Australian Army Discussions and Updates

[Navor86]

Germany wont buy any Lynx.
According to currrnt plans the Heer will buy the following armored vehicles from its portion of the 100Bn EUR: a 2nd batch of Puma (110-229 vehicles), a larger quantity of Boxer CRV for Jäger Batailons ( at least 93 for the heavy companies in each Batailon and maybe up to a few 100 to fully equipp around 6-8 Batailons), and a replacement for the Fuchs APC

 

[ngatimozart]

My view is that if our air and sea defences are breached it is game over.

I’m not saying we don’t need a capable armoured force - we do - but we don’t need it as much as being able to make it next to impossible for an enemy to continue supplying a force ashore. If we can do that while sustaining our own land forces, our forces will win.

Shore based anti ship missiles will likely play an important part in sea denial, but ultimately this and the deterrence that comes from the threat of retaliation to an enemy’s energy and other trade flows needs to come from subs, frigates, destroyers, P-8s and drones.

Put it this way - if we wanted to threaten China with closing the Malacca and Sunda Straits could we do that with land forces? Possibly. Is that the lowest risk and most effective way to do that? I would argue not.

I would argue that if / when there is a war with the PRC, does it actually need to invade Australia at all? Australia is a continent but it is also an island and it could be blockaded. Whether it is feasible or not is another story but the possibility exists that Australia could be blockaded. So what would you do then especially when you are dependent upon foreign energy and food? Despite the current rain events on the east coast, fresh water will become a scarce resource in Australia and that is going to have very serious impacts. Think about that.

Regardless of the technological capabilities of the RAN & RAAF, you still require the grunt on the ground with their hairy boots, bad attitude, rifle and bayonet because they are the only ones who can hold ground. Neither a ship nor aircraft can. It's not about threatening the PRC, Klingon Empire or anyone. It's about deterrence and a big bunch of grunts with their hairy boots, bad attitude, rifles and bayonets mean business and show any potential enemy that they might be fools for picking a fight with you because even though they might win, the price that you will make them pay in blood and treasure will be very high. For that, said grunts require the necessary tools of the trade to back them up and help them deliver more pain and chastisement upon the enemy. That's where your armour and everything else comes in to play. The object of the exercise is to delver such chastisement as far from your shores as humanly possible. Why wreck your own place when you don't have too? Wreck the other blokes place instead. Navy's and Air Forces are there to get the Army to the enemies place so they can wreck the joint. That's it pure and simple. War isn't a game of tiddly winks.

 

[Bob53]

@ngatimozart what do you mean in a defence context? Despite the current rain events on the east coast, fresh water will become a scarce resource in Australia and that is going to have very serious impacts. Think about that.

Australia is not going to be running out of water regardless of what the catastropis say.

 

[Sideline]

@ngatimozart what do you mean in a defence context? Despite the current rain events on the east coast, fresh water will become a scarce resource in Australia and that is going to have very serious impacts. Think about that.

Australia is not going to be running out of water regardless of what the catastropis say.

Bob mate, have you been overseas for the last 20 years?
El Niña and El Niño events are predictably cyclical, meaning that if we get 3-4 years of El Niña rain then 3 to 7 years of El Niño drought is just as likely. In fact its almost guaranteed given the rapid onset of climate change.

 

[Volkodav]

@ngatimozart what do you mean in a defence context? Despite the current rain events on the east coast, fresh water will become a scarce resource in Australia and that is going to have very serious impacts. Think about that.

Australia is not going to be running out of water regardless of what the catastropis say.

Interesting take on it.

Back in the early 2000s major water supply issues were identified in Sydney and Perth, while desalination plants were commissioned in multiple states. No mention of climate change, rather just an acknowledgement that there was a shortage and action needed to be taken.

These days people cry "climate change" and head off on tangents based on their politics, ignoring real problems that often have real and achievable solutions. Unfortunately the solutions are harder these days because everything is so political/tribal.

 

[TScott]

I would argue that if / when there is a war with the PRC, does it actually need to invade Australia at all? Australia is a continent but it is also an island and it could be blockaded. Whether it is feasible or not is another story but the possibility exists that Australia could be blockaded. So what would you do then especially when you are dependent upon foreign energy and food? Despite the current rain events on the east coast, fresh water will become a scarce resource in Australia and that is going to have very serious impacts. Think about that.

Regardless of the technological capabilities of the RAN & RAAF, you still require the grunt on the ground with their hairy boots, bad attitude, rifle and bayonet because they are the only ones who can hold ground. Neither a ship nor aircraft can. It's not about threatening the PRC, Klingon Empire or anyone. It's about deterrence and a big bunch of grunts with their hairy boots, bad attitude, rifles and bayonets mean business and show any potential enemy that they might be fools for picking a fight with you because even though they might win, the price that you will make them pay in blood and treasure will be very high. For that, said grunts require the necessary tools of the trade to back them up and help them deliver more pain and chastisement upon the enemy. That's where your armour and everything else comes in to play. The object of the exercise is to delver such chastisement as far from your shores as humanly possible. Why wreck your own place when you don't have too? Wreck the other blokes place instead. Navy's and Air Forces are there to get the Army to the enemies place so they can wreck the joint. That's it pure and simple. War isn't a game of tiddly winks.

I think this is fairly sensationalist.

Australia is not dependant on foreign food. It's a function of a population with an extremely high standard of living and driven by commercial viability mostly. The general population expects to eat anything they want at any time of the year, meaning retailers import seasonal produce from other parts of the world to meet that demand.

Australia still exports more food than it imports, given the population size and the huge size of the agricultural industry, it's an EXTREMELY long bow to say Australia would be starved out in an event of a blockade.

Again, the water storage capacities are currently at full for every state other than WA. It's not something likely to deteriorate rapidly, but over a long period (years) of drought.

You have a point with energy, however only really crude oil. Australia has been making a concerted effort to increase it's reserves in the last few years.

Gas reserves could be rectified quite easily given Australia's natural reserves and if they decided not to refine it offshore for commercial reasons.

Australia's grid is still fed by coal, obviously not an issue, as Australia supplies the highest grade of industrial coal in the world.

I think it would more be specialist supply chain items that would have more impact than energy and food.

In fact, I'd argue Australia is one of the last countries on earth you would want to have a war of attrition with like this given the small population but massive amount of natural resources and natural industry at it's disposal.

I'd argue the only other one that immediately springs to mind, that would be even worse, would be trying to blockade Canada with their comparative Crude Oil production, natural resources etc vs population size.

 

[Redlands18]

I think this is fairly sensationalist.

Australia is not dependant on foreign food. It's a function of a population with an extremely high standard of living and driven by commercial viability mostly.

Australia still exports more food than it imports, given the population size and the huge size of the agricultural industry, it's an EXTREMELY long bow to say Australia would be starved out in an event of a blockade.

Again, the water storage capacities are currently at full for every state other than WA. It's not something likely to deteriorate rapidly, but over a long period (years) of drought.

You have a point with energy, however only really crude oil. Australia has been making a concerted effort to increase it's reserves in the last few years.

Gas reserves could be rectified quite easily given Australia's natural reserves and if they decided not to refine it offshore for commercial reasons.

Australia's grid is still fed by coal, obviously not an issue, as Australia supplies the highest grade of industrial coal in the world.

I think it would more be specialist supply chain items that would have more impact than energy and food.

In fact, I'd argue Australia is one of the last countries on earth you would want to have a war of attrition with like this given the small population but massive amount of natural resources and natural industry.

Saw somewhere that Australia produces enough food to feed 75m people, that's great but Australia will still starve if we cannot distribute that food and that is our greatest weakness, we have just 21 days of fuel reserves on hand at normal usage rate. Food will be rotting or gathering dust on farms and warehouses while people are starving to death.

 

[John Newman]

Saw somewhere that Australia produces enough food to feed 75m people, that's great but Australia will still starve if we cannot distribute that food and that is our greatest weakness, we have just 21 days of fuel reserves on hand at normal usage rate. Food will be rotting or gathering dust on farms and warehouses while people are starving to death.

Shale oil, biodiesel, LPG, restore the rail networks to regional farming centres, etc.

Starving to death? Rubbish.

 

[Stampede]

A well written article re LAND 400 Phase 3 by Dr Albert Palazzo in yesterdays ASPI.

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/deciding-future

Gives a good overview of today's and tomorrows battle space with particular emphasis on the role of an IFV.

By all accounts a fair overview on the subject and worth a look for those interested in this subject.


Cheers S

 

[Redlands18]

Shale oil, biodiesel, LPG, restore the rail networks to regional farming centres, etc.

Starving to death? Rubbish.

Shale

Shale oil, biodiesel, LPG, restore the rail networks to regional farming centres, etc.

Starving to death? Rubbish.

What, at 21 days' notice? The discussion was about feeding Australia if fuel imports stopped suddenly due to a Blockade. Bit late to start Shale Oil production or rebuild the rail networks by then, that would have to start now. Seen many Semis or Tractors running on LPG? And all these Vehicles need spare parts to keep running, same problem as the fuel, have to be imported at present.

 

[ASSAIL]

Interesting take on it.

Back in the early 2000s major water supply issues were identified in Sydney and Perth, while desalination plants were commissioned in multiple states. No mention of climate change, rather just an acknowledgement that there was a shortage and action needed to be taken.

These days people cry "climate change" and head off on tangents based on their politics, ignoring real problems that often have real and achievable solutions. Unfortunately the solutions are harder these days because everything is so political/tribal.

I took part in a school visit to Warragamba Dam in about 1959? when the dam had just been completed.
We were told what a wonderful resource it was and it would provide enough water for Sydney until 2000 or if the population reached 2million.
So governments have sat on their collective butts since then, it’s nearly 25 years beyond the given date and the population in the Sydney basin is nearing 6million. Surprise, surprise.
La Niña has given them respite but it won’t be long before the tide turns and all complain about water restrictions, again.
For gawd sake leaders, do something, where’s the vision displayed in the 1950s.
Rant over, sorry for OT.

 

[old faithful]

I took part in a school visit to Warragamba Dam in about 1959? when the dam had just been completed.
We were told what a wonderful resource it was and it would provide enough water for Sydney until 2000 or if the population reached 2million.
So governments have sat on their collective butts since then, it’s nearly 25 years beyond the given date and the population in the Sydney basin is nearing 6million. Surprise, surprise.
La Niña has given them respite but it won’t be long before the tide turns and all complain about water restrictions, again.
For gawd sake leaders, do something, where’s the vision displayed in the 1950s.
Rant over, sorry for OT.

And then when he water restrictions kick in, they will blame limited change.
Much like Zimbabwe dose.
When the whites were kicked off the farms, the crops steadily decreased, until the crops became so bad, they were considered failures....due to climate change of course!
Btw, this is not about race,but industrial farming, something that you can't just stroll into and be successful at, it requires experience and knowledge.

 

[swerve]

And then when he water restrictions kick in, they will blame limited change.
Much like Zimbabwe dose.
When the whites were kicked off the farms, the crops steadily decreased, until the crops became so bad, they were considered failures....due to climate change of course!
Btw, this is not about race,but industrial farming, something that you can't just stroll into and be successful at, it requires experience and knowledge.

In Zimbabwe they didn't just kick white farmers off the land, they kicked off their experienced, skilled, black workers, & gave farms to "freedom fighters" who'd been babes in arms or not born when Zimbabwe became formally independent, & cronies of Mugabe.

The farm workers (who included foremen & the like) could probably have run those farms quite well, if they'd been able to set up cooperatives sharing the central facilities. It wasn't the colour of the skins of the new owners that made them useless.

 

[Redlands18]

LAND FORCES: Birdons LMV-M Bid Breaks Cover - Naval News
Birdon finally released details of its design for project Land 8710 LMV-M. A very interesting design that at 45m is somewhat larger than the others, is not Ro-Ro and unlike the others has a Helo flight deck.
According to Naval News, Defence has likely already made its recommendation to the Government but like everything else at present, nothing will be announced before Mar 2023.

There are 4 contenders for this project.
Birdon/Echo Marine with very little information released.
Landing Craft Australia, a joint venture between Navantia and UGL with the 39m Kodal LMV-M and will be built at the common user facility at Henderson.
Australian Maritime Alliance, a joint venture between Serco and Civmec with the Oboe a design originally offered to the US Army. Would of course be built alongside Arafura's at the Civmec facility at Henderson. The Oboe is the only true Ro-Ro design amongst the competitors.
Austal/BMT/Raytheon joint venture offering a version of the Caimen 90 and would I think be built at the Austal facilities in WA.

Like Land 400 phase 3 this is another project to replace equipment that should have happened 20 years ago.

 

[old faithful]

In Zimbabwe they didn't just kick white farmers off the land, they kicked off their experienced, skilled, black workers, & gave farms to "freedom fighters" who'd been babes in arms or not born when Zimbabwe became formally independent, & cronies of Mugabe.

The farm workers (who included foremen & the like) could probably have run those farms quite well, if they'd been able to set up cooperatives sharing the central facilities. It wasn't the colour of the skins of the new owners that made them useless.

Absolutely. My point is though, Zimbabwe's farms basically collapsing, is being blamed on climate change, not useless farmers.

Just as Sydney's water supply, designed to cater for a city of 2 to 3 Million, now needs to cater for 5 + million, when water restrictions are applied, or whatever, it's blamed on climate change.
When Cities sprawl further into the bush, and a bush fire comes through....climate change.
Any excuse to bring up climate change as a reason for any disaster, the media will, as it suits their narrative.
The world is fuelled by fear atm.
Fear of climate.
Fear of war.
Fear of recession.
Fear of inflation.
Fear of covid19.
Fear of other diseases.
The list goes on. Check how advertising use Fear, Fear of missing the deal! Don't miss out!

 

[Volkodav]

Absolutely. My point is though, Zimbabwe's farms basically collapsing, is being blamed on climate change, not useless farmers.

Just as Sydney's water supply, designed to cater for a city of 2 to 3 Million, now needs to cater for 5 + million, when water restrictions are applied, or whatever, it's blamed on climate change.
When Cities sprawl further into the bush, and a bush fire comes through....climate change.
Any excuse to bring up climate change as a reason for any disaster, the media will, as it suits their narrative.
The world is fuelled by fear atm.
Fear of climate.
Fear of war.
Fear of recession.
Fear of inflation.
Fear of covid19.
Fear of other diseases.
The list goes on. Check how advertising use Fear, Fear of missing the deal! Don't miss out!

Real problems exist and arguing about the causes does nothing to fix them.

Extremists on one side say "it's climate change, we need to fix everything or die", extremists on the other side say "it's a hoax, we don't need to do anything", everyone else is saying "we need to do something about droughts/floods/storms/pollution/soil erosion/ water shortages/ contamination etc. but nothing or very little is happening.

People need to stop carrying on based on political/religious or whatever beliefs and look at each individual thing on the facts. Most importantly, if something can be fixed it should be fixed, for example, like the ozone layer, smog in some major cities, water storage, flood mitigation etc.

 

[ngatimozart]

@ngatimozart what do you mean in a defence context? Despite the current rain events on the east coast, fresh water will become a scarce resource in Australia and that is going to have very serious impacts. Think about that.

Australia is not going to be running out of water regardless of what the catastropis say.

Maybe you should start looking at the science of it rather than the politics and media spin of it. There are seven scientific disciplines involved in the earth sciences component which is the major component of the climate change debate. Climatology (climate - atmosphere), glaciology (cryosphere - ice & snow), hydrology (rivers, streams), limnology (lakes), coastal sciences (coastal processes etc.), palaeontology (fossils), and oceanography ( ocean waves, currents, morphology [shape] salinity etc). They provide the physical evidence of the atmospheric processes, what is happening, and what has happened over time. It's about patterns and trends. Then it is compared and contrasted with human use systems and the impact that these human use systems have had upon the atmosphere and climate over time. From the geologic and ice core records we have a very good idea of what gases were present in the atmosphere, their composition, and the mean temperature for a given period.

These records are going back millions of years and there is enough evidence to give a record of the planet's climate for the last 500,000 or so million years. That is a large enough record for the detection of cycles and cycles within cycles of temperatures and atmospheric gas changes. It's how we know when ice ages started, ended and their cycles. We know that prior to the industrial revolution we were nearing the end of a warming period, heading towards another ice age, but IIRC the tipping point was about 800 - 1,000 years away if the cycle followed its natural path. However we've accelerated the climate change by the addition of copious quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and as a result we've bought that ice age tipping point much closer.

Before then though the mean annual air temperatures will get much hotter and that will create severe problems. It means that fresh water shortages will occur in areas where presently there is good supplies of fresh water because the overall weather conditions will change for the worse becoming hotter and drier. You have serious droughts in Australia already; imagine those but far worse. Even here in the South Island of NZ we will be facing water shortages because we will lose all of our fresh water storage in the form of our glaciers. 12 years ago we had 3,300 glaciers in the South Island and the bulk of our fresh water storage is tide up in those glaciers. by centuries end we won't have a glacier at all; in fact the way things are going they will be gone sooner. Glaciers are disappearing in the Andes to.

IIRC you have a huge artesian basin under central Australia, but it still requires to be recharged and where does the water for that come from? I would suspect that it's rain water that's filtered down through the ground from the big wets and occasional rain storms. So you can pump water from the basin but once the water extracted exceeds the the recharge capability, you will pump the basin dry. Because the water patterns will change due to climate change that rain will go elsewhere and we know that the weather patterns will change globally because basic physics tells us that. Also evidence suggests that it is already happening.

Whether or not you choose to believe the science is your choice, but I tell you this, as sure as your arse points to the ground climate change is a national defence security risk on par with that of the PRC. There will be wars fought because of it over access to water and food. Billions of people will be very thirsty and hangry, and that has to be of huge concern to national security professionals. Such wars will make the current war in Ukraine look like a beach picnic because thirsty hangry people have nothing to lose.

 

[StingrayOZ]

We were told what a wonderful resource it was and it would provide enough water for Sydney until 2000 or if the population reached 2million.
So governments have sat on their collective butts since then, it’s nearly 25 years beyond the given date and the population in the Sydney basin is nearing 6million. Surprise, surprise.

Back in the big bad 80's, the wall was raised 5m. It could be raised again, but the reason for raising it should be water storage, not really flood protection. These days many are against raising the dam as it further floods the forests surrounding it.

Since the 1980's, water tanks have been a feature of new homes and as part of the BASIX requirement. In addition, new estates also recycle waste water back into garden/toilet flush and even washing water. The reason for this is more about treating waste water than it is about saving drinking water, but the result is the same, where millions liters of fresh virgin drinkable water would have been used, we now used treated waste water out of purple taps.

Plus as mentioned there are desalination plants at every major city now. (although ironically probably not the gas to power them).

Australia has one of the largest dam storage capacity per capita, in the world.

Water storage capacity for selected countries | GRID-Arendal

Cross-country water storage comparisons provide insights into one aspect of risk mitigation capacity. However, storage capacity is only one guide to the linkage between infrastructure and vulnerability. Countries such as Ghana and Zambia have very high levels of water storage per capita -...

www.grida.no

Certainly water security is a thing and many countries have dropped the ball (Um south Africa, South America, Europe, the US, the middle east, etc) But as Australia was always worried about droughts a great, great deal has been done to address many of these issues. While water use for irrigation is an ongoing battle, Australia as a nation isn't going to run out of drinkable water.

Recent closures of coal power stations has resulted in huge amounts of water being available for consumption. Between the power stations and the coal mines, huge quantities of water were required.

Australia’s black coal industry uses enough water for over 5 million people

New research shows coal mining and coal-fired power stations in New South Wales and Queensland use about 383 billion litres of fresh water every year.

reneweconomy.com.au

Pump hydro also further assists in retaining water, as normal hydro releases can now occur more flexibly.

Regarding subterranean water, there was government action on this to close the huge number of bores opened up in the 1960's and 70's that were never used and wasted huge amount of water (~95% of it).

NSW Dept of Planning and Environment

www.industry.nsw.gov.au

Australia has many dumb politicians, and many ineffective governments. Luckily, the rest of the country generally works despite them. That and our sheer dumb luck has come through to save the day. Not even the environmentalists really considered the waters savings going renewable would have.

While Australia will be affected by climate change, Australia and Australians have been fortifying themselves for it their whole lives as Australia has been warming for ~100 million years, and has always had pretty erratic weather patterns. Our glaciers are all gone. We never had traditional perfect farming environments.

Hence the saying "more trouble than the early settlers", because living in Australia is about fighting for survival.

 

[DDG38]

Or in shorter form, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts (at least when it comes to science, which doesn't care what you believe).

 

[old faithful]

Real problems exist and arguing about the causes does nothing to fix them.

Extremists on one side say "it's climate change, we need to fix everything or die", extremists on the other side say "it's a hoax, we don't need to do anything", everyone else is saying "we need to do something about droughts/floods/storms/pollution/soil erosion/ water shortages/ contamination etc. but nothing or very little is happening.

People need to stop carrying on based on political/religious or whatever beliefs and look at each individual thing on the facts. Most importantly, if something can be fixed it should be fixed, for example, like the ozone layer, smog in some major cities, water storage, flood mitigation etc.

I agree.
However.
I'm currently in Bali. Do you think they will all be driving electric scooters and cars before 2050? Bali is a small part of Indonesia, Jakarta has the population of Australia in a city the size of Melbourne.
Australia going green is only going to hurt Australians with no real benefit to fighting climate change, that is going to continue to chance no matter how hard Greta Thunberg yells. Do you think the rest of the world looks to Australia and thinks "well the Aussies are doing, we should to?"
I think Australia needs to be very realistic about how we go about our electric future. Very very careful.