And of course you defend the defense procurement agency because they are your public service mates too. No matter how much they stuff up you will defend them to the death. Good public servants like you stick together, watch each others backs, and try to get each others departments to always expand and get more finance.[/quote
The defence procurement people are rather harried with demands from amateurs to procure the latest piece of whizz-whackery rather than the more stable piece of equipment. Using your views, we would end up with crap all too often, "Bogan". Sometimes they make mistakes but generally they make good decisions.
Brine wrote
Political desires which are never considered as part of your diatribes. I've never read of you attacking the Tories for their decision to foist the M60 GPMG on the Army and make them use the machine gun for over 25 years, only to replace it with the same gun which actually won the competition in 1959. Little things slip past you because they don't intrude on your political beliefs, even if they end up killing soldiers. Nor do we ever read of you attacking the Tories because of their decision to foist upon the RAAF the F-111. An aircraft that was poorly designed and didn't really show it's real potential until it was remanufactured with new Avionics and new main spars and became able to use laser guided bombs... Funny that. Oh, the ALP has stuffed up occasionally and done spectacularly badly as well
You are ideologically driven. You hate the Left hence your classification of all Leftist movements under the one banner. There are differences, you realise? However that subtlety escapes you. Tsk, tsk, tsk...
Now you are trying to blame the Libs for another fuck up by the procurement agency in regards to the M60.
The M60 decision was foisted on the Army by the Tory government of the day. The FN-MAG GPMG won the competition at the time. The Tories believed it was more important that the Army have the same GPMG as the US Army for purposes of "inter-operability". Pity it was a piece of crap, which even the US Army abandoned at about the same time as the Australian Army for the same weapon - the same weapon which had won the competition in 1959! The M60 GPMG could be assembled backwards so it wouldn't operate. It's barrel had to have an asbestos mit to be removed and it was subject to "run away gun" (it would keep firing when the trigger was not depressed). In South Vietnam several soldiers won awards for stripping and assembling the gun in firefights because it had suffered a stoppage. The weapon was dangerous and it was adopted on a political whim!
Thank you, I had forgotten about that one and I will add it to my list. Elected government members are rarely former armed forces officers and usually know nothing about military matters at all. Such people rely upon their public service "experts" to inform them as to what is the best military equipment is to buy for our money. The government of the day usually takes the advice of their public service "experts."
Generally, I'd agree with you, "Bogan" but there have been several major exceptions over the decades. We have ended up with some duds because of political interference in the procurement process.
These were the same "experts" who did everything in their power to quash the manufacture of the Owen Gun during WW2, which is one of the best SMG's ever invented. Trials which clearly displayed the Owens superiority over other weapons were ignored. It's a good thing that the public service ideologues running the ABC now were not around then or they would have been backing up their PS mates and pissing on the Owen for all they were worth. Even the yanks were interested in putting a .45 version into manufacturing for their own troops, but our public service "experts" told the yanks it was no good. [
Not quite true. The Yanks weren't interested in the Owen. The Owen in .45 calibre was never adopted because Australia didn't manufacture .45in calibre rounds that were suitable for use in SMGs (it also looked IMO rather Goofy in .45in). The Australian Army was interested in what the Poms had adopted - the Sten Gun. When that was shown to be a non-starter they went for the Austen a version of the Sten which used die casts. It was a disaster as well. The point was, the Army had to operate on an Empire wide concept and even the Poms weren't interested in SMGs initially referring to them as "gangster guns". The Yanks had Thompson and M3 "Grease Guns", they didn't need a competitor from Oz.
The M60 is another case where the public service must have recommended the gun to the relevant minister and he took their usually wrong advice.
Ideologically driven it seems. The Minister knew better than his advisors...
Brian wrote
Nor do we ever read of you attacking the Tories because of their decision to foist upon the RAAF the F-111. An aircraft that was poorly designed and didn't really show it's real potential until it was remanufactured with new Avionics and new main spars and became able to use laser guided bombs... Funny that.
Oh come on Briney! You and me crossed swords on that topic a couple of years ago. I criticised the purchase of the F-111 as another example of the stupidities of the department responsible for defense acquisitions, while you defended them. You said we needed a bomber that would hit Djakarta and the F-111 was the only candidate that could do it. Now you are claiming it is all the Libs fault for purchasing this hideously over priced and under performing aircraft that we waited 11 (or was it 13?) years for delivery.
Oh, dear, another misquoting, how typical. What I more than likely said that the only competitors were the TSR.2 and the F-111 and the Mirage IV. The Mirage was knocked as undeveloped. The TSR.2 was knocked out because the British abandoned it (and because of machinations of Mountbatten 'cause he wanted the Buccaneer adopted) which left the F-111 as the only choice. A poor choice in the short term. Not one I would have supported.
Another one of your contradictions and double standards? It is just as well you lefties have double standards, or you would have no standards at all.
Just you not understanding the events of 1965.
Brian wrote
We have the Sea Sprite choppers, the Tiger/Tigre choppers but that was because they listened to the professionals who were mistaken in their opinions.
I do not entirely blame either the Labor governments or the Liberal governments for the long list of bungled defense purchases. For the most part they simply take the advice of their incompetent and over paid procurement "experts" who are so incompetent I am certain in my own mind that they must be being bribed. They could not be that stupid. If there is one thing that we should have learned by now, it is do not buy fighters, bombers, or submarines that are still on the drawing board, who's performance may not be as advertised, and who's costs are unknown. And it is as immutable as the Law of Gravity that the price of a drawing board weapon will balloon.
Not quite. The Australian forces have a reputation for their honesty. They do not accept bribes. All their decisions are invariably made for good reasons, it is up to the Government of the day whether they accept them or not.
But those idiots who are your mates are still doing it. the F-35 ballooned so much in cost that the Australian government tried to cut it's initial order for 75 down to 60.
Oh dear, not another critic of the F-35? The F-35 is the most advanced fighter-bomber on the market today. It has unparalleled abilities and performance. The Swiss have recently decided to adopt it, along with the RAF, RAAF, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and other air forces around the world. The Russians and the Chinese don't have anything comparable. There are over 600 in service today. It has been a long road but one worth travelling.
The French submarine was the most idiotic proposal, probably in the entire history of world defence procurement.
In part I agree with you, however they were the winners. There was a choice - the Germans, the Japanese or the French. The French won. The Japanese weren't reliable as submarine builders and the Germans didn't have a comparable product. The Americans don't make conventional submarines, the Brits don't either.
All because the public service and their supporters cringe in fear at the word "nuclear". Australia almost purchased a dozen diesel electric subs that were designed to be nuclear, for $60 billion dollars. Surprise, surprise, without even a single piece of steel being cut, that has ballooned to $90 billion. Even the tea lady at Defense Procurement knew that there was nothing to stop the price getting higher and higher. But even at $90 billion, it was an incredibly expensive purchase, as it committed us to pay at least A$7.5 billion dollars for each sub. And according to reports in The Australian newspaper, the French subs can not fire cruise missiles and the torpedoes are not even NATO compatible. If true, that meant we had to buy all of our torpedoes from France at God knows what cost? And we would be denied submarine launched cruise missiles which greatly extended the striking range of submarines, to include land targets as well as maritime targets.
Actually, the French submarines could fire standard NATO torpedoes and cruise missiles, "Bogan". The Australian was mistaken - not unusual for them.
Industrial level incompetence. And you defend it? Don't get me started on the Tigre attack helicopter, that is the second most incompetent defense purchase in the entire world history of defense procurement.
I defend Australia not buying nukes because nukes are going to seriously distort our defence budget, Indeed it is already doing that. We are starting to encounter all the problems with trying to adopt a completely new technology as I predicted. We do not have the training establishments, we lack the nuclear physicists and technicians and we lack the industry required to support these boats. We lack trained submariners. This is a massive change and it is starting to distort our defence spending in a massive way.
When I suggested to you that Australia should buy off the shelf nuclear submarines from either Britain or the USA, you countered by saying that neither the Brits or the yanks had ever sold nuke subs to anybody and they probably would not sell them to Australia. I countered with "Why don't we ask them?" Fortunately, Australia has a LIBERAl Defense minister with brains. Peter Dutton asked both of them and they both agreed. Perhaps Defense Acquisitions should hire me as their head? I looked up the price of a Virginia and of a Dreadnought and they are both around US$3.5 billion each. That equates to around AU$5 billion each. So, defense purchases managed to convince their mates in the Labor government to purchase a AU$7.5 billion (at least) lemon of a not yet designed diesel electric submarine, that could not fire cruise missiles and which had non NATO torpedoes? This meant that Australia could never have access to the latest generations of NATO torpedoes like the British Tigerfish, which was so damned good that even the yanks bought them.
Funny, the US Navy isn't listed as user according to
Wikipedia. It was by most accounts a bit of a dog that didn't work all that well. Tsk, tsk, tsk...
You can only shake your head in pitying wonder. They must be getting bribed.
Of course, we are not out of the woods yet. Even if we buy nukes you can bet that instead of just buying them from the Brits or the yanks where the infrastructure is already in extant and where the subs are already in series production, your left wing mates in the unions will demand that most of the subs must be built here because their jobs are more important than our increasingly urgent national defense. And you being a lefty public servant who knows how to look after your comrades, you will support them.
Neither the Poms or the Yanks have the ability to ramp up their manufacture to cater for our orders. Indeed it has been announced that the initial submarines will be more than likely a modified COLLINS design with a nuclear pile inserted to power it. The RN and the USN have their own needs and their own shipyards are fully occupied fulfilling them. Loads of problems with this decision and the word is that DoD is not happy with it because of all the complications associated with it.
