The rent-seekers are very worried.
Some are even thinking that a 4th Air Warfare Destroyer should be built so-as to keep the work-force busy so it will be available to participate in the delayed project known as Operation:BARKING MAD, also known as the $36B+ gold-plated submarine white elephant.
Little mention of what will help provide a valid defence for the nation.
Where would we find the crew for 4 air warfare destroyers? Or 3?
Where would we find the crew for the coming Canberra-class amphibious ships?
Also, note that with the largess wanted by the RAN, there are things like the Joint Strike Failure and a mess of a helicopter fleet to think about.
An amazing collection of white-elephants. Much of it unfunded with the country being in such massive budget red-ink.
Submarines? Well with the government "plan", we would have the on-going bleeding wound of the Collins nonsense into the next decade at around $700M+ per year.
For a less than useless "capability".
Maybe another white paper written by Dunning-Kruger Inc. will save us from the white elephants.
Our inglorious Defence "planning" continues.
The rent-seekers will do anything, say anything, even if it means destroying the defensive posture of the military (oh wait, that is mostly done) just so they can have their annual fief.
South Australia et al rent-seeking lobbying shouldn't be allowed to take the rest of the country along on their stupid ideas.
Fraud by trick or device.
Until the country wakes up, we will not have a real, yet affordable military.
12 comments:
See this rather interesting piece: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Australian-economy-politics-defence-leadership-pd20120911-XZUPJ?OpenDocument&src=sph
Doing murky deals to benefit largely foreign-parented defence industry has been the principal objective of successive Australian Federal Governments over the past few decades. Despite all of the political posturing, those in Canberra really do not give a bugger about maintaining continuous adequate and credible defence capacity. They respond primarily to rent-seeking lobbyists and wrongly place somewhat insignificant job creation above military capabilities.
Both of the major political parties have failed the nation dismally and especially the Howard Government, which instituted a whole raft of inappropriate and mismanaged projects. Former MinDefs from the Howard era who subsequently became associated with major arms manufacturers were key players in multiple debacles. And many Service Chiefs of the time also failed their obligations to assure continual operational capabilities by not falling on their swords to challenge the politicians and DoD bureaucracy.
A huge overemphasis on creating defence industry infrastructure in South Australia was strongly driven by Liberal Party identities and of course the State Labor Government. Both camps of course seem bent on furthering this very questionable cause that would only add enormously to an already over-stretched defence budget.
What you're saying, Bushranger 71, is that the emperor has no clothes. Therefore, don't expect too many here to admit they've been getting it wrong for years now.
Apart from the two major items we have bought "off the shelf" in recent years (with NO DMO Australianisation" allowed) - the F18 and the C17 - does anything in the ADF's major inventory list actually deliver the goods as advertised and anywhere near within budget?
In Army, the Bushmaster IMV has been an unqualified success - ask any of the guys still breathing because they were inside one when an IED went off nearby. NO ONE has been killed in one of these yet. And that was designed and built right here. After that though, the ideas run out pretty quickly. There are plenty of smaller scale projects that are getting delivered on time and within budget, but they are the little ones that no one really notices.
The Bushmaster is undoubtedly a good vehicle, but Dod has ordered another 200, although apparently surplus to Army needs, just to keep the Bendigo manufacturing facility ticking over. Yet some ADF armour is being placed in storage!
The M113 upgrade program has been a huge fiasco - see: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Australias-M113-APC-Family-Upgrades-05133/. A pretty basic low cost enhancement for a fleet of around 500 plus vehicles then in service was initially intended, but DoD allowed Tenix/BAE Systems to con them into a hugely expensive unique modification impacting on C-130 airportability.
The Australian Army once had an M113 Fire Support Vehicle but opted not to pursue fitment of a turreted cannon to some upgraded vehicles. Had they done so, maybe the expensive ASLAVs would not have been needed.
While some top shelf capabilities are highly desirable, retaining proven cost-effective military capacity in some respects would enable more prudent application of defence expenditure.
http://www.anao.gov.au/Publications/Audit-Reports/2011-2012/Upgrade-of-the-M113-Fleet-of-Armoured-Vehicles
Read the whole report regarding the inecusable performance of the DMO and Defence.
How can anyone defend the continuing failure of an expensive and innefective organisation,the DMO.
F/A-18 program wasn't without its troubles - look at the nose wheel shimmy. M1 was a sucess; the F88's done well, the new parachute, Shadow, ARC-210 radios, Super Hornet......
Any suggestion that a M113 with turret could act as a ASLAV with the latters amphib capability, its speed, better manouverability and sensor suite you'd have rocks in your head.
Anon, must have taken you a lot of research to find successful projects. Have you found any major one's administered by DMO?
The only successful projects lately are the C17, like SH,M1 , all purchases off the shelf without interference from DMO.
Shadow and radios, also purchased off the shelf.
They cannot even purchase workable Dress Boots, let alone manage a simple project like the upgrade of the M113, which has an appalling serviceability rate although new. Read the Audit, a classic lesson on DMO incompetency.
Bushranger mentioned a "fire support" variant of the M113, as successfully used in Vietnam. Different thing to ASLAV.
Perplexed, the question was what other than C-17 was off the shelf and a success. There is a bunch. Also note that they are all administered by DMO.
As for failures, I note that failures today are successes tomorrow. Think Black Hawk didn't have issues on purchase? Leopards? Mirages? Macks? I note that in the past Australianisd efforts have become the preferred option (CAC Sabre, Bushmaster). Closer to home I note that the Germans have paid ~3-4x what we did per airframe for 8 ARH (under the ASGERD program). Wonder why?
B71 said: "The Australian Army once had an M113 Fire Support Vehicle but opted not to pursue fitment of a turreted cannon to some upgraded vehicles. Had they done so, maybe the expensive ASLAVs would not have been needed" ie, FSV means no ASLAV. That's wrong and would have been a silly decision.
I've read the audit reports and even worked at the (very) low levels of DMO. There's more than one problem there. I'd be curious as to what the issues you seem to think are solely in DMO are that we can fix and not in, say, Government, CDG, HQ, units, DOCM/SCMA, etc. Why do failures in those parts get lumped in as DMO issues?
Anon, you have obviosly not read the various audit reports.
Do I really need to detail the contents?If you cannot comprehend the the findings I cannot help you.
Do I really need to detail the curent crop of fatally failed projects?
Otherwise you would contribute some critical thinking.
The system is a total failure.
Anyway, defend the indefensible.
Standard Petplexed response.
Very intellectual comment.
It really is a pity you cannot read and digest the various audits and othe information critically, is it not Anon/AD/Bonza?Sycophants inc.
However I guess that spoils the "boys own" approach.
Oops, left out;
"Defending the Indefensible"
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