Australia's defence discussion

[billy the kid]

When I first started reading the exchanges...I thought...interesting....
Now it appears that its just a pissing contest between two blokes with a military history....
The posts are not worth reading to be honest....

[brian ross]

No one is asking anybody else to read anything. This is really an old, old argument that I have been having with Bogan now for the last what, 15 years plus? He refuses to accept that his views are immature and based upon his bitterness at his childhood. He hates migrants, he hates Indigenous Australians, he hates Muslims, he hates basically anybody of the left or even of the mild right. Anybody who dares to disagree with him, you name it, he hates them.

[Black Orchid]

Anybody who dares to disagree with him, you name it, he hates them.

Sounds much like yourself, Brian.

[brian ross]

Anybody who dares to disagree with him, you name it, he hates them.

Sounds much like yourself, Brian.

Nah, I don't hate people, Black Orchid. I may dislike their opinions but hate requires active seeking them out and attacking them. Bogan does that. I don't. Witness his numerous attacks here in these Fora.

[Black Orchid]

Anybody who dares to disagree with him, you name it, he hates them.

Sounds much like yourself, Brian.

Nah, I don't hate people, Black Orchid. I may dislike their opinions but hate requires active seeking them out and attacking them. Bogan does that. I don't. Witness his numerous attacks here in these Fora.

I have not seen Bogan 'attack' anyone but look in the mirror, Brian. You appear to be totally blind to it.

[Bogan]

After trouncing you on the climate debate thread, Brian, I am sure that you are eager to try and even the score on this topic. At least you have a fair degree knowledge of this topic. The reason you lost the Climate debate is because you did not know your topic at all. All you could do is to cut and paste articles from alarmist sites which supported your view, ignore crucial questions, and stand on your dignity when it all came apart. I wish you better luck on this topic.

Brian Ross wrote

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'"

Brian, I have read books on the fighting in Afghanistan, and the "cab rank" of circling allied attack aircraft ensured very good air support to allied soldiers in close contact with the enemy. But that air support was considerably less feared by the enemy than the sound of approaching Apaches, which always had the enemy breaking off engagements and fleeing in terror. That gunship support could not always be forthcoming, because they were a finite resource and their use was often prioritised. For the Australian Army to depend entirely upon our allies for gunship support while on active service is a disgrace and a measure of how ineffective our woefully equipped Army has become. It is also a measure of how stupid our DOD procurement people are, who would actually purchase an entirely new type of gunship of unknown reliability and unknown serviceability, which crashed into Sydney harbour on it's demonstration flight.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I don't know the legal wording of ANZUS, but it would all boil down to "an attack on one is an attack on all." The liberation of Kuwait was a UN sanctioned war where a UN member state had been attacked and was asking other UN members to come to it's aid. That UN member was not just a member, it had been a founding member of the League of Nations. I would have thought you would have supported such a war against a tiny UN member from a war mongering, psychopathic aggressor? Unfortunately, the Australian Army is not equipped to take on a "tier one" common enemy on open ground, so we had to take a rain check on our UN responsibilities in Kuwait. And God help us if our "army" ever has to take on a "tier one" enemy on our own countries open ground.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Thank you, thank you, Brian Ross. Exactly, Brian. You have just given a valid reason why Australia should have better defences, and it's own ICBM's and nuclear weapons. I never thought that Australia should have nuclear weapons, until we were directly threatened by a nutcase with nuclear weapons and IRBM's.

Brian Ross wrote

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?

Yes I do. Because the reason why Australia was behind the USA for 50 years is because the Australian Army is a bankrupt army who is way back in the queue when it comes to modern defence purchases, and that has been in that situation for too long. Combat attack helicopters were proven to be essential weapons 50 years ago in Vietnam, and we waited almost 40 years before we purchased these crucial weapons. And then we bought a dud instead of a combat proven weapon. The Australian Army is so combat ineffective in terms of modern weapons that it will take another 50 years before we get a modern armoured of mechanised brigade that can contribute to our allies when facing a common "tier one" enemy on open ground. Provided, of course, that Australia is not already a new province of China.

It should be easy to obtain personnel able to maintain Apaches. Just give priority to US, British and Israeli citizens who have those skills in our immigration program. Australia is an attractive country for migrants and we should choose those who we need and who can contribute to our community. But no, we are more concerned with importing unassimilatable "refugees" like Muslims, or those useless Sudanese and Somalis who's only skill set appears to be armed robbery, home invasion, muggings, riots, car jacking, welfare dependency, and being jail inmates.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Brian, when are you going to stop flogging this dead horse? Whenever it was, that the Australian Army stopped calling it's battalions "battalions" and instead called them "regiments", I don't know, and I don't care. But I called my former unit the 1/15th a "battalion" because that is exactly what it was. If you want to continue wasting time pretending you are the language police, then go ahead. But as far as I am concerned, this matter is profoundly unimportant and the subject is closed.

Brian Ross wrote

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

I will leave it to our readers as to whether they think that the family of nutters who have a history of committing serious acts of insane violence for 50 years, who driven their resource rich country into the ground, who have initiated policies which has caused the mass starvation deaths of their own people, who are more concerned with their own power and prestige than the welfare of their imprisoned and suffering people, and who now possess nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, are sane or not.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Articles in "the Australian" quality newspaper displayed illustrations depicting the range of different classes of NK missiles in the form of semi circles superimposed on a map of South East Asia. These articles showed that the North of Australia was in range of the latest NK IRBM.

Brian Ross wrote

The loss of Darwin would be tragic but it wouldn't really affect the rest of Australia, now would it?

Please, please, please, Brian. Could you lefties publicise that sentiment far and wide? Pauline would love to get a unanimous Darwin vote. And when she does you lefties will be wandering around like zombies wondering how she did it? Once we had the Brisbane Line, now you trendy lefties in the South West of Australia want a nuclear Darwin Line.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

First you called into question the credibility of that US nuclear umbrella, and then you imply that the USA would automatically engage in a nuclear exchange with Pyongyang on Australia's behalf. Contradiction, Brian.

Brian Ross wrote

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, if that nutter in NK did just that, and NK hit Oz with a nuke (hopefully they will target Canberra), and threatened the USA with a nuclear strike if it launched a retaliatory strike, the US government would at the very least have to consider whether it was worth losing a few of it's principle cites for a token ally, with a token military, like Australia? Or, would the prospect of losing some of their principle cities be worth the satisfaction of obliterating the NK's forever? That may seem like an interesting academic exercise for you and me. But it is a deadly serious question for countries like South Korea and Japan who would be in the fallout zone of any nukes impacting on NK. The seriousness of an actual nuclear exchange between NK and the US was considered so credible at the time that when the North Koreans threatened Guam with a missile strike, news reports claimed that the Russians were already partly evacuating civilians from Russian cities close to the NK border.

Brian Ross wrote

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...

First of all, I asked you how many of these very short ranged SAM's we had and I suggested it was only 10 or 12? I think that the reason why you did not answer that is because I was right. We have a token force of very short ranged SAM's, so that the DOD can say to the public that Australia has SAM's, without crossing their fingers behind their backs.

And once again you dismiss the rise of China as inconsequential. I think if Churchill was an Australian and was alive today, he would be telling anybody who would listen, including you leftist appeasers, that "war with China will come."

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I prefer to use my own judgement instead of reading a report by a Sir Humphrey clone which tells the government what the government wants to hear. SAM's are effective weapons used to augment the small air forces of small countries who can not afford a large modern air force. They are cost effective weapons and they work pretty damned well. One of those small countries is Serbia, who shot down a much vaunted US F117 stealth plane with a SAM. Such a feat calls into question whether the whole "stealth" philosophy is valid? The more complicated and expensive a weapon system gets, the more likely that some smarty will think of a simple countermeasure which negates the whole horrendously expensive thing.

Brian Ross wrote

Nope. We could retain them (M1A1 tanks) as a core element in a heavy armoured force. However, they are not really suitable for use outside of Australia.

If you told the US Army in Kuwait that M1 tanks were "not suitable for use beyond Australia", Brian, you could have wiped out the entire US Army in Kuwait. They would all fall about and die laughing.

Brian Ross wrote

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).

All very interesting. But your claim was that Australia was unable to transport 60 ton M1A1 tanks, which is preposterous. I have a friend in road transport who goes all over Australia transporting very long and heavy prayer wheels (wind turbines), very long and heavy ferro concrete bridge lintels, and immense 200 ton capacity tippers for the mining industry.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Brian, the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces had no amphibious capability at all and they managed to ship entire divisions all across the Pacific to wherever they wanted to go. Russian designed amphibious ships are good ships and plentiful enough in the PLAAF right now. The Japanese in WW2 would have gleefully traded their samurai swords for ships like that in the Pacific war. The PLAAF are at this very moment building large ocean going amphibious warships of two different classes. Their modern warship shipbuilding capability is impressive. And they don't need large ocean going amphibs to take Taiwan. Do you think that building warships suited to a global navy might indicate that they have global ambitions?

Brian ross wrote

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

Yeah, I did. And your point was.....??????

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Your point was that Australia could not be invaded because the RAAF and RAN would sink 'em before they got here. So, who needs a modern mechanised army? My point was that defence experts keep inventing scenarios which justify their defence purchases, and they too frequently get it wrong. Then defence personnel find themselves fighting wars that they were never supposed to fight, using weapons that were never intended to be used in that particular theatre of operations.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Now you are trying to blame Maggie for the woefull state of the British Armed Forces. Could I remind you that the Labour governed, increasingly socialist economy of Britain was once called "the sick man of Europe"? The unions in particular were out of control and were disrupting the British economy so much that Prime Minister Wilson, fed up of trying to talk sense to socialist idiots, simply resigned from public office and retired. I can still remember the cartoon comment by either Rigby or Bruce Petty, depicting Britain as a double decker bus full of horrified people, heading for a cliff. While the driver, who looked like Wilson, calmly walked away. But then you love socialism, Brian. Go figure.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

A four man, one generation out of date tank, is still a better proposition than four infantrymen running around with modern rifles. And if your back is to the wall, and your country is in danger of being over run, then soldiers would not care about any bloody asbestos or how hot the turret is. On the Kokoda Track, mortar bombs were dropped to Australian troops without parachutes because we did not have any parachutes. Those bombs were designed to arm on firing, by the shock of firing. However, after being tossed out of a DC-3 and impacting with the ground, that was enough to arm the mortar bombs, making the bombs extremely dangerous to handle. Every mortar man who used those bombs knew that some of them could explode in the tube when they fired them. That did not stop our soldiers from using the only ammunition they had, and at least one bomb did explode in the tube and did kill at least one crew.

Brian Ross wrote

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...

These countries are unviable, dysfunctional countries with corrupt governments and administrations. They are not so much independent countries as they are Australian dependencies. If the Chinese want them, they can have them, and we will save billions in foreign aid every year on that deal.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

The British Navy transported the British Army halfway around the world to the Falklands because somebody high in the food chain ordered them to do it. But the RN thought it could win the war by itself by blockade. The Exocets and air attacks convinced them otherwise. They then realised that they needed the amphibious forces to do the job.

Brian Ross wrote

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

I am interested in pointing out the shortcomings of Australia's defence policies, our woeful lack of modern weapons, and a DOD purchasing commission who seems to be completely insane. Or corrupt. Or both. But I can see your point of view. You seem to work for DOD in some capacity and you want to defend your public service gravy train of a job from it's critics.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Nobody has ever "owned" the south china sea. It is an international waterway and is recognised as such by the UN Law of the Sea. The Chinese bases are illegal bases designed to intimidate every other nation into accepting Chinese sovereignty over an entire ocean. The Chinese have put themselves at odds with every other civilised country on this and their increasingly belligerent attitude is probably going to lead to war. If it erupts soon, the Chinese will lose. But the longer they leave it the stronger they will get. And if they win, a country like Australia with it's large land area, abundant natural resources, small population, and miserable defences, would be like a lamb to a wolf.

Brian Ross wrote

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

You seem to forget that Red China was a true socialist state at that time, Brian. You know, the sort of socialist state you dream of inflicting on your own people? Mao distrusted his own armed forces and was more interested in a "people's army" where vast numbers of politically controllable militias would defend China. Their regular army, navy and air forces, though numerous, were completely outclassed by the modern standards of the day. Their army was so politically correct that it considered badges of rank to be against the sacred socialist principle of "equality".

It was this politically correct rabble which invaded Vietnam and lost more men killed in 3 months than the yanks lost in 8 years fighting the Vietnamese. Political correctness kills.

But the Red Chinese are not international socialists anymore, Brian. They are national socialists and their armed forces have been transformed into a modern fighting force. It is still commanded by strutting political appointees who are probably just bureaucratic career idiots (like the Australian DOD) , but their armed forces today are modern and numerous, and they are getting more modern and numerous. National socialist China may soon become the world's last superpower. And when they do, the world will be in for interesting times.

Brian Ross wrote

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...

You admitted yourself that the reason why the Australian government did not get involved in the liberation of Kuwait, was because when the Australian government approached the Army on the feasibility of contributing a brigade to aid our allies. The Army told them that our tanks were obsolete, and the Army did not have the types of weapons with which to fight a "tier one" enemy on open ground. So, you are contradicting yourself.

Brian Ross wrote

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

My crack about the F-22 was sarcasm. If we are now going to purchase all 75 F-35's, then I wonder what DOD will chop out of the Army budget to pay for the fact that the price of this aircraft has doubled since were first quoted a price? When is DOD going to stop buying aircraft that are still on the drawing board? We always do and we always end up regretting it. But we never learn.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

My information is that the F-22 is still the most advanced fighter in the sky. It has undergone upgrades and is so advanced that the USA refuses to sell it to anybody, including it's very close and trusted ally, Japan. Japan specifically wanted to buy the F-22 but has been forced to accept the F-35. There has been talk of putting the F-22 production line back in operation to augment the 176 aircraft the already US has. How advanced it is could be gleaned by the fact that both Russia and China tried to copy it with miserable success. The Russians built 24 of their own version before they gave up. The Chinese version is big and looks so bloody bizarre it is a wonder it can even get airborne.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Any stupid, uninformed armchair warrior like me could have predicted the outcome of the Kuwait war.

1. The US was the world's most technologically advanced armed force who's army was lavishly equipped to fight a mobile war on open ground with extremely effective weapons like MLRS, and M1A2 tanks, Apaches, and laser guided artillery shells. The US air force was unmatched in quantity and quality, and it had the world's only stealth aircraft. It would quickly attain air dominance over the battlefield, and in any war, that is critical. The US Army's airborne, sideways looking radar which could pick out individual soldiers moving on the battlefield, had been described in defence circles as an "ungentlemanly" weapon.

2. The Iraqi's were, well Arabs. The outnumbered and outgunned Israelis had wiped the floor with them in every war they had ever fought with them. During the Gulf War, a US AWACS watched incredulously as an Iraqi Mig 29 wingman accidently shot down his own flight leader with a heat seeking missile when both of them took off together from an airfield.

3. The USA had used satellites to watch with astonishment the incompetence that both the Iraqis and Iranians had displayed in their 8 year war with each other. US defence experts described it as "WW1 being fought with WW3 weapons." There were times when the Iraqi and Iranian air force fighter planes had engaged with each other in long dogfights, with nobody on either side being shot down.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

The US Air force investigated the purchase of two cheap "lightweight" fighters to augment the magnificent F-15 which was considered to be too expensive to purchase in sufficient numbers. The two contenders were the YF-17 and the YF-16. The US Air force flew them in competition and the YF-16 won. The US Navy wanted something similar to be an attack aircraft and also to be a fighter to compliment the magnificent but expensive F-14. The F-16 with only one engine and narrow landing gear was considered unsuitable for carrier operations, so the US Navy wanted a "Navalised" version of the YF-17. They strengthened the airframe, added a tailhook, folding wings, catapult attachment, a widened and strengthened undercarriage, and they called the modified plane an FA-18.

Adding on all that stuff greatly increased the cost. And it increased the weight so much that it reduced the performance of the F-18 so badly that the disappointed US Navy nearly canned the whole project. But politically that was difficult to do. The US Navy had offset the costs of developing the F-18 by asking interested foreign buyers to invest in the development of this new, supposedly cheap super plane. And all that foreign money would have gone down the gurgler if the plane was binned, leaving a lot of unhappy allies. So the plane was manufactured and what resulted was an fighter/attack plane comparable in price to a new F-14, but of only moderately good manoeuvrability as a fighter, and unable to even reach mach 2. The US Navy flew an FA-18 against a former East German Mig 29 and the Mig outperformed the FA-18. How embarrassment.

Brian Ross wrote

Air Force aircraft costs are hard to explain to laymen like you, Bogan.

You can say that again. I heard about the US$3000 dollar seat cushions on the B1 bomber and the US$2000 dollar ashtrays.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

The five aircraft considered for the Mirage replacement were the Mirage 2000, the fighter version of the Tornado, the F-16, the F-15, and the FA-18. The Mirage and the F-16 were not considered because the RAAF wanted a twin engined fighter, because several single engined Mirage 3's had been lost through engine failure. That left the already in production Tornado with a known cost and performance. And the F-15 which was already in production with a known cost and performance. And a drawing board plane of unknown but supposedly cheap cost with supposedly good performance. Both the Tornado and the F-15 were rejected because of price.

The price of the F-15 was $18 million dollars each, and I can't remember what the Tornado cost but it would have been about the same. Either of these aircraft would have been good purchases for the RAAF and both would have had similar performances. But as usual our genius's at DOD went for the promises of a cheap aircraft and the sales pitch hype, and we bought a pig in a poke, that was much more expensive and inferior in performance to either the Tornado or the F-15.

The saddest thing about this fiasco was that given the relative cheapness of the F-16 to the F-15, and the fact that the F-18 was about 40% more expensive than the F-15, Australia could possibly have bought 150 F-16's for the same amount of money we spent purchasing the inferior FA-18. Jet engines were becoming more reliable and engine flame outs were becoming less frequent. And if we had double the fighter force of much cheaper and better plane, who would have cared if lost a few anyway through engine failure?

The DOD 's tea ladies would have had more sense than our supposed "defence experts" who bought the woeful FA-18. The US Navy is probably sighing with relief now that they are finally replacing the FA-18.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Oh, here we go again. Unable to admit that our navy is weaker compared to WW2 when our population was one third of what it is today, you resort to sematics and try to tell that us that the three classes of warships that existed in WW2 should not be considered the same class today. Each class should now be considered to be one class higher than what they would have been called in WW2. Sorry, I don't buy that at all. A frigate is still a frigate, a destroyer is still a destroyer, and a cruiser is still a cruiser. Using your perverted logic, you must think that a cruiser today should be called a battleship.

Brian Ross wrote

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

I am not going to pay $500 dollars for the privilege of just applying for a job. Especially since it is only a formality which should not even exist. All trade licenses should be recognised in every state, same as nurses. But that would not suite you public service bureaucrats, would it Brian? The more expensive and time delaying red tape the better for you shiny arses. You think it is just great idea that a job applicant should pay a fee to a government department for the privilege of applying for a job.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Well, I wasn't going to put my house up for rent again and then put all of my property and furniture into storage again, just to drive to western Australia on the off chance that somebody might want to hire me. As for "desperate", they might have bothered putting their jobs on SEEK or Career1 if they wanted East Coast tradies. They didn't, I scoured those sites every day for many months, and even approached my union in person to help me get a job in WA. But the ETU was too busy finding jobs in Australia for Americans than bothering about their own members.

Go Pauline.

Brian wrote

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.

Then ignore it. I may have chucked the book when I moved, but I don't think so. I really liked the book. There was chapter on Lieutenant Watkins Tench from the First Fleet leading a punitive attack on the Cronulla aboriginals who were attacking wood cutting parties of convicts. I agonised over tossing out a lot of my books before I put them in the bin. But it is not on the shelf behind me, and being a large book, I don't think it is packed away in one of the plastic boxes I got from Bunnings to store my books in until I move again. If I still have it, I don't know where it is.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

That is disingenuous, Brian. You are stereotyping again. The principle that you lefties espouse is that individuals must not be judged by their group associations. But Martin Bryant was a "gun owner" and used a semi auto rifle to kill 35 people. Butt hen your logic reverses. Now all "gun owners" must be judged by their group association with Bryant as fellow "gun owners" and all must be considered to be potential mass murderers and punished.

The most interesting thing about you virtue signalling wokes with your insistence on promoting high moral values, is how selectively you apply them.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

China has maritime assets, super tankers, amphibious ships, plenty of fleet support, two aircraft carriers, and the biggest Army in the world. Brian. Talk sense.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Which won't do us much good if the Chinese establish a forward military base on Timor. They are already in Timor with construction crews building roads and sucking up to our dependents.

Brian Ross wrote

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

They were faced with large forces who were badly led and trained, with inferior weapons, and with defence "experts" who grossly underestimated their Asian enemy.

Brian Ross wrote

Indeed, there wasn't much between Japan and Australia that was well equipped, trained or led.

As opposed to Australian forces today, which are well led, competent, but miserably equipped, lacking in numbers, and with defence "experts" who are grossly underestimating their potential enemy.

Brian Ross wrote

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...

True, the allies had had he crap beaten out of them in the first 18 months and they began to realise that all of their confident pre war assumptions about Japanese capability, weapons and tactics, had led them to disaster. They realised they had better start thinking seriously about fielding forces with effective arms in serious numbers that could beat the Japanese. We appear to have forgotten that lesson.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Then could you and your socialist comrades please stop your reflexive attacks on our "friend" and it's President? Before the Yanks start figuring out that a significant part of the Australian population are in fact their enemies, and not worth defending?

Brian Ross wrote

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....

A couple of unproficient aircraft carriers is better than what Australia has, which is no aircraft carrier at all. Perhaps we could buy the HMAS Melbourne back from China if they haven't destroyed it pulling it apart to see how it works? Thanks again, you genius's in the DOD.

Brian Ross wrote

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?

I could not care less about the Black Sea, and my own opinion is that the USA should not provoke the Ivans by sailing warships off their coasts in what is almost an inland sea. It pisses off the Ivans for no reason. Nor do I think that the Ivans should provoke the yanks by sailing warships down the coast of California.

The South China Sea is one of the world's three most important ocean waterways, it is international waters by UN agreement. Every civilised country on planet earth recognises that and opposes China's ridiculous claim that it owns an entire ocean.

Brian Ross wrote

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

What a load of crap. The Iraqis mistook a US FFG-7 frigate for an Iranian oil tanker and put two Exocets in it's guts, killing 60 US navy seamen and almost destroying the ship. The US accepted the Iraqi explanation that it was a mistake, they accepted that it was not a deliberate attack by Iraq on a US warship. But it put US Navy ships in the Gulf on high alert. An Iranian passenger jet aircraft full of pilgrims headed for Mecca approached another US warship ship and ignored radio warnings to identify itself, broadcast on every channel. The warship warned the aircraft it would fire on it if it did not comply.

There is no doubt that the Iranians pilots heard it but the stupid bastards simply ignored it and got shot down. Lesson, don't fly commercial passenger aircraft in war zones where people are jumpy and where their fingers are on triggers. And when some jumpy person with their finger on a trigger demands that you identify yourself, do just that immediately or you might get a Darwin Award.

[Bogan]

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[brian ross]

After trouncing you on the climate debate thread, Brian, I am sure that you are eager to try and even the score on this topic. At least you have a fair degree knowledge of this topic. The reason you lost the Climate debate is because you did not know your topic at all. All you could do is to cut and paste articles from alarmist sites which supported your view, ignore crucial questions, and stand on your dignity when it all came apart. I wish you better luck on this topic.

You really do have a strange, nay a perverted idea of what a "trounce" is, Bogan. Tsk, tsk.

Brian Ross wrote

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'"

Brian, I have read books on the fighting in Afghanistan, and the "cab rank" of circling allied attack aircraft ensured very good air support to allied soldiers in close contact with the enemy. But that air support was considerably less feared by the enemy than the sound of approaching Apaches, which always had the enemy breaking off engagements and fleeing in terror. That gunship support could not always be forthcoming, because they were a finite resource and their use was often prioritised. For the Australian Army to depend entirely upon our allies for gunship support while on active service is a disgrace and a measure of how ineffective our woefully equipped Army has become. It is also a measure of how stupid our DOD procurement people are, who would actually purchase an entirely new type of gunship of unknown reliability and unknown serviceability, which crashed into Sydney harbour on it's demonstration flight.

I'm sure you've read books, Bogan but have you actually grasped what they and I are saying? I have discussed our operations with senior officers and diggers. Their involvement was limited politically.

Australia was involved in Afghanistan because John Howard wanted us to be involved in Afghanistan. However, he didn't want us too involved. He did not want another Vietnam. He listened to what the Defence chiefs said and he decided to send "special forces" - SAS and Commandos to limit our involvement. He later withdrew those forces for use in Iraq. They replaced them with a group of Infantry, etc. Air was limited. Helicopters were limited. He did not want us becoming involved to the point where our other commitments - East Timor, the Solomans, etc. became too much of a strain on the Defence Forces. Attack helicopters were not included because in 2001 they were still working out which one to buy. Bell had protested at the decision to buy Airbus and it was working it's way through the courts. We did not have any attack choppers.

As much as you believe we should have been more heavily involved, Afghanistan and Iraq were "limited wars" to Australia. Very limited. You cannot undo history - why? 'cause it's already happened and until you figure out time travel there is no way to undo what has happened.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I don't know the legal wording of ANZUS, but it would all boil down to "an attack on one is an attack on all."

Does it? Well, that is news to me and to the rest of the entire Australian and US Governments. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the wording 'cause otherwise you're just talkin' bullshit, mate.

The liberation of Kuwait was a UN sanctioned war where a UN member state had been attacked and was asking other UN members to come to it's aid. That UN member was not just a member, it had been a founding member of the League of Nations. I would have thought you would have supported such a war against a tiny UN member from a war mongering, psychopathic aggressor? Unfortunately, the Australian Army is not equipped to take on a "tier one" common enemy on open ground, so we had to take a rain check on our UN responsibilities in Kuwait. And God help us if our "army" ever has to take on a "tier one" enemy on our own countries open ground.

Kuwait, a "founding member of the League of Nations"? Kuwait wasn't granted independence until 1961, well after the League was disolved in 1946. Bogan, you need to learn some history it appears.

I supported the war against Iraq in 1990. I am unsure why you are questioning me. I believed that the Coalition however did not go far enough and topple the Ba'athis regim in Baghdad when they had the chance.

A "tier one enemy" would be one that is comparable to our own defence forces, Bogan. The "tiers" of war are a comparative measure, not an absolute one.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Thank you, thank you, Brian Ross. Exactly, Brian. You have just given a valid reason why Australia should have better defences, and it's own ICBM's and nuclear weapons. I never thought that Australia should have nuclear weapons, until we were directly threatened by a nutcase with nuclear weapons and IRBM's.

I have never denied that Australia should not have better defences, Bogan. It appears you have mistaken my views (not an unusual position for yourself). However, I recognise that you cannot undo history and that history has bearing on the size and nature of the defence forces were do have at the present moment. You, OTOH, appear to want to undo history and rewrite it. Tsk, tks.

Brian Ross wrote

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?

Yes I do. Because the reason why Australia was behind the USA for 50 years is because the Australian Army is a bankrupt army who is way back in the queue when it comes to modern defence purchases, and that has been in that situation for too long. Combat attack helicopters were proven to be essential weapons 50 years ago in Vietnam, and we waited almost 40 years before we purchased these crucial weapons. And then we bought a dud instead of a combat proven weapon. The Australian Army is so combat ineffective in terms of modern weapons that it will take another 50 years before we get a modern armoured of mechanised brigade that can contribute to our allies when facing a common "tier one" enemy on open ground. Provided, of course, that Australia is not already a new province of China.

It should be easy to obtain personnel able to maintain Apaches. Just give priority to US, British and Israeli citizens who have those skills in our immigration program. Australia is an attractive country for migrants and we should choose those who we need and who can contribute to our community. But no, we are more concerned with importing unassimilatable "refugees" like Muslims, or those useless Sudanese and Somalis who's only skill set appears to be armed robbery, home invasion, muggings, riots, car jacking, welfare dependency, and being jail inmates.

What a wonderful person you are, Bogan.

We don't have Apaches for the reasons I have given. When we were purchasing attack helicopters, the world was also purchasing attack helicopters. The defence forces that were doing that purchasing were only just training their own personnel in how to maintain them. Yet again you appear to want to change reality to suit your own preconceptions whereas I recognise that is impossible. Tsk, tsk.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Brian, when are you going to stop flogging this dead horse? Whenever it was, that the Australian Army stopped calling it's battalions "battalions" and instead called them "regiments", I don't know, and I don't care. But I called my former unit the 1/15th a "battalion" because that is exactly what it was. If you want to continue wasting time pretending you are the language police, then go ahead. But as far as I am concerned, this matter is profoundly unimportant and the subject is closed.

I will give on this when you admit your error. Do you admit that you are ignorant of simple Australian Army nomenclature? Afterall, you are again showing your confusion.

Brian Ross wrote

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

I will leave it to our readers as to whether they think that the family of nutters who have a history of committing serious acts of insane violence for 50 years, who driven their resource rich country into the ground, who have initiated policies which has caused the mass starvation deaths of their own people, who are more concerned with their own power and prestige than the welfare of their imprisoned and suffering people, and who now possess nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, are sane or not.

You can leave it to whom you like, Bogan. All you are doing is demonstrating your Xenophobia. Tsk, tsk.

Brian Ross wrote

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 wind) of reaching Darwin.

Articles in "the Australian" quality newspaper displayed illustrations depicting the range of different classes of NK missiles in the form of semi circles superimposed on a map of South East Asia. These articles showed that the North of Australia was in range of the latest NK IRBM.

And what is worth aiming an IRBM at in the Top End, Bogan? Darwin and bugger all else. What is the importance to Australia of Darwin? Not all that much, actually. The population is Australian citizens but apart from that population there isn't much else there. Have you ever been to Darwin? Ever?

Brian Ross wrote

The loss of Darwin would be tragic but it wouldn't really affect the rest of Australia, now would it?

Please, please, please, Brian. Could you lefties publicise that sentiment far and wide? Pauline would love to get a unanimous Darwin vote. And when she does you lefties will be wandering around like zombies wondering how she did it? Once we had the Brisbane Line, now you trendy lefties in the South West of Australia want a nuclear Darwin Line.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

First you called into question the credibility of that US nuclear umbrella, and then you imply that the USA would automatically engage in a nuclear exchange with Pyongyang on Australia's behalf. Contradiction, Brian.

I have? Where? What I have called into question is the credibility that the Australian Government has placed on the A**US Treaty as the lynchpin of Australia's relationship with the USA. There is no mention of the US nuclear umbrella in the A**US Treaty. Funny that, hey?

Defence and Foreign policy is full of contradictions, Bogan. Australia being covered by the umbrella is because the US has chosen for us to be covered by it. Their decision was intended to be a way of placating Canberra. Nothing more.

Brian Ross wrote

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, if that nutter in NK did just that, and NK hit Oz with a nuke (hopefully they will target Canberra), and threatened the USA with a nuclear strike if it launched a retaliatory strike, the US government would at the very least have to consider whether it was worth losing a few of it's principle cites for a token ally, with a token military, like Australia? Or, would the prospect of losing some of their principle cities be worth the satisfaction of obliterating the NK's forever? That may seem like an interesting academic exercise for you and me. But it is a deadly serious question for countries like South Korea and Japan who would be in the fallout zone of any nukes impacting on NK. The seriousness of an actual nuclear exchange between NK and the US was considered so credible at the time that when the North Koreans threatened Guam with a missile strike, news reports claimed that the Russians were already partly evacuating civilians from Russian cities close to the NK border.

You appear to believe that the DPRK has unlimited nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them to where it likes, Bogan.

How many nukes do you think they have? How many IRBMs and ICBMs do you think they have? How reliable do you think their rocket forces are? Please answer the questions 'cause I'd like to know how far your knowledge goes. I do hope it's not limited to what Murdoch's rags have claimed...

Brian Ross wrote

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...

First of all, I asked you how many of these very short ranged SAM's we had and I suggested it was only 10 or 12? I think that the reason why you did not answer that is because I was right. We have a token force of very short ranged SAM's, so that the DOD can say to the public that Australia has SAM's, without crossing their fingers behind their backs.

I did not answer because I don't know, Bogan any more than you do. I do know we have an Air Defence Regiment - the 16th, based at Woodside near Adelaide. As a regiment is approximately 1,000 men in size, and when you consider that it has three batteries, each consisting of three troops, each equipped with two missile systems, I think you can work out what it's nominal strength is.

And once again you dismiss the rise of China as inconsequential. I think if Churchill was an Australian and was alive today, he would be telling anybody who would listen, including you leftist appeasers, that "war with China will come."

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. It appears once again you have misunderstood what I have been saying. I am not saying that war with the PRC is impossible. I suspect that a war with the US is much more likely than a war with Australia. If it happens, it will be over the South China Sea, rather than the Top End of Australia. My questioning is whether we are going to face a Chinese invasion force ourselves, directly on our shores, Bogan. I doubt severely that will ever occur. As I keep pointing out - China doesn't need to invade when it can purchase what ever it desires.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

I prefer to use my own judgement instead of reading a report by a Sir Humphrey clone which tells the government what the government wants to hear. SAM's are effective weapons used to augment the small air forces of small countries who can not afford a large modern air force. They are cost effective weapons and they work pretty damned well. One of those small countries is Serbia, who shot down a much vaunted US F117 stealth plane with a SAM. Such a feat calls into question whether the whole "stealth" philosophy is valid? The more complicated and expensive a weapon system gets, the more likely that some smarty will think of a simple countermeasure which negates the whole horrendously expensive thing.

Ah, so you're not just after SAMs then, Bogan?

SAMs can compliment manned aircraft, I agree. However, for us to have SAMs we need to be facing an airborne threat which is capable of attacking Australia or it's forces. Where is that threat? I don't see it. You rabbit on about China but Chinese closest forces are in China, not any where near Australia or it's forces. Why do we therefore need SAMs when we have an air force equipped with fighter aircraft which are more flexible? Mmmm?

Brian Ross wrote

Nope. We could retain them (M1A1 tanks) as a core element in a heavy armoured force. However, they are not really suitable for use outside of Australia.

If you told the US Army in Kuwait that M1 tanks were "not suitable for use beyond Australia", Brian, you could have wiped out the entire US Army in Kuwait. They would all fall about and die laughing.

As usual, you misunderstand, perhaps deliberately what I am saying. MBTs are of little value in our main area of operations - the SW Pacific. The infrastructure there is even in worse condition that the infrastructure in Australia is.

Brian Ross wrote

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).

All very interesting. But your claim was that Australia was unable to transport 60 ton M1A1 tanks, which is preposterous. I have a friend in road transport who goes all over Australia transporting very long and heavy prayer wheels (wind turbines), very long and heavy ferro concrete bridge lintels, and immense 200 ton capacity tippers for the mining industry.

You've never travelled to the Top End have you, Bogan? There is one road which is designed to carry loads as heavy as the M1a1 AIM and it's transporter there - the main north-south highway. The Ghan railway line is another route. Apart from that, the bridges/culverts/roads are not designed to carry such a heavy load. Your friend will tell you that his loads are broken down as small as possible and he is constrained as to where he take them. Even in the South-Eastern corner, most of the roads are unsuitable. The wheel loadings are simply too great. Moving a tank the size and weight of the Abrams from Pucka to Canberra is a task not for the faint hearted. It is why they fly them or move them by ship.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Brian, the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces had no amphibious capability at all and they managed to ship entire divisions all across the Pacific to wherever they wanted to go.

Actually they did. It was where the US Marines learnt how to do when they observed the Japanese forces invading the coast of China. It was where they created the LCVP or "Higgins boat". The Japanese were masters at moving men and equipment. Even so, they were limited in what they could move. Tanks had to come ashore at established ports. Artillery had to be manhandled over the sides of the ships carrying them.

Russian designed amphibious ships are good ships and plentiful enough in the PLAAF right now. The Japanese in WW2 would have gleefully traded their samurai swords for ships like that in the Pacific war. The PLAAF are at this very moment building large ocean going amphibious warships of two different classes. Their modern warship shipbuilding capability is impressive. And they don't need large ocean going amphibs to take Taiwan. Do you think that building warships suited to a global navy might indicate that they have global ambitions?

It may and it may not. The PLAN (Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy, not the PLAAF which is the Peoples’ Liberation Army Air Force) is an odd beast. It all depends upon the ambitions of Beijing. Beijing has over the millennia had many different and varied views of the world. Sometimes isolationist, sometimes expansionist. The PRC is not in, despite how Washington likes to paint it, in an expansionist mode. It is in a consolidation mode at the moment. It has been since the PRC was established. Once they regain Taiwan, things may change but that isn’t going to happen tomorrow or even next year.

Brian ross wrote

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

Yeah, I did. And your point was.....??????

How or why did the “Highway of Death” occur, Bogan? Were any ground forces from the Allies involved? Any at all?

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Your point was that Australia could not be invaded because the RAAF and RAN would sink 'em before they got here. So, who needs a modern mechanised army? My point was that defence experts keep inventing scenarios which justify their defence purchases, and they too frequently get it wrong. Then defence personnel find themselves fighting wars that they were never supposed to fight, using weapons that were never intended to be used in that particular theatre of operations.

No, that is not what I have been saying. The Australian Defence Forces form a cohesive whole which is meant to defend Australia. The RAN and RAAF are intended to engage any enemy force in the sea-air gap which surrounds our continent. Doesn’t mean they will be 100% successful at all, just that the Army is designed to defeat any “leakers” that get through and manage to land. The Army is the primary expeditionary force as well, the “tip” of the “spear” if you like which engages enemy forces when required to by the Government “over there”.

Of course the defence department “invents scenarios” - it has to. There are no real enemies in our region. Therefore to justify it’s purchases it must invent a threat to counter. The “Musurians” have done a commendable duty as the “Enemy” which must be countered. Their identity has changed, as as their forces order of battle depending upon when they are being countered. I have a complete set of the “Enemy” Training Pamphlets. It makes interesting reading as they changed from a pure Communist force to a mixed force to a Westernised force and now back to a mixed force.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Now you are trying to blame Maggie for the woefull state of the British Armed Forces. Could I remind you that the Labour governed, increasingly socialist economy of Britain was once called "the sick man of Europe"? The unions in particular were out of control and were disrupting the British economy so much that Prime Minister Wilson, fed up of trying to talk sense to socialist idiots, simply resigned from public office and retired. I can still remember the cartoon comment by either Rigby or Bruce Petty, depicting Britain as a double decker bus full of horrified people, heading for a cliff. While the driver, who looked like Wilson, calmly walked away. But then you love socialism, Brian. Go figure.

Maggie was, at the time of the Falkland/Malvinas the one in charge, Bogan. She was the one in the hotseat. She had been in power for over 4 years. You can only blame your predecessors for a short time in a democracy (although that doesn’t stop the Tories from trying to every five minutes in Canberra ). Her Government introduced deep defence cuts. Her Government retired the ARK ROYAL. No one else did it.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

A four man, one generation out of date tank, is still a better proposition than four infantrymen running around with modern rifles.

Except those four diggers run around with ATGW as well, Bogan, now don’t they?

And if your back is to the wall, and your country is in danger of being over run, then soldiers would not care about any bloody asbestos or how hot the turret is. On the Kokoda Track, mortar bombs were dropped to Australian troops without parachutes because we did not have any parachutes. Those bombs were designed to arm on firing, by the shock of firing. However, after being tossed out of a DC-3 and impacting with the ground, that was enough to arm the mortar bombs, making the bombs extremely dangerous to handle. Every mortar man who used those bombs knew that some of them could explode in the tube when they fired them. That did not stop our soldiers from using the only ammunition they had, and at least one bomb did explode in the tube and did kill at least one crew.

Really? You have documentary proof of this do you, Bogan? Or is this just more of your bullshit?

Brian Ross wrote

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...

These countries are unviable, dysfunctional countries with corrupt governments and administrations. They are not so much independent countries as they are Australian dependencies. If the Chinese want them, they can have them, and we will save billions in foreign aid every year on that deal.

You really are very short-sighted, you realise? You would hand over to the PRC the very things you keep claiming they need to attack us. Such a silly sausage.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

The British Navy transported the British Army halfway around the world to the Falklands because somebody high in the food chain ordered them to do it. But the RN thought it could win the war by itself by blockade. The Exocets and air attacks convinced them otherwise. They then realised that they needed the amphibious forces to do the job.

Blockade? Really? Funny, I’ve never seen the idea of a blockade being mentioned WRT a possible solution to the Argentine invasion of the Falklands/Malvenas Islands. Amazing what fantasies your mind produces. Produce some evidence of this, please.

In reality, the British were always intent on invading the islands. Indeed, they even dusted off plans dating back to WWI which were designed to win the islands back from an invasion force. The Royal Navy could not operate in the deep South Atlantic during a southern winter. They had approximate two months in which to take the Falklands back. After that, the weather would be too rough for them to operate. Their ships were not designed for sustained operations in such conditions. It was an invasion or it was surrender the Islands to the Argentines. That was not on. So, they invaded.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Nobody has ever "owned" the south china sea. It is an international waterway and is recognised as such by the UN Law of the Sea. The Chinese bases are illegal bases designed to intimidate every other nation into accepting Chinese sovereignty over an entire ocean. The Chinese have put themselves at odds with every other civilised country on this and their increasingly belligerent attitude is probably going to lead to war. If it erupts soon, the Chinese will lose. But the longer they leave it the stronger they will get. And if they win, a country like Australia with it's large land area, abundant natural resources, small population, and miserable defences, would be like a lamb to a wolf.

You may believe that, Bogan. As I have pointed out, definitions change. The US once proclaimed that it only recognised a 3 mile territorial limit. Then they were forced to recognise what everybody else proclaimed – a 12 mile limit. EEZs allow nations to claim 200 miles for exclusive economic exploitation. The South China Sea only became an international waterway when the West decided it wanted to sail though it. Definitions change.

Brian Ross wrote

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

You seem to forget that Red China was a true socialist state at that time, Brian. You know, the sort of socialist state you dream of inflicting on your own people? Mao distrusted his own armed forces and was more interested in a "people's army" where vast numbers of politically controllable militias would defend China. Their regular army, navy and air forces, though numerous, were completely outclassed by the modern standards of the day. Their army was so politically correct that it considered badges of rank to be against the sacred socialist principle of "equality".

It was this politically correct rabble which invaded Vietnam and lost more men killed in 3 months than the yanks lost in 8 years fighting the Vietnamese. Political correctness kills.

But the Red Chinese are not international socialists anymore, Brian. They are national socialists and their armed forces have been transformed into a modern fighting force. It is still commanded by strutting political appointees who are probably just bureaucratic career idiots (like the Australian DOD) , but their armed forces today are modern and numerous, and they are getting more modern and numerous. National socialist China may soon become the world's last superpower. And when they do, the world will be in for interesting times.

The PRC has always been nationalist, Bogan. Your dreams of international socialism are just that, dreams, fantasies. The PRC has always proclaimed its national borders even to the point of making sure that other nations respect them (ie the Sino-Indian war of 1960). India tried to grab land on the basis of a falsified British map of the Raj and found the Chinese weren’t going to let them. They are still officially at war, today. Funny that.

Brian Ross wrote

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...

You admitted yourself that the reason why the Australian government did not get involved in the liberation of Kuwait, was because when the Australian government approached the Army on the feasibility of contributing a brigade to aid our allies. The Army told them that our tanks were obsolete, and the Army did not have the types of weapons with which to fight a "tier one" enemy on open ground. So, you are contradicting yourself.

OK, we are discussing two separate wars here, Bogan. You are talking about the Gulf War of 1990. I am discussing here the Gulf War of 2003. Please pay attention. Different wars, different circumstances.

Brian Ross wrote

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

My crack about the F-22 was sarcasm. If we are now going to purchase all 75 F-35's, then I wonder what DOD will chop out of the Army budget to pay for the fact that the price of this aircraft has doubled since were first quoted a price? When is DOD going to stop buying aircraft that are still on the drawing board? We always do and we always end up regretting it. But we never learn.

Who knows? Perhaps they should consult you, hey? You’d just cut what, health? Education? Social Security? What?

Time to grow up, Bogan. We have only one pocket of dosh and you have to make a decision, now, on what you’re going to cut.

Now lets see you explain it to the Australian public. Go ahead. This should be amusing.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

My information is that the F-22 is still the most advanced fighter in the sky. It has undergone upgrades and is so advanced that the USA refuses to sell it to anybody, including it's very close and trusted ally, Japan. Japan specifically wanted to buy the F-22 but has been forced to accept the F-35. There has been talk of putting the F-22 production line back in operation to augment the 176 aircraft the already US has. How advanced it is could be gleaned by the fact that both Russia and China tried to copy it with miserable success. The Russians built 24 of their own version before they gave up. The Chinese version is big and looks so bloody bizarre it is a wonder it can even get airborne.

You can believe that if you desire. Yet you admit that the F-35 is more advanced. Funny, you seem to be contradicting yourself. How unsurprising.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Any stupid, uninformed armchair warrior like me could have predicted the outcome of the Kuwait war.

1. The US was the world's most technologically advanced armed force who's army was lavishly equipped to fight a mobile war on open ground with extremely effective weapons like MLRS, and M1A2 tanks, Apaches, and laser guided artillery shells. The US air force was unmatched in quantity and quality, and it had the world's only stealth aircraft. It would quickly attain air dominance over the battlefield, and in any war, that is critical. The US Army's airborne, sideways looking radar which could pick out individual soldiers moving on the battlefield, had been described in defence circles as an "ungentlemanly" weapon.

2. The Iraqi's were, well Arabs. The outnumbered and outgunned Israelis had wiped the floor with them in every war they had ever fought with them. During the Gulf War, a US AWACS watched incredulously as an Iraqi Mig 29 wingman accidently shot down his own flight leader with a heat seeking missile when both of them took off together from an airfield.

3. The USA had used satellites to watch with astonishment the incompetence that both the Iraqis and Iranians had displayed in their 8 year war with each other. US defence experts described it as "WW1 being fought with WW3 weapons." There were times when the Iraqi and Iranian air force fighter planes had engaged with each other in long dogfights, with nobody on either side being shot down.

Yet the American experts were proclaiming that Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world, that it was equipped with all the latest gizmos and toys. Leaving aside your blatant racism, Iraq, in 1990 was on paper a hard nut to crack. It had just finished a 10 year war with Iran which it had held the Iranians on or near to their border (after having invaded Iran). Iraq was it seemed to be quite a fearsome military force – on paper. Reality proved different.

Saddam had always prized political loyality over martial ability – like most dictators did. He paid the price for that, as we well know. His airforce surrendered to Iran, rather than face the Allies. His army melted away when it was outflanked and outfort. Political loyality doesn’t make your troops fight harder. It doesn’t make your tanks stronger.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

The US Air force investigated the purchase of two cheap "lightweight" fighters to augment the magnificent F-15 which was considered to be too expensive to purchase in sufficient numbers. The two contenders were the YF-17 and the YF-16. The US Air force flew them in competition and the YF-16 won. The US Navy wanted something similar to be an attack aircraft and also to be a fighter to compliment the magnificent but expensive F-14. The F-16 with only one engine and narrow landing gear was considered unsuitable for carrier operations, so the US Navy wanted a "Navalised" version of the YF-17. They strengthened the airframe, added a tailhook, folding wings, catapult attachment, a widened and strengthened undercarriage, and they called the modified plane an FA-18.

Adding on all that stuff greatly increased the cost. And it increased the weight so much that it reduced the performance of the F-18 so badly that the disappointed US Navy nearly canned the whole project. But politically that was difficult to do. The US Navy had offset the costs of developing the F-18 by asking interested foreign buyers to invest in the development of this new, supposedly cheap super plane. And all that foreign money would have gone down the gurgler if the plane was binned, leaving a lot of unhappy allies. So the plane was manufactured and what resulted was an fighter/attack plane comparable in price to a new F-14, but of only moderately good manoeuvrability as a fighter, and unable to even reach mach 2. The US Navy flew an FA-18 against a former East German Mig 29 and the Mig outperformed the FA-18. How embarrassment.

*SIGH* Thanks for confirming what I said, Bogan. Well done, you finally arrived at the same place I did, years ago.

Brian Ross wrote

Air Force aircraft costs are hard to explain to laymen like you, Bogan.

You can say that again. I heard about the US$3000 dollar seat cushions on the B1 bomber and the US$2000 dollar ashtrays.

Sometimes costs are such because of low rates of production and the often unique demands that the armed services place on such things, as well as sometimes it’s just a rip-off by the contractors.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

The five aircraft considered for the Mirage replacement were the Mirage 2000, the fighter version of the Tornado, the F-16, the F-15, and the FA-18. The Mirage and the F-16 were not considered because the RAAF wanted a twin engined fighter, because several single engined Mirage 3's had been lost through engine failure. That left the already in production Tornado with a known cost and performance. And the F-15 which was already in production with a known cost and performance. And a drawing board plane of unknown but supposedly cheap cost with supposedly good performance. Both the Tornado and the F-15 were rejected because of price.

The price of the F-15 was $18 million dollars each, and I can't remember what the Tornado cost but it would have been about the same. Either of these aircraft would have been good purchases for the RAAF and both would have had similar performances. But as usual our genius's at DOD went for the promises of a cheap aircraft and the sales pitch hype, and we bought a pig in a poke, that was much more expensive and inferior in performance to either the Tornado or the F-15.

The saddest thing about this fiasco was that given the relative cheapness of the F-16 to the F-15, and the fact that the F-18 was about 40% more expensive than the F-15, Australia could possibly have bought 150 F-16's for the same amount of money we spent purchasing the inferior FA-18. Jet engines were becoming more reliable and engine flame outs were becoming less frequent. And if we had double the fighter force of much cheaper and better plane, who would have cared if lost a few anyway through engine failure?

The DOD 's tea ladies would have had more sense than our supposed "defence experts" who bought the woeful FA-18. The US Navy is probably sighing with relief now that they are finally replacing the FA-18.

Still missing the point. The YF-16 was considered unsuitable because it lacked BVR missile capability and had an inadequate radar. It was declared unsuitable. The F/A-18 was considered what the RAAF wanted – a cheaper, cut rate version of the F-15. It had twin engines, a good radar and BVR missiles. It could be both an attack aircraft and a fighter from the get go. It was deemed the winner. QED.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Oh, here we go again. Unable to admit that our navy is weaker compared to WW2 when our population was one third of what it is today, you resort to sematics and try to tell that us that the three classes of warships that existed in WW2 should not be considered the same class today. Each class should now be considered to be one class higher than what they would have been called in WW2. Sorry, I don't buy that at all. A frigate is still a frigate, a destroyer is still a destroyer, and a cruiser is still a cruiser. Using your perverted logic, you must think that a cruiser today should be called a battleship.

A cruiser was designed to have a long range and a heavier armament than a Destroyer. A Destroyer was designed to have a longer range and a heavier armament than a Frigate. Today, Cruisers have basically disappeared – bee swallowed up by Destroyers which are much more capable than the Cruiser ever was. Frigates are now much more capable than what Destroyers ever were. It is all about CAPABILITY. About fighting effectiveness. WWII was over 70 years ago.

Brian wrote

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.

Then ignore it. I may have chucked the book when I moved, but I don't think so. I really liked the book. There was chapter on Lieutenant Watkins Tench from the First Fleet leading a punitive attack on the Cronulla aboriginals who were attacking wood cutting parties of convicts. I agonised over tossing out a lot of my books before I put them in the bin. But it is not on the shelf behind me, and being a large book, I don't think it is packed away in one of the plastic boxes I got from Bunnings to store my books in until I move again. If I still have it, I don't know where it is.

I think you’re more than likely misremembering the title. However, we will move on.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

That is disingenuous, Brian. You are stereotyping again. The principle that you lefties espouse is that individuals must not be judged by their group associations. But Martin Bryant was a "gun owner" and used a semi auto rifle to kill 35 people. But then your logic reverses. Now all "gun owners" must be judged by their group association with Bryant as fellow "gun owners" and all must be considered to be potential mass murderers and punished.

The most interesting thing about you virtue signalling wokes with your insistence on promoting high moral values, is how selectively you apply them.

Gun owners had their chance several times before Port Arthur to make suggestions which would stop their members including crazies like Bryant. They just buried their heads and put their fingers in the dyke and hoped it’d all blow over. Well, Bryant fixed that, now didn’t he. Howard adopted laws which removed those sorts of firearms from private hands. Good on him.

Brian Ross wrote

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.

China has maritime assets, super tankers, amphibious ships, plenty of fleet support, two aircraft carriers, and the biggest Army in the world. Brian. Talk sense.

China as some of those assets. No where as many as Japan had pre-war. They also had a massive navy, which the PRC does not.

[cont'd]

[brian ross]

Brian Ross wrote

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.

Which won't do us much good if the Chinese establish a forward military base on Timor. They are already in Timor with construction crews building roads and sucking up to our dependents.

Ah, yes the bases which you’ve just admitted we shouldn’t do anything to stop, right, Bogan? Oh, so short-sighted of you. Tsk, tsk.

Brian Ross wrote

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

They were faced with large forces who were badly led and trained, with inferior weapons, and with defence "experts" who grossly underestimated their Asian enemy.

Indeed. Nowadays, a close watch is kept on the PRC’s forces.

Brian Ross wrote

Indeed, there wasn't much between Japan and Australia that was well equipped, trained or led.

As opposed to Australian forces today, which are well led, competent, but miserably equipped, lacking in numbers, and with defence "experts" who are grossly underestimating their potential enemy.

Take it out on the Government(s) of the day. The ADF has always been at the end of a very tight treasury.

Brian Ross wrote

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...

True, the allies had had the crap beaten out of them in the first 18 months and they began to realise that all of their confident pre war assumptions about Japanese capability, weapons and tactics, had led them to disaster. They realised they had better start thinking seriously about fielding forces with effective arms in serious numbers that could beat the Japanese. We appear to have forgotten that lesson.

IN your mind, perhaps. In the mind of the ADF, no they haven’t. You seem to feel that they are stumbling ‘round with their eyes closed. Such a silly assumption.

Brian Ross wrote

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

Then could you and your socialist comrades please stop your reflexive attacks on our "friend" and it's President? Before the Yanks start figuring out that a significant part of the Australian population are in fact their enemies, and not worth defending?

I only attack the US when it does something stupid, Bogan. Which unfortunately, it does rather often.

Brian Ross wrote

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....

A couple of unproficient aircraft carriers is better than what Australia has, which is no aircraft carrier at all. Perhaps we could buy the HMAS Melbourne back from China if they haven't destroyed it pulling it apart to see how it works? Thanks again, you genius's in the DOD.

We officially don’t need aircraft carriers we have the RAAF. Personally, I have always wondered at that but again that decision was a political one. The RAAF won it. They decided that the F/A-18s would be able to protect the fleet, particularly with inflight refuelling. So we got both types of aircraft.

Brian Ross wrote

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?

I could not care less about the Black Sea, and my own opinion is that the USA should not provoke the Ivans by sailing warships off their coasts in what is almost an inland sea. It pisses off the Ivans for no reason. Nor do I think that the Ivans should provoke the yanks by sailing warships down the coast of California.

The South China Sea is one of the world's three most important ocean waterways, it is international waters by UN agreement. Every civilised country on planet earth recognises that and opposes China's ridiculous claim that it owns an entire ocean.

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. The South China sea is a convenient piece of sea between Europe and Japan and Korea. It is a convenient sea way between Korea and the US and Australia. Over IIRC something like 25% of the world’s trade goes through it. However, it isn’t the only route to those destinations. Alternatives exist. All the West has to do is accept that they will have to pay a few cents more on the goods they import from ROK, Japan, Taiwan and boycott the PRC’s products. All they need do is invest money in India and Africa.

The Black Sea is important because it showed that what the US Navy decreed, was not what the rest of the world believed. Their 3 mile limit was outmoded and old hat. The rest of the world had moved on and declared a 12 mile limit. Guess what the US Government did? They declared a 12 mile limit as well and accepted the Russian’s declaration of a 12 mile limit. Then came the 200 mile EEZ treaty. Gee, all were simply legal definitions, nothing more. China’s efforts to acquire the South China Sea will either work or they’ll be ignored.

Brian Ross wrote

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

What a load of crap. The Iraqis mistook a US FFG-7 frigate for an Iranian oil tanker and put two Exocets in it's guts, killing 60 US navy seamen and almost destroying the ship.

Mmmm, not sure where you’re getting your casualties from, Bogan. According to Wiki, “Thirty-seven United States Navy personnel were killed and 21 were injured.” You’ve effectively doubled the number of dead.

The US accepted the Iraqi explanation that it was a mistake, they accepted that it was not a deliberate attack by Iraq on a US warship. But it put US Navy ships in the Gulf on high alert. An Iranian passenger jet aircraft full of pilgrims headed for Mecca approached another US warship ship and ignored radio warnings to identify itself, broadcast on every channel. The warship warned the aircraft it would fire on it if it did not comply.

There is no doubt that the Iranians pilots heard it but the stupid bastards simply ignored it and got shot down. Lesson, don't fly commercial passenger aircraft in war zones where people are jumpy and where their fingers are on triggers. And when some jumpy person with their finger on a trigger demands that you identify yourself, do just that immediately or you might get a Darwin Award.

There is no evidence that the Iranians heard anything, Bogan. I know you hate quotes but tough luck. Wiki tells us:

Shootdown of Flight 655

The plane, an Airbus A300 (registered as EP-IBU), flown by 37-year-old Captain Mohsen Rezaian, a veteran pilot with 7,000 hours of flight time, left Bandar Abbas at 10:17 Iran time (UTC+03:30), 27 minutes after its scheduled departure time. It should have been a 28-minute flight. After takeoff, it was directed by the Bandar Abbas tower to turn on its transponder and proceed over the Persian Gulf. The flight was assigned routinely to commercial air corridor Amber 59, a 20-mile (32 km)-wide lane on a direct line to Dubai airport. The short distance made for a simple flight pattern: climb to 14,000 feet (4,300 m), cruise, and descend into Dubai. The airliner was transmitting the correct transponder "squawk" code typical of a civilian aircraft and maintained radio contact in English with appropriate air traffic control facilities.

On the morning of 3 July 1988, USS Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty.[2] A helicopter deployed from the cruiser reportedly received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels as it observed from high altitude. Vincennes moved to engage the Iranian vessels, in the course of which they all violated Omani waters and left after being challenged and ordered to leave by a Royal Navy of Oman warship.[20] Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats, entering Iranian territorial waters to open fire. USS Sides and USS Elmer Montgomery were nearby. Thus, Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident, as admitted by the U.S. government in legal briefs and publicly by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, on Nightline.[21][22] Admiral Crowe denied a U.S. government coverup of the incident and claimed that the cruiser's helicopter was over international waters initially, when the gunboats first fired upon it.[21][23]
Contrary to the accounts of various Vincennes crew members, the cruiser's Aegis Combat System recorded that the airliner was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was squawking on only the Mode III civilian frequency, and not on the military Mode II.[24]
After receiving no response to multiple radio challenges, and believing the airliner was an Iranian F-14 Tomcat (capable of carrying unguided bombs since 1985[25]) diving into an attack profile, Vincennes fired two SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles, one of which hit the airliner.[26] The plane disintegrated immediately and crashed into the water soon after. None of the 290 passengers and crew on board survived.[26] The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were never found.[27]

So, there was a civilian Iranian aircraft, using it’s transponder on a civilian frequency to identify it as a civilian aircraft, climbing and flying a well establish air corridor, which was misidentified as an F-14 fighter aircraft, diving and attacking a US Navy ship. Looks to me like the US Navy was clearly in the wrong there, mate. Something the US Government has never admitted to, even though, they have paid compensation to the families of the victims of their ship’s missiles.

The US Navy is not made up of Gods. Indeed, it is made of very human people who often make mistakes. I'd have thought that the example of the USS CHARLES E. EVANS would have demonstrated that. Do you want more examples? How about the collision between the USS FITZGERALD and the MV ACX Crystal, near Japan? How about the collision between the USS JOHN S. MCCAIN and the MV Alnic MC? The list goes on and on, Bogan. There are many fine men who sail in the US Navy. It just seems they have a lot of useless commanders to command their ships...

[Bogan]

Brine wrote

You really do have a strange, nay a perverted idea of what a "trounce" is, Bogan. Tsk, tsk

While you have Saddam Hussein's view of defeat. He may have lost the Gulf War, but he said he won anyway.

Brian Ross wrote

I'm sure you've read books, Bogan but have you actually grasped what they and I are saying? I have discussed our operations with senior officers and diggers. Their involvement was limited politically.

Thinking back. You discuss things with senior officers and diggers. You discuss things with senior Indonesian officers. You examine M-113's. You said that you were never in the military yet you served under "Major Hassan" who you described as a splendid fellow. You have taught at schools with "indigenous" students. You sure get around for somebody who seems to spend all of his time on a keyboard.

Brian Ross wrote

Australia was involved in Afghanistan because John Howard wanted us to be involved in Afghanistan. However, he didn't want us too involved. He did not want another Vietnam. He listened to what the Defence chiefs said and he decided to send "special forces" - SAS and Commandos to limit our involvement. He later withdrew those forces for use in Iraq. They replaced them with a group of Infantry, etc. Air was limited. Helicopters were limited. He did not want us becoming involved to the point where our other commitments - East Timor, the Solomans, etc. became too much of a strain on the Defence Forces. Attack helicopters were not included because in 2001 they were still working out which one to buy. Bell had protested at the decision to buy Airbus and it was working it's way through the courts. We did not have any attack choppers.

As much as you believe we should have been more heavily involved, Afghanistan and Iraq were "limited wars" to Australia. Very limited. You cannot undo history - why? 'cause it's happened and until you figure out time travel there is no way to undo what has happened.

That is your interpretation, here is mine. After the USA was attacked by a terrorist army based in Afghanistan, an army that was based there because what passed for a government allowed it to base itself there, Australia lived up to it's defence obligations with the USA. But as usual, our force was only a token force. If you say that we could only send a token force because we had other commitments, then that is saying that our Army is too small. Something I have been saying all along.

Not only is our army too small, it is very badly equipped. It equates to a lousy single infantry division and is devoid of equipment that would make it useful against a "tier one" enemy in open country. The sort of country which exists in 90% of Australia. Australia's primary defence policy is, to fight to the last American. But in relying on the yanks to save our arses again when we face invasion again, the yanks have to put up with people living in Australia like your good self, who are total ingrates and who say racist things about them, like this.

American capitalists are such little rich piggies. Always wanting their cake and eat it too!

Many Americans have insufferable hubris and almost completely lack empathy for any point of view other than their own. Their ignorance about any other society is another annoying feature. Their belief in exceptionalism of course is rather annoying as well. Oh, and their propensity for electing fools to lead them but perhaps that's a symptom of the previous points?

Everytime I lift up a rock I find a lot of slaters underneath which hate the light being shone on their activities and that is how I feel often about the US Government and many Americans

I don't detest Americans. In fact I quite like them. They provide me with endless hours of amusement and I actually believe they have considerable potential, once they shed their arrogance to be sensible people.

The first wave of Americans were welcomed in Brisbane but the latter waves weren't. They brought their usual hubris and arrogance, John. The result was the "Battle of Brisbane" or didn't your mother tell you about that. The usual comment was "Over-paid, over-sexed and over here."

American capitalists are such little rich piggies. Always wanting their cake and eat it too!

Brian Ross wrote

Does it? Well, that is news to me and to the rest of the entire Australian and US Governments. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the wording 'cause otherwise you're just talkin' bullshit, mate

But of course, you don't post up the "correct" analysis, because you don't know what it is yourself.

Brian Ross wrote

Kuwait, a "founding member of the League of Nations"? Kuwait wasn't granted independence until 1961, well after the League was disolved in 1946. Bogan, you need to learn some history it appears.

I checked and you are correct. Congratulations Brian, you have finally won a point. You should celebrate that win because it happens so little,

Brian Ross wrote

I supported the war against Iraq in 1990. I am unsure why you are questioning me. I believed that the Coalition however did not go far enough and topple the Ba'athis regim in Baghdad when they had the chance.

A "tier one enemy" would be one that is comparable to our own defence forces, Bogan. The "tiers" of war are a comparative measure, not an absolute one.

OK, then I will rephrase my words and say that the Australian Army is not capable to taking on anything other than the most poverty stricken enemy. It is no match for any enemy on open ground with even a single fully equipped, modern mechanised or armoured division.

Brian Ross wrote

have never denied that Australia should not have better defences, Bogan. It appears you have mistaken my views (not an unusual position for yourself). However, I recognise that you cannot undo history and that history has bearing on the size and nature of the defence forces were do have at the present moment. You, OTOH, appear to want to undo history and rewrite it. Tsk

We can't undo the historical fact that we almost got invaded and exterminated in the last war, and it was the yanks who saved our arses. So, you would have thought that we would take our defences a lot more seriously, and ingrates like yourself be more respectful to the Americans that you have such racist opinions on.

Brian Ross wrote

What a wonderful person you are, Bogan.

We don't have Apaches for the reasons I have given. When we were purchasing attack helicopters, the world was also purchasing attack helicopters. The defence forces that were doing that purchasing were only just training their own personnel in how to maintain them. Yet again you appear to want to change reality to suit your own preconceptions whereas I recognise that is impossible.

I don't accept "the reasons that you have given." Vietnam proved how essential helicopter gunships were to infantry operations yet Australia waited 40 years before we purchased eight, and they were duds because once again, DOD keeps buying either off the plan aircraft that give us nothing but expense and trouble, or helicopters which crash during their demonstration flights. How much does an Apache cost? $20 million? Australia spends $33 Billion dollars every year financing the aboriginal grievance industry for no return other than demands for more money, more money, more money. 94% of Afghan households in Australia on Centrelink. 93% of Iraqi households on Centerlink. For Pacific Islanders it is probably 99.9%

The funniest thing about the fall of Singapore is that you had all of these pompous public service types living in a dream world and dismissing any thought that they could ever be invaded. If Australia is ever invaded by China, and I think that is what is exactly what is eventually going to happen, it is funny to think about what will happen to Australia's indigenous and ethnic populations when the Chinese take over. The Chinese will be like the Japanese in Changi, "no worky, no eaty."

Brian Ross wrote

And what is worth aiming an IRBM at in the Top End, Bogan? Darwin and bugger all else. What is the importance to Australia of Darwin? Not all that much, actually. The population is Australian citizens but apart from that population there isn't much else there. Have you ever been to Darwin? Ever?

Yes, I have. And could all of you south eastern based lefties please herald your opinions far and wide over your willingness to sacrifice Darwin in your new Darwin Line?

Brian Ross wrote

I have? Where? What I have called into question is the credibility that the Australian Government has placed on the A**US Treaty as the lynchpin of Australia's relationship with the USA. There is no mention of the US nuclear umbrella in the A**US Treaty. Funny that, hey?

Defence and Foreign policy is full of contradictions, Bogan. Australia being covered by the umbrella is because the US has chosen for us to be covered by it. Their decision was intended to be a way of placating Canberra. Nothing more

Yes, you have. When NK directly threatened Australia with a nuclear strike, I would have expected the US government to express their willingness to retaliate with a nuclear strike against NK if they did. They did not. Ergo, Australia had better start thinking of acquiring an ABM system, and at least begin to investigate manufacturing our own nuclear weapons just in case we need them "as a last resort." The reason why so many third world crapholes either have or want to acquire nuclear weapons, is because no serious potential enemy will take your defences seriously unless you have them.

Brian Ross wrote

You appear to believe that the DPRK has unlimited nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them to where it likes, Bogan.

North Korea is manufacturing nuclear weapons and IRBM"s. How may they have is a factor of how long they keep manufacturing them while we keep doing nothing.

Brian Ross wrote

How many nukes do you think they have? How many IRBMs and ICBMs do you think they have? How reliable do you think their rocket forces are? Please answer the questions 'cause I'd like to know how far your knowledge goes. I do hope it's not limited to what Murdoch's rags have claimed...

I know that they have strategic rocket forces and nuclear weapons, and I know that Australia does not have strategic rocket forces, and no nuclear weapons. What is worse is that we have taken our usual "principled" stand against manufacturing nuclear weapons in the forlorn hope that our totalitarian enemies will accept our good intentions and not acquire them themselves. Now that we know we were wrong, it is time to forgo our wishful thinking and get serious.

Brian Ross wrote

I did not answer because I don't know, Bogan any more than you do. I do know we have an Air Defence Regiment - the 16th, based at Woodside near Adelaide. As a regiment is approximately 1,000 men in size, and when you consider that it has three batteries, each consisting of three troops, each equipped with two missile systems, I think you can work out what it's nominal strength is.

That works out to be 18 very short ranged, line of sight, tactical battlefield SAM systems to defend the entire South east of Australia, after we let Darwin get nuked and we surrender 80% of our land area to an armoured or mechanised enemy that our Army is not equipped to fight.

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. It appears once again you have misunderstood what I have been saying. I am not saying that war with the PRC is impossible. I suspect that a war with the US is much more likely than a war with Australia. If it happens, it will be over the South China Sea, rather than the Top End of Australia. My questioning is whether we are going to face a Chinese invasion force ourselves, directly on our shores, Bogan. I doubt severely that will ever occur. As I keep pointing out - China doesn't need to invade when it can purchase what ever it desires

Oh dearie, dearie me. You seem to be forgetting that US power is in decline. China in only twenty years may be the world's only superpower. And whereas you may never thought that China would have global ambitions, I'll bet that thought has occurred to the Chinese dictator and his political crony's. The Chinese are building two new classes of ocean going amphibious warships and they are not doing that just to invade the Senkaku Islands.

Brian Ross wrote

Ah, so you're not just after SAMs then, Bogan?

SAMs can compliment manned aircraft, I agree. However, for us to have SAMs we need to be facing an airborne threat which is capable of attacking Australia or it's forces. Where is that threat? I don't see it. You rabbit on about China but Chinese closest forces are in China, not any where near Australia or it's forces. Why do we therefore need SAMs when we have an air force equipped with fighter aircraft which are more flexible? Mmmm?

You sound like Chamberlain before Munich. I am sure that he would have pointed out that Germany is no threat because all German forces were in Germany. Australia is acting like every neutral country in Europe did, before Germany realised that these neutral countries had resources that Germany wanted and needed, and that these countries had only tiny token defence forces. It wasn't until they were invaded and conquered that the Brian Ross clones in those countries figured out how stupid they were. Why can't we learn from history? We are still one of the world's most prosperous countries. Yet our defences are a joke. And since WW2 they have always have been a joke. Our DOD purchasing office has a long history making expensive mistakes in our purchases, we buy obsolete submarines to appease the Green lobby, and we expend God knows how much money importing ethnic groups notorious for their high rates of welfare dependency and criminal behaviour. Like the British in Singapore, we had better refocus on what is important before we are invaded and exterminated by a more practical minded people who don't share your beliefs over Human Rights or genocide.

Brian Ross wrote

As usual, you misunderstand, perhaps deliberately what I am saying. MBTs are of little value in our main area of operations - the SW Pacific. The infrastructure there is even in worse condition that the infrastructure in Australia is.

As usual, you misunderstand, perhaps deliberately what I am saying. Our main area of operations are where our enemies are and our allies are fighting. But Australia's army was so piss poor that we could not even contribute a lousy armoured or mechanised Brigade to the fight against Saddam Hussein. Iraq and Australia have similar population numbers. Iraqi Army? About 50 divisions and a score of them armoured or mechanised. Australia? In effect, one lousy infantry division. I know that Iraq did not need a navy and we do, but the fact remains that the disparity in numbers and equipment types between their army and ours is glaring and shocking.

Brian Ross wrote

You've never travelled to the Top End have you, Bogan? There is one road which is designed to carry loads as heavy as the M1a1 AIM and it's transporter there - the main north-south highway. The Ghan railway line is another route. Apart from that, the bridges/culverts/roads are not designed to carry such a heavy load. Your friend will tell you that his loads are broken down as small as possible and he is constrained as to where he take them. Even in the South-Eastern corner, most of the roads are unsuitable. The wheel loadings are simply too great. Moving a tank the size and weight of the Abrams from Pucka to Canberra is a task not for the faint hearted. It is why they fly them or move them by ship.

Brian, the Australian transport systems can transport large, heavy loads almost anywhere.

Brian Ross wrote

How or why did the “Highway of Death” occur, Bogan? Were any ground forces from the Allies involved? Any at all?

The 'Highway of Death" occurred after the allied mechanised and armoured ground forces (which Australia does not have any) launched a fast moving hooking manoeuvre on the left flank of the Iraqi Army, coupled with frontal assaults, causing them to panic and take to their heels.

Brian Ross wrote

No, that is not what I have been saying. The Australian Defence Forces form a cohesive whole which is meant to defend Australia. The RAN and RAAF are intended to engage any enemy force in the sea-air gap which surrounds our continent. Doesn’t mean they will be 100% successful at all, just that the Army is designed to defeat any “leakers” that get through and manage to land. The Army is the primary expeditionary force as well, the “tip” of the “spear” if you like which engages enemy forces when required to by the Government “over there”.

But actually defending Australia from invasion has never been the primary role of the Army. Our professional Army is in reality, only a single infantry division. Such a division would be useful in our "primary area of responsibility" in the Pacific or in the jungles of South East Asia. But useless in the event that an invading force got though our miserably small air force, our anti submarine only navy, our six obsolete diesel eclectic submarines that we don't refine the fuel for anymore, or our 12 new obsolete submarines which will take twenty years to be delivered.

Brian Ross wrote

Of course the defence department “invents scenarios” - it has to. There are no real enemies in our region.

They don't have to be in our region for us to contribute a credible force to aid our allies in their fights with our common enemies. Before our allies realise that we are a bunch of freeloaders and whiners who are "not in their region" and not worth defending.

Brian wrote

Therefore to justify it’s purchases it must invent a threat to counter. The “Musurians” have done a commendable duty as the “Enemy” which must be countered. Their identity has changed, as as their forces order of battle depending upon when they are being countered. I have a complete set of the “Enemy” Training Pamphlets. It makes interesting reading as they changed from a pure Communist force to a mixed force to a Westernised force and now back to a mixed force.

China is and Islam are on the rise. Start thinking about them and stop thinking about "Musurians". I'll bet the Brian Ross clones in DOD figured out that the best way to defend against them was to show the "Musurains" our good intentions, and let hundreds of thousands of them immigrate to Australia, and either bankrupt our welfare budget, or become "Musurian/Australian " politicians and sell us out.

Brian Ross wrote

Maggie was, at the time of the Falkland/Malvinas the one in charge, Bogan. She was the one in the hotseat. She had been in power for over 4 years. You can only blame your predecessors for a short time in a democracy (although that doesn’t stop the Tories from trying to every five minutes in Canberra). Her Government introduced deep defence cuts. Her Government retired the ARK ROYAL. No one else did it.

Using exactly the same logic, I agree that the "conservative" Federal governments in Australia are too blame for the woeful state of our defences, especially our bankrupt army, because they listened to the Brian Ross clones in the DOD and the Immigration Department.

Brian Ross wrote

Except those four diggers run around with ATGW as well, Bogan, now don’t they?

Australia bought the MILAN system about thirty years ago. What's the bet we don't have more than two dozen launchers, like our Swedish ultra short ranged SAMS? How many we have would be a secret because the DOD don't want our enemies laughing at us (like that Taliban Spokesman famously did), or our allies shaking their heads in pitying wonder at how such an advanced and prosperous country could not take it's defences seriously.

Brian Ross wrote

You really are very short-sighted, you realise? You would hand over to the PRC the very things you keep claiming they need to attack us. Such a silly sausage

If we don't allow the Chinese to take over our dysfunctional neighbour's, then we are going to have to get into a bidding war with China, a war we can't win. Such a bidding war would suite our dysfunctional dependents just fine, and we will continue to bleed fabulous amounts of money propping up worthless dysfunctional states, and bleeding our defence force budget to do it.

Brian Ross wrote

Blockade? Really? Funny, I’ve never seen the idea of a blockade being mentioned WRT a possible solution to the Argentine invasion of the Falklands/Malvenas Islands. Amazing what fantasies your mind produces. Produce some evidence of this, please.

In reality, the British were always intent on invading the islands. Indeed, they even dusted off plans dating back to WWI which were designed to win the islands back from an invasion force. The Royal Navy could not operate in the deep South Atlantic during a southern winter. They had approximate two months in which to take the Falklands back. After that, the weather would be too rough for them to operate. Their ships were not designed for sustained operations in such conditions. It was an invasion or it was surrender the Islands to the Argentines. That was not on. So, they invaded.

Then, since you are a front line armchair warrior like me, I would recommend Ewen Southby-Tailyour's book "Reasons in Writing." It is an extremely interesting first hand account of the fighting by a forward thinking officer, who's predictions prior to the wars beginning, were proven to be right. It was Major EST, (who was based in the Falklands prior to the war) who disobeyed orders from the idiot Governor General, to make depth soundings of probable invasion beaches a couple of years before the Argie invasion. These depth soundings were crucial in convincing the Royal Navy that Port San Carlos was the only feasible place where they could put troops ashore. A damned good read.

I would also recommend "Sea Harrier Over the Falklands" by Commander 'Sharkie" Ward. Ward could not believe the incompetence of the RN's leaders, especially the fighter directors on Hermes. He maintains that the Sheffield should never have been sunk. He has nothing but scorn for the RAF, who achieved almost nothing after trying to muscle in on a war they once confidently predicted that the UK would never have to fight.

The best book I have read about the fighting in Afghanistan is 'Firestrike 7-9" by Paul Grahame. I loaned my hardback copy (which I bought cheap "on sale" for ten bucks) to a friend, who loaned it to his RAN officer son-in-law. I never got it back, because according to my friend, "it did the rounds of the officers mess on Garden Island" and disappeared somewhere. I recently bought a paperback copy on Amazon or Ebay and it was interesting to see that the hardback copy was now worth considerably more than 10 bucks.

Brian Ross wrote

You may believe that, Bogan. As I have pointed out, definitions change. The US once proclaimed that it only recognised a 3 mile territorial limit. Then they were forced to recognise what everybody else proclaimed – a 12 mile limit. EEZs allow nations to claim 200 miles for exclusive economic exploitation. The South China Sea only became an international waterway when the West decided it wanted to sail though it. Definitions change

The South china sea is international waters, and everybody except China recognises that fact. Thinking up reasons why China's claim is valid makes me think that you and Sam Dasyarti have more in common than just swamping Australia with Muslim enemy immigrants.

Brian Ross wrote

The PRC has always been nationalist, Bogan. Your dreams of international socialism are just that, dreams, fantasies. The PRC has always proclaimed its national borders even to the point of making sure that other nations respect them (ie the Sino-Indian war of 1960). India tried to grab land on the basis of a falsified British map of the Raj and found the Chinese weren’t going to let them. They are still officially at war, today. Funny that.

That is one of the contradictions of International Socialism. Like Brian Ross, they advocate principles that they break themselves. . That seems to be a feature of the socialist mindset. Funny that.

Brian Ross wrote

OK, we are discussing two separate wars here, Bogan. You are talking about the Gulf War of 1990. I am discussing here the Gulf War of 2003. Please pay attention. Different wars, different circumstances.

Well, I am talking about Gulf war one. In that war, what I wrote was entirely true. Australia could not contribute to our allies efforts, because out army is not up to scratch in a modern, mechanised war on open terrain.

Brian Ross wrote

Who knows? Perhaps they should consult you, hey? You’d just cut what, health? Education? Social Security? What?

Time to grow up, Bogan. We have only one pocket of dosh and you have to make a decision, now, on what you’re going to cut.

Now lets see you explain it to the Australian public. Go ahead. This should be amusing

How about we stop importing ethnic groups with very high rates of welfare dependency and criminal behaviour? Afghans on welfare, 94%. Iraqis on welfare 93% Pacific Islanders on Centrelink, probably 99.9%. Or those nationalities very disproportionately represented in jail, Lebanese, Pacific Islanders, Vietnamese, and Turks. Then we could make a ruling that anyone who is more than quarter caste "indigenous" can not claim that they are indigenous at all. THAT should save a few billion bucks pa, right there. But you would never agree to that because it would put a lot of public servants out of work, saving Australia billions more. Too many of your friends and work colleagues have their fingers in the till. And all those dysfunctional ethnicities on welfare are potential Labor voters.

Brian Ross wrote

You can believe that if you desire. Yet you admit that the F-35 is more advanced. Funny, you seem to be contradicting yourself. How unsurprising.

If the F-22 is inferior to the F-35, then please explain why the USA will not sell the F-22 to anybody, but will sell the F-35 to everybody, even the Turks?

Brian Ross wrote

Yet the American experts were proclaiming that Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world, that it was equipped with all the latest gizmos and toys. Leaving aside your blatant racism, Iraq, in 1990 was on paper a hard nut to crack. It had just finished a 10 year war with Iran which it had held the Iranians on or near to their border (after having invaded Iran). Iraq was it seemed to be quite a fearsome military force – on paper. Reality proved different.

Oh bullshit. Even an armchair warrior electrician like me could predict that the yanks were going to cream the Iraqis. And of course I am racist towards Arabs. While you are racist towards Americans. What's the difference between your racism and mine?

Brian Ross wrote

Saddam had always prized political loyality over martial ability – like most dictators did. He paid the price for that, as we well know. His airforce surrendered to Iran, rather than face the Allies. His army melted away when it was outflanked and outfort. Political loyality doesn’t make your troops fight harder. It doesn’t make your tanks stronger

While Australia values political correctness, buying obsolete submarines for environmental reasons, wasting money on HIGW, transgender toilets, changing toilet directions in jails and public buildings so they don't face Mecca, Muslim prayer rooms in public buildings, and sucking up to ethnic minorities in marginal electorates. At least Iraq had a decent sized modern army capable of a mobile war on open ground. Australia does not even have that.

Brian Ross wrote

*SIGH* Thanks for confirming what I said, Bogan. Well done, you finally arrived at the same place I did, years ago.

What I proved was that Australia paid much too much money for a fighter/ attack warplane with poor performance when compared to the F-15 or the Tornado, which were considerably cheaper. Another triumph of those genius's in the DOD purchasing push.

Brian Ross wrote

Sometimes costs are such because of low rates of production and the often unique demands that the armed services place on such things, as well as sometimes it’s just a rip-off by the contractors.

And in Australia, it is a DOD purchasing office who never learn by their mistakes, and who continue to purchase either "off the drawing board" designs that we have nothing but trouble with, or unproven designs which crash on their test flights, which apparently impresses the DOD no end.

Brian Ross wrote

Still missing the point. The YF-16 was considered unsuitable because it lacked BVR missile capability and had an inadequate radar. It was declared unsuitable. The F/A-18 was considered what the RAAF wanted – a cheaper, cut rate version of the F-15. It had twin engines, a good radar and BVR missiles. It could be both an attack aircraft and a fighter from the get go. It was deemed the winner.

No, you are missing the point. F-18, price $25 million, range 690 miles, speed mach 1.8. F-15, price $18 million, range 1860 miles, speed mach 3+. Those idiots in DOD procurement spent 40% more to buy a significantly inferior warplane. Why? Corruption? Very real possibility, look at the Lockheed bribery scandals over the F-104 Starfighter. Or maybe it was just stupidity? Whatever, they never learn. They just keep making the same mistakes, over and over, and over again.

Brian Ross wrote

A cruiser was designed to have a long range and a heavier armament than a Destroyer. A Destroyer was designed to have a longer range and a heavier armament than a Frigate. Today, Cruisers have basically disappeared – bee swallowed up by Destroyers which are much more capable than the Cruiser ever was. Frigates are now much more capable than what Destroyers ever were. It is all about CAPABILITY. About fighting effectiveness. WWII was over 70 years ago.

Bullshit. Both the USA and Russia still have cruisers. A frigate was a class of warship which was an almost destroyer sized dedicated anti submarine vessel. Australia did not even possess such vessels in WW2. What we had were five WW1 destroyers which proved invaluable to us, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and one WW1 light cruiser. Now we have 10 frigates and six obsolete diesel electric subs we can't find crews for. That is a reduction in strength.

Brian Ross wrote

Gun owners had their chance several times before Port Arthur to make suggestions which would stop their members including crazies like Bryant. They just buried their heads and put their fingers in the dyke and hoped it’d all blow over. Well, Bryant fixed that, now didn’t he. Howard adopted laws which removed those sorts of firearms from private hands. Good on him.

I know that people like yourself who have absolutist mindsets, like the idea of a totalitarian state where the public are disarmed, so I am not surprised that you support gun control.

Brian Ross wrote

Ah, yes the bases which you’ve just admitted we shouldn’t do anything to stop, right, Bogan? Oh, so short-sighted of you. Tsk, tsk.

You would prefer us to get into a bidding war with China, Brian? Who do you think would win that one? I would prefer to let the bastards have East Timor, and the money we save propping up our version of Haiti every year, to be spent ringing Darwin with SAM"s, land based anti ship missiles, and equipping our army to fight a modern war.

Brian Ross wrote

Take it out on the Government(s) of the day. The ADF has always been at the end of a very tight treasury.

A treasury which has no problem with the importation of dysfunctional groups who are nothing but a drain on the taxpayer. A treasury which has no problem finding funds to pork barrel these same ethic groups in marginal electorates. A treasury which spends a whopping $33 billion every year on our most dysfunctional and unproductive demographic group, who's notoriously corrupt leaders, of sometimes questionable heritage, spend all of their time expressing their contempt of us, and demanding more and more. The latest proposal is to lower the "indigenous" retirement age to 55, while the white retirement age is to increase to 70.

Brian Ross wrote

I only attack the US when it does something stupid, Bogan. Which unfortunately, it does rather often

I only attack the DOD procurement office when it does something stupid, Brian Which unfortunately, it does rather often.

Brian Ross wrote

We officially don’t need aircraft carriers we have the RAAF. Personally, I have always wondered at that but again that decision was a political one. The RAAF won it. They decided that the F/A-18s would be able to protect the fleet, particularly with inflight refuelling. So we got both types of aircraft.

The British decided that they didn't need aircraft carriers before the Falkland's war proved that they did. They withdrew the sale of the Invincible to Australia, and built two more. Now they have built two large VTOL carriers of the Queen Elisabeth class. But I understand the government's financial constraints. One US CVE would cost $8 billion dollars and another $10 billion to fill the flight deck with aircraft. That would double Australia's air force in one go.

But we would have to cut back on our refugee program because we need more Muslim terrorists and African home invaders to keep expanding our criminal justice system and our welfare system. And we need to keep thinking up more ways to keep throwing money at "indigenous" people, so that the pure breds who live on their own lands can keep drinking themselves to death and fucking their kids. While those who many of us say are not 'Indigenous" at all can continue to get all sorts of privileges denied the taxpayers who foot the bill.

Brian Ross wrote

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. The South China sea is a convenient piece of sea between Europe and Japan and Korea. It is a convenient sea way between Korea and the US and Australia. Over IIRC something like 25% of the world’s trade goes through it. However, it isn’t the only route to those destinations. Alternatives exist. All the West has to do is accept that they will have to pay a few cents more on the goods they import from ROK, Japan, Taiwan and boycott the PRC’s products. All they need do is invest money in India and Africa.

The Black Sea is important because it showed that what the US Navy decreed, was not what the rest of the world believed. Their 3 mile limit was outmoded and old hat. The rest of the world had moved on and declared a 12 mile limit. Guess what the US Government did? They declared a 12 mile limit as well and accepted the Russian’s declaration of a 12 mile limit. Then came the 200 mile EEZ treaty. Gee, all were simply legal definitions, nothing more. China’s efforts to acquire the South China Sea will either work or they’ll be ignored.

The South China Sea is international waters. China is a totalitarian state which will eventually eclipse the USA in economic output. If you think that they have no global ambitions then you must be so stupid that you believe in Creationism or Multiculturalism.

Brian Ross wrote

There is no evidence that the Iranians heard anything, Bogan. I know you hate quotes but tough luck. Wiki tells us:

So, there was a civilian Iranian aircraft, using it’s transponder on a civilian frequency to identify it as a civilian aircraft, climbing and flying a well establish air corridor, which was misidentified as an F-14 fighter aircraft, diving and attacking a US Navy ship. Looks to me like the US Navy was clearly in the wrong there, mate. Something the US Government has never admitted to, even though, they have paid compensation to the families of the victims of their ship’s missiles

Oh, so now you are sticking up for the Mullahs over our friends and allies in the US navy? That would be right. let's see. In this case.

BRIAN”S MORALITY FORMULA

White people..................bad and always wrong………………………………….tick
Non whites.....................good and always right………………………………….tick
Successful people............oppressors…………………………………………………….tick
Unsuccessful people..........victims of oppressors….……………………………..tick
Western civilisation...........bad ………………………………………………………………tick
All other civilisations........equal in every way to western civilisation and never bad…………...................................................................................tick
The USA...........................very, very, very bad………………………………….tick

Yep, I see it from your perspective, Brian. Seven ticks out of seven, so our friends and allies in the US Navy must be in the wrong.