the remark about sparky was a bit of light humour, I read his webpages, but am not overly familiar with what he wrote in this forum.
My memory is a bit hazy, but my thinking was that the British were building more relatively light armoured vehicles, and putting off the heavier armoured vehicles. I thought it was the scorpion family, but apparently it is the ascod vehicles. My point was that annoying as he was (I did not read a lot of what he wrote in this forum, apparently he was very rude?) but he did seem to make a few good points. The main point was that he was advocating light tracked armour, something that the British are doing now. A little example, using more M113s in Iraq might have been better than using unarmoured Humvees was one of his ideas.
I am not an expert on what Sparky wrote in this forum, I can only remember a few posts vaguely from several years ago. I did not get involved in the discussion.
If Sparky was really really annoying, well I did not realise how bad he apparently was. I did not want to bring up bad memories, my apologies to anyone if bringing up his name upsets people.
I guess what narks me a little bit, is that I have a full time job (paint chemistry), and defence issues are just one thing I take a small interest in. Sometimes in these threads, there seems to be a downputting of people that dont know as much as others. I guess if I was so inclined I could spend hundreds and hundreds of hours reading about defence issues and become semi knowledgeable, but I have other things to do.
I read a couple weeks ago, that a Mr *** Babbage was advocating us getting nuclear subs, my thinking was that would cost a fortune.
It is sometimes hard for those that do not spend a huge amount of time on this forum to make a post without getting chewed out. The feeling is that we get spoken down to. I might make a post once every 6 months.
Are we obliged to become super informed before making a single post? How many months or years of reading to be have to do before we are allowed to write a single comment?
My thinking was adjusted by reading a book about the Collins class submarines. From the book it seems they took a long time to get right and a cost a lot of money. I just dont want the same thing to happen again. There seemed to be a few years there when we had no particularly useful subs (this is from memory and may not be correct). It would be bad if the same thing happened again.
It may be that Australia 'needs' to have a purpose designed conventional sub. My point was that just maybe going for the best commerically available conventionally powered sub in the world (214, scorpene, other) might be worth considering too, (based on what happened with the Collins class).
I floated the idea of extending the range of existing subs, it might sound odd, it might not work, it was a thinking out loud idea nothing more.
Here is a hypothetical, we choose to develop our own unique submarine class again. They turn out to cost heaps more than what is available 'off the shelf'. Then technical issues delay their introduction. Before the replacement subs are ready, the Collins class is retired. In that meantime we get into a nasty war with no operational subs.. could be a big problem.
Is this scenario likely? no. But based on past history this possibility cant be dissmissed entirely.
Anyway, I am back to doing R and D for the paints for Colorbond steel tomorrow (should keep me out of trouble)
