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Subject: Our defenceless force
Volkodav    3/30/2009 8:56:45 PM
I wonder if the new white paper will be any better than previous efforts or whether we will see more of the same. Cameron Stewart | March 31, 2009 Article from: The Australian IF there were a moment when the fragile relationship between Joel Fitzgibbon and the defence establishment finally snapped, it might have been the surprise attack the minister launched on his own flock in Brisbane last October. On that day Fitzgibbon did what previous defence ministers have rarely done: he gave his own defence force a blunt public spray about its big-picture priorities and its lack of preparedness for battle. Fitzgibbon was angry about not having the option of deploying the army's Black Hawk helicopters into Afghanistan. The minister had been taking political heat over an inadequate number of NATO medical evacuation choppers available for Australian troops at their base in Tarin Kowt, in Oruzgan province. "If we do see a strategic and tactical justification for sending Black Hawks to Afghanistan tomorrow, we would be unable to do so as they lack the electronic warfare self-protection they require," Fitzgibbon lamented. "We spend a lot of time thinking and talking about important capability as we look far out into the future, but we seem to spend much less time talking about the capability we need to do the things we do right now and on a regular basis." The minister's comments broke the rules of keeping such criticism in-house. Defence likes to see its ministers keep a stiff upper lip in public, confining any criticism to private meetings. Fitzgibbon put his department offside on that day, but he also made a telling point. Few Australians are fully aware that tens of billions of dollars' worth of front-line weaponry from the navy, air force and army cannot be sent to war today unless it is a low-level, low-risk operation. As the Government puts the finishing touches to the new defence white paper, it is gearing up for a public relations blitz about the futuristic, sleek and powerful Australian Defence Force of tomorrow. What the Defence Department won't tell you is that, as things stand, most of Australia's warplanes and ships cannot be sent to any conflict involving an opponent with a half-decent air defence system and modern anti-ship missiles. Across the entire ADF, an alarming amount of expensive military equipment is not in a suitable upgraded condition to be sent to war. This is the legacy of project mismanagement and a Defence Department mindset that focuses more heavily on the defence force of tomorrow than on the force of today. "It really is amazing how little (equipment) can be actually deployed overseas when we have a defence budget of more than $22billion," says Andrew Davies, an analyst withthe country's premier independent military think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Former senior defence official Allan Behm agrees: "I think the public would be absolutely astonished and gobsmacked to think we spend so much on defence every year and yet we can't send much (of) it into harm's way because it won't work or will not survive in acontest." As the Government considers its military options for an increased role in Afghanistan, the frustration of the Rudd Government at the depleted state of the ADF is growing. An investigation by The Australian reveals just how ill-prepared the ADF is for an immediate crisis. It finds much of the defence force's most powerful weaponry is awaiting future upgrades or promised replacements and is useful only for training purposes or deployment on operations where there is little or no risk of high-level conflict. This problem needs to be seen in context. No defence force keeps its entire inventory on war footing; such a practice would be prohibitively expensive and pointless when no enemy is apparent. All Western defence forces, including the ADF, are in a constant state of transition with armoury being upgraded and replaced as it becomes obsolete. But this long-term upgrading process must be balanced against existing requirements and future short-term contingencies. Experts say this balance has been lost. "The problem with readiness planning has arisen because of peacekeeping and other short-notice commitments (that) have seen us having to deploy assets quickly and put them in harm's way," says Daniel Cotterill, a defence analyst with Hill and Knowlton and until recently Fitzgibbon's chief of staff. "There is a bias within defence towards investing in the future force rather than giving government the fully functioning options they really need today." For example, if Australia were asked to provide warplanes for an immediate operation against a country with a functioning air defence system, it could not do so. The F-111 strike bomber, which will be retired next year, can't be deployed to a hot war zone because it has insufficient electronic warfare self-protection and is too easily detected by ene
 
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StevoJH       3/30/2009 9:43:14 PM
Of course the people at fault for these 'slight' issues regarding the Navy and Airforce are the Minister and his procurement staff, not the actual people wearing the uniforms. As for the army, how many people do they expect to be able to deploy overseas? considering forces need to be rotated and still carry out their normal training etc.
 
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gf0012-aust       3/31/2009 12:31:11 AM
people need to understand the procurement and decision making process before mking assumptions.

procurement decisions are made between the suits and uniforms - there is no unilateral decision except at ministerial level.

for any program to be cut (without ministerial intervention) a number of other stakeholders (and 2 include uniforms) are involved.

blaming suits, blaming uniforms in isolation ignores the very real difficulties that are levied upon thye project directors.  they are bound by political process which governs the administrative and project management process to a very large degree.  some would argue excessively. some would be fair in making that call. 
 
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ArtyEngineer       3/31/2009 1:23:25 AM
"If we do see a strategic and tactical justification for sending Black Hawks to Afghanistan tomorrow, we would be unable to do so as they lack the electronic warfare self-protection they require," Fitzgibbon lamented.
 
That statment doesnt seem valid to me!!!!  Have there been any instances of MANPAD's being used in the Afghanistan theater whcih have triggerd anyones helos integrated defensive aids suite (DAS)????  Just curious as was of the opinion that the largest threat was small arms, HMG and RPG  none of which a defensive aids suit is going to be able to do anything about.
 
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SCisback       3/31/2009 2:35:42 AM

I wonder if the new white paper will be any better than previous efforts or whether we will see more of the same.
From Rudd and Fitzgibbon? dont be a fool. Defence is being raped at the moment from every imaginable direction, yet the vast majority of instances will never be found in the papers.
 
 
 
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gf0012-aust       3/31/2009 2:43:51 AM

That statment doesnt seem valid to me!!!!  Have there been any instances of MANPAD's being used in the Afghanistan theater whcih have triggerd anyones helos integrated defensive aids suite (DAS)????  Just curious as was of the opinion that the largest threat was small arms, HMG and RPG  none of which a defensive aids suit is going to be able to do anything about.


the statement is a crock of shyte.  the blokes in theatre and who are flying them back here want them and don't see them as not up to the job..
 
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Aussiegunneragain       3/31/2009 5:24:55 AM
I'm not usually the first to jump to the DOD's and ADF's (Defence) defence with respect to acquisitions and project management as I think their actions often leave a hell of a lot to be desired, but in this instance I think they are being very unfairly chastised. To me the two big issues are political, not military or buereucratic, and are as follows.
 
1. We don't and won't spend enough on defence to meet both our immediate ambitions and long term needs. That forces the Defence to choose whether to emphasise one or the other. Given a reletively benign strategic environment in our immediate region and an "opt-in" reality for tougher global wars led by our allies,  but a potentially more challenging regional environment in  the future, the logical choice for them is to emphasise platform purchases at the expense of a current high level of readiness to fight high-intensity wars. This is because it takes much longer to get a major new platform into service than it does to add new gear to an existing one. Fitzgibbon should remember that the "for but now with" doctrine of defence procurement was championed during the last Labor Government before he blames Defence for it.
 
2. This notion that we "can't" send our platforms into a high intensity conflict as equipped is rubbish. If we sent them in there would be a higher risk of casualties than there would be if they were upgraded, but if we had to we would still fight with them and given the current threat environment they would haved a reasonable chance at success. It is in fact more accurate to say that we can't send them into a conflict with our current ultra risk averse attitude towards casualties. The case point is that despite the risk of large IED's, the Canadians have been using their M-113's in Afghanistan and wearing the risk, and when they have done so they have prevailed.
 
Fitzgibbon is just blaming his Department for a situation where the attitude of the Australian public and it's leaders are really too blame. However, we all know that he is a scumbag and an idiot so that isn't a surprise. What really  pisses me off is that we get these expert comentators who don't give this context when they get quoted in these articles and just slam Defence for having to make a difficult choice. Cameron Stewart has been writing Defence articles long enough to think for himself on these issues too so to an extent I hold him responsible as well.
 
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THEPUSSMK2       3/31/2009 6:21:29 AM

This Andrew Davies Knuckle Head from ASPI annoys me. He is basically saying that you cannot risk an asset unless there is 0% chance that it will be damaged.  I joined realising that unfortunately I could injured in the line of duty or worse but at the end of the day its part of the job.

 Apparently ANZACS are defenceless......32 ESSM  cutting edge SAMs, An extremely accurate 5" Gun, 8  of the latest Harpoon SSM?s, 16 state of the art Nuka decoys, Embarked S-70B, Latest?s generation light weight torpedo in the form of the MU-90, 2 x Mini Typhoon night-day remote operated 50'cal mounts, SRBOC.... and the list goes on but apparently we could only defend ourselves in a low threat environment.....BS!,  All theses pieces of kit are mine (except the S-70B of course ) so I know what they can do. I suggest Mr Knuckle head leaves his uni campus and his government grants and joins the ADF so he realises that we are not the "defenceless defence force"
 
P,S I dont think the crew of USS Firebolt and HMAS Stuart would consider the northern Persian  Gulf to be "Low Threat"
 
P,SS... My Two Cents......over http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emwink.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
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hairy man       3/31/2009 8:42:42 PM
I have been wondering why we have'nt sent any Tigers ARH over the Afghanistan yet.  Now I know why.  The Polies are frightened one might get damaged fighting a war!
 
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Aussie Diggermark 2       4/1/2009 9:11:07 AM

I have been wondering why we have'nt sent any Tigers ARH over the Afghanistan yet.  Now I know why.  The Polies are frightened one might get damaged fighting a war!

Let's look at the issues shall we? 
 
1. I'll start with the Hornets, because they are the "flashest".
 
The HUG is nearly complete. All phases of the upgrade are essentially completed in their development, with most jets having received, virtually the entire upgrade. 
 
16x Hornets have been fitted to date with the ALR-67(v3) digital RWR and that entire process will be complete, across the fleet in less than 12 months.
 
All Hornets retain their original internal self-protection jammer, which came with the aircraft and is fine for older generation radar guided threats.
 
All Hornets have received the upgraded ALE-47 counter-measures dispenser and the SAAB BOL counter-measure is being introduced into service (and is actually fitted to pylons anyway, not the actual aircraft). 
 
The Elta EL/L-8222 self protection jamming pod, currently used on our F-111's is being migrated onto the Hornets. This is the ONLY "EW" element not yet in-service, ARDU/AOSG is working on it, but it is a force package capability, not a capability that will be carried by EACH individual jet. 

Therefore it is abundantly clear that a RAAF Hornet package, equal to that deployed to Iraq in 2003, COULD deploy to a "full scale war", based on the EWSP systems as currently fitted. Could the whole fleet? No, but then even if EVERY aircraft was fitted with the full system, the full fleet couldn't deploy to war.
 
As we are not AT war and there is no likelyhood of becoming INVOLVED in a "full scale war" within the next 12 months, I fail to see what the issue is. The missing capability has already been identified and largely addressed, before this article was even written.

The Tiger. 

It has not reached IOC in Australian service yet, let alone FOC. The delays have been partly our fault, partly the contractors fault and partly NO-ONES fault. 

If the aircraft is not even fully certified to fly it's entire envelope, I fail to see how it could be deployed?
 
If the aircraft isn't certified fully to even fly, it can't deploy. 
 
 If we don't have the pilots, Battle-Captains and maintainers, trained up, it can't deploy.
 
If our Army hasn't reached IOC, then it hasn't had a chance to develop the doctrine and tactics to actually "fight" the aircraft. 
 
If Army can't "fight" the aircraft, it can't deploy...
 
The M113? 
 
I doubt it will ever be suitable for whatever this "full scale war" might be. It's armour, firepower and mobility are ALL deficient compared to modern armoured vehicles and the one shining light of the original upgrade plan, ie: cheap interim vehicle, has gone out the window because of poor contractor performance, shoddy management practices and piss-poor capability definition in the first place.
 
7RAR being the lead user of the vehicle, are too busy "raising, training and sustaining" for current ops, to have a serious look at introducing the capability anyway...
 

 
 
 
 
 
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Volkodav       4/1/2009 10:32:36 PM
7RAR being the lead user of the vehicle, are too busy "raising, training and sustaining" for current ops, to have a serious look at introducing the capability anyway...
 
Thats basically what the most recent ANAO report on the project says
 
The thing is now the money has been spent and the vehicles are entering service we might as well use them to maintain the army's associated technical and tactical skills until a new generation of vehicles can be acquired post 2020. While Bradley, Warrior or CV-90 would have been great if ordered inplace of the M-113 upgrade that didn't happen so we might as well rely on the ASLAV PC and Bushmasters for our current operational deployments while watching the various "transformational" AFV technologies that are starting to emerge.
 
Post 2020 we could be able to sign up for a new generation Light/Medium FOV incorporating band tracks, perforated armour to replace our APC's. 
 
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