Funny, isn’t that just what you’re proclaiming? Tsk, tsk.Bogan wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2019 9:54 am1. Bong. You just stereotyped racists, Brian. Naughty, naughty. We racists can stereotype but you SJW's can't. Because us racists don't go around proclaiming that stereotyping people is wrong.Brian Ross wrote
He is required by Australian law to be an Australian citizen to be a member of the ADF. As part of that, he is required to swear an oath (or take an affirmation) that he will defend Australia and it's government. I doubt that his "racial" ancestry will stop him from following through on that. How typical of a Racist to question his loyalities. Tsk, tsk.
I’ll accept that as a flag of surrender shall I? Tsk, tsk.But Brian, you are an apologist for the world's most dangerous and terrorism endorsing religion..Brian Ross wrote
Care to quote me where I have ever apologised for Terrorism? Provide a link of course. If you fail, what does it suggest about your childish tactics? Here, I will even provide you with space to do it:
Oh, that could be true. You just seriously despise all white Americans who are not a part of ANTIFA, or who don't vote for AOC.Brian Ross wrote
I just tell that to my American friends. I don't hate the Americans. I dislike their government and their el Presidente but I wouldn't call it "hate" as such.
Seemed like a good idea at the time. It grew out of all proportion as a problem. They simply didn’t know how or when to pull the plug until it was too late.Thank you, thank you, Brian Ross. I had forgotten all about the Sea Sprites. Yet Another stuff up from our incompetent defence department purchasing branch.Brian Ross wrote
The reason why they chose the Tiger was 'cause they were feeling their way with the idea of an attack helicopter. They didn't want the Apache as it was considered too big and too complex. They didn't want a light scout helicopter like the Italian Mangusta and so they plumbed for the Tiger which was middling cmplex and medium in size. The Tiger they chose though, was a unique version, neither the German or the French version but halfway between. It appears they bit off more than they could chew. Just as the Navy did with the Sea Sprites.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing to posses. You have forgotten the matter of complexity. Funny that, hey?Another fiasco which harmed our defence capability and cost the Australian taxpayers untold squillions. The Apache too big? The Tiger is only marginally shorter (2 meters) and lower in height (800 mm) than the Apache. I'll bet if you took a poll and asked every officer and soldier in the Australian Army which attack helicopter the defence department should have bought, the would unanimously say, "the Apache of course, you idiots." Especially the British version with the powerful Rolls Royce jet engines, which even the yanks envy.
How long were a member? How much training did you do? 1/15 Paramatta Lancers was a Regiment not a “battalion”. All recruits would have been taught that from day one of their enlistment. It was a regiment of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, not a battalion of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps.Well, that Centurion tank, and the six Ferrets from recce troop lined up near the 1/15th Parramatta Lancers parade ground, and which I stood upon, must have been figments of my imagination.Brian Ross wrote
Battalion? Owning an MBT? Ferret scout cars? Really?
*Shrug* Who cares what you believe? 70,000 was the first contract only. Since then there have been numerous contracts for New Zealand, PNG, the Solomans, etc.I hope you are right Brian, but I doubt it very much. I clearly remember the shock among gun owners when the Steyr was first introduced and it was announced that only 70,000 would be manufactured. Then came the news (in those dastardly gun magazines) that Lithgow Small Arms would be closed. Later came the news that the factory would be kept open so that another small batch of Steyrs would be manufactured. Now you are saying that we have manufactured over four times more? Sorry, I don't believe it.Brian Ross wrote
The ADF has over 500,000 rifles - primarily Steyrs with a small number of L1a1s kept for ceremonial purposes. Lithgow Small Arms factory was sold in 2006 to Thales a defence industry contractor and still produces rifles and other small arms under license for the ADF.
And how many have been used since, Bogan? You’ve provided one. Looks to be more like that was stolen from the Army rather than found in the ocean, to me.They melted them down instead of dumping them at sea, probably because they had learned the error of their ways after the Owen Gun fiasco. The story was, that an unknown quantity of Owen guns were accidently recovered shortly after they were dumped into the sea. Some of those Owen guns were believed to have been used by criminals in The Great Bookie Robbery. And Lennie McPherson used an Owen, also believed to have come from the North Coast haul, to mow down Pretty Boy Walker in Randwick, in Australia's first drive by. And no, I can't verify the story about he guns being recovered. But that tale has been around among gun owner demographic for so long it is considered a fact and it can still evince head shaking and mirth in the right company. It may be just an urban legend, but Owen guns don't just drop out of the sky, and the guns used by the criminals had to have come from somewhere.Brian Ross wrote
All the L1a1s were melted down. Along with the majority of the Owen guns and F1 SMGs. No Owen guns that I know of were dumped off the NSW coast. However, it might have happened, although I doubt they were would be in a useable condition today.
Hate to impugn your integrity, Brian. But my stereotype of white hating racists and Muslim apologists precludes them having any credibility with me. They will never let the facts get in the way of their world saving ideology. Still, I hope you are right. But knowing what incompetent, blithering idiots our defence procurement people are, that also precludes the idea that they could be capable of doing anything intelligent.Brian Ross wrote
I am. I have seen a part of the War Stocks holding. It is vast (by Australian standards).
Well, actually a threat is not an actual event and I am sure that the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea is quite good at making threats. Seems a shame they rarely follow them up though…Brian, only a few months ago, North Korea threatened to nuke Australia. That is an undeniable fact. Your attitude is similar to the captain of the Lusitania who simply refused to believe that a warship from a civilised country would fire on a civilian passenger ship. He believed that right up until the time the torpedo hit. It is a new world out there, Brian. And it is only a matter of time before those nut case Mullahs in Iran get nukes and ICBM's. They are doing oil deals with that nut case in North Korea to do just that. And then it will be a really dangerous world.Brian Ross wrote
YAWN* Oh, gee, I am really terrified. I am sure the the North Koreans are going to waste an ICBM on Australia when they are surrounded by the Russia, China, the USA and Japan and ROK. Gee, which city are they going to aim at? Darwin?
As for the Captain of the Lusitania, I recently read a history book on the sinking of that ship. Your view was not expressed anywhere in that book. Funny that. The Captain was well aware of the dangers of U-Boats. However, he was caught trying to take a navigation fix on the south coast of Ireland by the boat that sank his ship. He wasn’t taking evasive action. His ship sank. QED.
The Rapiers were retired about six years ago IIRC. The Rapiers that did poorly in the Falklands were not prepared properly for the long voyage to the South Atlantic and suffered as a consequence. The Rapier normally was a superb SAM system – the best in the West’s armoury during the Cold War for countering low-level attacks by enemy aircraft. It performed flawlessly on all the tests which were conducted before it’s introduction to service. Patriots are completely different SAMs designed to counter a completely different target. The Patriots during the first Gulf War actually performed badly. The Israeli controlled ones in particular because the Israelis kept on playing with their guidance systems. Patriots are now considered old fashioned and are due to be replaced in the next 10 years or so.BOh, that's right. Didn't we buy a few point defence Rapier SAM's? The same Rapiers that did so poorly in the Falklands war defending Port San Carlos against "obsolete" Skyhawks and Mirage 3's. ? Surely a few batteries of Patriots would be in order, especially the ones that can destroy incoming Iraqi SCUD ballistic missiles, which they were doing in Israel thirty years ago. Imagine what they are capable of doing now?rian Ross wrote
We do now have SAM defences? Gee, I am sure that the 16 Air Defence Regiment at Woodside in Adelaide will be surprised to learn that.
Actually reread what I said. I said we don’t need MBTs. We do need Medium Tanks. You do know the difference between the two classes of armoured vehicle? Doesn’t seem to, just as it appears you have read comprehension problems…Oh God, what you have written is just too silly for words. You don't work for Defence Acquisitions, do you? We don't need tanks? Yeah, I think I heard that one before.Brian Ross wrote
Our Tank force is small, I grant you but I do not believe we need tanks, well not MBTs. A medium tank would be more than sufficient for our needs. Australia is simply too remote to face MBTs storming ashore across the beaches.
Our artillery? Gee, wheeled? Really? And why would they need anything else? I have heard though that the Army is seeking an SP version of the 155mm gun but been unable to find one that satisfies their needs. It has trialled several over the last two decades. Perhaps they are just too fussy?
The "improvement" that I see has been a general recognition that the nature of warfare has changed and our role in it has changed. 50 years ago, we had very few APCs. Today we have over 800 M113s, several hundred ASLAVs, Bushmasters and we are soon to receive the German Boxer wheeled APC as part of Land 4000. We have changed from the L1a1, the M60 GPMG and Bren LMG to the Steyr, the L7 GPMG and the Minimi LMG. We have changed from WWII artillery to the L119 Light Gun, the M198 155mm gun. We have adopted large numbers of wheeled vehicles to move stores, troops and so on. Again, as part of Land 4000 we are adopting the German MAN 4x4/6x6/8x8 trucks. Overall, the Australian Army is a much better army than it was in 1965.
And fighter planes don't need guns. And the aircraft carrier is obsolete. And the UK will never have to fight outside of Europe again. And the day of the Infantryman is over. And the bombers will always get through. And we don't need manned aircraft. And all slant eyed Japanese pilots can't see in the dark. And all Japanese bomb aimers are cross eyed.
We didn’t send any armoured force because the Australian Prime Minister suggested we should send an “armoured brigade group”, publically on talk-back radiot. The Chief of the Defence Forces had to inform the PM afterwards that we didn’t have such an organisation. Nor were our tanks up to scratch to face a seriously armed army like the Iraqis were. Our Leopard AS1s were 10 years out of date. Sending such a force would be pointless. All the PM did was provide ammunition to the Army which was suggesting that we replace the Leopards, with M1a1 AIM AbramsDo you wonder why Australia did not send any force to Kuwait during the first Gulf War? We have previously always been boots and all into every other war the yanks and the Brits ever got into together. Do you think it might have been because our regular Army is basically no larger in manpower and weapons to a single infantry division? This for a comparatively wealthy country of 25 million with abundant resources who provided four fully equipped AIF infantry divisions in 1939, when our population was only a third the size it is now. It would have been embarrassing had we gone to the Gulf and had to display to the world how woeful and insignificant our single infantry division "Army" was, when matched alongside US and British armoured and mechanised divisions? About the only useful task the Australian Army could have managed in that war was guarding the latrines in Dharan air base.
Couldn’t agree more. However the Australian Defence Forces are bound by what the Government is willing to spend on them. You’re right, Army has usually been last in line for procurement. That is slowly improving. We now have Bushmaster APCs. We are getting Boxer APCs. We are looking seriously at buying an IFV (more than likely either the German Puma or the US M2 Bradley). However, that must be countered that the role of the Army in Australia’s defence has been that of “cleaning up” the “leakers” that manage to make it across the sea-air gap which surrounds our continent and which is defended by the RAN and RAAF. They get the most money ‘cause their stuff is appreciably more expensive than what the Army needs.It is bad enough that the Australian Army is tiny and it is always well on the back of the queue behind the RAAF and the Navy when it comes to big ticket defence acquisitions. But if we are going to have a tiny army, at least it should be well equipped with force multipliers, and able to multi task. If the British, with four times our population can raise an armoured Division (I think they had four armoured and mechanised divisions in Germany under NATO) with all the weapons of a real armoured division, Australia should at least be able to provide a fully equipped armoured or mechanised brigade.
Errr, where is all that trade going to? Why is it going there? Because of the relative cheapness of Chinese labour. We are beholden to China because it needs out iron ore and other minerals. China is uniquely vulnerable to trade sanctions, even to a blockade. All the West and by extension Australia needs to do is redirect our trade to India or Africa. The labour is as cheap, it as intelligent and as crafty. All it needs is investment.Only ten years ago we did not really think that the Chinese would turn into Nazis and threaten to close off one of the most important maritime trade routes in the world. Times change rapidly, and having military flexibility will be the difference between winning or losing our next big war.
The RAAF received it’s first flight refuelling aircraft in 1978. We received our first AEC&C aircraft in 2014. The RAAF might have been calling for those aircraft but the Government didn’t believe it could afford them.We finally have AWACS and in flight refuelling, forty years after the air force begged the government to buy them.Brian Ross wrote
The F-111s were clapped out. They were replaced by F/A-18Es and Gs. We have acquired aircraft that are substantially more capable than the F-111 ever was. Our F-111s lacked ECM and SEAD capability. The F/A-18Gs have both of those. We can now, independently mount an attack, suppress enemy air defences and destroy a target. The RAAF has WEDGETAIL AEW&C aircraft, which can detect enemy aircraft hundreds of kilometres away and direct the F-35 JSFs to attack them from unexpected directions undetectable because of their stealth. We have inflight refueling aircraft which allow our aircraft to perform missions significantly longer ranged than we have before. We have P-8 Maritime Recce aircraft which are amongst the best in the world.
Which is why we are buying F-35s, a generation ahead of all other aircraft and even more advanced than the F-22. We have not faced a tier one opponent in the forty years that we have flown the F/A-18. In those forty years, the nature of air warfare has substantially changed. The reliance on going low and fast has been proved to be too dangerous with out specialised SEAD support aircraft. The use of “smart” weapons have rendered the need to flow low and fast to strike a target superflous. It is much better to flow medium speed at medium altitude and use your sensors to find your targets and guide your weapons to them. Australia has that capability. The F/A-18 has been upgraded and uses laser and GPS guided weapons. The F-111 had little capability in that area. The F-35 is stealthy and has considerable more “data fusion” capabilities than either the F/A-18 or the F-111. “Data fusion” is the way ahead in air warfare.That is a belated improvement I will grant you. As to whether the Super Hornet is better than the F-111, I would point out that that is like comparing Mosquitoes with Lancasters. The F-111 was a medium sized ,very fast, very long range bomber with the ability to attack targets at very low level at night using it's Terrain Avoidance Radar. The Super Hornets are based upon a medium ranged fighter with disappointing speed and performance, which has been configured to do a bombers task, which includes using modern stand off weapons.
Even if you want to argue that it is a better plane, we still have too few of them and our potential enemies are buying very good, up to date fighter planes. Like the J-10, the SU 27 and probably soon, the Mig 35. All of these planes are probably as good as, or even better than, the 40 year old F-15, which the F-18 is definitely inferior to. It's funny how it is "uneconomic" to mothball "obsolete" 30 year old warships when our supposedly modern "bomber" force is based upon a patch up of 40 year old fighter design which was inferior as a fighter to the F-16 and F-15 when it was built.
Oh, dearie, dearie, me. A long way behind the times, it seems.Frigates, destroyers and cruisers may be all bigger today than yesterday. But Australia still only has (I think) 10 frigates, no destroyers (although some are being built) and no cruisers. Ships today may be bigger and more lethal, but so are the opposition warships. Our navy is a lot smaller than our navy in WW2 when our population was a third the size, and we were much less prosperous. That is a damned disgrace. But I suppose you think it is more important to keep squandering our money on importing crime and terrorism prone ethnicities who are forever welfare dependent? It creates jobs. Just think of the benefits. More prisons, prison guards, police, lawyers, judges, social workers, parole officers, security guards, housing commission tenants, employment officers, anti terrorism police, translators, and Labor voters.Brian Ross wrote
What you appear to have missed is that what is referred to as a "frigate" today is the size of a Destroyer and twice to three times as capable compared to one which sailed over 40 years ago. It possesses systems which allow it to detect submarines, aircraft many kilometres distance and to attack and destroy them. It has SAMs which are five times more capable than the missiles we used to have on our DDGs.
We presently have in service:
6 x Submarines
2 x Canberra Class LHDs
2+1 Hobart Class DDGs
8 x ANZAC Class FFGs
1 x Adelaide Class FFG
13 Armidale Class Pbs
6 x Huon Class MHCs
1 x Bay Class LSD
1 x Success RS
Was it? Really? HMAS COLLINS is still sailing at the moment. Stop bullshitting.I don't believe it. The lead boat was so defect ridden it was scrapped.Brian Ross wrote
Our submarines are far from "clapped out". They are the most advanced and largest and quietist conventionally powered submarines in the world. They have advanced sonar systems and missile and torpedoes which can destroy targets at longer ranges.
They don’t want to crew them ‘cause they can be paid more, with better conditions ashore in the mining industry.And there must be a good reason why few seamen want to crew the damned things.
Rather behind the times there, mate. There has been a Tory government in Adelaide for the last 12 months plus. Tsk, tsk.But I can see your point of view. We can't upset those Labor voting SA ship building unionists, can we? And if South Oz closes it's naval shipbuilding, there won't be much industry left in that electricity deficient Labor Stronghold.
No, I just attack the left wing loonies who think that money grows on trees, who hate mines and industry that provide the funds they want to squander to buy votes, who want to destroy the Australian economy with this stupid HIGW hoax, who oppose everything that advances our country or makes any money, who handicap taxpayers by insisting that we import crime and welfare prone immigrants of questionable loyalty by the tens of thousands which costs us God knows what, who think that gender neutral pronouns and same sex toilets are the most important topics we should be discussing. Who bow and cringe to "Indigenous" Australians who are our least productive and most disruptive and throw pots of money at them. And then there is our woeful defence procurement people, who have a long history of making the most idiotic and immensely expensive mistakes, over, and over, and over again We should sack them all and replace them with their tea ladies, who would have more common sense when it comes to deciding on the purchase of weapons based upon price and performance. And then we wonder why we can not afford a defence force which would be proportional in size and ability to the one we had in 1939? When we had a third of the population and were significantly less prosperous.Brian Ross wrote
Look, you sound like you're living in the 1940s. Really? The world has moved on. Australia has moved on. We are not going to be fighting the Battle of the Atlantic or the Battle of Britain. Stop being foolish. Australia has the defence forces that the Government(s) of the day are prepared to pay for. Do not attack the ADF, attack the politicians if you wish to be realistic. Of course, that would mean you'd have to attack the Australian people who elected them, right? It would mean attacking yourself.
We have a defence force which is equal to that of our regional neighbours and superior in firepower and ability. You may not understand but the world has moved on since WWII.I am saying that given our population size today, and given our high level of prosperity today, something is rotten when Australia's defence forces do not even compare in size and performance to one we had in 1939-1945.Brian Ross wrote
Are you prepared to accept the cuts to social welfare, to health, to education, to everything because that is what would be required to equip the ADF with all the dream weapons you want them to have.
We don’t need them. We have destroyers equivalent to cruisers and frigates equivalent to destroyers.We do not even posses the modern equivalents of the same classes of warships we had in yesteryear.
And increasing in capabilities.Our air force strike force keeps shrinking.
Because we don’t need them.Our tank force keeps shrinking.
Except it has fought two recent campaigns successfully in desert environments…Our Army is basically a well equipped single infantry division with the capability of engaging only in infantry tasks in a jungle environment.
Our aim is to defeat them before they get to our own continent in the air-sea gap surrounding it.It does not compare with the capability of an armoured or mechanised force which is what we should have at least have some capability in, if we ever need to fight an enemy on open ground, like in our own country.
That was ‘cause the British Empire held that Russia was it’s enemy and Russian ships regularly sailed from European Russia to Far East Asiatic Russia past the Australian continent via the Southern Ocean. Of course the fear of a Russian attack was groundless but what else is new for Australian white settlers who appear to have been afraid of their own shadows most of the time. Adelaide and Melbourne also built such defences because of the massive gold trade.Port Denison in Sydney was constructed in 1855 to be our first line of defence against a Russian attack and it still is.Brian Ross wrote
Why do you want a defence force which is designed to fight Russians when we aren't faced by Russians?
The Chinese may copy the outward appearance of weapons but they cannot copy the electronic systems through which they work. China has a continental army – an army which is confined to their continent. Australia is a separate continent, that last time I checked and the Chinese lack the means to transport their army across the seas to attack Australia.I'll guarantee that the Chinese Red Army is organised along Russian lines, with similar equipment scales, and probably better weapons since they copy and reverse engineer every effective weapon system in the west. They are even now manufacturing unlicensed copies of the Minimi machine gun, as well as Hummers, f-35s, Blackhawk helicopters, C-141 transport planes, and Predator drones.
There is some truth in what you’re saying but you are forgetting the role of the Army in Australia’s school of continental defence. It is designed to attack only the “leakers” which make it across the air-sea gap to the continent. The RAN and RAAF are intended to defeat them before they reach here. Therefore the Army is the poor man of the trio of defence forces. You need to catch up with the 21st century and what the thinking on defence strategy is for Australia.Your statement is insane. "Forward defence" is a very good idea. But you still need an army which has at least some credible capability to take on a modern armoured of mechanised enemy deployed on open ground on your own territory. Look back over the last 60 years of Australian forward deployment and see who suffered the casualties? The Army took almost all of them, and it is the least well financed of all the services and not even capable of defending it's territory. Which is indicative of a defence establishment where airy academic thinking, careers, politics, inter service squabbles, stacking up their superannuation, and improving their golf scores, is more important than providing effective weapons to the service and personnel which for 60 years has done almost all of the fighting and dying.
Is a continental power, not a naval power. It does not have the means and more than likely will never have the means to directly attack Australia. Please be realistic for a change. Look at the here and now and the possible future, not some fantasy created in your own paranoid mind.Brian Ross wrote
We are faced by regional powers, none of which can match Australia in resources and equipment.
Ever heard of an expansionist Nazi country called "The people's Republic of China"? Indonesia is a Muslim state, and Muslim equate to religious fascists who are no friends of ours. We are only separated from Indonesia by the width of the Timor Sea, which most Australians wish was considerably wider.
Depends on which “experts” you’re referring to. Again, the Government calls the shots in the UK, just as it does in Australia. Defence cuts were created by the Government, not the armed services. Blame Thatcher (who was it appears rather ignorant about defence in 1982. After all, she asked why the RN hadn’t sent the Carrier ARK ROYAL south to the Falklands to deter the Argentines from invading. The chief of the RN had to point out that the ARK ROYAL was decommissioned by her Government four years earlier…).Just what the British defence 'experts" told Thatcher before the Falklands blew up in their faces.Brian Ross wrote
We occasionally operate out of our main theatre of operational interest but only in low-level conflicts such as COIN warfare in Afghanistan/Iraq. We are more than adequately equipped for that.
And we were not prepared for a low level conflict like Afghanistan with the crummy Eurocraptor helicopter gunships that we bought. We must have been the only army in Afghanistan who could not provide our troops with helicopter support. That is utterly disgraceful, and it was criminally dangerous. I have read books on the fighting in Afghanistan, and it was screamingly obvious that it was only the intervention of the approaching Apaches which prevented outnumbered and almost surrounded allied units of platoon or even company strength from being completely wiped out. That was why our gunship choice was another expensive fiasco by our idiot defence procurement officials that could have had very serious consequences, if we had not been lucky.
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Sounds like situation normal. The Army was not prepared for Konfrontasi. It was not prepared for Vietnam. It was not prepared for East Timor. Defence Forces are rarely prepared for situations which blow up quickly and result with their deployment. They managed to pull them off though, successfully. Afghanistan was Australia’s longest war. If the Army had decided not to retire it’s reaction force units made up of ARes soldiers because they didn’t like the idea of having part-time soldiers serving full time and robbing the Regular soldiers of slots they wanted, it would have been much better off in fighting a long war. As it was, they needed to call in ARes soldiers on individual contracts to fill the spots they couldn’t. By doing so, they put some flesh on the idea that we have “one army” rather than two separate ones.
*SHRUG* The lack of documentary evidence is telling. There was no “Brisbane Line”. When you have evidence, come back to me.I have that book and I read it. It did not convince me one iota.Brian Ross wrote
There are no records of a "Brisbane Line" ever existing. The Royal Commission proved that. When you can present me with documentary evidence I may be prepared to listen to you. You can't though, can you? I can present you with lots of books which deny it's existence. I can present you with the findings of a Royal Commission that denies its existence. You are harping on a myth. Tsk, tsk.
And there is still no evidence to back it up. Tsk, tsk.All Australians believed it.Brian Ross wrote
Some Australians may have believed that. The reality was they were mistaken. Badly.
Now you are mixing up completely different situations. Stop it. It is pointless. There is simply no evidence that the “Brisbane Line” existed. QED.The normally placid PM Curtin exploded in anger over Churchill's continuing attempts to stop the Australian AIF divisions returning to defend our country, because he knew we were almost defenceless with not even enough rifles to hand around. Apparently that was also the problem when Japan bombed Darwin and the RAAF ran for their lives. They thought that Darwin was about to be invaded and the RAAF ground crews did not even have rifles to defend themselves with. (No, I can't verify that either, I recently moved, twice, and my two books on Darwin are packed away somewhere.) My mother was in Brisbane when the first US soldiers arrived and she said it was "like the second coming of Christ". That was how grateful the almost defenceless Australians were to the USA saving out arses. Thank you, USA.
You are delusional, you realise?Sorry, I can't supply a references for most of what I write, but most of what I write you already know is true anyway.Brian Ross wrote
You are deliberately misreading what I typed. Stop it. I know you're smarter than that. Find me a single reference to a Japanese document which makes that ridiculous claim.
Without evidence all you are doing is repeating myths. If this what gun magazines print, then they are printing bullshit (but what else did I expect?).I just love history, and I have spent my life reading history, and I pick up information which usually cross connects with other information, and it sticks in my mind, probably because it is either funny or very interesting. I read somewhere, probably in a gun magazine where stories bemoaning our lack of defence preparedness do regularly appear, that the Japanese army did not want to invade Australia because Australians were a warrior race (which we were, as Australian soldiers had a fearsome reputation in WW1) and we would fight them Boer style if invaded. That is entirely credible, and it cross connects with the information I know about Ion Idriess training Australian soldiers to do exactly what the Jap army supposedly feared.
Actually they did, fairly regularly. I worked for a firm that was working creating a machine to remanufacture the M113 hulls which were to be used in the M113 AS4 versions which the Army has created. I saw some shocking damage in the hulls I was allowed to examine.I suppose I should demand to see the survey reports as proof of what you say? Could I remind you that the same defence "experts" "reported" that the Owen sub machine gun was a dud and not worthy of production? And it is funny how those 60 year old aluminium M113's you mentioned earlier never cracked.Brian Ross wrote
Our FFGs had cracked hulls. They were considered unsafe by the inspectors who inspected them.
According to Wikipedia there are 33 still in use, including one with the RAN which is tide up alongside for training use only. The US Navy has retired and scrapped all their OHP FFGs.I do know that aluminium can be welded, and quite frankly, I don't believe that these ships were in a dangerous condition. 37 ships of this class are still in service worldwide and the US navy mothballed their own FFG's 7's for possible future use.
HMAS MELBOURNE has it seems been purchased by Chile. Our ships served in the Southern Ocean a much harsher environment than any of the other operaters.The USA would not have done that if their own ships were in a similar supposedly dangerous condition as ours. Implying that we drove our ships harder than the US navy sounds like crap to me. And HMAS Melbourne, I believe, is still in service.
I think you’re referring to the TOWN class, not the KIDD class. The KIDD class wasn’t launched until 1978.The Kidd class WW1 destroyers had also had their replacements built. But thank Christ somebody had the foresight to mothball them or Hitler might have won the battle of the Atlantic, and then the European war. I'll bet that some Brian Ross clone in the USA was telling the US Navy at the time that the Kidd class was obsolete, in a dangerous condition, and they should be scrapped. Unfortunately for Adolph Hitler, nobody listened to him.Brian Ross wrote
They were declared unsafe and should be disposed of. We had already purchased and were building their replacements, the ANZAC class. The FFGs were disposed of.
While called, by the Royal Navy the “TOWN class” they were actually came from three classes of destroyer: Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson in US Navy service.
Don't be silly, I never even implied that. But I think that one FFG is left and after we decommission it, we should mothball it. Or, we could do what our fabulously incompetent defence establishment did to the HMAS Melbourne aircraft carrier. Sell it to a foreign ship breaker which was a Red Chinese front company, so the Chinese can tow it to Shanghai and let their marine engineers can examine it, so they can build their own attack carriers. Another Australian defence department fiasco. With the FFG 7 Melbourne, the Chinese could tow it to Shanghai and reverse engineer them to make their own FFG 7's.Brian Ross wrote
Tell me, how are you going to resurrect them? Bring them back up from the deeps, hey?
You still think we will be refighting the Battle of the Atlantic, don’t you? Will the BISMARK sail again?The lessons of the past are supposed to guide our decisions today. The destruction of our FFG-7 frigates, only one generation out of date, was a mistake, if we heed the lessons of history.Brian Ross wrote
The past is the past, the decisions were made and acted upon. The FFGs were disposed of. Some were sunk. Some sent to the breakers' yards. They are gone, well and truly. They have ceased to pine for the Fjords!
Wikipedia lists 33.23 FFG7 frigates are still in front line service with Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Poland, Taiwan and (possibly) Australia.Brian Ross wrote
The USN has declared that their ships are not worth repatriating and has disposed of them. There are no more OHP class FFGs available except second hand from Taiwan, Pakistan and few other navies.
They are short of cash. It requires loads of money to replace tried and true systems with new systems.Gee, I would have thought that this clearly displays that such ships, only one generation out of date, would be perfect for the still important second line duties in a a time of war, in a navy as bereft of warships as Australia's? As matter of fact, it is interesting how new western warships today keep hanging on to the same old and reliable weapons systems as their older warships. The same multi purpose missile launcher firing updated Standard AA missiles and Harpoons. The same CIWS Gatling gun. The same triple AS torpedo launching tubes. The same old venerable 1917 designed .50 calibre Browning machine gun. The same OTO Melara 76mm gun, which seems standard on many frigate sized ships in every western navy. And there is one other thing. FFG's can carry two AS helicopters, and even an old ship can carry modern helicopters.
The Adelaide class are gone. No matter how much you want them back, they are gone. They no longer pine for the Fjords…The cost of bringing mothballed FFG 7 frigates back into service would be unimportant in a time of war where the main problem is getting enough ships at sea to fulfil a multitude of tasks with too few ships to do it with. And, where there is no time to build new ones.Brian Ross wrote
Personally I suspect it would be cheaper to build a new ship, with new systems which are substantially more capable than the OHPs which were designed, from the outset, to be cheap and nasty.
