Australia's defence discussion

[Neferti]

Hate is a useless emotion, especially if you have never actually met the person!

[Bogan]

Sorry about the delay in responding, Brian. Friends from the country turned up unexpectantly. Anyhoo, I have a post waiting for a response from you on the "Climate Change" thread, and I look forward to you responding so that I can deprogram you from the HIGW hoax.

Brian Ross wrote

Funny, isn’t that just what you’re proclaiming? Tsk, tsk.

Brian, if you preach that stereotyping groups of people is utterly wrong, then you can't do it yourself. How many times have I caught you doing it now?

Brian Ross wrote

I’ll accept that as a flag of surrender shall I? Tsk, tsk.

Another meaningless, sneery one liner. If you have any supporters on this site, Brian, they must be disappointed in your performance.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

It is not just a question of a stuff up or two. Our defence procurement people just keep making very serious and very expensive mistakes, time after time, after time. And with the Eurocraptor Tiger helicopter it was a miracle it did not have extremely serious consequences to our troops in Afghanistan. Gunship support was vital and among allied units, gunship support prevented even company sized units being completely wiped out, time, after time, after time.

Brian Ross wrote

Hindsight is a wonderful thing to posses. You have forgotten the matter of complexity. Funny that, hey?

Hindsight had nothing to do with it. The Apache is the best helicopter gunship there is, with the Cobra in second place. Both gunships are combat proven designs and reliable. The Eurocraptor Tiger was a new weapon system of unknown reputation which crashed into Sydney Harbour during it's demonstration flight. Defence Aquisition's tea ladies would have had more sense than to purchase the Eurocraptor product, one of which fell out of the sky during French operations in Chad for unknown reasons, killing the crew.

Brian Ross.

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.

What a lot of rot. The Australian "Army" is the size of a Division and by no stretch of the imagination could any part of it be it be called a "Corps", much less an "Army" The term "regiment" usually means a brigade, but it can be used to describe a battalion (like the Parramatta Lancers), especially in a tiny bankrupt infantry focussed "Army" like the Australian "Army". The fact that battalions are called "regiments" in the Australian Army can be proven by the fact that Australian infantry "regiments" are designated as parts of "Brigades." The Defence Department should just go the whole hog and call platoons "brigades" to keep fooling the public into thinking that we actually have a real army.

Brian Ross wrote

*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.

That makes perfect sense, Brian. Australia got the first 70,000 Steyrs, and Indonesia, PNG, New Zealand, The Solomons, and Lower Topdoggia probably got the other 330,000.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If I remember correctly, 3 Owens were used in The Great Bookie Robbery and Lennie McPherson used one on Pretty Boy Walker. Could you supply any link to any Owens being stolen from the Australian "Army"?

Brian Ross wrote

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…

OK, so a hostile nation with a nutcase leadership with nuclear weapons and IRBM's, known to engage in insane acts of violence, like bombing an airliner out of the sky, attempting to assassinate the South Korean president with a bomb in Burma, assassinating a political rival with nerve gas in an international airport full of innocent passengers, using artillery on South Korean fishing villages, torpedoing a South Korean warship, killing US servicemen at the DMZ, shooting IR missiles over Japan, threatening to nuke Guam, helping Iran get a nuclear weapon and IRBM's, torturing to death a US tourist, and attempting to smuggle a shipload of heroin onto a beach in Victoria, threatens to nuke Australia, and you don't think we should take it seriously or take any precautions? You will go far in the Australian Defence Department, Brian.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If we have retired the handful of Rapiers we had, what have we got now? As for the Patriots, with my own eyes I saw them perform extremely well on TV. If they can shoot down incoming IRBM's missiles going a zillion miles an hour, I don't think they will have too much trouble with Migs or Sukhois. After 30 years, the Patriot system may be due for replacement with something even more stunningly successful, but you can bet that whatever fantastic piece of kit the USA replaces it with, Australia won't get any.

Brian Ross wrote

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…

No, I have a reality problem. I know I haven't kept abreast of the latest developments in tanks, but I was under the impression that nobody even manufactures "medium" tanks anymore. Although, I sort of remember an article about a British firm (I think it was Vickers) planning to build medium tanks for third world countries in places like Africa and Australia, who only possess tiny bankrupt armies, and who don't have the funds to purchase a real tank in credible numbers.

Today, China is the problem. If it ever landed an Army on Australian territory to steal our resources and to colonise Australia as a Chinese possession, (and I think they would be crazy not to contemplate it very seriously) you can bet they will be coming with the full inventory of MBT"s and any other thing that an armoured or mechanised force needs to fight a mobile war in open country. The problem is, that the Australian infantry centred "Army" has little to no capability to put up a credible defence against such forces in open terrain.

Brian Ross wrote

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 Abrams

Thank you, thank you, Brian Ross. You are stating that Australia could not contribute an lousy single armoured brigade in Kuwait because we didn't have one, and our tanks were obsolete. It is OK to keep soldiering on in the first line with very obsolete tanks, but not to mothball barely obsolete FFG-7's as second line assets. At least we had 108 Leopards then, now we have only have 40 M1A2's. Don't give me the crap about the M1A2"s being better tanks so we need fewer. Our potential enemies keep getting better tanks too, and our tanks numbers keep getting smaller and smaller.

Brian Ross wrote

Couldn’t agree more. However the Australian Defence Forces are bound by what the Government is willing to spend on them.

Then how about lefties like you supporting the idea of a government that spends it's money on it's own people, instead of borrowing five billion dollars every year to give it away to ungrateful third world crapholes? And drill for oil on the GB reef and in the Australian Bight? And build some bloody nuclear or coal fired power stations and get our aluminium industry, and every other industry, going again with the world's cheapest electricity? And stop importing crime and terrorism prone, and welfare dependent Labor voters? And support Dutton in his attempts to deport some of the legions of foreign criminals who have immigrated to Australia because they see it as rich pickings? And condemn to hell that damned Immigration review tribunal that keeps over ruling him? And stop squandering money on this HIGW hoax that is crippling Australian industry? And build the Adani mine and however many other mines we can open that is economically viable? Tell the Labor party to stop dreaming up ever more welfare programs we can't afford in order for Labor to buy votes?

You lefties do everything you can to stifle the economy, handicap our taxpayers with counter productive immigrants and ungrateful, trouble prone "refugees", hobble our industry with expensive renewable electricity, waste money on everything, including a long list of defence purchases that were damned near insanity, and then say "Aw shucks, we don't have any money to defend ourselves."

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Who decides what the Army needs? I'll bet it is not the army. It must be embarrassing for the Australian Army when our infantry centred "Army" with obsolete tanks was unable to contribute to anything in the Gulf War, when faced with an enemy fighting in terrain similar to the continent of Australia, in a real war. Especially since it is the Army which has taken almost all of the casualties in our "forward defence" strategy in the last 60 years.

Brian Ross

Errr, where is all that trade going to? Why is it going there? Because of the relative cheapness of Chinese labour.

Great thinking Brian. Let's pretend that China is not an aggressive, expansionist, national socialist state with global ambitions because they buy our coal, which you lefties even want to stop them from buying anyway.

Brian Ross wrote

We are beholden to China because it needs out iron ore and other minerals.

Well duh. If I was the Chinese leadership, I would look at Australia and see an almost empty continent full of raw materials, and increasingly full of loyal (to China) Chinese immigrants, an almost disarmed population, a culturally divided nation with divided loyalties, and with a division sized infantry "Army" which could do little more than provide a speed bump to a few PLA mechanised divisions. And I would say "Hmmmmmm."

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Brian, China is an expansionist totalitarian state like national socialist Germany. Germany was resource poor and vulnerable to blockade, but that did not stop either Imperial Germany of Nazi Germany. As a world power, the US still has a lot of clout, but it is very much in decline. One reason is because the USA's white population is declining is because of the increase of crime and welfare dependent minorities with their high birth rates who have fled their own regions, because they do not have the collective intelligence to create viable modern states. I think Jap Prime Minister Nakasone nailed it when he said that the USA was once a great power, but now there are too many Africans, Muslims, Puerto Ricans, and Hispanics.

China is almost racially homogenous, it's totalitarian right wing socialist government unapolagetically racist and determined to stay in power by promoting extreme nationalism and engaging in acts that will convince it's people that it is acting in their collective interests. China has no intention of importing the sorts of crime prone and welfare dependent minorities that are handicapping the West. Nor crippling it's industry with electricity renewables. China does not tolerate it's minorities acting up, and it came down hard on the Muslim rebellion and nipped the Muslim terrorism in the bud. Nor does it tolerate it's educated class constantly slagging off about their own culture and people, or trying to sabotage the Chinese economy. China may be vulnerable now, but in twenty years it could be the world's only superpower, and the world's first homosexual superpower since Sparta. If you hate pax Americana, Brian, I doubt if you will like what is coming down the road.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You could be right. But my memory of that was that the Australian government bought 2 707's for official overseas diplomatic travel that COULD have been converted to tankers in time of war. Funny how the pollies don't have much trouble finding money to look after their own comfort first. The RAAF wanted AWACS for 40 years and the Grumman twin engine AWACS plane was available for all of that time. We could have easily purchased half a dozen by cutting back on our 5 Billion a year overseas aid package to our ungrateful and undeserving dependents. I once read (no, I can't confirm it) that Australia is continuing to give aid to India which has a military 20 times larger than ours with comparable equipment. Recently, an "obsolete" Indian Mig 21 shot down a Pakistani F-16, which just goes to show that "obsolete" weapons can still be effective when intelligently handled.

Brian Ross wrote

Which is why we are buying F-35s, a generation ahead of all other aircraft and even more advanced than the F-22.

Brian, the F-22 Raptor is so advanced that the US has refused to sell them to any other nation, including Japan, who wanted to buy them. The F-22 and the F-35 were supposed to be the same "expensive/cheap" aircraft mix as the F-15 and the F-16. The more expensive and more capable F-15 was to be augmented by the much cheaper and less capable F-16. The incredibly expensive and amazingly capable F-22 was to be augmented by the supposedly cheaper and less capable f-35. But the yanks may as well have kept the F-22 in production, because the supposedly cheaper F-35 is becoming as expensive as the Raptor. Because of the doubling in price of the F-35, the US Air Force is actually trying to get rid of the magnificent A-10 to buy more F-35's. Their leaders are just as stupid as Australian defence acquisitions.

Brian Ross wrote

We have not faced a tier one opponent in the forty years that we have flown the F/A-18.

We have not faced a "tier one" opponent, because when we had the opportunity to contribute a lousy single brigade to free Kuwait, our infantry only, division sized army ,with it's obsolete tanks, was not capable of fighting a tier one enemy. The tier one enemy was a country with a population the same as Australia's, but with 30 or 40 fully equipped divisions, several of them armoured and mechanised.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I agree about the stand off weapons as opposed to coming in on the deck at night. But the fact remains that the Super Hornet is a patch up bomber based upon a short/medium ranged 40 year old fighter, a fighter that was inferior in performance to it's two stable mates. Such a plane hardly justifies your claim that an old design of warship, still in front line service with a half dozen navies, is so obsolete it should be destroyed. The FA-18 Hornet it is still modern enough to remain in service and like the Fa-18 conversion into the Super Hornet, the FFG-7 can be updated if we need to do it. Turning FFG-7's into fishing reefs instead of mothballing them was another idiotic defence department decision.

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. A long way behind the times, it seems.

Oh, dearie, dearie me, no I am not. Your premise was that since frigates and destroyers are much bigger today and much more powerful, then frigates today are really destroyers, and destroyers are really cruisers. Therefore, our navy is not missing entire classes of warship such as cruisers, of which we had five in WW2. But such convoluted logic does not take into account that all warships classes have grown in size. Cruisers have grown in size also, and the Russian cruisers are as big as old battleships. Australia had 2 heavy cruisers and three light cruisers in WW2 (including the "obsolete" WW1 HMAS Adelaide) which took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Brian Ross wrote

Was it? Really? HMAS COLLINS is still sailing at the moment. Stop bullshitting.

I just checked WIKI and you are correct. After "serious shortcomings in the submarine's performance, including excessive hull noise and an ineffective combat system.", Collins was taken out of service. Newspaper reports of the time reported that it was going to be taken out of service and scrapped because it would be too expensive to fix the problems, especially since these boats were the most expensive warships ever made in Australia. I presumed that it had been scrapped as the media predicted. It looks like the government did find enough money lying around to fix up this expensive ship and keep the SA Labor unionists and voters happy. Sorry about that.

Brian Ross wrote

They don’t want to crew them ‘cause they can be paid more, with better conditions ashore in the mining industry.

As a person who has spent years in the mining industry and could not get a job during the last "boom", that sounds like crap to me. My own union newspaper reported that there were "thousands" of applicants for every job, and a friend of mine who did get a job was amazed at how many foreigners were successful in stealing those jobs from Aussies. Maybe the mines shafted Aussies to take in token amounts of Burmese, Bulgarians, Serbians, Italians, and anybody else so they would not get accused of "discrimination?"

Brian Ross wrote

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 don't think that we need to be worried about Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos or Malaysia invading Australia. In any case, the more prosperous of these countries are already purchasing the best fighter aircraft and other military equipment than they can buy and they are catching up. Australia has 40 M1A2 tanks and The Philippines 400. Yet we are supposedly rich and they are supposedly dirt poor.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You are talking about a time when the government so trusted it's own people that it actually handed out military guns and ammunition to the male population. The British government naturally presumed that their Australian citizens were loyal, and would flock to the colours with their guns if we suffered a surprise attack. Today our government distrusts our male population so much it took our military type guns away from us.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If China has no amphibious capability then Taiwan has nothing to worry about. But China already does have an amphibious capability. The Chinese are also building two new modern classes of amphibious warships. One looks like the older US LSD class, and one that looks suspiciously like Australia's 2 new LHD's, except without the ski jump. They don't need a ski jump because they haven't stolen the plans for the VTOL version of the F-35 yet. Their industrial capacity means that they can build a lot of these modern amphibious ships very quickly. China would not take 20 years to build 12 obsolete diesel electric submarines like Australia needs to do.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I agree with the idea of forward defence. But you are missing something here. Most of the money goes to the RAAF and the RAN. The Australian Army is part of that forward defence and for the last 60 years it is the one that has done all of the fighting and all of the dying. When the Australian army can't even contribute an armoured or mechanised brigade to fight an enemy in open country, then something is seriously wrong with our defence priorities and with defence acquisitions. I hear that defence acquisitions is now considering the purchase of some Hughes 500 gunships which are nowhere in the class of either the Apache or the Cobra. It is a Vietnam era design used for reconnaissance, and also used by Tom Sellick as his personnel transport in the Magnum PI TV show.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Thirty years ago the Chinese armed forces were a joke. 80% of their fighter force consisted of post Korean war era Mig 17's, fer Christ's sake, and their tanks were T-54- 55's. Today they are buying, building, and fielding, modern warplanes, manufacturing good armoured vehicles, and turning out modern warships and submarines like hot cross buns.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Then like the FFG-7's, you must have scrapped these 60 year old personnel carriers and turned them into fishing reefs?

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You are suggesting that our FFG's spent most of their careers sailing around Tasmania? That won't fly, Brian.

Brian Ross wrote

I think you’re referring to the TOWN class, not the KIDD class. The KIDD class wasn’t launched until 1978. 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.

I think that you could be right about the name of the warship class. But you know which ships I meant, and you are just nit picking in order to throw a red herring.

Brian Ross wrote

You still think we will be refighting the Battle of the Atlantic, don’t you? Will the BISMARK sail again.

The lesson of history, was that even obsolete ships were so crucial that without their contribution, a battle would have been lost, which meant that a war could have been lost.

Brian Ross wrote

They are short of cash. It requires loads of money to replace tried and true systems with new systems.

Of course they are short of cash. 80% of Muslims in Europe are beggars on welfare and you can bet it would not be much different in Australia. With welfare our biggest financial black hole, I wonder how much our 600,000 our Muslim citizens are costing the taxpayer?

[Valkie]

Sorry about the delay in responding, Brian. Friends from the country turned up unexpectantly. Anyhoo, I have a post waiting for a response from you on the "Climate Change" thread, and I look forward to you responding so that I can deprogram you from the HIGW hoax.

Brian Ross wrote

Funny, isn’t that just what you’re proclaiming? Tsk, tsk.

Brian, if you preach that stereotyping groups of people is utterly wrong, then you can't do it yourself. How many times have I caught you doing it now?

Brian Ross wrote

I’ll accept that as a flag of surrender shall I? Tsk, tsk.

Another meaningless, sneery one liner. If you have any supporters on this site, Brian, they must be disappointed in your performance.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

It is not just a question of a stuff up or two. Our defence procurement people just keep making very serious and very expensive mistakes, time after time, after time. And with the Eurocraptor Tiger helicopter it was a miracle it did not have extremely serious consequences to our troops in Afghanistan. Gunship support was vital and among allied units, gunship support prevented even company sized units being completely wiped out, time, after time, after time.

Brian Ross wrote

Hindsight is a wonderful thing to posses. You have forgotten the matter of complexity. Funny that, hey?

Hindsight had nothing to do with it. The Apache is the best helicopter gunship there is, with the Cobra in second place. Both gunships are combat proven designs and reliable. The Eurocraptor Tiger was a new weapon system of unknown reputation which crashed into Sydney Harbour during it's demonstration flight. Defence Aquisition's tea ladies would have had more sense than to purchase the Eurocraptor product, one of which fell out of the sky during French operations in Chad for unknown reasons, killing the crew.

Brian Ross.

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.

What a lot of rot. The Australian "Army" is the size of a Division and by no stretch of the imagination could any part of it be it be called a "Corps", much less an "Army" The term "regiment" usually means a brigade, but it can be used to describe a battalion (like the Parramatta Lancers), especially in a tiny bankrupt infantry focussed "Army" like the Australian "Army". The fact that battalions are called "regiments" in the Australian Army can be proven by the fact that Australian infantry "regiments" are designated as parts of "Brigades." The Defence Department should just go the whole hog and call platoons "brigades" to keep fooling the public into thinking that we actually have a real army.

Brian Ross wrote

*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.

That makes perfect sense, Brian. Australia got the first 70,000 Steyrs, and Indonesia, PNG, New Zealand, The Solomons, and Lower Topdoggia probably got the other 330,000.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If I remember correctly, 3 Owens were used in The Great Bookie Robbery and Lennie McPherson used one on Pretty Boy Walker. Could you supply any link to any Owens being stolen from the Australian "Army"?

Brian Ross wrote

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…

OK, so a hostile nation with a nutcase leadership with nuclear weapons and IRBM's, known to engage in insane acts of violence, like bombing an airliner out of the sky, attempting to assassinate the South Korean president with a bomb in Burma, assassinating a political rival with nerve gas in an international airport full of innocent passengers, using artillery on South Korean fishing villages, torpedoing a South Korean warship, killing US servicemen at the DMZ, shooting IR missiles over Japan, threatening to nuke Guam, helping Iran get a nuclear weapon and IRBM's, torturing to death a US tourist, and attempting to smuggle a shipload of heroin onto a beach in Victoria, threatens to nuke Australia, and you don't think we should take it seriously or take any precautions? You will go far in the Australian Defence Department, Brian.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If we have retired the handful of Rapiers we had, what have we got now? As for the Patriots, with my own eyes I saw them perform extremely well on TV. If they can shoot down incoming IRBM's missiles going a zillion miles an hour, I don't think they will have too much trouble with Migs or Sukhois. After 30 years, the Patriot system may be due for replacement with something even more stunningly successful, but you can bet that whatever fantastic piece of kit the USA replaces it with, Australia won't get any.

Brian Ross wrote

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…

No, I have a reality problem. I know I haven't kept abreast of the latest developments in tanks, but I was under the impression that nobody even manufactures "medium" tanks anymore. Although, I sort of remember an article about a British firm (I think it was Vickers) planning to build medium tanks for third world countries in places like Africa and Australia, who only possess tiny bankrupt armies, and who don't have the funds to purchase a real tank in credible numbers.

Today, China is the problem. If it ever landed an Army on Australian territory to steal our resources and to colonise Australia as a Chinese possession, (and I think they would be crazy not to contemplate it very seriously) you can bet they will be coming with the full inventory of MBT"s and any other thing that an armoured or mechanised force needs to fight a mobile war in open country. The problem is, that the Australian infantry centred "Army" has little to no capability to put up a credible defence against such forces in open terrain.

Brian Ross wrote

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 Abrams

Thank you, thank you, Brian Ross. You are stating that Australia could not contribute an lousy single armoured brigade in Kuwait because we didn't have one, and our tanks were obsolete. It is OK to keep soldiering on in the first line with very obsolete tanks, but not to mothball barely obsolete FFG-7's as second line assets. At least we had 108 Leopards then, now we have only have 40 M1A2's. Don't give me the crap about the M1A2"s being better tanks so we need fewer. Our potential enemies keep getting better tanks too, and our tanks numbers keep getting smaller and smaller.

Brian Ross wrote

Couldn’t agree more. However the Australian Defence Forces are bound by what the Government is willing to spend on them.

Then how about lefties like you supporting the idea of a government that spends it's money on it's own people, instead of borrowing five billion dollars every year to give it away to ungrateful third world crapholes? And drill for oil on the GB reef and in the Australian Bight? And build some bloody nuclear or coal fired power stations and get our aluminium industry, and every other industry, going again with the world's cheapest electricity? And stop importing crime and terrorism prone, and welfare dependent Labor voters? And support Dutton in his attempts to deport some of the legions of foreign criminals who have immigrated to Australia because they see it as rich pickings? And condemn to hell that damned Immigration review tribunal that keeps over ruling him? And stop squandering money on this HIGW hoax that is crippling Australian industry? And build the Adani mine and however many other mines we can open that is economically viable? Tell the Labor party to stop dreaming up ever more welfare programs we can't afford in order for Labor to buy votes?

You lefties do everything you can to stifle the economy, handicap our taxpayers with counter productive immigrants and ungrateful, trouble prone "refugees", hobble our industry with expensive renewable electricity, waste money on everything, including a long list of defence purchases that were damned near insanity, and then say "Aw shucks, we don't have any money to defend ourselves."

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Who decides what the Army needs? I'll bet it is not the army. It must be embarrassing for the Australian Army when our infantry centred "Army" with obsolete tanks was unable to contribute to anything in the Gulf War, when faced with an enemy fighting in terrain similar to the continent of Australia, in a real war. Especially since it is the Army which has taken almost all of the casualties in our "forward defence" strategy in the last 60 years.

Brian Ross

Errr, where is all that trade going to? Why is it going there? Because of the relative cheapness of Chinese labour.

Great thinking Brian. Let's pretend that China is not an aggressive, expansionist, national socialist state with global ambitions because they buy our coal, which you lefties even want to stop them from buying anyway.

Brian Ross wrote

We are beholden to China because it needs out iron ore and other minerals.

Well duh. If I was the Chinese leadership, I would look at Australia and see an almost empty continent full of raw materials, and increasingly full of loyal (to China) Chinese immigrants, an almost disarmed population, a culturally divided nation with divided loyalties, and with a division sized infantry "Army" which could do little more than provide a speed bump to a few PLA mechanised divisions. And I would say "Hmmmmmm."

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Brian, China is an expansionist totalitarian state like national socialist Germany. Germany was resource poor and vulnerable to blockade, but that did not stop either Imperial Germany of Nazi Germany. As a world power, the US still has a lot of clout, but it is very much in decline. One reason is because the USA's white population is declining is because of the increase of crime and welfare dependent minorities with their high birth rates who have fled their own regions, because they do not have the collective intelligence to create viable modern states. I think Jap Prime Minister Nakasone nailed it when he said that the US nuA was once a great power, but now there are too many Africans, Muslims, Puerto Ricans, and Hispanics.

China is almost racially homogenous, it's totalitarian right wing socialist government unapolagetically racist and determined to stay in power by promoting extreme nationalism and engaging in acts that will convince it's people that it is acting in their collective interests. China has no intention of importing the sorts of crime prone and welfare dependent minorities that are handicapping the West. Nor crippling it's industry with electricity renewables. China does not tolerate it's minorities acting up, and it came down hard on the Muslim rebellion and nipped the Muslim terrorism in the bud. Nor does it tolerate it's educated class constantly slagging off about their own culture and people, or trying to sabotage the Chinese economy. China may be vulnerable now, but in twenty years it could be the world's only superpower, and the world's first homosexual superpower since Sparta. If you hate pax Americana, Brian, I doubt if you will like what is coming down the road.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You could be right. But my memory of that was that the Australian government bought 2 707's for official overseas diplomatic travel that COULD have been converted to tankers in time of war. Funny how the pollies don't have much trouble finding money to look after their own comfort first. The RAAF wanted AWACS for 40 years and the Grumman twin engine AWACS plane was available for all of that time. We could have easily purchased half a dozen by cutting back on our 5 Billion a year overseas aid package to our ungrateful and undeserving dependents. I once read (no, I can't confirm it) that Australia is continuing to give aid to India which has a military 20 times larger than ours with comparable equipment. Recently, an "obsolete" Indian Mig 21 shot down a Pakistani F-16, which just goes to show that "obsolete" weapons can still be effective when intelligently handled.

Brian Ross wrote

Which is why we are buying F-35s, a generation ahead of all other aircraft and even more advanced than the F-22.

Brian, the F-22 Raptor is so advanced that the US has refused to sell them to any other nation, including Japan, who wanted to buy them. The F-22 and the F-35 were supposed to be the same "expensive/cheap" aircraft mix as the F-15 and the F-16. The more expensive and more capable F-15 was to be augmented by the much cheaper and less capable F-16. The incredibly expensive and amazingly capable F-22 was to be augmented by the supposedly cheaper and less capable f-35. But the yanks may as well have kept the F-22 in production, because the supposedly cheaper F-35 is becoming as expensive as the Raptor. Because of the doubling in price of the F-35, the US Air Force is actually trying to get rid of the magnificent A-10 to buy more F-35's. Their leaders are just as stupid as Australian defence acquisitions.

Brian Ross wrote

We have not faced a tier one opponent in the forty years that we have flown the F/A-18.

We have not faced a "tier one" opponent, because when we had the opportunity to contribute a lousy single brigade to free Kuwait, our infantry only, division sized army ,with it's obsolete tanks, was not capable of fighting a tier one enemy. The tier one enemy was a country with a population the same as Australia's, but with 30 or 40 fully equipped divisions, several of them armoured and mechanised.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I agree about the stand off weapons as opposed to coming in on the deck at night. But the fact remains that the Super Hornet is a patch up bomber based upon a short/medium ranged 40 year old fighter, a fighter that was inferior in performance to it's two stable mates. Such a plane hardly justifies your claim that an old design of warship, still in front line service with a half dozen navies, is so obsolete it should be destroyed. The FA-18 Hornet it is still modern enough to remain in service and like the Fa-18 conversion into the Super Hornet, the FFG-7 can be updated if we need to do it. Turning FFG-7's into fishing reefs instead of mothballing them was another idiotic defence department decision.

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. A long way behind the times, it seems.

Oh, dearie, dearie me, no I am not. Your premise was that since frigates and destroyers are much bigger today and much more powerful, then frigates today are really destroyers, and destroyers are really cruisers. Therefore, our navy is not missing entire classes of warship such as cruisers, of which we had five in WW2. But such convoluted logic does not take into account that all warships classes have grown in size. Cruisers have grown in size also, and the Russian cruisers are as big as old battleships. Australia had 2 heavy cruisers and three light cruisers in WW2 (including the "obsolete" WW1 HMAS Adelaide) which took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Brian Ross wrote

Was it? Really? HMAS COLLINS is still sailing at the moment. Stop bullshitting.

I just checked WIKI and you are correct. After "serious shortcomings in the submarine's performance, including excessive hull noise and an ineffective combat system.", Collins was taken out of service. Newspaper reports of the time reported that it was going to be taken out of service and scrapped because it would be too expensive to fix the problems, especially since these boats were the most expensive warships ever made in Australia. I presumed that it had been scrapped as the media predicted. It looks like the government did find enough money lying around to fix up this expensive ship and keep the SA Labor unionists and voters happy. Sorry about that.

Brian Ross wrote

They don’t want to crew them ‘cause they can be paid more, with better conditions ashore in the mining industry.

As a person who has spent years in the mining industry and could not get a job during the last "boom", that sounds like crap to me. My own union newspaper reported that there were "thousands" of applicants for every job, and a friend of mine who did get a job was amazed at how many foreigners were successful in stealing those jobs from Aussies. Maybe the mines shafted Aussies to take in token amounts of Burmese, Bulgarians, Serbians, Italians, and anybody else so they would not get accused of "discrimination?"

Brian Ross wrote

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 don't think that we need to be worried about Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos or Malaysia invading Australia. In any case, the more prosperous of these countries are already purchasing the best fighter aircraft and other military equipment than they can buy and they are catching up. Australia has 40 M1A2 tanks and The Philippines 400. Yet we are supposedly rich and they are supposedly dirt poor.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You are talking about a time when the government so trusted it's own people that it actually handed out military guns and ammunition to the male population. The British government naturally presumed that their Australian citizens were loyal, and would flock to the colours with their guns if we suffered a surprise attack. Today our government distrusts our male population so much it took our military type guns away from us.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If China has no amphibious capability then Taiwan has nothing to worry about. But China already does have an amphibious capability. The Chinese are also building two new modern classes of amphibious warships. One looks like the older US LSD class, and one that looks suspiciously like Australia's 2 new LHD's, except without the ski jump. They don't need a ski jump because they haven't stolen the plans for the VTOL version of the F-35 yet. Their industrial capacity means that they can build a lot of these modern amphibious ships very quickly. China would not take 20 years to build 12 obsolete diesel electric submarines like Australia needs to do.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I agree with the idea of forward defence. But you are missing something here. Most of the money goes to the RAAF and the RAN. The Australian Army is part of that forward defence and for the last 60 years it is the one that has done all of the fighting and all of the dying. When the Australian army can't even contribute an armoured or mechanised brigade to fight an enemy in open country, then something is seriously wrong with our defence priorities and with defence acquisitions. I hear that defence acquisitions is now considering the purchase of some Hughes 500 gunships which are nowhere in the class of either the Apache or the Cobra. It is a Vietnam era design used for reconnaissance, and also used by Tom Sellick as his personnel transport in the Magnum PI TV show.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Thirty years ago the Chinese armed forces were a joke. 80% of their fighter force consisted of post Korean war era Mig 17's, fer Christ's sake, and their tanks were T-54- 55's. Today they are buying, building, and fielding, modern warplanes, manufacturing good armoured vehicles, and turning out modern warships and submarines like hot cross buns.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Then like the FFG-7's, you must have scrapped these 60 year old personnel carriers and turned them into fishing reefs?

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You are suggesting that our FFG's spent most of their careers sailing around Tasmania? That won't fly, Brian.

Brian Ross wrote

I think you’re referring to the TOWN class, not the KIDD class. The KIDD class wasn’t launched until 1978. 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.

I think that you could be right about the name of the warship class. But you know which ships I meant, and you are just nit picking in order to throw a red herring.

Brian Ross wrote

You still think we will be refighting the Battle of the Atlantic, don’t you? Will the BISMARK sail again.

The lesson of history, was that even obsolete ships were so crucial that without their contribution, a battle would have been lost, which meant that a war could have been lost.

Brian Ross wrote

They are short of cash. It requires loads of money to replace tried and true systems with new systems.

Of course they are short of cash. 80% of Muslims in Europe are beggars on welfare and you can bet it would not be much different in Australia. With welfare our biggest financial black hole, I wonder how much our 600,000 our Muslim citizens are costing the taxpayer?

The rebuttal blows the "debate" out of the water.

The "deate" was simply ramblings of an odd mind.

[brian ross]

Brian Ross wrote
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.

It is not just a question of a stuff up or two. Our defence procurement people just keep making very serious and very expensive mistakes, time after time, after time. And with the Eurocraptor Tiger helicopter it was a miracle it did not have extremely serious consequences to our troops in Afghanistan. Gunship support was vital and among allied units, gunship support prevented even company sized units being completely wiped out, time, after time, after time.

There is some truth in what you say but also a lot of fallacy. The Australian Government sought to limit out committment to Afghanistan and Iraq - they did not want to "get in too deep." Neither country was in our main area of responsiblity or operations. We were there at the behest of our ally, our "great and powerful friends" across the Pacific, not because either represented a direct threat to Australia. Therefore, the forces dispatched were limited in size and type. Gunship helicopters weren't available for the initial deployment and when they were, they weren't wanted 'cause we had access to our allies' helicopter gunships when required. Deploying aircraft of a unique type would have been prohibitively expensive unless the situation warranted it and it was felt that it didn't. So they weren't sent.

Brian Ross wrote
Hindsight is a wonderful thing to posses. You have forgotten the matter of complexity. Funny that, hey?

Hindsight had nothing to do with it. The Apache is the best helicopter gunship there is, with the Cobra in second place. Both gunships are combat proven designs and reliable. The Eurocraptor Tiger was a new weapon system of unknown reputation which crashed into Sydney Harbour during it's demonstration flight. Defence Aquisition's tea ladies would have had more sense than to purchase the Eurocraptor product, one of which fell out of the sky during French operations in Chad for unknown reasons, killing the crew.

Yes but both are more complex, appreciabley so, than the Tiger was. With complexity, comes cost and difficulty in maintaining them. Just as with Goldielocks, the Cobra was judged too "old school", the Apache, "too new". The Tiger was just right. The Tiger proved to be too complext for an Army which was still coming to grips with helicopters. The Blackhawk helicopters were proving more than a handful for the neophyte army and were suffering severe maintanence problems. Why do you keep assuming that the Apache or the Cobra would be more easily managed?

Brian Ross.
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.

What a lot of rot. The Australian "Army" is the size of a Division and by no stretch of the imagination could any part of it be it be called a "Corps", much less an "Army".

Like more neophytes were mistaking the two ways "corps" is used in a Commonwealth army. You have an administrative unit referred to as a "Corps" and you have a tactical unit referred to as a "Corps". They are different things. When you have worked out the difference, get back to us.

The term "regiment" usually means a brigade, but it can be used to describe a battalion (like the Parramatta Lancers), especially in a tiny bankrupt infantry focussed "Army" like the Australian "Army". The fact that battalions are called "regiments" in the Australian Army can be proven by the fact that Australian infantry "regiments" are designated as parts of "Brigades." The Defence Department should just go the whole hog and call platoons "brigades" to keep fooling the public into thinking that we actually have a real army.

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. Trying to explain your confusions are you? Look, a Regiment is equivalent to a Battalion in the organisation of a Commonwealth Army. In the Australian Army you have a "Regiment" as an administrative unit, not a Tactical one. A Regiment being equivalent to a brigade is a foriegn concept. Armoured and Artillery tactical units are called "regiments", infantry units are called "battalions". You really do need to be educated in military terminology don't you?

Brian Ross wrote

*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.

That makes perfect sense, Brian. Australia got the first 70,000 Steyrs, and Indonesia, PNG, New Zealand, The Solomons, and Lower Topdoggia probably got the other 330,000.

I am glad you are acknowledging that I am correct.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If I remember correctly, 3 Owens were used in The Great Bookie Robbery and Lennie McPherson used one on Pretty Boy Walker. Could you supply any link to any Owens being stolen from the Australian "Army"?

About two dozen by my reckoning. Look them up on Google. Appears that firearms theft was quite common according to the answers to questions in Parliament. Seems Australian soldiers tended to be fairly loose fingered.

Brian Ross wrote

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…

OK, so a hostile nation with a nutcase leadership with nuclear weapons and IRBM's, known to engage in insane acts of violence, like bombing an airliner out of the sky, attempting to assassinate the South Korean president with a bomb in Burma, assassinating a political rival with nerve gas in an international airport full of innocent passengers, using artillery on South Korean fishing villages, torpedoing a South Korean warship, killing US servicemen at the DMZ, shooting IR missiles over Japan, threatening to nuke Guam, helping Iran get a nuclear weapon and IRBM's, torturing to death a US tourist, and attempting to smuggle a shipload of heroin onto a beach in Victoria, threatens to nuke Australia, and you don't think we should take it seriously or take any precautions? You will go far in the Australian Defence Department, Brian.

There is some truth in what you say, but as ususal, mixed in with a great deal of untruth, Bogan.

There have been since the establishment of the DPRK, three leaders. As to their level of sanity, that has varied both with which leader we are discussing and of course the circumstances. You're acting as if they were one man. That is very silly. As to the DPRK being armed with IRBM you do understand the range limitations on that type of weapon? The clue is in the first initial - Intermediate. Guess what they won't be hitting with IRBMs in Australia? As for their threats, well, *SHRUG* what can I said that I haven't already said. The DPRK is not led by idiots. They have far more pressing use for their weapons.

If we have retired the handful of Rapiers we had, what have we got now?

RBS-70s. More than adequate against any potential threat we might be facing at the moment.

As for the Patriots, with my own eyes I saw them perform extremely well on TV. If they can shoot down incoming IRBM's missiles going a zillion miles an hour, I don't think they will have too much trouble with Migs or Sukhois. After 30 years, the Patriot system may be due for replacement with something even more stunningly successful, but you can bet that whatever fantastic piece of kit the USA replaces it with, Australia won't get any.

What the MSM presents and what the specialist media reveals are often too different things. You may have believed you saw the Patriots shooting down IRBMs but after the Gulf War much better analysis and revelations showed they were actually shooting down the SCUD missile boosters, not their warheads. They knocked the warheads off course in the process but didn't actually destroy them. I'd recommend you actually read about what you're talking, before you set finger to keyboard.

Brian Ross wrote

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 reading comprehension problems…

No, I have a reality problem. I know I haven't kept abreast of the latest developments in tanks, but I was under the impression that nobody even manufactures "medium" tanks anymore. Although, I sort of remember an article about a British firm (I think it was Vickers) planning to build medium tanks for third world countries in places like Africa and Australia, who only possess tiny bankrupt armies, and who don't have the funds to purchase a real tank in credible numbers.

Our Army is not "bankrupt". MBTs are heavy - most over 60 tonnes. Our infrastructure is not designed to cope with vehicles of such mass. Nor is it designed to cope with their transporters either. We either have to sail them around the coast or land them by specialised aircraft. As we are not faced with oppositon tanks, we don't really need them except for training. The M1a1 AIMs are too heavy for most of Australia or its main operating environment in the Pacific. Medium tanks can be built. We could build them ourselves. That'd please your little heart, wouldn't it, Bogan?

Today, China is the problem. If it ever landed an Army on Australian territory to steal our resources and to colonise Australia as a Chinese possession, (and I think they would be crazy not to contemplate it very seriously) you can bet they will be coming with the full inventory of MBT"s and any other thing that an armoured or mechanised force needs to fight a mobile war in open country. The problem is, that the Australian infantry centred "Army" has little to no capability to put up a credible defence against such forces in open terrain.

China lacks the capability to move more than a Brigade to it's offshort islands. It does not have the capability nor will it have the capability to move even that amount of forces to Australia for the next 10-15 years. You fears are alarmist and pointless - like so much of what you type.

Brian Ross wrote

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 Abrams

Thank you, thank you, Brian Ross. You are stating that Australia could not contribute an lousy single armoured brigade in Kuwait because we didn't have one, and our tanks were obsolete.

Basically, yes. However, that was before we saw how bad the Iraqi morale was. Armour was not the winner in the Gulf War air power was. We could have sent a boy scout with a pop gun and still won.

It is OK to keep soldiering on in the first line with very obsolete tanks, but not to mothball barely obsolete FFG-7's as second line assets. At least we had 108 Leopards then, now we have only have 40 M1A2's. Don't give me the crap about the M1A2"s being better tanks so we need fewer. Our potential enemies keep getting better tanks too, and our tanks numbers keep getting smaller and smaller.

All our Leopards are gone, Bogan. Been gone now for nearly 15 years. Indeed, there is one as a gate guard at the barracks near where I live. We now have the Abrams M1a1 AIMs. Not quite the most advanced version of that vehicle but near enough to allow us to dominate the parade grounds of Australia...

Brian Ross wrote

Couldn’t agree more. However the Australian Defence Forces are bound by what the Government is willing to spend on them.

Then how about lefties like you supporting the idea of a government that spends it's money on it's own people, instead of borrowing five billion dollars every year to give it away to ungrateful third world crapholes?

Australia's current foreign aide budget is only 4 billion dollars. The recipients for that money are very grateful. You are being Xenophobic (as per usual).

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Who decides what the Army needs? I'll bet it is not the army. It must be embarrassing for the Australian Army when our infantry centred "Army" with obsolete tanks was unable to contribute to anything in the Gulf War, when faced with an enemy fighting in terrain similar to the continent of Australia, in a real war. Especially since it is the Army which has taken almost all of the casualties in our "forward defence" strategy in the last 60 years.

It is not my job to attempt to explain the procurement process to you. Do some research.

Brian Ross
Errr, where is all that trade going to? Why is it going there? Because of the relative cheapness of Chinese labour.

Great thinking Brian. Let's pretend that China is not an aggressive, expansionist, national socialist state with global ambitions because they buy our coal, which you lefties even want to stop them from buying anyway.

China? Expansionist? Really? Doesn't seem to have expanded all that much in the last 500 years...

Brian Ross wrote

We are beholden to China because it needs out iron ore and other minerals.

Well duh. If I was the Chinese leadership, I would look at Australia and see an almost empty continent full of raw materials, and increasingly full of loyal (to China) Chinese immigrants, an almost disarmed population, a culturally divided nation with divided loyalties, and with a division sized infantry "Army" which could do little more than provide a speed bump to a few PLA mechanised divisions. And I would say "Hmmmmmm."

China lacks the means to invade Australia. Why should they bother when they can buy everything they need from us and sell us the output of their factories made with those raw materials? You are speaking Sinophobic fantasies.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Brian, China is an expansionist totalitarian state like national socialist Germany. Germany was resource poor and vulnerable to blockade, but that did not stop either Imperial Germany of Nazi Germany. As a world power, the US still has a lot of clout, but it is very much in decline. One reason is because the USA's white population is declining is because of the increase of crime and welfare dependent minorities with their high birth rates who have fled their own regions, because they do not have the collective intelligence to create viable modern states. I think Jap Prime Minister Nakasone nailed it when he said that the USA was once a great power, but now there are too many Africans, Muslims, Puerto Ricans, and Hispanics.

China is almost racially homogenous, it's totalitarian right wing socialist government unapolagetically racist and determined to stay in power by promoting extreme nationalism and engaging in acts that will convince it's people that it is acting in their collective interests. China has no intention of importing the sorts of crime prone and welfare dependent minorities that are handicapping the West. Nor crippling it's industry with electricity renewables. China does not tolerate it's minorities acting up, and it came down hard on the Muslim rebellion and nipped the Muslim terrorism in the bud. Nor does it tolerate it's educated class constantly slagging off about their own culture and people, or trying to sabotage the Chinese economy. China may be vulnerable now, but in twenty years it could be the world's only superpower, and the world's first homosexual superpower since Sparta. If you hate pax Americana, Brian, I doubt if you will like what is coming down the road.

Sinophobic nonsense. China has over 200 officially recognised racial and ethnic groups within it's population. It is not expansionist. It has merely recovered places that were, before European Imperialism removed them, once part of China. China is no direct threat to Australia or it's environs. Time to face reality, not your paranoid delusions.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You could be right. But my memory of that was that the Australian government bought 2 707's for official overseas diplomatic travel that COULD have been converted to tankers in time of war. Funny how the pollies don't have much trouble finding money to look after their own comfort first. The RAAF wanted AWACS for 40 years and the Grumman twin engine AWACS plane was available for all of that time.

The RAAF received second-hand 707s from QANTAS. All were converted to inflight refueling configuration. They have been replaced with KC-30 Airbus 330 aircraft. The RAAF now operates WEDGETAIL Boeing 737-400 AEW&C aircraft. Time to catch up with the present 21st century.

Brian Ross wrote

Which is why we are buying F-35s, a generation ahead of all other aircraft and even more advanced than the F-22.

Brian, the F-22 Raptor is so advanced that the US has refused to sell them to any other nation, including Japan, who wanted to buy them. The F-22 and the F-35 were supposed to be the same "expensive/cheap" aircraft mix as the F-15 and the F-16. The more expensive and more capable F-15 was to be augmented by the much cheaper and less capable F-16. The incredibly expensive and amazingly capable F-22 was to be augmented by the supposedly cheaper and less capable f-35. But the yanks may as well have kept the F-22 in production, because the supposedly cheaper F-35 is becoming as expensive as the Raptor. Because of the doubling in price of the F-35, the US Air Force is actually trying to get rid of the magnificent A-10 to buy more F-35's. Their leaders are just as stupid as Australian defence acquisitions.

The F-22 has been surpassed in most areas by the F-35. The F-22 has the advantage in size and speed but that is all. The F-35 has more advanced electronic systems, including EO (Electro-Optical) systems which can automatically detect missile launches against the aircraft and can make the aircraft "disappear" to the pilot, allowing him to peer in all directions. The A-10 is old hat and clapped out. It was designed to fight the massive Russian hordes on the inner-German border. The F-35 is the aircraft for future wars. It is stealthy, it has an advanced engine and is uniquely adaptable to our air force's needs. There is literally no other aircraft flying which is comparable.

Brian Ross wrote

We have not faced a tier one opponent in the forty years that we have flown the F/A-18.

We have not faced a "tier one" opponent, because when we had the opportunity to contribute a lousy single brigade to free Kuwait, our infantry only, division sized army ,with it's obsolete tanks, was not capable of fighting a tier one enemy. The tier one enemy was a country with a population the same as Australia's, but with 30 or 40 fully equipped divisions, several of them armoured and mechanised.

Smart thinking, hey? No, in reality we didn't send aircraft or armour because we wanted to limit our engagement with the Gulf War. We do not want to repeat Vietnam.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I agree about the stand off weapons as opposed to coming in on the deck at night. But the fact remains that the Super Hornet is a patch up bomber based upon a short/medium ranged 40 year old fighter, a fighter that was inferior in performance to it's two stable mates. Such a plane hardly justifies your claim that an old design of warship, still in front line service with a half dozen navies, is so obsolete it should be destroyed. The FA-18 Hornet it is still modern enough to remain in service and like the Fa-18 conversion into the Super Hornet, the FFG-7 can be updated if we need to do it. Turning FFG-7's into fishing reefs instead of mothballing them was another idiotic defence department decision.

*SIGH* Myths and lies, hey? The F/A-18 was more advanced than the F-16 and less advanced than the F-15. It had BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile capabilities which the F-16 didn't. It had a more capable radar than the F-16. It had twin engines, which the F-16 didn't. It cost about 3/4 the cost of an F-15. It was adopted by several middle-ranking powers - Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Finland, and of course the US Navy. It was a fine aircraft for us, despite your moans and bitches.

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. A long way behind the times, it seems.

Oh, dearie, dearie me, no I am not. Your premise was that since frigates and destroyers are much bigger today and much more powerful, then frigates today are really destroyers, and destroyers are really cruisers. Therefore, our navy is not missing entire classes of warship such as cruisers, of which we had five in WW2. But such convoluted logic does not take into account that all warships classes have grown in size. Cruisers have grown in size also, and the Russian cruisers are as big as old battleships. Australia had 2 heavy cruisers and three light cruisers in WW2 (including the "obsolete" WW1 HMAS Adelaide) which took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

And today it has 2+1 Destroyers and 8 Frigates. It equals the number and exceeds the capability of the RAN of 1942. Your moans are just that, moans. As I said, a long, long way behind the times...

Brian Ross wrote

Was it? Really? HMAS COLLINS is still sailing at the moment. Stop bullshitting.

I just checked WIKI and you are correct. After "serious shortcomings in the submarine's performance, including excessive hull noise and an ineffective combat system.", Collins was taken out of service. Newspaper reports of the time reported that it was going to be taken out of service and scrapped because it would be too expensive to fix the problems, especially since these boats were the most expensive warships ever made in Australia. I presumed that it had been scrapped as the media predicted. It looks like the government did find enough money lying around to fix up this expensive ship and keep the SA Labor unionists and voters happy. Sorry about that.

Apology accepted.

Brian Ross wrote

They don’t want to crew them ‘cause they can be paid more, with better conditions ashore in the mining industry.

As a person who has spent years in the mining industry and could not get a job during the last "boom", that sounds like crap to me. My own union newspaper reported that there were "thousands" of applicants for every job, and a friend of mine who did get a job was amazed at how many foreigners were successful in stealing those jobs from Aussies. Maybe the mines shafted Aussies to take in token amounts of Burmese, Bulgarians, Serbians, Italians, and anybody else so they would not get accused of "discrimination?"

IIRC you once claims you couldn't get a job in WA 'cause you wouldn't pay for a WA 'leccies license. Correct?

I went to WA during the boom. You could walk into any of the big mining companies in Perth and be hired on the spot. 10,000 people came to WA a week in the early months of the boom. Sounds to me like your just moaning. How unsurprising.

Brian Ross wrote

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 don't think that we need to be worried about Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos or Malaysia invading Australia. In any case, the more prosperous of these countries are already purchasing the best fighter aircraft and other military equipment than they can buy and they are catching up. Australia has 40 M1A2 tanks and The Philippines 400. Yet we are supposedly rich and they are supposedly dirt poor.

]

The Philippines has 400 M1a2 tanks? Wow! Really? The Philippines Army actually doesn't have M1a2 tanks. It has 7 Scorpion Light Tanks. Tsk, tsk.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You are talking about a time when the government so trusted it's own people that it actually handed out military guns and ammunition to the male population.

Really? When? Where? Evidence please.

The British government naturally presumed that their Australian citizens were loyal, and would flock to the colours with their guns if we suffered a surprise attack. Today our government distrusts our male population so much it took our military type guns away from us.

Gee, was that cos they were being misused? Nah, of course not. You really can't complain, there are now more guns in private hands than there were before Port Arthur. Even the Sporting Shooters admits that.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

If China has no amphibious capability then Taiwan has nothing to worry about. But China already does have an amphibious capability. The Chinese are also building two new modern classes of amphibious warships. One looks like the older US LSD class, and one that looks suspiciously like Australia's 2 new LHD's, except without the ski jump. They don't need a ski jump because they haven't stolen the plans for the VTOL version of the F-35 yet. Their industrial capacity means that they can build a lot of these modern amphibious ships very quickly. China would not take 20 years to build 12 obsolete diesel electric submarines like Australia needs to do.

China has the means to move troops a limited distance to Taiwan. However, the Army of the ROC is more than a match for any attempted landing, which is why the PRC has not attempted it (and because the US Navy would intervene). The PRC is no threat to Australia. There is several thousands of kilometres between southern China and Northern Australia. It is a long way to travel and an even greater distance to mount a successful military operation over. Then, there is the question, what would China gain by mounting such an attack when they can buy what they want from us?

The PLAN operates BTW an aircraft carrier and is building two more, all with ski-jumps. However, the PLAN has not been overly successful at operating their ships on a sustained basis on very long range operations. They have at most sent two frigates around Indonesia. Tell me, what do you think the Indonesians think of that happening? Do you think they were happy about that?

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I agree with the idea of forward defence. But you are missing something here. Most of the money goes to the RAAF and the RAN. The Australian Army is part of that forward defence and for the last 60 years it is the one that has done all of the fighting and all of the dying. When the Australian army can't even contribute an armoured or mechanised brigade to fight an enemy in open country, then something is seriously wrong with our defence priorities and with defence acquisitions. I hear that defence acquisitions is now considering the purchase of some Hughes 500 gunships which are nowhere in the class of either the Apache or the Cobra. It is a Vietnam era design used for reconnaissance, and also used by Tom Sellick as his personnel transport in the Magnum PI TV show.
[/qupte]

You appear to believe we are in those wars to win them. We aren't. We are in them to show our "great and powerful friends" that we are willing to contribute to their military adventures. Therefore, we don't want to send armoured forces. We don't want to send too many fighter planes or strike aircraft or maritime recce aircraft. We want to limit our involvement. Our Army our defence forces are for the defence of Australia, not for gallivanting off to foreign countries.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Thirty years ago the Chinese armed forces were a joke. 80% of their fighter force consisted of post Korean war era Mig 17's, fer Christ's sake, and their tanks were T-54- 55's. Today they are buying, building, and fielding, modern warplanes, manufacturing good armoured vehicles, and turning out modern warships and submarines like hot cross buns.

Actually, most of the PLAAF consisted 30 years ago mainly of MiG-21s (or deravites), MiG-19s and MiG-17s. The MiG-17 gave BTW the US Navy and USAF quite a run for their money in North Vietnamese hands over Hanoi. Yes, today they are building modern equipment - that is to be expected. However, they are still limited to China and it's immediate environs and will be for at least the next 10-15 years. They are not a direct threat to Australia. QED.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Then like the FFG-7's, you must have scrapped these 60 year old personnel carriers and turned them into fishing reefs?

If they could not be remanufactured, yes, I'd have recommended it. Most were suitable however. They cut them in half and welded the two halfs together from different vehicles. Personally, I still felt it would have been cheaper to trade them back to the Americans for new extended hulls.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

You are suggesting that our FFG's spent most of their careers sailing around Tasmania? That won't fly, Brian.

McDonald and Heard Islands actually. Something to do with protecting our fishing grounds there from poaching and oh, yes, rescuing wayward yachtsmen and women...

Brian Ross wrote

I think you’re referring to the TOWN class, not the KIDD class. The KIDD class wasn’t launched until 1978. 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.

I think that you could be right about the name of the warship class. But you know which ships I meant, and you are just nit picking in order to throw a red herring.

No, I am correcting your obvious ignorance.

[Valkie]

Bwyannnnnnn

Must have found a real good Dr Google page to copy all that stuff from.

[Bogan]

Brian Ross wrote

There is some truth in what you say but also a lot of fallacy. The Australian Government sought to limit out committment to Afghanistan and Iraq - they did not want to "get in too deep." Neither country was in our main area of responsibility or operations. We were there at the behest of our ally, our "great and powerful friends" across the Pacific, not because either represented a direct threat to Australia. Therefore, the forces dispatched were limited in size and type. Gunship helicopters weren't available for the initial deployment and when they were, they weren't wanted 'cause we had access to our allies' helicopter gunships when required. Deploying aircraft of a unique type would have been prohibitively expensive unless the situation warranted it and it was felt that it didn't. So they weren't sent.

Sorry Brian, I don't believe a word of it. You are saying that the Australian government sent troops to Afghanistan but did not want to send helicopter gunships, when such airborne support was essential, because it was too expensive? Instead, we preferred to be a burden on our allies who often desperately needed Apache support themselves, but often found that there were not enough gunships to go around?

I think a more likely explanation is that we did not send Eurocraptor Tigers to Afghanistan because we were having too much trouble trying to get the damned things in flying condition, even under peace time conditions in Australia.

As for "responsibility of operations", yes it was. Australia is a member of ANZUS and Prime Minister John Howard was in New York on 9/11 when your Muslim friends flew into the towers. He invoked ANZUS and Australia was (proudly) the first allied nation to offer military support to the USA in their war against Al Qaida. Al Qaida and all of those most devout Muslim nutcases of every stripe are our enemies too. Same for NATO. The international forces sent to Afghanistan were NATO forces because NATO is allied to the USA, and an attack on one is considered an attack on all. it was time for NATO to start paying their dues.

How about if North Korea threatens us again with a nuclear strike and our US ANZUS ally under Democrat President Bernie Sanders says, "Sorry, Australia is not in our main area of responsibility of operations"?

Brian Ross wrote

Yes but both are more complex, appreciably so, than the Tiger was. With complexity, comes cost and difficulty in maintaining them. Just as with Goldielocks, the Cobra was judged too "old school", the Apache, "too new". The Tiger was just right. The Tiger proved to be too complex for an Army which was still coming to grips with helicopters. The Blackhawk helicopters were proving more than a handful for the neophyte army and were suffering severe maintanence problems. Why do you keep assuming that the Apache or the Cobra would be more easily managed?

Because the Apache and the Cobra were combat proven gunships of legendary capability with a history of being able to be maintained in warfare conditions under wartime maintenance. We could have even asked our US allies to help with the maintenance of our own Apaches or Cobras (if we had any) in Afghanistan, instead of completely bludging off their own gunship assets to get our own men out of trouble. If the Cobra was too "old school", you are suggesting that it was much less complex than the Apache. But it is still in front line service with the US Marines who don't appear to be complaining about it's performance. If I had to guess, given the known level of corruption and bribery in defence contracts, I think it more likely that we bought the Eurocraptor because somebody got their palms greased.

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. Trying to explain your confusions are you? Look, a Regiment is equivalent to a Battalion in the organisation of a Commonwealth Army. In the Australian Army you have a "Regiment" as an administrative unit, not a Tactical one. A Regiment being equivalent to a brigade is a foriegn concept. Armoured and Artillery tactical units are called "regiments", infantry units are called "battalions". You really do need to be educated in military terminology don't you?

Brian, in the Australian "Army", battalions are usually called regiments. The words "battalion" and "regiment" are interchangeable. But a regiment in foreign armies are usually what we call a brigade.

Brian Ross wrote

There is some truth in what you say, but as ususal, mixed in with a great deal of untruth, Bogan.

There have been since the establishment of the DPRK, three leaders. As to their level of sanity, that has varied both with which leader we are discussing and of course the circumstances. You're acting as if they were one man.

Good luck convincing anybody with that logic. All the Kim's were psychopathic nutters and the behaviour of all three family members over time was consistent with that diagnosis. North Korea has been an uncontrollable threat to world peace which has engaged in numerous acts of insane violence for 50 years. But you don't think that such a country armed with nuclear weapons and IRBM's is a threat to Australia? Even though they directly threatened to nuke us? Were you around with Herbert in 1941 when the our defence department told Australians that we did not have to worry about the Japanese, because Singapore was impregnable? Same mindset. Don't worry chaps, we have everything under control.

Brian Ross wrote

That is very silly. As to the DPRK being armed with IRBM you do understand the range limitations on that type of weapon? The clue is in the first initial - Intermediate. Guess what they won't be hitting with IRBMs in Australia? As for their threats, well, *SHRUG* what can I said that I haven't already said. The DPRK is not led by idiots. They have far more pressing use for their weapons.

Media reports at the time reported that NK had an IRBM capable of reaching the northern parts of Australia. And that the NK's were working on extending that range. What better use of a nuclear weapon than to use it on asymmetric warfare? Don't throw it at the USA, which would immediately retaliate and turn all of NK into a sheet of glass. Instead, do a Hannibal and attack the allies of New Rome who have no defence, and who can not retaliate?

Brian Ross wrote

RBS-70s. More than adequate against any potential threat we might be facing at the moment.

"At the moment" being the operative word. How many do we have of this very short ranged, line-of-sight weapon? 10? 12? Australia is 5 million square kilometres. The RBS system would have to be as old as the FFG-7's. Time for defence acquisitions to turn them into fishing reefs and brag to the press about it.

Brian Ross wrote

What the MSM presents and what the specialist media reveals are often too different things. You may have believed you saw the Patriots shooting down IRBMs but after the Gulf War much better analysis and revelations showed they were actually shooting down the SCUD missile boosters, not their warheads. They knocked the warheads off course in the process but didn't actually destroy them. I'd recommend you actually read about what you're talking, before you set finger to keyboard.

OK, they hit the boosters going a zillion miles and hour. If they could do that, they would not have much trouble shooting down Migs and Sukhois. SAM' s are very effective in shooting down warplanes. They are relatively cheap compared to buying aircraft and training pilots, which is why so many poor countries use SAMs. They can deny large areas of territory to even generation 4 aircraft Russian SAM 1,2, 3, 6, and 8's were less sophisticated than Patriot and they worked just fine on Skyhawks, Phantoms, Thunderchiefs and Intruders. Patriot was the first SAM which had it's own active seeker head and was the most sophisticated SAM in the world at the time of the Gulf War.

Brian Ross wrote

Our Army is not "bankrupt". MBTs are heavy - most over 60 tonnes. Our infrastructure is not designed to cope with vehicles of such mass. Nor is it designed to cope with their transporters either. We either have to sail them around the coast or land them by specialised aircraft. As we are not faced with oppositon tanks, we don't really need them except for training. The M1a1 AIMs are too heavy for most of Australia or its main operating environment in the Pacific. Medium tanks can be built. We could build them ourselves. That'd please your little heart, wouldn't it, Bogan?

I hardly know where to start refuting that crap, Brian. Using your peculiar logic, Australia should turn our miserable total of 40 M1A1 tanks into fishing reefs because they are too big and too heavy to transport? "Too big and heavy" was exactly the reason given in WW2 for the British not making tanks comparable to the German tanks. The British government "experts" claimed they could not transport large, heavy tanks. The poor performance of allied armoured units after D-Day was attributed to "Tiger terror", where a handful of German Tigers and Panthers could, and did, hold up entire Allied divisions. The Brits finally built the 50 ton Centurions to match the German tanks and all of the objections about transporting them magically disappeared. Australia can transport 60 ton tanks.(we had no trouble with 50 ton Centurions) One rail coal transporter holds 62 tons of coal. I have seen coal trains a mile long.

Brian Ross wrote

China lacks the capability to move more than a Brigade to it's offshort islands. It does not have the capability nor will it have the capability to move even that amount of forces to Australia for the next 10-15 years. You fears are alarmist and pointless - like so much of what you type

Brian, I had to move home twice lately and I had to jettison many books (which stacked in boxes are very heavy). But I had a large book on the Chinese Armed Forces that was thirty years old, and I remember that China had plenty of Soviet type amphibious ships which it had built expressly for the task of invading Taiwan. They are now building two new classes of amphibious, ocean going ships similar to US models. And they don't need ocean going ships to invade Taiwan. I think our readers would disagree with your claim that they can not build such ships very quickly.

You might have noticed the new yellow wheat wagons on our rail systems recently? Australian rail transporter manufacturers were unable to build new wheat transporters fast enough for our wheat boards immediate needs. So the boards reluctantly ordered 48 from China. They were so cheap and could be built so quickly that the boards thought they were crap, and that they would only last for a couple of years. But they needed them right now, and they could not wait for a "better" Australian product. The Chinese transporters were built in just 3 months and were just as good as the Australian ones. The wheat boards were so impressed with the price and speed of construction that they ordered 48 more. What they can do with rail wagons they can do with ships.

The air forces were extremely important and so were the ground forces. The Iraqi's did not start running until the ground forces, which included their divisional helicopter gunships, attacked. The naval contribution was not so significant but that does not preclude them getting credit also. The idea that the Air force can win a war by itself is a myth, Brian. Even in the Falkland's war, the British Navy thought it could win the war without the ground forces by simply blockading the Falklands. Marine Major Ewen Southby-Tailyour wrote in his book "Reasons in Writing" that the Royal Navy considered the amphibious force " an embuggerence".

As a matter of fact, the Falklands war is a glaring example of how your narrow minded thinking can blow up in your face, Brian. The UK defence "experts" wanted to sell the Invincible to Australia "because aircraft carriers are obsolete". Defence "experts" in Australia convinced Bob Hawke to sell the Invincible when we got it, for the same reason. UK "experts" wanted to scrap the amphibious ships because "Britain would never operate outside of Europe again". The RAF convinced the UK government that it would always be able to give air cover to the RN.

But in the Falklands war, all of those confident prognostications went to shit. The RAF was so irrelevant to the war that they dreamed up and bragged about "the longest bombing raid in history" where they used every tanker in the RAF and a zillion gallons of Jet A-1 to get one Vulcan to Port Stanley airfield, where one bomb out of twenty just nicked the runway. Some triumph.

Brian Ross wrote

Basically, yes. However, that was before we saw how bad the Iraqi morale was. Armour was not the winner in the Gulf War air power was. We could have sent a boy scout with a pop gun and still won

Australia would not have had enough boy scouts and if their pop guns had been more than 30 years old the DOD would have turned them into fishing reefs.

Brian Ross wrote

All our Leopards are gone, Bogan. Been gone now for nearly 15 years. Indeed, there is one as a gate guard at the barracks near where I live.

Make sure that they keep the sprockets greased Brian. After Dunkirk, the British were stripping artillery pieces out of museums and parks, and begging those gun nut Americans to donate their rifles to Britain so that they might be able to defend themselves. According to author Richard Pawle (the Secret War)The Brits even got a WW1 tank operational again.

Park all 108 Leopards out in the desert next to Pine Gap and put a fence around them. If we ever need them, four men in an obsolete tank are a lot more of a dangerous proposition than four men running around on the ground with the most modern Steyr rifles.

Brian Ross wrote

We now have the Abrams M1a1 AIMs. Not quite the most advanced version of that vehicle but near enough to allow us to dominate the parade grounds of Australia...

That figures, we got the M1A1's did we? The Philippines probably got the M1A2's, along with most of our Steyr's.

Brian Ross wrote

Australia's current foreign aid budget is only 4 billion dollars.

Oh, sorry, only $4 billion every year, not 5? How much would 6 Grumman AWACS that we could never afford for 40 years have cost us Brian? 40x4 equals 160 billion dollars. We could buy a lot of fighters, tanks, and AWACS for that, Brian.

Brian Ross wrote

The recipients for that money are very grateful. You are being Xenophobic (as per usual).

Not enough to ever stop them complaining about Australia and whining for more.

Brian Ross wrote

It is not my job to attempt to explain the procurement process to you. Do some research.

I am not surprised that you can not explain the procurement process to me. Because from where I stand, they must all be crazy, and more concerned about their careers and improving their golf scores than actually doing their jobs.

Brian Ross wrote

China? Expansionist? Really? Doesn't seem to have expanded all that much in the last 500 years...

Disingenuous, Brian. Who do you think you can convince with that half truth? A half truth told as a whole truth is a complete lie.

Brian Ross wrote

China lacks the means to invade Australia.

China is very quickly attaining the means to invade Australia, while our fighter force and tank forces shrink.

Brian Ross wrote

Why should they bother when they can buy everything they need from us and sell us the output of their factories made with those raw materials? You are speaking Sinophobic fantasies.

Why should they bother paying for them when they are strong enough to just take them?

Brian Ross wrote

Sinophobic nonsense. China has over 200 officially recognised racial and ethnic groups within it's population. It is not expansionist. It has merely recovered places that were, before European Imperialism removed them, once part of China. China is no direct threat to Australia or it's environs. Time to face reality, not your paranoid delusions.

Whatever minorities exist in China had better keep their heads down an accept Han Chinese domination or this is what happens to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW9QRxePJSo

The South China Sea is an international waterway as agreed upon by all parties in the International Law of the Sea. Such a law is fair to everybody, but China wants it all. Ask the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, India, and Indonesia if they regard China as expansionist or not. Why are you defending expansionist China, Brian? Are you getting kickbacks like Sam Dastyari or those members of the Victorian Labor Party?

Brian Ross wrote

The RAAF received second-hand 707s from QANTAS. All were converted to inflight refueling configuration. They have been replaced with KC-30 Airbus 330 aircraft. The RAAF now operates WEDGETAIL Boeing 737-400 AEW&C aircraft. Time to catch up with the present 21st century.

Thank God (or somebody) for that. Only took them 40 years. But the fact remains that our fighter force and tank force keeps shrinking. And 30 years after the Gulf war showed everyone that Australia was unfit to contribute ground forces to combat a "tier one" enemy, we are still in the same position and have no plans to change that.

Brian Ross wrote

The F-22 has been surpassed in most areas by the F-35.

Given it's staggering cost, and the fact that the first operational F-22 flew in 1991, I should hope so. I heard we dropped our purchase from 75 planes to 40 because of the cost blowout, and then increased it to 60 when the RAAF went ballistic. But it was just as well the RAAF did not buy the F-22's, 28 years ago. They are still the best fighter planes in the sky, but at 28 years old, your friends in the Defence Department would be plotting to turn all of them into fishing reefs like our 30 year old FFG-7's.

Brian Ross wrote

The F-22 has the advantage in size and speed but that is all.

Wrong. The F-22 is a long ranged (1860 miles) fighter with "not a pound for air to ground". It is more manoeuvrable than the short range (670 miles) F-35 because it is a purely a fighter and has thrust vectoring. The F-35 is a multi role aircraft that was supposed to be cheaper than the F-22. But the F-35 went the way of every other "consortium" project which was bought "off the plan" by spruikers claiming incredible performance at reasonable cost. Same as the F-111, which became hideously expensive and where Australia waited so many years for delivery that the US had to lend us 24 Phantoms to tide us over. Same as the F-18, which had disappointing performance, and cost a lot more than the cheaper, longer ranged, and much better performing, F-15.

Why don't we ever learn, Brian? Why do we just keep making the same mistakes? Over and over and over again?

Brian Ross wrote

The F-35 has more advanced electronic systems, including EO (Electro-Optical) systems which can automatically detect missile launches against the aircraft and can make the aircraft "disappear" to the pilot, allowing him to peer in all directions. The A-10 is old hat and clapped out. It was designed to fight the massive Russian hordes on the inner-German border. The F-35 is the aircraft for future wars. It is stealthy, it has an advanced engine and is uniquely adaptable to our air force's needs. There is literally no other aircraft flying which is comparable.

It probably does have improvements over the F-22 for the simple reason that it took so damned long to design it and build it, that technology moved along, along with the skyrocketing price.

Brian Ross wrote

Smart thinking, hey? No, in reality we didn't send aircraft or armour because we wanted to limit our engagement with the Gulf War. We do not want to repeat Vietnam.

Brian, when Saddam invaded Kuwait and the yanks told them to "get out or else", the Arabs on my job site were telling everybody in the lunch room that "America can never defeat Iraq." I told the Arabs, and I quote, "The United States Army will go through the Iraqi Army faster than Guderians panzers went through France. I don't think you have any conception of what it is that is going to come down on those crazy Iraqis." Kuwait was not Vietnam and even a dumb electrician like me could see it. How come you defence department "experts" could not? How can you be so blind?

Brian Ross wrote

*SIGH* Myths and lies, hey? The F/A-18 was more advanced than the F-16 and less advanced than the F-15. It had BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile capabilities which the F-16 didn't. It had a more capable radar than the F-16. It had twin engines, which the F-16 didn't. It cost about 3/4 the cost of an F-15. It was adopted by several middle-ranking powers - Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Finland, and of course the US Navy. It was a fine aircraft for us, despite your moans and bitches.

Brian, the US Navy was so disappointed with the F-18's performance they came close to scrapping the whole project. But that would have caused political problems because the plane was a consortium project with foreign countries involved in the financing. The US Air Force flew the F-16 off against the F-18 to decide which plane was superior, and which one the US Air Force would buy as a "lightweight" fighter to augment the F-15. The F-16 was better and a lot cheaper. We got the loser.

As for cost, at the time I was keenly interested in our new fighters and a read the Pacific Defence Reporter every month. I can't remember the cost of the F-16, but I do remember that the F-15 cost $18 million dollars a throw and DOD said that it was too expensive. Imagine everybody's surprise when the cost of the woeful F-18 eventually reached $25 million a throw?

Brian Ross wrote

And today it has 2+1 Destroyers and 8 Frigates. It equals the number and exceeds the capability of the RAN of 1942. Your moans are just that, moans. As I said, a long, long way behind the times..

Australia did not have frigates in WW2 because the name of that class of warship (a large anti submarine warfare only vessel) was not coined until 1942, for work in the Battle of the Atlantic. The first "frigates" were "obsolete" ex US WW1 destroyers that the Australian DOD would have made into fishing reefs if they could, and they would have lost us the war.

Brian Ross wrote

IIRC you once claims you couldn't get a job in WA 'cause you wouldn't pay for a WA 'leccies license. Correct?

That is correct. When my NSW firm of Downers got short of work they told me there was work in WA and that they would recommend me to the WA branch of Downer, but I needed to get a WA license first. I paid $500 dollars for WA license and was knocked back by the WA branch, even though I would have been simply been transferring from the NSW branch of Downer to the WA branch. (They are a bit parochial over there) After the WA license expired, I told future employers during the boom that they would need to a express a real interest in my application before I would waste $500 dollars on a license just to apply for a job.

Brian Ross wrote

I went to WA during the boom. You could walk into any of the big mining companies in Perth and be hired on the spot. 10,000 people came to WA a week in the early months of the boom. Sounds to me like your just moaning. How unsurprising.

If they were so in need of highly trained and well equipped tradesmen they would not have created so many hoops to jump through. I even approached my union in it's Sydney office and asked about work in WA. They said that they did not know anything about finding work in mining. Later on the newspaper informed me that my own union (ETU) had opened two offices in the USA to help US electricians to find jobs in Australian mining. Was I incensed or what! I damned near resigned from the ETU that day. The usual crap. Foreigners are everything, Australians are nothing. No wonder former Labor voters vote for Pauline.

Brian Ross wrote

The Philippines has 400 M1a2 tanks? Wow! Really? The Philippines Army actually doesn't have M1a2 tanks. It has 7 Scorpion Light Tanks. Tsk, tsk

I checked WIKI and you are correct. I don't know where I got that info from. Before you start crowing, my assertion was no more wrong than your assertion that the F-22 "has the advantage in size and speed over the F-35, but that is all."

Brian Ross wrote

Really? When? Where? Evidence please

That information came from a book called "Guns in Australia." The book said that during the Crimean War, the colonial government handed out Brown Bess muskets, and powder and shot, to the male citizenry of Sydney. It further stated that few of these guns were ever handed back.

Brian Ross wrote

Gee, was that cos they were being misused? Nah, of course not. You really can't complain, there are now more guns in private hands than there were before Port Arthur. Even the Sporting Shooters admits that

Double standard again, Brian. You claim that all Muslims can not be blamed for the violence of the few, but you are advocating that all gun owners should be regarded as potential mass murderers for the actions of a few, and have their self loading guns taken off them. I know how your brain thinks, Brian. Whites get condemned, non whites get a free pass.

Brian Ross wrote

China has the means to move troops a limited distance to Taiwan. However, the Army of the ROC is more than a match for any attempted landing, which is why the PRC has not attempted it (and because the US Navy would intervene). The PRC is no threat to Australia.

Brian, it was confidently predicted in 1940 that it was impossible for Japan to invade Malaya because it did not even possess any amphibious capability. But they still did it. It was confidently predicted that Japan could not supply an army strong enough to overcome the entrenched 100,000 -120,000 Commonwealth troops in Malaya, but they still did it. It was confidently predicted that the Japanese could not move soldiers through the jungle, but they still did it. And they won.

Brian Ross wrote

There is several thousands of kilometres between southern China and Northern Australia. It is a long way to travel and an even greater distance to mount a successful military operation over.

The Japanese had even further to go and they nearly arrived on Australia's doorstep in six months with no amphibious ships at all.

Brian Ross wrote

The PLAN operates BTW an aircraft carrier and is building two more, all with ski jumps.

That is three more than Australia has.

Brian Ross wrote

But the PLAN has not been successful at operating their ships on a sustained basis on very long operations.

That will change with time.

Brian Ross wrote

Actually, most of the PLAAF consisted 30 years ago mainly of MiG-21s (or deravites), MiG-19s and MiG-17s.

The book I had on the PLA stated that 80% of PLAAF fighter planes were MIG 17's.

Brian Ross wrote

The MiG-17 gave BTW the US Navy and USAF quite a run for their money in North Vietnamese hands over Hanoi.

They did, which is why the US began building super manoeuvrable light fighters like the F-16 to counter them. But as even the F-105 Thunderchief "bombers" pilots (actually "century series fighters) said (from the book "Thud Ridge") "we shot down more of them than they ever did of us."

Brian Ross wrote

Yes, today they are building modern equipment - that is to be expected. However, they are still limited to China and it's immediate environs and will be for at least the next 10-15 years. They are not a direct threat to Australia. QED.

Are you sure? The way the Chinese are acting in the South China Sea, I would predict something ugly happening pretty soon. I'll bet the US Navy has instructed it's captains on patrol in the SCS that if a PLAN navy ship plays silybugggers with them again and steers in front of a US Navy ship, to ram the chinks up the arse and sink them. Time to start preparing now. Who knows before the Chinese will close the South China Sea?

[Wally Raffles]

This is unreadable. It is not 'debate.'

[Black Orchid]

If you don't understand it and/or have the attention span of a rock don't read it, and better still, don't comment.

[brian ross]

Brian Ross wrote

There is some truth in what you say but also a lot of fallacy. The Australian Government sought to limit out committment to Afghanistan and Iraq - they did not want to "get in too deep." Neither country was in our main area of responsibility or operations. We were there at the behest of our ally, our "great and powerful friends" across the Pacific, not because either represented a direct threat to Australia. Therefore, the forces dispatched were limited in size and type. Gunship helicopters weren't available for the initial deployment and when they were, they weren't wanted 'cause we had access to our allies' helicopter gunships when required. Deploying aircraft of a unique type would have been prohibitively expensive unless the situation warranted it and it was felt that it didn't. So they weren't sent.

Sorry Brian, I don't believe a word of it. You are saying that the Australian government sent troops to Afghanistan but did not want to send helicopter gunships, when such airborne support was essential, because it was too expensive? Instead, we preferred to be a burden on our allies who often desperately needed Apache support themselves, but often found that there were not enough gunships to go around?

I think a more likely explanation is that we did not send Eurocraptor Tigers to Afghanistan because we were having too much trouble trying to get the damned things in flying condition, even under peace time conditions in Australia.

Please reread what I said, Bogan. If necessary, move your lips and trace the words with your fingertip. Perhaps understanding of what I typed will come to you. Pay attention to where I state, "cause we had access to our allies'"

As for "responsibility of operations", yes it was. Australia is a member of ANZUS and Prime Minister John Howard was in New York on 9/11 when your Muslim friends flew into the towers. He invoked ANZUS and Australia was (proudly) the first allied nation to offer military support to the USA in their war against Al Qaida. Al Qaida and all of those most devout Muslim nutcases of every stripe are our enemies too. Same for NATO. The international forces sent to Afghanistan were NATO forces because NATO is allied to the USA, and an attack on one is considered an attack on all. it was time for NATO to start paying their dues.

You are factually, if not legally correct. Yes John Howard did invoke A**US. However, there is nothing in the A**US treat which covers an attack on the eastern seaboard of the US. It exclusively covers danger to Australia, *** ******* and US forces in the Pacific. John Howard believed he was on a good thing and ignored the legality of what he was doing.

How about if North Korea threatens us again with a nuclear strike and our US ANZUS ally under Democrat President Bernie Sanders says, "Sorry, Australia is not in our main area of responsibility of operations"?

What is to stop the US from suggesting that such a threat does not constitute a danger to Australia? What if the US decided it doesn't want, as is required under the A**US Treaty to have a conference with Canberra (which is all that it is required to do under that treaty)? Australia has made a treaty the lynchpin of it's defence which is worthless. Unlike the NATO treaty which has a guarantee of the US declaring war on an aggressor against it or the other member states, the A**US treaty guarantees nothing beyond a conference.

Brian Ross wrote

Yes but both are more complex, appreciably so, than the Tiger was. With complexity, comes cost and difficulty in maintaining them. Just as with Goldielocks, the Cobra was judged too "old school", the Apache, "too new". The Tiger was just right. The Tiger proved to be too complex for an Army which was still coming to grips with helicopters. The Blackhawk helicopters were proving more than a handful for the neophyte army and were suffering severe maintanence problems. Why do you keep assuming that the Apache or the Cobra would be more easily managed?

Because the Apache and the Cobra were combat proven gunships of legendary capability with a history of being able to be maintained in warfare conditions under wartime maintenance. We could have even asked our US allies to help with the maintenance of our own Apaches or Cobras (if we had any) in Afghanistan, instead of completely bludging off their own gunship assets to get our own men out of trouble. If the Cobra was too "old school", you are suggesting that it was much less complex than the Apache. But it is still in front line service with the US Marines who don't appear to be complaining about it's performance. If I had to guess, given the known level of corruption and bribery in defence contracts, I think it more likely that we bought the Eurocraptor because somebody got their palms greased.

Combat proven or not, the Australian Army was not ready to take over wholesale all the medium lift helicopters and an advanced attack helicopter in 1988. It was barely able to cope with the Blackhawks because they treated them as trucks, rather than as advanced helicopters with the consequent problems they discovered. The US Army has had attacked helicopters for over 50 years. Do you really think landing an advanced chopper on the doorstep of the Army was a good idea?

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. Trying to explain your confusions are you? Look, a Regiment is equivalent to a Battalion in the organisation of a Commonwealth Army. In the Australian Army you have a "Regiment" as an administrative unit, not a Tactical one. A Regiment being equivalent to a brigade is a foriegn concept. Armoured and Artillery tactical units are called "regiments", infantry units are called "battalions". You really do need to be educated in military terminology don't you?

Brian, in the Australian "Army", battalions are usually called regiments. The words "battalion" and "regiment" are interchangeable. But a regiment in foreign armies are usually what we call a brigade.

No they are not. I cannot think of a single Australian Army regiment which is called a "battalion". Do you know any?

Brian Ross wrote

There is some truth in what you say, but as ususal, mixed in with a great deal of untruth, Bogan.

There have been since the establishment of the DPRK, three leaders. As to their level of sanity, that has varied both with which leader we are discussing and of course the circumstances. You're acting as if they were one man.

Good luck convincing anybody with that logic. All the Kim's were psychopathic nutters and the behaviour of all three family members over time was consistent with that diagnosis. North Korea has been an uncontrollable threat to world peace which has engaged in numerous acts of insane violence for 50 years. But you don't think that such a country armed with nuclear weapons and IRBM's is a threat to Australia? Even though they directly threatened to nuke us? Were you around with Herbert in 1941 when the our defence department told Australians that we did not have to worry about the Japanese, because Singapore was impregnable? Same mindset. Don't worry chaps, we have everything under control.

You can believe what you like, even though it is demonstrably wrong. You seem to believe they spend their whole days rolling on the floor and chewing the carpet. Silly really.

Brian Ross wrote

That is very silly. As to the DPRK being armed with IRBM you do understand the range limitations on that type of weapon? The clue is in the first initial - Intermediate. Guess what they won't be hitting with IRBMs in Australia? As for their threats, well, *SHRUG* what can I said that I haven't already said. The DPRK is not led by idiots. They have far more pressing use for their weapons.

Media reports at the time reported that NK had an IRBM capable of reaching the northern parts of Australia. And that the NK's were working on extending that range. What better use of a nuclear weapon than to use it on asymmetric warfare? Don't throw it at the USA, which would immediately retaliate and turn all of NK into a sheet of glass. Instead, do a Hannibal and attack the allies of New Rome who have no defence, and who can not retaliate?

What the MSM reports and what reality is often quite a long way apart. They were just capable (on a good day, with a tail win) of reaching Darwin. The loss of Darwin would be tragic but it wouldn't really affect the rest of Australia, now would it?

Nuclear weapons are weapons of last resort. They are not weapons of first resort, particularly against a nation which is covered by the US nuclear umbrella. Do you really think that P'yong Y'ang would waste a missile on a small country town and risk their entire nation being turned into a glass ash tray as a consequence? I don't.

Brian Ross wrote

RBS-70s. More than adequate against any potential threat we might be facing at the moment.

"At the moment" being the operative word. How many do we have of this very short ranged, line-of-sight weapon? 10? 12? Australia is 5 million square kilometres. The RBS system would have to be as old as the FFG-7's. Time for defence acquisitions to turn them into fishing reefs and brag to the press about it.

The Australian Army has to protect it's field forces. The RAAF is tasked with protecting Australia. Stop whinging and talk realistically about what threat we supposedly facing which requires greater protection than we already have. All we are facing at the moment are a bunch of Islamist wallies hiding in the valleys and wastes of SW Asia, not a massed air horde thundering over the horizon...

Brian Ross wrote

What the MSM presents and what the specialist media reveals are often too different things. You may have believed you saw the Patriots shooting down IRBMs but after the Gulf War much better analysis and revelations showed they were actually shooting down the SCUD missile boosters, not their warheads. They knocked the warheads off course in the process but didn't actually destroy them. I'd recommend you actually read about what you're talking, before you set finger to keyboard.

OK, they hit the boosters going a zillion miles and hour. If they could do that, they would not have much trouble shooting down Migs and Sukhois. SAM' s are very effective in shooting down warplanes. They are relatively cheap compared to buying aircraft and training pilots, which is why so many poor countries use SAMs. They can deny large areas of territory to even generation 4 aircraft Russian SAM 1,2, 3, 6, and 8's were less sophisticated than Patriot and they worked just fine on Skyhawks, Phantoms, Thunderchiefs and Intruders. Patriot was the first SAM which had it's own active seeker head and was the most sophisticated SAM in the world at the time of the Gulf War.

SAMs are also quite inflexible. I suggest you look up the consequences of the Duncan Sandys' White Paper on the RAF and their defence of that nation. It was quite far reaching. Manned fighter aircraft (or in the future, unmanned aircraft) can be used for multiple tasks and are reusable, compared to SAMs which can perform one task only - once.

Brian Ross wrote

Our Army is not "bankrupt". MBTs are heavy - most over 60 tonnes. Our infrastructure is not designed to cope with vehicles of such mass. Nor is it designed to cope with their transporters either. We either have to sail them around the coast or land them by specialised aircraft. As we are not faced with oppositon tanks, we don't really need them except for training. The M1a1 AIMs are too heavy for most of Australia or its main operating environment in the Pacific. Medium tanks can be built. We could build them ourselves. That'd please your little heart, wouldn't it, Bogan?

I hardly know where to start refuting that crap, Brian. Using your peculiar logic, Australia should turn our miserable total of 40 M1A1 tanks into fishing reefs because they are too big and too heavy to transport?

Nope. We could retain them as a core element in a heavy armoured force. However, they are not really suitable for use outside of Australia.

"Too big and heavy" was exactly the reason given in WW2 for the British not making tanks comparable to the German tanks. The British government "experts" claimed they could not transport large, heavy tanks. The poor performance of allied armoured units after D-Day was attributed to "Tiger terror", where a handful of German Tigers and Panthers could, and did, hold up entire Allied divisions. The Brits finally built the 50 ton Centurions to match the German tanks and all of the objections about transporting them magically disappeared. Australia can transport 60 ton tanks.(we had no trouble with 50 ton Centurions) One rail coal transporter holds 62 tons of coal. I have seen coal trains a mile long.

The Brits were constrained by the loading gauge of their railways. The tighter turns they use and narrower, older tunnels, prevented them from having larger vehicles. In 1944, they decided that was no longer sustainable and created the Centurion tank as their first "universal tank". However, it was a long, hard battle to get the Tank Design Department to be allowed to do that. German Tigers, Panthers, and all the fantasy-waffe were pretty useless. They never won a battle and invariably their large size and weight proved intractable for the most part of the battlefield. They could dominate the area 'round them but when they attempted to move, they invariably suffered more losses to mechanical breakdown than they did to enemy action. There were so few of these wonder weapons that they were rarely encountered in North West Europe. I'd recommend you read David Fletcher's masterful work on the Tiger tank - written from British intelligence reports which demonstrated after the initial panic how pretty damn useless they were.

Oh, and before you ask, the Tiger and the Panther were not the dominate German tanks. The Panzer IV was. It was smaller and lighter and mechanically more reliable than the other two. Indeed, when Hitler ordered that all Panzer IV production be turned over to self-propelled guns, Heinz Guderian was so incensed he reversed the decision (which he could as Inspector General of Armoured Vehicle Production).

Brian Ross wrote

China lacks the capability to move more than a Brigade to it's offshort islands. It does not have the capability nor will it have the capability to move even that amount of forces to Australia for the next 10-15 years. You fears are alarmist and pointless - like so much of what you type

Brian, I had to move home twice lately and I had to jettison many books (which stacked in boxes are very heavy). But I had a large book on the Chinese Armed Forces that was thirty years old, and I remember that China had plenty of Soviet type amphibious ships which it had built expressly for the task of invading Taiwan. They are now building two new classes of amphibious, ocean going ships similar to US models. And they don't need ocean going ships to invade Taiwan. I think our readers would disagree with your claim that they can not build such ships very quickly.

Moving a Brigade, across the Straits of Taiwan is considerable easier than moving such a force over 5,000 kilometres to Darwin from Hainan Island. When the PLAN has that capability, I might just start getting alarmed but as they don't and don't appear to planning to, "plenty of Soviet type amphibious ships," does not present much of a threat.

You might have noticed the new yellow wheat wagons on our rail systems recently? Australian rail transporter manufacturers were unable to build new wheat transporters fast enough for our wheat boards immediate needs. So the boards reluctantly ordered 48 from China. They were so cheap and could be built so quickly that the boards thought they were crap, and that they would only last for a couple of years. But they needed them right now, and they could not wait for a "better" Australian product. The Chinese transporters were built in just 3 months and were just as good as the Australian ones. The wheat boards were so impressed with the price and speed of construction that they ordered 48 more. What they can do with rail wagons they can do with ships.

As I don't frequent freight yards where the NSW railways have their wheat transporters parked, I'll take your word for it. I have examined several pieces of engineering that a previous employer once received from a company that had them done in the PRC. They were pieces of crap and we had to remanufacture them. The Chinese can be good at doing some work but that work needs to be constantly supervised and needs to pass inspection. Those wheat wagons might be good. They might not. I hope they are better than the Chinese tapwear that was purchased for the Perth Children's hospital...

The air forces were extremely important and so were the ground forces. The Iraqi's did not start running until the ground forces, which included their divisional helicopter gunships, attacked.

Really? Gee, that is rather different to the accounts I have read. Ever hear of the "Highway of Death"?

The naval contribution was not so significant but that does not preclude them getting credit also. The idea that the Air force can win a war by itself is a myth, Brian. Even in the Falkland's war, the British Navy thought it could win the war without the ground forces by simply blockading the Falklands. Marine Major Ewen Southby-Tailyour wrote in his book "Reasons in Writing" that the Royal Navy considered the amphibious force " an embuggerence".

Ah, that'd be why they transported them half-way 'round the globe then, now would it? Grow up, Bogan no one has suggested any war could be won by air forces alone. Stop erecting strawman arguments.

As a matter of fact, the Falklands war is a glaring example of how your narrow minded thinking can blow up in your face, Brian. The UK defence "experts" wanted to sell the Invincible to Australia "because aircraft carriers are obsolete". Defence "experts" in Australia convinced Bob Hawke to sell the Invincible when we got it, for the same reason. UK "experts" wanted to scrap the amphibious ships because "Britain would never operate outside of Europe again". The RAF convinced the UK government that it would always be able to give air cover to the RN.

But in the Falklands war, all of those confident prognostications went to shit. The RAF was so irrelevant to the war that they dreamed up and bragged about "the longest bombing raid in history" where they used every tanker in the RAF and a zillion gallons of Jet A-1 to get one Vulcan to Port Stanley airfield, where one bomb out of twenty just nicked the runway. Some triumph.

The defence "experts" weren't members of the Royal Navy, Bogan. They were invariably civilians, working for the Treasury were acting on the orders from the Government to "cut costs, no matter what." And so they cut costs and retired ships and aircraft and so on. The services had little to do with it. It was all Maggie Thatcher's fault. As related, she was ignorant even of the retirement of the ARK ROYAL aicraft carrier several years before the Falkland/Malvinas war happened.

Brian Ross wrote

Basically, yes. However, that was before we saw how bad the Iraqi morale was. Armour was not the winner in the Gulf War air power was. We could have sent a boy scout with a pop gun and still won

Australia would not have had enough boy scouts and if their pop guns had been more than 30 years old the DOD would have turned them into fishing reefs.

Yeah, yeah, sure. What ever you want to believe, Bogan.

Brian Ross wrote

All our Leopards are gone, Bogan. Been gone now for nearly 15 years. Indeed, there is one as a gate guard at the barracks near where I live.

Make sure that they keep the sprockets greased Brian. After Dunkirk, the British were stripping artillery pieces out of museums and parks, and begging those gun nut Americans to donate their rifles to Britain so that they might be able to defend themselves. According to author Richard Pawle (the Secret War)The Brits even got a WW1 tank operational again.

Park all 108 Leopards out in the desert next to Pine Gap and put a fence around them. If we ever need them, four men in an obsolete tank are a lot more of a dangerous proposition than four men running around on the ground with the most modern Steyr rifles.

The Leopards were clapped out. They had massive quantities of Asbestos in their turret armour. Their electronics all vented inwards to help heat the vehicles in a German winter. They were hell holes to man in the Northern Territory apparently. They were worn out and superseded. They are gone now, those that are left have been stripped of all their naughty bits.

Brian Ross wrote

We now have the Abrams M1a1 AIMs. Not quite the most advanced version of that vehicle but near enough to allow us to dominate the parade grounds of Australia...

That figures, we got the M1A1's did we? The Philippines probably got the M1A2's, along with most of our Steyr's.

The Philippines got no M1s, Bogan, something you even admit to lower down...

Brian Ross wrote

Australia's current foreign aid budget is only 4 billion dollars.

Oh, sorry, only $4 billion every year, not 5? How much would 6 Grumman AWACS that we could never afford for 40 years have cost us Brian? 40x4 equals 160 billion dollars. We could buy a lot of fighters, tanks, and AWACS for that, Brian.

Not really. What we do buy is a lot of gratitude, Bogan. Something you appear only too willing to cede to the Chinese for some reason...

Brian Ross wrote

The recipients for that money are very grateful. You are being Xenophobic (as per usual).

Not enough to ever stop them complaining about Australia and whining for more.

I suppose can always just let the Chinese to buy their gratitude, hey?

Brian Ross wrote

It is not my job to attempt to explain the procurement process to you. Do some research.

I am not surprised that you can not explain the procurement process to me. Because from where I stand, they must all be crazy, and more concerned about their careers and improving their golf scores than actually doing their jobs.

It's not that I cannot explain it to you, Bogan. It is that I won't waste my time doing so. You're only interesting in whinging, moaning and complaining, right? Tsk, tsk.

Brian Ross wrote

China? Expansionist? Really? Doesn't seem to have expanded all that much in the last 500 years...

Disingenuous, Brian. Who do you think you can convince with that half truth? A half truth told as a whole truth is a complete lie.

As I have said, China has not expanded all that much. Compare what they have taken control of - Sinkiang, Tibet and the outer islands of the South China Sea. Hardly worth sweating about particularly when you consider they have owned those regions before European Imperialism distracted them.

Brian Ross wrote

China lacks the means to invade Australia.

China is very quickly attaining the means to invade Australia, while our fighter force and tank forces shrink.

No it is not. Stop being alarmist. Stop being Paranoid. Stop being Sinophobic.

Brian Ross wrote

Why should they bother when they can buy everything they need from us and sell us the output of their factories made with those raw materials? You are speaking Sinophobic fantasies.

Why should they bother paying for them when they are strong enough to just take them?

Because they aren't strong enough to take anything, Bogan. Their last piece of military adventurism was a disaster. Forgotten Vietnam in 1979? Mmmm?

Brian Ross wrote

Sinophobic nonsense. China has over 200 officially recognised racial and ethnic groups within it's population. It is not expansionist. It has merely recovered places that were, before European Imperialism removed them, once part of China. China is no direct threat to Australia or it's environs. Time to face reality, not your paranoid delusions.

Whatever minorities exist in China had better keep their heads down an accept Han Chinese domination or this is what happens to them.

For the most part they do. They actually do quite well out of Han domination. Only the Uighur don't and they paying the penalty.

The South China Sea is an international waterway as agreed upon by all parties in the International Law of the Sea. Such a law is fair to everybody, but China wants it all. Ask the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, India, and Indonesia if they regard China as expansionist or not. Why are you defending expansionist China, Brian? Are you getting kickbacks like Sam Dastyari or those members of the Victorian Labor Party?

They may regard is as "expansionist" yet looked at dispassionately all the PRC has done is recover regions that once belonged to it, Bogan.

Brian Ross wrote

The RAAF received second-hand 707s from QANTAS. All were converted to inflight refueling configuration. They have been replaced with KC-30 Airbus 330 aircraft. The RAAF now operates WEDGETAIL Boeing 737-400 AEW&C aircraft. Time to catch up with the present 21st century.

Thank God (or somebody) for that. Only took them 40 years. But the fact remains that our fighter force and tank force keeps shrinking. And 30 years after the Gulf war showed everyone that Australia was unfit to contribute ground forces to combat a "tier one" enemy, we are still in the same position and have no plans to change that.

As I have indicated, the Australian Government chose not to contribute ground forces, beyond the SASR because they did not want to become involved in another Vietnam-like quagmire. As we saw, that is exactly what happened to the yanks. I can imagine you screaming about that...

Brian Ross wrote

The F-22 has been surpassed in most areas by the F-35.

Given it's staggering cost, and the fact that the first operational F-22 flew in 1991, I should hope so. I heard we dropped our purchase from 75 planes to 40 because of the cost blowout, and then increased it to 60 when the RAAF went ballistic. But it was just as well the RAAF did not buy the F-22's, 28 years ago. They are still the best fighter planes in the sky, but at 28 years old, your friends in the Defence Department would be plotting to turn all of them into fishing reefs like our 30 year old FFG-7's.

The RAAF is still purchasing 75 F-35s. We have never attempted to purchase the F-22.

Brian Ross wrote

The F-22 has the advantage in size and speed but that is all.

Wrong. The F-22 is a long ranged (1860 miles) fighter with "not a pound for air to ground". It is more manoeuvrable than the short range (670 miles) F-35 because it is a purely a fighter and has thrust vectoring. The F-35 is a multi role aircraft that was supposed to be cheaper than the F-22. But the F-35 went the way of every other "consortium" project which was bought "off the plan" by spruikers claiming incredible performance at reasonable cost. Same as the F-111, which became hideously expensive and where Australia waited so many years for delivery that the US had to lend us 24 Phantoms to tide us over. Same as the F-18, which had disappointing performance, and cost a lot more than the cheaper, longer ranged, and much better performing, F-15.

The F-15 was originally designed "not a pound for ground". It acquired that capability so that by the F-15E version it had become a dedicated strike aircraft. The F-22 already has many "pounds for ground" built into it's design, Bogan. You're talking about decisions which were made over 20 years ago. The F-22 is an early stealth fighter that uses old technology to defeat radar. It cannot operate in bad weather without degrading it's anti-radar capability. Yes, it has longer range than the F-35 but the F-35 has sufficient range, with inflight refuelling for anything the RAAF is going to need.

Why don't we ever learn, Brian? Why do we just keep making the same mistakes? Over and over and over again?

We do and we don't, Bogan. It is the nature of a democratic polity that Governments change and the upper-echelons of the bureaucracy change. We could go back to the old days of the Public Service Mandarins but all that does is build resistance to change for resistance's sake rather than efficiency.

Brian Ross wrote

The F-35 has more advanced electronic systems, including EO (Electro-Optical) systems which can automatically detect missile launches against the aircraft and can make the aircraft "disappear" to the pilot, allowing him to peer in all directions. The A-10 is old hat and clapped out. It was designed to fight the massive Russian hordes on the inner-German border. The F-35 is the aircraft for future wars. It is stealthy, it has an advanced engine and is uniquely adaptable to our air force's needs. There is literally no other aircraft flying which is comparable.

It probably does have improvements over the F-22 for the simple reason that it took so damned long to design it and build it, that technology moved along, along with the skyrocketing price.

Exactly! Well done, some sense from you at last!

Brian Ross wrote

Smart thinking, hey? No, in reality we didn't send aircraft or armour because we wanted to limit our engagement with the Gulf War. We do not want to repeat Vietnam.

Brian, when Saddam invaded Kuwait and the yanks told them to "get out or else", the Arabs on my job site were telling everybody in the lunch room that "America can never defeat Iraq." I told the Arabs, and I quote, "The United States Army will go through the Iraqi Army faster than Guderians panzers went through France. I don't think you have any conception of what it is that is going to come down on those crazy Iraqis." Kuwait was not Vietnam and even a dumb electrician like me could see it. How come you defence department "experts" could not? How can you be so blind?

Many defence experts in the media and outside it were proclaiming the same thing. They were wrong. I was cautious at the time and didn't make my opinion of the Iraqis well known. All militaries train to fight their last war. The US Coalition trained to fight the Soviets on the inner German border. They trained to do that for over 40 years. The Iraqis trained to fight the Iranians. The allied coalition suddenly found themselves in a new environment where there were virtually no civilians and they had free reign of all their nice, shiny, new toys. Guess who won? It wasn't the Iraqis who were trained to fight a largely static war where as the Coalition was trained to fight a highly mobile, 24 hour war.

The Iraqis were shown to be equipped with what the Soviets called, "monkey model" tanks. They didn't fire either tungsten or depleted uranium shells. They could not penetrate the Coalition's tanks. Their T-72s were badly designed and blew up easily. They lost, the Coalition won.

Brian Ross wrote

*SIGH* Myths and lies, hey? The F/A-18 was more advanced than the F-16 and less advanced than the F-15. It had BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile capabilities which the F-16 didn't. It had a more capable radar than the F-16. It had twin engines, which the F-16 didn't. It cost about 3/4 the cost of an F-15. It was adopted by several middle-ranking powers - Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Finland, and of course the US Navy. It was a fine aircraft for us, despite your moans and bitches.

Brian, the US Navy was so disappointed with the F-18's performance they came close to scrapping the whole project. But that would have caused political problems because the plane was a consortium project with foreign countries involved in the financing. The US Air Force flew the F-16 off against the F-18 to decide which plane was superior, and which one the US Air Force would buy as a "lightweight" fighter to augment the F-15. The F-16 was better and a lot cheaper. We got the loser.

Actually they didn't. The competition was between the YF-16 and the YF-17 - a completely different design which was similar enough to allow the US Navy to make up it's mind. The YF-16 was never going to win for two reasons. It didn't have two engines and it was promoted by the USAF. The inter-service rivalry is so intense between the US Navy and the USAF that anything the USAF wants, the Navy will automatically decide against. Look at the history of the F-111B. The F-16 was never going to be adopted by the US Navy.

As for cost, at the time I was keenly interested in our new fighters and a read the Pacific Defence Reporter every month. I can't remember the cost of the F-16, but I do remember that the F-15 cost $18 million dollars a throw and DOD said that it was too expensive. Imagine everybody's surprise when the cost of the woeful F-18 eventually reached $25 million a throw?

Air Force aircraft costs are hard to explain to laymen like you, Bogan. It all depends on when the aircraft are purchased. If the aircraft are ordered and paid for early in the production run, they are appreciably more expensive than if they are purchased later in the production run because of economies of scale. F-15 prices varied quite appreciably during it's production run. My friend Carlo Kopp has explained it quite well on his webpage devoted to defence matters. The RAAF was forced, because of the age of the Mirage fighters that preceded the F/A-18s, to order them earlier, when they were more expensive. They offset that somewhat by having them produced in Melbourne. The later versions of the F/A-18 were considerably cheaper. We couldn't wait though. The F-15 would also have been ordered earlier in it's production run so they would have cost more than later ones. Then you have the costs of the spares holdings which are required to keep the aircraft flying. That adds quite a lot to the cost. Most people seem to expect aircraft costs to be static and not to be variable. The way in which exchange rates move can also appreciably increase or decrease the costs. It is all rather complex and a moving feast.

Brian Ross wrote

And today it has 2+1 Destroyers and 8 Frigates. It equals the number and exceeds the capability of the RAN of 1942. Your moans are just that, moans. As I said, a long, long way behind the times..

Australia did not have frigates in WW2 because the name of that class of warship (a large anti submarine warfare only vessel) was not coined until 1942, for work in the Battle of the Atlantic. The first "frigates" were "obsolete" ex US WW1 destroyers that the Australian DOD would have made into fishing reefs if they could, and they would have lost us the war.

Australia had destroyers - which is what frigates today are equivalent to. Destroyers today are equivalent to cruisers. Remember?

Brian Ross wrote

IIRC you once claims you couldn't get a job in WA 'cause you wouldn't pay for a WA 'leccies license. Correct?

That is correct. When my NSW firm of Downers got short of work they told me there was work in WA and that they would recommend me to the WA branch of Downer, but I needed to get a WA license first. I paid $500 dollars for WA license and was knocked back by the WA branch, even though I would have been simply been transferring from the NSW branch of Downer to the WA branch. (They are a bit parochial over there) After the WA license expired, I told future employers during the boom that they would need to a express a real interest in my application before I would waste $500 dollars on a license just to apply for a job.

So, you were too stingy to pay for your license or to move to WA? How unsurprising.

Oh, and thanks you've just confirmed your identity to.

Brian Ross wrote

I went to WA during the boom. You could walk into any of the big mining companies in Perth and be hired on the spot. 10,000 people came to WA a week in the early months of the boom. Sounds to me like your just moaning. How unsurprising.

If they were so in need of highly trained and well equipped tradesmen they would not have created so many hoops to jump through. I even approached my union in it's Sydney office and asked about work in WA. They said that they did not know anything about finding work in mining. Later on the newspaper informed me that my own union (ETU) had opened two offices in the USA to help US electricians to find jobs in Australian mining. Was I incensed or what! I damned near resigned from the ETU that day. The usual crap. Foreigners are everything, Australians are nothing. No wonder former Labor voters vote for Pauline.

As I said, all you had to do was go to Perth and apply in person. They were hiring people off the street they were that desperate for workers at the mines.

Brian Ross wrote

The Philippines has 400 M1a2 tanks? Wow! Really? The Philippines Army actually doesn't have M1a2 tanks. It has 7 Scorpion Light Tanks. Tsk, tsk

I checked WIKI and you are correct. I don't know where I got that info from. Before you start crowing, my assertion was no more wrong than your assertion that the F-22 "has the advantage in size and speed over the F-35, but that is all."

I don't crow. I acknowledge that you acknowledge you were wrong. Why therefore can't you be wrong on other matters, Bogan?

Brian Ross wrote

Really? When? Where? Evidence please

That information came from a book called "Guns in Australia." The book said that during the Crimean War, the colonial government handed out Brown Bess muskets, and powder and shot, to the male citizenry of Sydney. It further stated that few of these guns were ever handed back.

I am unable to find reference to any book entitled simply "Guns in Australia". Until you can produce more detail I think we should just ignore that point, Bogan.

Brian Ross wrote

Gee, was that cos they were being misused? Nah, of course not. You really can't complain, there are now more guns in private hands than there were before Port Arthur. Even the Sporting Shooters admits that

Double standard again, Brian. You claim that all Muslims can not be blamed for the violence of the few, but you are advocating that all gun owners should be regarded as potential mass murderers for the actions of a few, and have their self loading guns taken off them. I know how your brain thinks, Brian. Whites get condemned, non whites get a free pass.

Nope, nope. Doesn't matter what colour was their skin, if they had a military style semi-automatic, magazine fed, long arm or a pump-action shotgun, they lost the right to own that weapon. It was one the few good things that John Howard did during his Prime-Ministership. If you own a bolt-action or a lever action or a pump-action rifle, you're fine - as long as you belong to a shooting club or association.

Brian Ross wrote

China has the means to move troops a limited distance to Taiwan. However, the Army of the ROC is more than a match for any attempted landing, which is why the PRC has not attempted it (and because the US Navy would intervene). The PRC is no threat to Australia.

Brian, it was confidently predicted in 1940 that it was impossible for Japan to invade Malaya because it did not even possess any amphibious capability. But they still did it. It was confidently predicted that Japan could not supply an army strong enough to overcome the entrenched 100,000 -120,000 Commonwealth troops in Malaya, but they still did it. It was confidently predicted that the Japanese could not move soldiers through the jungle, but they still did it. And they won.

Different situations. The Japanese had a very large maritime force composed of multiple civil transports. China does not. Ships are only one element of moving a large military force, Bogan. You need naval support, you need air support 'cause you need to protect your transport ships and you need to put your forces ashore against an opposing force which is hell bent on stopping you. China doesn't have either. We have submarines, we have strike aircraft, we have AEW&C aircraft, etc. The RAAF is considerably bigger than the RAF and RAAF components in Malaya were in 1941 and much better equipped. Nor should we forget our regional allies who would be watching what the PRC was doing with keen interest.

Brian Ross wrote

There is several thousands of kilometres between southern China and Northern Australia. It is a long way to travel and an even greater distance to mount a successful military operation over.

The Japanese had even further to go and they nearly arrived on Australia's doorstep in six months with no amphibious ships at all.

The Japanese weren't faced with large, competent, well trained naval and air forces...

Indeed, there wasn't much between Japan and Australia that was well eqipped, trained or led. Something the Japanese showed when they sliced through them like a knife through butter. Compare that to their efforts against the Soviets and then, later the well trained and equipped and led Australians, British and American forces later in the war...

Brian Ross wrote

The PLAN operates BTW an aircraft carrier and is building two more, all with ski jumps.

That is three more than Australia has.

True however it will take five to ten years to train on them and figure out how to use them. They have only undertaken short range voyages in the South China Sea. We may lack aircraft carriers but our "great and powerful friends" don't.

Brian Ross wrote

But the PLAN has not been successful at operating their ships on a sustained basis on very long operations.

That will change with time.

Yes but not today or tomorrow or the day after. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to become proficient in the use of a new weapon system like an aircraft carrier...

Brian Ross wrote

Actually, most of the PLAAF consisted 30 years ago mainly of MiG-21s (or deravites), MiG-19s and MiG-17s.

The book I had on the PLA stated that 80% of PLAAF fighter planes were MIG 17's.

Your book was wrong.

Brian Ross wrote

The MiG-17 gave BTW the US Navy and USAF quite a run for their money in North Vietnamese hands over Hanoi.

They did, which is why the US began building super manoeuvrable light fighters like the F-16 to counter them. But as even the F-105 Thunderchief "bombers" pilots (actually "century series fighters) said (from the book "Thud Ridge") "we shot down more of them than they ever did of us."

Actually, it was why the USAF and the US Navy started to retrain their pilots in air-to-air adversary tactics - something that had neglected in the 10-15 years previous to Vietnam. Once they had those pilots the ratios changed markedly. Oh, and they also introduced the later versions of the F-4 Phantom with slats and a gun in the nose and better missiles.

Brian Ross wrote

Yes, today they are building modern equipment - that is to be expected. However, they are still limited to China and it's immediate environs and will be for at least the next 10-15 years. They are not a direct threat to Australia. QED.

Are you sure? The way the Chinese are acting in the South China Sea, I would predict something ugly happening pretty soon. I'll bet the US Navy has instructed it's captains on patrol in the SCS that if a PLAN navy ship plays silybugggers with them again and steers in front of a US Navy ship, to ram the chinks up the arse and sink them. Time to start preparing now. Who knows before the Chinese will close the South China Sea?

The US Navy has instructed it's captains to obey the Laws of the Seas as it interprets it. Doesn't this remind you of the US Navy attempting to sail in what it claimed were "international waters" in the Black Sea in the 1980s, which was defined by them to be a 3 mile territorial limit but everybody else proclaimed a 12 mile limit? Guess what happened? The US Navy was forced to recognise that the Soviet Union had a 12 mile limit and quietly adopted it. Gee, funny that, hey?

Of course, we could have a repeat of the Iran Air Flight 655 which was shot down by mistake by an overly aggressive US Navy ship commander. I wonder how el Presidente' Trump would view that, considering his "friendship" with Comrade Xi Jinping?

[Wally Raffles]

I spoke too soon. This "Quote" bombardment still lives. I doubt anyone is reading these exchanges. Take it to Private Messages. It is so boring.