Australian Army Discussions and Updates

[aussienscale]

With a Chinese owned and managed port (possibly the dumbest thing in Australian defence history) anything could be ashore before we knew it. Heard of Troy? Remember what happened to all the PPE before anyone realised what was happening. The Confucian Centre apparatchiks are here already!

Really ? Can you link to the Chinese owned port please ?

So are you suggesting that through this Chinese "Owned" port that they can do as they please and invade Australia by stealth ?

Suggest you read and learn the forum rules, the mods have a short fuse at the moment.

 

[Bob53]

Mate really?

Port Darwin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

Push to 'nationalise' Darwin Port to end Chinese ownership of strategic asset

A Labor MP becomes the first federal politician to call for the controversial Chinese lease on Darwin Port to be scrapped, so it can be placed back into Australian control.

www.abc.net.au

Government rejects federal MP's call to buy back Darwin port from Chinese leaseholder

The deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has called for Australia to buy back control of Darwin's port.

www.sbs.com.au

Do as they please is against the rules. But where do rules come into play these days.

I'm not suggesting they are going to do it. All I'm saying is that if there was intent how hard would it be to get people and kit in.

But then why invade when you can buy.

 

[DDG38]

Putting aside all the whys etc why would they, how could they, they wouldn't dares....... I think the chances of something like this are very slim but regularly hear responses along the lines of it can't or won't happen because the enemy will give us plenty of notice they are coming and therefore we will do A,B&C to prevent it. You can bet there will be a bunch of people putting a lot of thought how they can do exactly this type of action and I'm fairly certain it wont include a to do step "Put ad in the Newspapers to tell Aussies we are coming".

I would dearly love to know how any significant naval taskforce (CV, escorts, amphib transports and SSNs) could make a 5000km journey through shallow archipeligic waters and arrive and put a land force ashore "before we knew it". Seriously, surface combatants are tracked by a multitude of assets the minute they leave harbour. By the 5Eye network and various allies. So in that regard your fears are pretty unfounded.

 

[ASSAIL]

Mate really?

Port Darwin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

Push to 'nationalise' Darwin Port to end Chinese ownership of strategic asset

A Labor MP becomes the first federal politician to call for the controversial Chinese lease on Darwin Port to be scrapped, so it can be placed back into Australian control.

www.abc.net.au

Government rejects federal MP's call to buy back Darwin port from Chinese leaseholder

The deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has called for Australia to buy back control of Darwin's port.

www.sbs.com.au

Do as they please is against the rules. But where do rules come into play these days.

I'm not suggesting they are going to do it. All I'm saying is that if there was intent how hard would it be to get people and kit in.

But then why invade when you can buy.

While I agree that the lease of the port was unusual I can’t understand the angst it has caused.
The lessees are upgrading the port at a rate the local Territory government could Not possibly achieve.
The port is managed by Australians, the workforce is Australian and what do people think the Chinese will do if the SHTF? Pack up the port and take it back to China?
The minute an emergency is declared the port would immediately come under commonwealth control and would benefit from the development paid for by Landbridge.
I would assume all the IT used by the company would be cleaned out and replaced,
where is the sovereign risk?
I suspect that if the lessee was American or British there would be Diddly squat commotion but under the current climate all are looking commies under the wharf.

 

[ngatimozart]

Mate really?

Port Darwin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

Push to 'nationalise' Darwin Port to end Chinese ownership of strategic asset

A Labor MP becomes the first federal politician to call for the controversial Chinese lease on Darwin Port to be scrapped, so it can be placed back into Australian control.

www.abc.net.au

Government rejects federal MP's call to buy back Darwin port from Chinese leaseholder

The deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has called for Australia to buy back control of Darwin's port.

www.sbs.com.au

Do as they please is against the rules. But where do rules come into play these days.

I'm not suggesting they are going to do it. All I'm saying is that if there was intent how hard would it be to get people and kit in.

But then why invade when you can buy.

I think that you are barking up the wrong tree and need to get into the shade before you go tropo. The Chinese company has a 99 year lease of the port and if / when the brown smelly stuff hits the high speed rotating object the Commonwealth can nationalise the port if it so desires.

I would also take very seriously and carefully note what aussienscale said about forum rules and Moderators. One other thing, aussienscale is a highly respected Defence Professional on here and he does happen to know his stuff.

 

[koala]

A moving ship does enlarge the beaton zone of the target


Regards S

There have been live fires from the LHD's with ASLAV's, what would this be useful for? Maybe to sanitize a beach before a beach landing and using the Frigates 155mm naval rounds for the heavy targets?
My two bobs worth of thinking anyway

2 Cav deck shoot on HMAS Canberra - CONTACT magazine

Six ASLAVs from the Townsville-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment conducted a live-fire shoot on the flight deck of HMAS Canberra on Sunday, 4 October 2015.

www.contactairlandandsea.com

 

[DDG38]

There have been live fires from the LHD's with ASLAV's, what would this be useful for? Maybe to sanitize a beach before a beach landing and using the Frigates 155mm naval rounds for the heavy targets?
My two bobs worth of thinking anyway

2 Cav deck shoot on HMAS Canberra - CONTACT magazine

Six ASLAVs from the Townsville-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment conducted a live-fire shoot on the flight deck of HMAS Canberra on Sunday, 4 October 2015.

www.contactairlandandsea.com

I believe the reasons would be "shits and giggles" and "ammo expenditure". Nothing beyond that, certainly not any serious replacement or augmentation of NGS.

 

[Raven22]

There have been live fires from the LHD's with ASLAV's, what would this be useful for? Maybe to sanitize a beach before a beach landing and using the Frigates 155mm naval rounds for the heavy targets?
My two bobs worth of thinking anyway

2 Cav deck shoot on HMAS Canberra - CONTACT magazine

Six ASLAVs from the Townsville-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment conducted a live-fire shoot on the flight deck of HMAS Canberra on Sunday, 4 October 2015.

www.contactairlandandsea.com

Firing the ASLAVs from the deck of he LHD isn’t supposed to be an operational capability, it is just a way to do some continuation training while embarked to keep skills up, as well as do test fires of the main gun.

 

[aussienscale]

I believe the reasons would be "shits and giggles" and "ammo expenditure". Nothing beyond that, certainly not any serious replacement or augmentation of NGS.

Correct, it was essentially to maintain the equipment, practice firing with no real point but to do a shakedown and shits and giggles, maybe a little bit of wow factor for the crew to take some happy snaps too

Cheers

 

[Raven22]

Referring to Takoa's post above at 7068, have the M777's proven to be unsatisfactory?

The biggest problem is that the M777s are neither fish nor fowl. They (and particularly their ammo) are not light enough to be true mobile guns (it takes a chinook to move them by air, for example), yet because they are so lightly built they are not very robust when used as general purpose towed guns. They are not a bad solution if you want one gun to do everything, but if you are having dedicated SPGs you might as well have dedicated light and mobile guns as well. And that probably means something other than a 155.

 

[Raven22]

Correct, it was essentially to maintain the equipment, practice firing with no real point but to do a shakedown and shits and giggles, maybe a little bit of wow factor for the crew to take some happy snaps too

Cheers

Practice firing with no real point? What do you think the purpose of all training is?

 

[Stampede]

The biggest problem is that the M777s are neither fish nor fowl. They (and particularly their ammo) are not light enough to be true mobile guns (it takes a chinook to move them by air, for example), yet because they are so lightly built they are not very robust when used as general purpose towed guns. They are not a bad solution if you want one gun to do everything, but if you are having dedicated SPGs you might as well have dedicated light and mobile guns as well. And that probably means something other than a 155.

Often wondered if one of the lighter 105 mm guns would still have a place today.


S

 

[John Fedup]

There have been live fires from the LHD's with ASLAV's, what would this be useful for? Maybe to sanitize a beach before a beach landing and using the Frigates 155mm naval rounds for the heavy targets?
My two bobs worth of thinking anyway

2 Cav deck shoot on HMAS Canberra - CONTACT magazine

Six ASLAVs from the Townsville-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment conducted a live-fire shoot on the flight deck of HMAS Canberra on Sunday, 4 October 2015.

www.contactairlandandsea.com

I believe RAN frigates have 127 mm guns not 155 mm.

 

[John Fedup]

Often wondered if one of the lighter 105 mm guns would still have a place today.


S

Are specialized shells in 105 mm similar to what’s available for the M777? If so then maybe the 105’s do have a place.

 

[aussienscale]

Practice firing with no real point? What do you think the purpose of all training is?

To practice of course, the way in which they were doing it was of no point, it is not a real life situation and would not be used.

Cheers

 

[Raven22]

To practice of course, the way in which they were doing it was of no point, it is not a real life situation and would not be used.

Cheers

There was a lot of point to it. It allows the crews to practice action drills, turret drills, fire control orders and engagement drills. It also test fires the weapons and turret systems so when they hit the beach they know everything works. It’s really no different to firing at a static AFV FFTS on land other than the target array is not very good. It’s certainly not for ‘shits and giggles’

 

[aussienscale]

There was a lot of point to it. It allows the crews to practice action drills, turret drills, fire control orders and engagement drills. It also test fires the weapons and turret systems so when they hit the beach they know everything works. It’s really no different to firing at a static AFV FFTS on land other than the target array is not very good. It’s certainly not for ‘shits and giggles’

Yep get all that Raven, so not sure what your point is, so thinking you have taken what I have said the wrong way, my point was it was practice for all the reasons you have listed and the basis behind my initial reply that it was for practice and shakedown IE what you have said !

I was rebutting the assertion that this is a practical capability that is practiced to be used in a real life situation or as an actual operational capability, so not sure what the issue is ? Such things are used very often for camera ops and media grabs, nothing out of the ordinary about it.

Cheers

 

[Raven22]

My point is that your statement -

Correct, it was essentially to maintain the equipment, practice firing with no real point but to do a shakedown and shits and giggles, maybe a little bit of wow factor for the crew to take some happy snaps too

- is just wrong. The purpose was not just to maintain the equipment, it was not practice firing with no real point, it was not for shits and giggles, and it was not for the wow factor.

 

[OPSSG]

Guys, can we differ to the land systems warfare expert on army training on board a ship?

Keeping in mind the limitations of space in a ship to conduct said training for Army equipment and systems. Point well taken from Raven22 that prior characterising of said training event was not helpful (and could be put better). I would treat it as a brain fart moment.

Embarked troops will try to practice the best they can when travelling from point A to point B. This is just like SF boarding teams doing their currency shoots on board a ship, even when there are no piracy incidents, yet and being prepared to conduct non-compliant boardings.

 

[StingrayOZ]

I was rebutting the assertion that this is a practical capability that is practiced to be used in a real life situation or as an actual operational capability, so not sure what the issue is ? Such things are used very often for camera ops and media grabs, nothing out of the ordinary about it.

They will probably and should do it regularly, as Raven points out it does make sense. I imagine the Navy isn't planning to engage a hostile destroyer by moving the ASLAV's up top and firing the 25mms. Well, not in the first instance anyway. But embarking army, army needs to do army things. Machines that aren't operated, particularly in a marine environment are likely to have issues. Army should be comfortable on deck as they are on land and do as much as they can when they can. The ADF has always used flat decks for things other than flight ops.

SPG would seem to be a pretty nice capability going forward. I am not sure the M777 type of operation, is always going to be ideal going forward in future environments both regionally and beyond. Having that kind of capability embedded into the ADF would be I think pretty significant. Certainly many of the forces we would operate with, have that kind of capability. As quite a mobile force I can see that being an interesting area for the Army to develop. I hope the M777 and SPG are complimentary.