austranger
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Opinionated Sod
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longweekend58 wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 12:53pm: austranger wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 12:22pm: longweekend58 wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 11:12am: austranger wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 11:04am: longweekend58 wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 10:49am: austranger wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 2:08am: Setanta wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 12:17am: Laugh till you cry wrote on Apr 25 th, 2014 at 12:04am: Australia has no evident prospective enemies. May as well buy these flying coffins to keep the military happy.
Should remain airworthy until after the cheque clears. I think it's to keep interoperability with US forces that is the goal rather than a long arm to keep any prospective enemies at bay. The f35 and f18 are only of use if we have a US lead defence policy and rely on their forward projection. To be an autonomous nation we need to be able to project force a reasonable distance from our shores. Neither the f18 nor the f35 can do that. No, we don't have a "foreseeable" enemy but the airforce we are building will not help us if we need to stand alone. In fact I think we should do what the Israelis did with the Mirage, to the F-111. Build our own after reverse engineering what we have bought. If a small country like Israel can do it... I see a problem there: Israel has a committed and resourceful leadership, we have Abbot and his ilk. Israel has an experienced and determined military establishment with promotion by merit, we have...well, what we have, with promotion by politicking and arse kissing. Ain't gunna happen mate, more's the pity.  Israel also is surrounded by enemies who still fire missiles at them and have engaged in 3 wars. That tends to focus a nation's direction pretty tightly. All too true, nothing like a spot of blood-letting to shake the fools from the tree, not that I'd wish that on us! It wouldn't be entirely crazy to ask the Israelis to send us a consultative team to assess our needs, that fighter, and our military industry and procurement procedures, not that I'd expect that level of sense from our current leaders, of either party. Can you imagine the resistance and wounded pride within the ADF too?  Israeli advice would be pointless. their situation has nothing in common with us. their enemies can be seen with domestic binoculars. Our cant be seen except by satellite. Their enemies are current, ours are potential. nothing whatsoever in common. Not sure I'd agree there. Their situation is indeed different, but beyond that they have experience in areas that are of necessity the same the world over, threat evaluation, hardware assessment, supply functionality and a few others. They also possess something we lack, real-time experience and a successful track record. I don't see Australia's record in Defense Procurement as anything to brag about, do you? Our military production is small, disjointed and without competent oversight by and large. I can hardly think of a more competent friendly nation to ask than the Israelite's. Learn from the best is a good dictum in my experience. Israel needs hardware that can go a couple hundred kms AT BEST. obviously we need THOUSANDS of kms. the IDF is an impressive unit but they have an entirely different ethos than us. And Australian military forces have always been very very effective in actual combat zones. We have a proud record. Actually, since presumably we will never be the aggressors, any threat will be at hundreds of kilometres quite quickly. But that wasn't the point of what I was saying, it's their systems and practice of same that count in hardware assessment and supply and production matters, the rest is just mileage, a detail only. Our re-supply under threat must come across thousands of miles of ocean, and is itself readily vulnerable to any competent potential enemy, far better to have it within our own shores surely? They would have much to teach us in matters of self production and supply, if we were as independently capable as they are we could all sleep a little easier, IMO.
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