Who care's about all this crap, we need solutions to plug our defence gap before its too late now. Because whilst we have brave men and women in the defence forces they will need to fight;

frontline Russian fight/bombers, equiped with state of the art french, malaysian and Israeli technology in the cockpit.

their ground forces will have better tank fighting capabilities purchased from South Korea and China that are cheap and easy to use by a novice. In addition to using the latest AKM series and South korean assult weapons in 7.62 against our pathetic 5.56 and have the best optical sights and rail attachments available.

We will fly old unreliable aircraft that will fight well but be eventually blown out of the sky because of the enemies ability to replace them cheaper than ours.

Our ships will be usless because we won't control the skies, our ground forces will have weapons that won't work properly because of faulty springs and bad ammunition.

our old Abrahms tanks will be too big for our transports, and too heavy for the soils in our region anyway and will breakdown very quickly because of the heat.

We need solutions now because our service people are leaving in droves because its just not worth it leaving the defence of this country up to civilians and politicians with their noses in the trough.

Dr Jensen's suggestions look sensible.

Its a shame that he didn't put them to his own Liberal Party (or did he?) while it was in power for more than a decade.

In fact all the deficient equipment decisions he itemises were made by his Party (where the Buck Stops) although on the advice of not only Defence, but also Treasury, Foreign Affairs and the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources amongst others.

Still, its useful that Dr Jensen is advocating positive changes. Problem is that Defence is a massive and complex institution that resists change, knows how to play off politicians and sees governments come and go. This explains why the Coalition was unable to reform Defence.

Labor needs all the determination it can muster to budge the Defence elephant.

Pete

Pete

You will note from the article that I wrote this piece originally for the Catallaxy site way back on January 23 last year, when we were still in government (see bottom of article where this is noted).

Dennis

Yindin, you seem to believe a lot of complete urban myths about the ADF and our strategic situation.

The Abrams tank, for example, has none of the mobility problems you wrongly believe. Similarly, problems with our small arms and other equipment in hot, dusty, desert environments were not unexpected and have been easily managed.

May I suggest you join the Australia Defence Association, or even just visit its website (www.ada.sn.au), in order to update your knowldge.

Neil James
Executive Director
ADA

Dennis

Thankyou for the info.

So what kind of reaction did you receive from your Liberal colleagues when/assuming you made the same suggestions to them about Defence reform?

Regards

Pete

Pete

"I could tell you but I would have to kill you":)

I'll leave it to you to figure what the response might have been.

Dennis

WAR IS OLD SCHOOL! Have you got anything for the furture?

Defence has made some absolutely stinking purchases

I would love to know in which Theaters in Australia or the PacRim can we use the Abrams tanks?

The Super Hornets are more expensive, but slower and noisier than Russian fighters. So why would we buy them?

The JSF was selected before the tender process was even completed. So how can that purchase ever truly be justified?

None of these decisions can be justified as the correct procurement processes were not engaged.

Dennis, hopefully you can still have some input into the running of Defence even though you are not in government

Neil: your link does not work http://www.ada.sn.au/

Sorry, the link is www.ada.asn.au

Google or a moment's experimenting with common domain suffixs (org, asn, etc) would have solved the problem.

There is no country in the Asia-Pacific region that Abrams tanks cannot be depoyed to or operated in. The notions that these tanks are too heavy or somehow unusable are complete myths. Tanks save lives and it is simply criminal negligence to deploy infantry without armoured support, including heavy armour (tanks) in certain tactical situations.

Thanks Dennis

I indeed imagined what the Liberal Party higher-ups would have thought of your proposals (a la "its all too hard") before I asked ya .

Nothing like rhetorical questions to expose the limitations of Coalition AND Labor politicians who bravely face (usually) more experienced Defence bureacrats/servicemen and arms sellers ;)

Pete

RE: Abrams

We'll just politely ask the bad guys to stick to highways and grass plains and deserts, shall we?

I suppose you think all those tanks were obviously a great help to the USA post the Iraq invasion?

War now days is big business, and don't pretend its anything else. The only thing that war serves, is its self. The last real war was world war two, and the threat was real. All the other wars since then, were not world threatening.( or running out of oil! thats a good reason) Little boys with their toys! I guess when the world wakes up to the con, you'll be needing to look for another job.
While real men and women are being killed, I hope your comfortable in your office.
Peace keeping! Now that is something to hope for.

P/S No punt intended.

Dear Oldstyle,

You really have some firm, fixed and certainly old-style and outdated prejudices regarding the Abrams tank and other ADF equipment. In the former case you certainly know little about how tanks operate. Furthermore, in terms of mobility you appear not to realise that most places you can ttransport or drive a large bulldozer you can operate a tank.

More importantly, if you bothered to actually research such matters before making incorrect and/or inaccurate comments you could easily update your views and fill in your obvious knowledge gaps. The Winter 2007 issue of "Defender", for example, has an article on the successful use of tanks in counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan written by An Australian tank officer currently serving in one of these theatres. This article (and others like it on most ADF weapons systems) can be readily downloaded from the "Defender" index at www.ada.asn.au.

Similarly, your comments on the new air combat capability are well behind contemporary informed debate. And any informed person would know the ADA has been a big critic of much Department of Defence thinking in this regard.

Neil James
Executive Director
ADA

Oldstyle

Further to Neil’s advice my informants tell me that when Kim Beazely (then Minister of Defence) had similar reservations to you regarding the operating sphere of tanks, he experienced the following:

In the Northern Territory, in a forest with trees 10-15 cm thick, Mr Beazely stood asking that question. Behind him, about 60 metres away charged a Leopard tank, tearing down those trees and doing a steady 40km per hour. Centurions operated in Vietnam through tropical forests and Abrams can do it even faster. The shock of motion to the enemy may be almost as effective as tank guns.

Needless to say Mr Beazely was almost thrown off his feet :) .

Regards

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

Still boys with their toys! Your just a joke! I hope the yellow streak doesn't run down to the family level. I just have opinion! Don't get your undies in a knot. haft the world is a wake, and thank god(Roley eyes) your not in control. Defence is one thing, but you all hope it will continue for your own status.

Hi everyone, and thanks for putting up with my bull-crap! They say a little poke in the rib's can do wonders. This will be my last post.
I hope you find what you looking for, and sometimes the simple things in life are often the best. We will always fight for what we beleve in, and for me, I have lost-ed Faith in the human race and its all an ugly mess!
So look after yourselfs, and try to be kind to each other.

Good by!

Craig.