Comments from readers (3) --- B-1 deployments in Australia (updated w/ additional comments)

Johnno

To answer you question, not much.

If you discount the bare base at Scherger at the top of Cape York you are left with 2 propositions:

1. RAAF Base Darwin which is one side of Darwin Airport; and

2. RAAF Base Tindal.

RAAF Darwin is used pretty much for exercises like Pitch Black, and Army Aviation and US Marine Deployments. It is a very public location and the locals gripe about exercise noise now. Cannot see Australian politicians would be too happy to see B1's very visible almost in central Darwin.

Tindal would be a likely location it is outside Katherine and is a much more private location. The limit with Tindal is that it was designed to support a fighter SQN and currently consists of ONE runway and a reinforced taxiway. It has been recently been upgraded to support (a) Wedgetail but it reported sometime back that the hardstands cannot yet support A330 operations. The US going to put in some cash?

Also may be timely to remind all who is buttering our bread. Our exports are currently going to:

China 32.5%
Japan 15.4%
S Korea 6.8%
US 5.1%
NZ 3.5%
S'pore 3.3%
India 3.2%
Taiwan 2.5%
and a bunch of 2 and1's and less. (DFAT figures 2013)

The US has to learn that the first thing to burn in the event of serious trouble in north Asia would be the Australian economy and our ability to support anybody!

To a real extent the West lost when China made multinational offers that were hard to refuse.

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Bushranger 71

Nice of the US to tell us they intend deploying more forces to Australia, before any announcement by the Australian Government.

Such moves are no longer the subject of debate in the Parliament and the major political parties seemingly cloak such intentions under supposed 'bipartisan agreements' on national security. Kim Beazley, a former Labor Party leader and Minister for Defence, remains Australia's Ambassador in Washington.

Professor Kim Beazley is a member of the US Studies Centre Council of Advisors. He is

joint chairman of the international advisory board of the Australian

American Leadership Dialogue, and is a member of the advisory boards of

DefenceSA and the Australian Army Journal. He has chaired the Ernst and

Young Defence Advisory Group since July 2008.

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M&S

Without LRASM-B (or a like mode in the JASSM) the B-1 is not survivable as a direct attack platform in an ASB sea control condition. It might be able to lay mines but that's something the B-52 can already do, better, because it's easer to clip-load or lift prerigged HSABs onto a BUFF.

The B-52 also has 97nm Harpoon C/D capability.

The B-1B has an enormous combat turn time as the need to clean, inspect, re-rig and load all the individual pyro ejectors in the CWMs is about 3hrs _per_ weapons bay so loaded.

It may be slightly less for the MPRL but what you are then doing is opting for 16 weapons stations plus a rear bay tank. Even if you multiply this out with X4 SDB on individual stations on the rotary, the standoff and GMTT capabilities of the APQ-164 are not going to make Bone support of a Senkaku's crisis worthwhile (assuming the GBU-39 has AMSTE as the ability to hit small naval targets from standoff).

Dropping (high altitude) 10nm JDAM on DDG class ships with 20nm effective, 40nm extended, naval and landbased SAM systems plus Flankers from the nearby Chinese airbase Luqiao or possibly Nanji (if rigged with a field arrestor system and ramp, the J-15 could fly from there tomorrow) is a genuinely stupid idea. In the face of modern fighters, 'fast bomber' or no, the B-1B would be toast.
And speaking of stupid, the distance from Darwin to Naha (JASDF base on Okinawa, not far from Kadena) is about 2,302nm. It's another 222nm to the 'big island' (4.32km) of Uotsuri from there.

At 400 knots, which is likely being generous, that's 6 hours. Tanking, as a function of loiter and transit times (a fully loaded B-1B cannot climb over 14,000ft as Mt. McKinley equivalent altitude and thus is right in the heart of the weather band for icing, gusting and headwind effects) also become significant operational factors.

More gas therefore = less bombs, either by weight or station count and the AGM-158 ain't light.

Finally, let us keep in mind folks, that the sum of Japanese culture on the three islands which they just bought from the private ownership of the Kurihara family for the princely sum of 17 million dollars, is, drum roll please, a lighthouse and a warf.

If this was a Kuwait or even North Sea equivalent gas/oil deposit, the Akihito would be sleeping in a cardboard box in Kamagasaki and the Family Kurihara would be sitting in the Kokyo Imperial Residence.

Collectively, the islands represent a landmass equivalent to about 1,700 square meters or 7 kilometers of area. Scattered widely across about 150km of sea space.

Anytime the Chinese decide to fluff their feathers, throw back their head and crow "We will fight to the last to defend these lonely outposts of the Chinese Communist People's Party Paradise!" we should respond simply by giggling.







P.S. My apologies to those who replied to me on the 'UK Carrier Problem Resolved' and 'Say What?' Thread. For whatever reason, I cannot even get the pages to load so my response options are limited.


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