention, which is far more likely to result in mass casualties than any conceivable military threat.
Bernice: it depends. The basic airframe is, while not “stealthy”, perhaps “discreet” is a better term apparently. However, as soon as you strap on any weapons the point is moot as the external weapons carriage ruins the stealth. That’s why the F-22 carries all its weapons internally.
The real problem with the Super Hornet is that they’re underpowered and under-fuelled. This means that their top speed is ultimately lower than other planes in the region, and furthermore, if you turn up the juice they run out of fuel very quickly.
Thanks for clearing that up for me Robert. Maybe we could also spend a little more money on mental health.
Paranoia seems rampant amongst those who control the tax bucks. And delusionary sycophancy amongst those who should be calling their judgement into question.
Heh. Just add the tally to the Raytheon tab under ‘floating fortress industrial consumables’ in the Perpetual War account. It doesn’t have to work, it just has to cost!
1962 called, they’d like their missile crisis back. Actually, 1492 called, and they’d like their hemispherical agreement back. Seriously, what happens is that Australia (and the rest of the planet) has to start talking disarmament agreements, technology treaties and international covenants on arms. Y’know, all of the stuff that’s gone out of fashion in these days of Empire.
That’s right, that’s why Fiasco da Gama Defence Contracting SA of Lisbon and the Horn of Africa is currently developing medium range cruise missiles (like your AW, oh, yes please Santa) deployable from a utility tray or station wagon roof-rack.
You laugh now.
Reality check! Reality check!
It must be clear by now that we are not re-equipping an independent air force but financing a plug-in to the New Jersey Air National Guard – which also fields Super Hornets.
(If we were to actually get F22s then we would fit right in with Hawaii Air National Guard: it has been promised the aircraft and will get them before will.)
BTW, for those unfamiliar with the term, Air National Guard is the equivalent of Air Force Reserve or Citizen Military Forces and is flown by fat people with pimples and glasses. (Bit of rock trivia Radio Birdman’s Deniz Tek flew Phantoms with the Hawaii National Guard. George W. was also a Phantom jock in the Texas ANG for about two weeks to get out of Vietnam national service obligations.)
Our air force needs are not air superiority but ground attack. Hence, F111 can have a life extension with new APG-79 AESA radar as now being fitted to the Super Hornet. The Super Hornet is being flogged to us on the strength of being equipped with the APG-79.
Finally, it doesn’t matter what aircraft we get, we wouldn’t be able to afford enough of them in any war due to the high attrition rate this would engender. Two weeks of fighting and we’d have an empty hangar or two. You can’t outrun the new and excellent Chinese PL-12 air-to-air passive receiver missiles, nor of course the latest versions of Russian R27P-EPs with rocket vectoring and 270 degree off-boresight capability that pull 12Gs. Purleeze! All of our more serious putative adversaries field them, including India.
Platforms are becoming less and less important. The equivalent of a Datto ute with missiles is a few dozen DC3 with turbo prop conversions, carrying a couple of racks of Exocets for shipping, or maybe the Russian PO Mashinostroenia 3M-55 anti-shipping missiles, which are better. The DC3 could be quite effective in air to air role carrying a mix of Matra Magics, AMRAAMs (Hughes 120s) and the latest iteration of the British Skyflash. Think about it, long loiter time, take off and land anywhere, cheap to run and cheap to lose.
Have to pull you right up there Sir Henry. I believe it was obsolete F-102 Delta Daggers.
Sir Henry, all the ground attack in the world is no good if you don’t have air superiority.
And I for one would prefer not to be entirely dependent on our Great And Powerful Friend to guarantee it :/
Christine is quite correct. Bush drove the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger, and not for two weeks, but for several years. Apparently the plane was a renowned widow maker, but Georgie used his exemplary cockpit skills to get him through (“I’d rank him in the top five percent,” said his former flight instructor).
http://www.randomjottings.net/archives/001023.html
Just stop and think for a moment of the tragic state our world would be in today if Lt Dubya’s wing had fallen off. We’d have missed out on one of the 5 greatest US Presidents of all time, as my mates over at timblair.net say (although strangely they’ve been a bit quiet about the greatness of President Bush recently).
There must be a few remaining F102s languishing in the Arizona desert. Maybe the Air Wallahs could check them out with a view to strapping a bit of Sir Henry’s ordinance under the wings. I’m sure the Yanks would charge a very reasonable price for the upgrade.
Robert, what you would prefer, and what is actually the case
are two different things. Our procurement decisions reflect a policy of complementarity to the US order of battle. I made a point of reductio ad absurdum. There are many other aircraft that are better value for us as an interim platform, not the least being second-hand F15s, which US has spare or block 52 F16s as in the case of the Polish Sky Peace offer of 48 aircraft, which they got on very favourable credit and offsets. But then the Polish deal was in US strategic interest. We are taken for granted because we have rolled over long ago.
Do I have to post a vid on YouTube where I profusely apologise for the gross error of placing Dubya in Phantom? I’m soooooorrrry, okay? I made a mistake. The MSG in the Chinese takeaway last night made me lightheaded…
I followed the link to the paean to GWB and his heroic service in the Dagger in the TNG. Then I googled…
“Ben Barnes, the former Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and Lieutenant Governor of Texas, stated under oath that he had called the head of the Texas Air National Guard, Brig. Gen. James Rose, to recommend Bush for a pilot spot at the request of Bush family friend Sidney Adger.”
***
“In a 1994 interview, Bush stated that he joined the Guard because ‘I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment [from the draft for service in Vietnam]. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.’ ”
***
“The unit in which Bush served was known as the ‘Champagne unit’, where the scions of the Texas aristocracy could avoid combat duty with relatively few demands on their time. Serving in that unit with Bush were the sons of three prominent men: Democratic Governor John Connally, Democratic Senator and future Vice-Presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen, and Republican Senator John Tower, as well as seven members of the Dallas Cowboys professional football club, and a man named James R. Bath, who would become a longtime friend of Bush’s.”
***
“Flight logs released by the White House in September, 2004 showed that Bush had been flying the F-102A Delta Dagger, an interceptor until February and March of 1972, when he was assigned to a T-33, a two-seat trainer. He also resumed conducting practice sessions on a flight simulator. Both changes are unusual; they are signs of flight performance problems.”
WTF??!! The slimy piece of crap ADMITS he was dodging the expansion of freedom???
Robert, I strongly disagree, and will give you two examples that should explain themselves. One, the Israeli Air Force, who had perfect air superiority over Southern Lebanon in the recent touch-up yet could neither properly support their ground forces or prevent Hezbollah missile launches. Two, the Chinese are getting serious about satellite-killing, which would rather nullify the advantages of having high-tech networked air forces, and greatly advantage both ground air defences, electronic warfare units, not to mention anyone who can still navigate in the dark with a sextant, watch and almanac.
What Sir Henry said about cheapness and expendability in attack. I recall one of the famously leaked Soviet plans for ‘stealth-lite’ nuclear first-strike on North America: elderly Ilyushin bombers outfitted with light globes along the fuselage imitating airline windows. Hey, look everyone, we is an instant 707!
Anyway, as I always say, ITPWS: It’s The People’s War, Stupid.
If the cost stays at $6 billion (heh) then it’s only 48 years’ worth, give or take a month, of welfare fraud recovery. I don’t know what you’re all making such a fuss about.
Fiasco: The IAF example is not an argument against air superiority. That’s an argument for doing ground support better, and an observation of the limitations of conventional armed force against guerilla armies with support in the local population – unless you’re prepared to commit genocide (not an option I would expect the ADF to be taking any time soon…), it’s pretty hard to deal with them using brute force.
Doesn’t matter how many cheap, low-tech ground support planes, crewed or uncrewed, you have if they’re getting shot down in the air or destroyed on the ground.
PC: or a decade’s funding for the ABC…
Actually, Robert, I would have thought the IAF example was a perfect example of the inapplicability of the old theorem (air superiority) (ground attack advantage) (logistical support) = victory. As far as I can tell, the ADF’s great advantage is in well-trained infantry outfitted for COIN, anti-guerrilla and small-unit warfighting, in which air superiority doesn’t play much of a part. I would have thought the eventual possession of nuclear intercontinental missiles by more or less all of our potential ‘adversaries’ (minus Indonesia, and Pitcairn Island, natch) would be another perfect example of the inapplicability of air superiority to real-world warplanning. Are we really interested in conventionally arms-racing the rest of our side of the planet, given that we all here, I hope, agree we can’t afford to win it?
But then, I suspect the people in charge of ADF procurement wouldn’t know what victory looked like if they went to watch them play in the A-League.
PC: or simply chopping a vast amount of tax on low-income earners. Naah, that’d be too easy.
Here’s something else to consider when thinking about the things we’re talking about. The Navy is currently tendering for an upgraded class of amphibious ships to eventually replace the Kanimbla/Manoora/Tobruk.
The working assumptions seem to be that the ships should a) be able to deploy close-support and transport helicopters (Tigers and Blackhawks), b) be able to carry the M1A1 tank, and c) be able to carry out independent amphibious landings at battalion strength. All cool, but here’s the kicker.
There’s no working assumption that they’d be able to do their own air-superiority, and they’ll most likely not be able to launch the JSF in its naval variation, or any other fixed-wing aircraft. Uncle Sam’s umbrella seems to be a given.
I am probably too thick to be part of this thread. But i just don’t understand any of this. Who exactly is the enemy we’re protecting ourselves against with these new fighters. From my thinking, if we were really serious about defending the continent from “the enemy” we’d need ten times the number of planes (and then go looking for that enemy). If the new enemy we’re fighting is the one that is determined to end western civilisation (as honest john would have it), then why are we making this expenditure. How about keeping half to spend on projects here and the rest to fund aid projects in our region (you know, instead of telling the region we’re arming ourselves to protect us from them).
I think it is the Masurians you were thinking of….or perhaps the Pamalians?
I think another issue which warrants some discussion is how wise it is for Australia to have a defence procurement policy which is at the mercy of the internal political and fiscal fortunes of another country, in this case the Congressional debates about funding of the Joint Strike Fighter program and the fluctuating priority of this program given the demands of other US military commitments.
Fiasco: good point.
Why are we bothering with those things (or indeed the air warfare destroyers) if they’re overkill for amphibious landings on Nauru, and useless if anybody happens to have a supply of anti-shipping missiles to scare them off with, let alone fixed-wing aviation to oppose them.
Either we go the whole hog and supply them with some fixed-wing aircraft (which currently means the F-35C) or we forget the whole idea and get something more modest, which is what Labor proposed in the first place…
Calculus: no we wouldn’t. The point of the exercise is that with a modest but modern fighter force, you need several full-sized aircraft carriers to fight your way to the Australian coastline. That’s beyond the capability of everyone except the USA. Fighter planes are our deterrent.
The secondary purpose, to put not too fine a point on it, is to sink the Indonesian Navy if they start playing funny buggers in the region. Again, God help us all if it ever comes to that, but that’s what they’re for.
Pam Allan MP is retiring from the NSW Parliament and is not contesting the newly redistributed seat of Toongabbie. The ADF planners, I assume, have taken her off the list of potential adversaries, though one can never be sure. If she were to attain a regional strike capacity between now and March 24, I’m sure the members for Penrith and the Hills would fully co-operate with Canberra in an armed incursion up Blacktown Creek.
Coupla points, Frisco:
1. You can guess what would have happened if Hezbollah had air superiority over the IAF. Loss of air superiority over Australian airspace surrenders the initiative and leaves our vastly more sophisticated and vulnerable infrastructure open to attack. The defence of Australia, an island nation highly dependent upon seaborne trade, with isolated population and economic concentrations, requires air superiority. This should never be in contention. The question is how best to deliver it.
2. Air defences are only nullified by the loss of satellites if you are overwhelmingly reliant upon satellites for C4. We’re not.
Re: amphibious ships – terrible idea. You can see the progression of defence “thinking” (and thus expenditure) behind this one.
1. We “need” tanks to be able to support the USA in their adventurism in parts foreign. Hence M1A1 Abrams tanks.
2. We “need” a means to deliver those heavy beasties and other expeditionary forces to the natives upon which we plan to “deploy” them. Thus amphibious carriers.
3. We “need” to protect these amphibious carriers from airborne, sea-surface, submarine and land attack. Thus air-warfare destroyers.
4. We “need” to build these expensive floating targets in Australia to support the marginal shipbuilding industry. Thus we get to pay over the odds for the kit.
All up, this profoundly ill-conceived and cack-handed decision to revert to expeditionary warfare as the core of our defence planning has clocked up $bn after $bn FOR NO BENEFIT TO THE DEFENCE OF AUSTRALIA, which needs no: a) tanks; b) amphibious carriers; or c) air-warfare destroyers.
Calculus asks a profoundly appropriate question, which Robert partially answers. The dirty open secret of defence planning for Australia is to follow the line set by Paul Dibb, in assuming that any realistic & material military threat has to emanate from the archipelago immediately to our North. So long as we control the air-sea gap between Australia and *cough*Indonesia*cough*, the bulk of the defence requirement is complete. That reduces the size of the potential “threat” considerably, and throws into stark relief the billions of taxpayer dollars being funnelled into these defence porkrammes.
Some fair points, Slim al-Shadi. When I said:
I meant ‘all cool within the assumptions of the ADF supporting adventurist US cabinet wars or only picking on piss-ant countries that have neither jet air forces, blue-water navies, or armies above division strength’. That pretty much sums up Canberran defence procurement policy, as far as I understand. I very much support the RAN fielding amphibious ships, not for those two purposes, but because they’re so effective in fleet resupply, and in humanitarian/disaster relief operations—and natch, for those, Abrams drivers need not apply.
As to air superiority across the Australian mainland, Dibb is right. The only major nations capable of striking it by land-based air are Indonesia and Malaysia (if they ever get their AF shiznit together) and the US. Any other nation would be pretty much dependent on carrier operations, against which a modern submarine fleet is far more effective than any air superiority fighter, and craven toadying is more effective skill. Best anti-Indonesian weapon we’ve ever fielded IMO was Gareth Evans’ light-brown nose.
And the elephant in the corner of this particular theatre of strategic air operations is that any country with regional strike capability is already nuclear- and missile-armed, or potentially well on its way.
The major cold hard stiff fingered fact about defence is that it has been unauditable for years. This blows all the lunar rights pretentious claims of doughty fiscal rigour right out of the water.
Brendan Nelson is dead…wrong if he thinks he can get away with this one.
Sideshow Funnell: gold star and take the rest of the afternoon off.
So, Robert Merkel, how many full-sized aircraft carriers does Indonesia currently run? Maybe we could wait to buy these planes off ov America until Indonesia buys itself some aircraft carriers.
Just one word for all you air superiority heads here.
Giant bio-engineered killer magpies, their hormones hacked into permanent defend the nest mode. With fricking R27P-EPs strapped to their heads.
And as my distingished propellorhead colleague, “Eagle Bob” Terwillinger, points out, all our defence purchases should be focused first and foremost on defending the nest, not on outfitting us as the US’s Gurkhas and as an amuse bouche for their defence contractors.
I wonder what sort of consultancies and directorships the unadmirable Nelson will pick up once he decides he’s never gonna slip into the lefthand cockpit seat
Wbb: Zero. But Indonesia is a special case, because they’re our closest neighbours with an air force. But they are planning to upgrade their air force considerably, with planes that could reach Australia’s north (and certainly the “air-sea gap”) and pose considerable problems for Australia’s current fighter fleet.
And the point is that without air combat capability *anybody* can sail, or for that matter fly a DC-3, to our shores and there’s SFA we can do about them (well, there is the Collins-class subs, but they’re not exactly cheap at $2 billion a pop either…)
Whether this specific purchase is a good idea or not, I would find it very difficult to accept the idea of going the New Zealand route and discarding an air combat capability entirely.
Not quite one word, but I’m sure it’d have adversaries in a flap. Flap. Oh for fuck’s…
I don’t disagree, but suggest that the secret to having a credible armed air force in the future is probably going to be the missile at the pointy end of the engagement, rather than the piloted aircraft plodding along a couple of hundred nautical miles behind.
And I’m very much the DC-3 fan myself. The world’s most beautiful plane ever.
Yep, with precision long range weapons the world is moving towards bomb and missile trucks (“trucks” here is used broadly – they can be literal land-based trucks, converted merchant ships, converted cargo planes etc). The fighter jocks had better get used to the idea.
From this naive punter’s view, it seems we might have four uses for a defence force:
1) DoA – in which case all we have to worry about is watching that air-sea gap. DC3s, missile carrying patrol boats, a few good subs and some light infantry bases in the northwest (to belt the survivors on the head as they swim ashore) will do fine for that. Keeping the Indonesians happy is even cheaper.
2) To play deputy sheriff in the Pacific. Some smaller landing and support ships, plenty of Hercs, plenty of choppers and good light infantry are all you need. Abrams and F22′s alike are a complete waste of money.
3) To join UN peacekeeping forces and do disaster relief. Good light infantry again with plenty of logistic support.
4) To play with big brother Uncle Sam in imperial adventures. But big brother only wants us to show willing for political reasons – they don’t need actual military muscle from us. Even if you think that playing these games is in our interest (I don’t) all you need to do this is – you guessed it – good light infantry with logistic support.
Having a cutting-edge air force that can take on the world’s best on their own turf doesn’t seem to be a good use of funds to me, however prestigious it makes the Air Vice Marshals feel.
What’s to stop an arms race with Indonesia if we adopt the mentality that we must have superior air and/or sea capability over the air-sea gap? And how mental is it to get into an arms race?
Which of Germany and France has the greatest military sway over Alsace-Lorraine these days?
1. Their budget;
2. Their disproportionate need for a large and expensive army to keep their large, fractured & fractious populace under control;
3. Their rational assessment that we have no capability or intention of invading their country; and
4. Their rational assessment that we are critically dependent upon the trade routes that flow northwards through and around their archipelago, and will not jeopardise them by taking offensive action against Indonesia.
Consequently, Indonesia’s armed forces will not be configured primarily to control the air-sea gap as ours are, and we can – relatively cheaply – maintain dominance.
On your second question, it depends. There’s nothing necessarily mental about arms races.
Are you suggesting political union with Indonesia, Babs? Or that we should fight a couple of wars first? Or are you simply being a cheeky monkey? Should we stop asking facetious rhetorical questions now? Or would you like some more?
Maintain dominance over who and for what reason? When do we get to exercise this dominance?
GO!!
CK, I can do you a good deal on some Sukhoi Su-7Bs. Nice little units. Some are ex-doctor examples, others used exclusively by little old ladies flown mainly to church on Sundays. Always serviced. Complete log books. Never thrashed. Just need a coat of camo and they are as good as new. Thrown in are a couple of excellent 30mm cannon per machine and racks for ordnance of your choice. First to see will buy these excellent examples of the marque. Because you and I are often swapping witticisms on this blog, and we are well, mates, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll throw in zero zero ejection seats and air to air refueling gear, on the strength of that. This is actually gonna cost me dough, but hey, rob me. It’s a great deal, including spares, what do you say?
PS Why not take spin? Check them out. (Scroll down for the full range of the terrific examples on the lot).
Sorry Christine, you might find that link above is dead. Those Russkies are not too good with databases. This is the LINK, just click on the word “more” to see the rest of the stock in the yard. Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll throw in lambswool seats for the incovenience.
Sweet. They look just the shot for zipping round to the shops, although they look a little light on as far as the latest avionics go.
Still, I don’t think we should be totally dismissive of the alternatives. I’ve been checking out this cheeky little French number http://avions.legendaires.free.fr/amiot350.php . It looks to be just the thing for those lazy Sunday jaunts.
Christine, your cheeky little French number is a cheap imitation of the original, darling. How embarassing for you. [LINK]
Mon dieu! Well at least it has the advantage of uniquely reliable French engineering
To add to this, remember that the Indonesian forces are only partly funded (to the tune of about a third, IIRC) by the Indonesian Government. The rest they have to scratch for in logging concessions, transportation ‘fees’, network ‘opportunities’, and the good old shaking-down for protection that characterises underfunded well-armed ultra-hierarchical bodies everywhere. The air force and ‘navy’ (heh) remain in the dark ages precisely because of their lack of squeeze opportunities.
Say what you like about the Indo military and especially the TNI, but give them credit for very efficient modern crony capitalism and self-fundraising. Geez, if we could only get the Indo colonel ranks staffing Brendan Nelson’s office, we might be able to strike a fair deal with the US military-industrial lot. I suppose we could give them Nelson’s senior public servants, if they really wanted them… defensive positions need digging in ‘Irian Jaya’.
Everyone:
Are we paying for defence or for tomfoolery?
Sack the lot of them
derrida derider: “Keeping the Indonesians happy is even cheaper.”
“Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute.” Who said?
DerridaDerider :
Errr, if by
you are implying that we pay the Indonesians some sort of Danegeld, I suggest that paying Australia’s war veterans what is owed to them first would be a far far cheaper and higher-priority option ……
[b.t.w. Agree with many of your suggestions on our real-world equipment and force needs]
I must respectfully disagree with Sir Henry and leap to the defence of the French aircraft engineers I so recently scorned. Although the Amiot 351 prototype did not fly until 1939, it was ultimately derived from the Amiot 341 mailplane (to which it does bear a strong resemblence), which had already been built by December 1936, when the first PZL.37 prototype was produced. So I think it’s a case of convergent evolution rather than direct inspiration — with the possible exception of the twin tailfin, which it seems appeared later on the Amiots than it did on the PZL.
Tons of info on the Amiots here: http://www.tgplanes.com/Public/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=786
And on the PZL.37 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL.37_Å?oÅ?
Thank you for this Herr Doktor Holman,
It seems you are right, but doubts remain:
Hmmm.
BTW. There’s a curious parallel here that dovetails neatly with this thread. The Poles were keen to develop an advanced bomber, partly as an export earner, while their fighter cover to counter German Messerschmitt was made up of PZL 7, 11 and 24s – the gull-wing family of aircraft designed by Pulawski in the early 30s that proved absurdly outmoded and inadequate to the task: too slow, too few, too poorly armed (except for the 24s of which there was only a handful).
I think apologies may be in order Sir Henry?
All right, all right; here: sorry. Will that do?
Thank you. That wasn’t so hard was it?
Aviatrix: 1
Eddy the Expert: Zip
You have a gift, Miss Keeler. Mailing peel-off-back vinyl sticker of silouetted Polish Fighter to affix to your aircraft alongside your already impressive swathe of combat kills.
I give all credit to the good Doktor Holman who put me onto it in the first place via his wonderful website http://airminded.org/2007/03/07/flying-fortresses/
…but it was a most impressive sighting by Sir Henry all the same.
Oh really the Amiot 351? C’mon now. Those newfangled flying glasshouses may be all very well for those continental chappies but nothing beats the slipstream battening against your googles as you cruise along at a lively 125 knots (why, you could leave mid-morning from Hendon and land at Orly in time for lunch at an amusing little bistro in the Quartier latin) in a Heyford. Now that’s flying. And as ‘Boom” Trenchard once said to me, it’s not really bombing if you can’t hear them go off.
Though I dare say the Dewoitine D.520* was quite a handy little mover for the frogs. Good thing they weren’t fully operational when for a lark we used to do a runner on “l’addition”.
*The National Air and Space Museum in DC has a lovely one on on display in its WW2 fighters gallery.
“in a Heyford.”
That’s better. Bloody oiks didn’t tighten some bolts properly.
Quite so Wing Commander. Nothing like a nice pair of spats to go for a nice spot of sightseeing above Mayfair.
“…for a nice spot of sightseeing above Mayfair.”
Or indeed above Pall Mall, contemplating the Army and Navy Club, those blackballing bastards, through the bombsight.
Oh yes, kick old uncle Henry when he’s down. But just the same, the Fiendish Frogs most probably spied the brilliant PZL and immediately modified the tail and whacked on a couple of Gnome Rhone radials.
Here Christine, something for you: [LINK]
That is indeed a tasty piece Sir Henry, and thank you. But don’t get me started otherwise I’ll be blathering all night about the Nachthexen http://www.flyandrive.com/nightwitches2.htm
Please, it’s Herr Doktoranwärter Holman at the moment. Wing-Cdr. Nabs, you should consider the RAF Club in Piccadilly. Friday night is curry night!
A bit more substantial than tea and tiffin. Tally ho!
I agree to say that the F-111 is far superior to the Super Hornet but i must also agree that the F-22 Raptor is a great addition. Considering stealth capabilities, range and payload it becomes a greater threat to the enemy, even though, the F-22 isn’t all that it’s been cracked up to be with people claiming that it revolutionized the world basically. At the birth of the F-35 Lightning II, however, the standard for a fighter model should have been increased greatly. The multiple capabilities are an advancement to the technology of the modernly used fighter planes. a new beginning area to the newly designed planes should be centered around stealth capabilites, payload, and range.
I suspect mike, you were cutting and pasting in somewhat the wrong order there. Also the JSF is a single engined, v. high maintence piece of machinery. Perhaps not the best thing for defending airspace over an enormous, dusty and thinly staffed and resourced frontier.
Been ambling around the Australian International Airshow today, and will again tomorrow, and want to definitely reconfirm a point I’ve made before here about this overall issue.
THE SUPER HORNET IS THE LOUDEST AIRCRAFT, (OR INDEED ANYTHING) I HAVE EVER HEARD.
And I’ve heard a lot of planes in my time, live near the Melbourne F1 track and once stood next to the PA during a Sonic Youth gig.
But that plane. Standing by the runway when it takes off, you have to check every one of your bodily openings for involuntary fluid leakage. Never mind it’s “stealthy” intakes, I bet you would just hear 1000k out the bloody thing running into Jakarta. Or Wellington.
Nothing at all stealthy about that bumptious bumped-up hot rod. It’s basically a regular hornet on steriods. Slower, larger, capable of carrying more bomby thingies and apparently more serviceable. But it’s still basically the aerial equivilent of an up-armoured hummer with a tweaked motor.
Now cruise missiles stashed on the Sydney to Hobart yacht fleet. That’s the way to go. New Zealand will never see that one coming.
Okey dokey, about to head to the Airshow again, still drunk from the night before. Any requests?
I should point out though from bitter experience, there’s no way I’m gonna fit a ‘liberated’ 500lbd JDAM mockup into the boot or back seat of my mate’s Puegeot. Do you a nice line in glossy brochures and cheesy caps though squire.
The ideal mix for the RAAF would be to be armed to the teeth
We should upgrade our existing f111 fleet. On top of this we should buy about 20 F22 raptors, about 50 F35′s and we would be able to kick arse!!
Brendan Nelson must have made the decision to buy the Super Hornets just after his recent lobotomy, where unfortunately surgeons had to remove 99% of his brain.
I like the idea propogated by Carlo Kopp.
Fit the F111 with supercruising engines, drop in the latest set of avionics etc. Or how is this for an idea – we build our own. Australia should design and build something the size of an F111 and with the stealth, range and other capabilities our geographic situation requires. Can’t be done? Bullshit. We can do anything
Ahem. I’m going to take two approaches to this suggestion, stoka, first mocking, then serious.
One (mocking). Build our own? At the Camry plant in SA (that’s eventually going to close down when Federal subsidy runs out), or the Ford plant in Geelong (ditto)? Which major Australian manufacturing base did you have in mind—the same ones that built the P76 and Lightburn Zephyr? Australian weapons manufacturing hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory in the past: there was a decent if obsolete trainer in the Wirraway, but then again there was the Nomad, which put the f in fugly. True, in the forties we did manufacture decent Bren guns in the small-arms factory in Lithgow: a design licenced from a British firm who bought it from the Czechs, before the plant was occupied by the Germans, and before they sold the design to the Nationalist Chinese as well. Hooray for Aussie ingenuity!
As jets go, most of the airlines are desperately trying to get their maintenance operations offshore to Singapore or Malaysia, a telling comment about Australian engineering.
Two (serious). A home-grown design bureau for UAVs and long-range cruise missiles is something Russell Square should be looking at.
Our needs are quite different from those of the other UAV producers. The USA like theirs to be infinitely deployable anywhere, which doesn’t really apply to us, the Israelis like theirs to be small, fast, and short-range to avoid Palestinian 9mm anti-aircraft pistols, and the Europeans’ seem to be designed like Vespas: perfect for blasting around cobbled streets, shouting and gesticulating, but not much chop anywhere else. An Australian UAV is yet to be produced.
As for cruise: way of the future. That’s all I need to say about that.
Fiasco
I made that suggestion precisely for the reasons you outline.
Our somewhat Neanderthal level of technology development and manufacturing would be seriously challenged to say the least by designing and building a state of the art aircraft. The Swedes seem able to manage it with a similar population, though I concede that their proportion of beer swilling yobbos is probably significantly less.
Au contraire, stoka. From memory, the Swedes have the highest level of alcohol-related deaths in the EU, and some of the highest rates of drink-driving in the world. Watch the crowd the next time Jonas Björkman plays at the French open; I have a feeling their drunken yobbos might even outpace ours.* They’re certainly a lot less embarrassing on TV than the Fanatics, who demean the profession of drunken yobbism, and really only beg on international television for a good cock-punching. But I digress into sport, where was I—things that go zoom-bang, right?
A hundred or more years of Swedish heavy-industrial history, building weapons for other people’s wars tends to help things along, as does a bit of strategic neutrality. They’re not quite as enthusiastic as the Czechs or the Belgians have been in arming dodgy régimes, and they’ll never surpass the wonders of the People’s Republic of Norinco, but they *have* branched out further in the high-tech area from those countries’ focus on efficient little small-arms. I’d say by about 2070, if we start now, we should be at the Swedish level of military know-how. Get to it, corporate Australia.
*Mister President! We must not allow a drunken-yobbo Gap!