Larvatus Prodeo

We haven’t had a defence-related thread for a while, so it’s worth rounding up some of the more interesting stories.

Brendan Nelson, in his extended “I was right about everything” valedictory speech, included the much-debated Super Hornet purchase in the collection of things he was right about. Frankly, I remain unconvinced. If it was such a good piece of planning, why didn’t we make sure that the legacy Hornet and the Super Hornets fire the same missiles? That said, the cruise missile we are intending to fit to the legacy Hornets is suffering severe reliability problems, and some reports claiming that the missile might be cancelled (though it’s hard to know how credible those are).

But the big story doing the rounds at the moment is Greg Combet’s announcement of a plan to conduct a new study of performance requirements for various roles in the armed forces, with a view to removing outright gender bans and placing restrictions based on the physical demands of the role:

Mr Combet, a former ACTU national secretary, told parliament yesterday the Defence Science and Technology Organisation would develop a new set of physical employment standards for the army that would accurately measure a person’s ability to perform the broad variety of jobs in the modern defence force. “A priority of the government is to improve the recruitment and retention of women in the ADF,” he said. “My own view is that all categories should be open to women. The only exceptions should be where the physical demands cannot be met according to criteria that are determined on the basis of scientific analysis, rather than assumptions about gender.”

Continue reading ‘Women in close-combat roles in Australian Army?’