Happy Birthday to the Royal Australian Navy

[stevedrew]

Forum,
On this day, July 10, 2001 (Australian time!), I would like to say Happy 90th Birthday to the Royal Australian Navy, who were gracious enough to employ me for a quarter of a century. The Royal Australian Navy was established on July 10, 1911, and was formerly known as the Commonwealth Naval Forces. Happy Birthday, lads. Splice the mainbrace!
Stefe Drew

I'll raise a glass to those gallant crews! Sorry to miss the post yesterday. Of course, I wish good luck to the RAN as well, since now that New Zealand government has foolishly decided to abandon their air forces, the burden of possible future interventions and pacific war now falls more heaily on Australia.

New Zealand is giving up on a air force? I agree it will put more burden on Australia in the future. It also makes the USA and Australia the only effective powers in the south Pacific.

>New Zealand is giving up on a air force?

They not so long ago decided against replacing the Skyhawks with leased F-16's. The Skyhawks are aging and are ex Royal Australian Navy Skyhawks left over from when Australia had HMAS Melbourne. One NZ Skyhawk Squadron is based in Nowra, NSW, Australia. Australia has prodded them in the past to spend more on their military, I am sure the US has too but New Zealand has resisted.

New Zealand is a small nation with less than 4 million people which doesnt make for a large GDP, certainly with the cost of military hardware and systems always rising at exponential rates, buying $ USD hardware and systems with $ NZD is prohibitively expensive. An 50,000,000 USD Strike Fighter is 100,000,00 NZD. Australia wont be able to afford the new generation of Strike Fighters either, especially if they have to replace their transport and maritime capacity at the same time.

The New Zealand government was also elected as part of their mandate IIRC to scale down military spending, so they are only doing what their voting population wants.

New Zealand also broke the ANZUS treaty many, many years ago and still bans nuclear carrying ships from their ports. With the USN's "neither confirm nor deny" policy, that effectively bans their ships from NZ harbours. This was also around the time the French Secret Service decided to blow up a Greenpeace ship in Auckland harbour. Which was a major contravention of NZ soveriegncy.


>I agree it will put more burden on Australia
>in the future. It also makes the USA and
>Australia the only effective powers in the
>south Pacific.

Not really, Australian strike abilities in the region are probably equal to one and a half USN carriers. Australia's predominant concerns in the region are the protection of the North-West shelf assets auch as oil and fishing. Several countries to the north are also unstable politically and while not having the strike abilities of the RAAF could make the North West shelf an unpleasant place for Australia diplomatically. For many years Australia fought a confrontation war with Indonesia in Irian Jira. Any conflict in the region is more likely to be along those lines or the East Timor UN intervention.

New Zealand really has no concerns like that, it is Australian assets which are up there, not New Zealands. New Zealand is responsible for administrations in many of the Islands to it's north and west and has more than enough military projection to protect itself there. It is more likely that any problems in New Zealands sphere of benevolence will be an islands and divisions of the ethnic type. Similar to the internal problems Fiji is facing.

Other than a proud martial past there isnt that great a need or direct security threat to require New Zealand to have the strike ability that Australia currently has. Australia has also been squeezing it's military budget, little has been replaced in recent years.

Strike ability is a two edged sword anyway as Australia is facing block obscelence,and a low Australian dollar to buy expensive $ USD hardware and systems from Boeing or Lockheed-Martin sint helping. Australia traded away it's indigineous design and build industry in the late 1950's. More recent Australian governments havent tried to resurrect it either, choosing the Pilatus PC-9 over the indigineous AAC Wimera in the 80's despite Australian and British interest in the design.

It was with a similar project CAC started ( CAC Wirraway ) and was in place to give Australia a stop-gap fighter (CAC Boomerang) and medium bomber ( CAC Woomera, which wasnt needed due to the influx of cheap Australian, British and American built medium bombers ) solution in 1942 when Australia had no other choice. That design and build experience also produced the CAC Wackett, CAC Winjeel, CAC Ca-15, GAF Pika/Jindivik, GAF Nomad and later the CAC Sabre. All designs for Australian needs. Instead of designs for the European theatre that suffer in Australian tropical and desert environs, such as the Spitfire and Mirage.




cam
AFC - http://members.nbci.com/pointcook/

[stevedrew]

Cam,
I didn't think ANYONE knew about the Pika/Jindivik!
Steve Drew

Steve,

>I didn't think ANYONE knew about the Pika/Jindivik!

All part of Australian aerospace history.



cam
AFC - http://members.nbci.com/pointcook/

Cam,
It appears then that what really stands in the way is the politics of New Zealand's government, perhaps not the cost of aircraft. Certainly the US has repeatedly shown it will make great deals, even unusual deals, to help allies with aircraft obtainment. Sure, NZ has a small population, but so does Norway with a population just over 4 million, somewhat comparable to NZ. Yet they manage to field F-16 strike aircraft. They do have the recent memory of Nazi occupation, which I'm sure is influential, but the US also makes them deals. Now don't tell me that the people of New Zealand have forgotten how close the Imperial Japanese forces came, 59 years ago. I know how valiantly NZ troops fought in that war. So I know military planners there understand the necessity of an airforce deterence. Does the general population understand?

Very best regards,
Mark Daymont
(not trying to accuse or anything, just trying to understand better!)

Mark,

>It appears then that what really stands
>in the way is the politics of New Zealand's
>government,

Not really, for quite a long time the New Zealand population has been against large scale military spending. With NZ deciding they wanted out of the ANZUS treaty in the mid-80's by enacting the anti-nuclear legislation is an indication that New Zealand as a people, nation and government havent wanted large scale military obligations for quite a long time. New Zealand was also very upset with French Nuclear testing in the South Pacific, Muraroa is essentially in New Zealands backyard and environmentatlly touches on New Zealands political area of benevolance. Australia copped out in that area. Hardly a leader in the South Pacific when your GG doesnt get up at the UN and lambast the French for nuclear testing.

>perhaps not the cost of aircraft.

Australia isnt going to pay $ 200 million USD for a strike aircraft in 2012. That is currently $394,134,000 AUD. That is an awful lot of hospitals. By comparison, that is $ 491,972,000 NZD. It is no wonder that populations of smaller countries like New Zealand and Australia would want their tax dollars spent elsewhere. New Zealand being a small democratic nation with a small GDP in comparison to the major power like the US, GB, Germany or France is probably more sensitive to it's electorate in this area.

>Sure, NZ has a small population, but so does
>Norway with a population just over 4 million,

Norway had the Eastern Bloc one side and NATO on the other up until recently. New Zealand is probably more concerned with it Beef products making it to the world market than it is about Communist expansionism.



>Now don't tell me that the people of New
>Zealand have forgotten how close the
>Imperial Japanese forces came, 59 years ago.

Japan is Australia's major exporter. I dont doubt it is similar for New Zealand. The only modern nations in the region capable of military expansion as what occurred in 1942 would be the US, Japan or China. The first two are more interested in making money than war. The first two also wont let a large economic region like the South Pacific and Central Pacific become unstable due to sabre rattling.

>I know how valiantly NZ troops fought in
>that war. So I know military planners
>there understand the necessity of an
>airforce deterence. Does the general
>population understand?

The question is do the population want it? The RAAF has an unusual strike ability in the region because of the distances Australia and the North West shelf has. New Zealand is a tiny pair of islands with few to no scattered assets. Unlike Australia which is huge and has scattered assets that are normally far away from population centers. It makes sense for Australia to have potent long range strike ability, strong transport arm and the ability to see past thier borders and into international waters. New Zealand really doesnt need any of that except maybe to watch their coastline and a deterrant such as an F16 would be a waste of money there. A Radar chain would be better. Because of the modern doctrines of integrated forces ( al-la USMC ) , the New Zealand troops would probably slot in quickly with Australian forces anyway similar to what happened in East Timor.

Any threats to New Zealand would have to be major to require them to keep a large military force. And the only real threat to their security was in 1942. And then most of their forces were in Europe and North Africa. It would probably be more important for New Zealand to have a good mobilisation and procurement plan in time of emergency than to have a large standing military force.



cam

[Barrett]

Ref. NZ's "nuke free zone" policy: U.S. aircraft carriers were dropped from the SIOP in 1976, meaning that tailhook airplanes no longer deploy with that capability though they're still wired for it. Subs and Tomahawk shooters undoubtedly retain the strike potential, and of course some carriers are nuke powered, but the prospect of dropping "special weapons" overboard is essentially zero. However, it's ironic to consider that IF (a huge if fershure) Kiwiland were ever seriously threatened with invasion, the tiny NZ armed forces could only survive by resorting to nukes. Hmmm...China invades New Zealand for reasons yet to be determined. I feel a novel coming on. Think I'll call it "The 7th Battle" since the wargamers still like the 6th!

>the tiny NZ armed forces could only survive
>by resorting to nukes.

New Zealand and Australia are nuclear arms free. That part of the world is already scared for many hundreds of thousands of years by nucleur bombs already. From Maralinga on the Australian mainland, to Muraroa to Bikini Atoll. Which make a nice smiley mark from Southern Australia to Chile.
Rather than plain expansionism, I dont know what assets New Zealand has that another nation would want so badly. If it is oil, Indonesia is a better target and for minerals Australia probably has the most of those assets in the region. I am not sure why any nation would want to repress four million people for the two islands that have teh real estate of about Rhode Island and Delaware put together.

Australia is going to be facing similar issues to New Zealand in the next decade. Australia's strike ability is aging and facing block obscelesence. Australia's dollar has eroded it's international purchasing ability. With the way the defence industry has consolidated into Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, apparently purchasing things such as source code is getting more difficult. Plus Australia makes many purchasing decisions so that it can slot into US Forces.

Simple decisions like using Microsoft and Oracle as their OS and DB computing platforms. Which is dumb, Australia will never get the source code for those software systems so they can do security audits on them.

I think Australia should invest in itself for a change, the needs of the US military forces are becoming more and more deivergant from the needs of the smaller military forces like Australia and New Zealand.

I think the Australian Aerospace industry should be given a shot in the arm and be made to develop and build smaller systems such as pilotless drones for observation, satellites and observation technology. Most agreements like that usually go to LM or Boeing with the caveat for the several 10's of millions be that 2500 jobs generated be in Australia.

If all Australian military projects are kept in Australia and developed indigineously it will give the Australian Aerospace in general a shot in the arm. None of the political parties will do it though. Too scared of failure and scandals over budget overruns.

With Australia's weak dollar the development for an indigineous system can overrun budget by 100% and then it will get to it's USD value lol.



cam
AFC - http://members.nbci.com/pointcook/