Gnads wrote on Oct 2
nd, 2018 at 6:09pm:
Many places experienced staff losses due to the mining boom & the higher wages ... not just the Navy.
And the "when in service" just confirms my point.
We go from crap decision to crap decision with our ADF hardware ...... the F35's are shaping up to be another.
The RAN has suffered significant crew losses in their submarine service. It is simply easier to go FIFO to a remote mining site than to spend six months away from home, on some far off PA.
We have, in the past suffered, I am quite willing to admit from bad procurement decisions - decisions it should be noted which were primarily politically drive. Nowadays, things have improved markedly. The COLLINS class is a case in point. None of the other tenders were wiling to allow the boats to be built in Australia to the RAN's specifications. Kockums tried to do the dirty on us by making bad welds on the first boat of the class (which was partially assembled in Sweden) but when that was discovered they had their wrists slapped and the boat was rewelded, at their expense. The COLLINS class is still one of the largest, longest ranged, best equipped and quietest submarines in the world.
The F-35 is an interesting case and one where the procurement decisions have been driven by Australia's need for technology transfer as against cheapness of procurement. Not only can we, if necessary, repair and rebuild the aircraft downunder, we can build new ones if the worst ever came to the worse.
As usual, you have failed t answer my major point - there is simply no other alternative aircraft that is as advanced as the F-35 which is available. The Russians are a good 20 years behind, the Chinese a good 15 years behind. The British are a good 20 years behind, the French a good 30 years behind, the Swedes have basically given up on the idea of stealth it appears from the open source press at the moment. The F-35 is the only aircraft available to us which ensures that we retain a technological edge over all other air forces in the region.