Australian Army Discussions and Updates

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Wombat000

Active Member
Always interesting to try to read tea leaves.

Q: would Army suffer greatly from loss of capability from the Tiger ARH or its replacement Apache?
if answer is yes, then I submit reports are likely false.

Q: would an expeditionary amphibious or defensive posture be compromised by the same loss of capability?
if yes, and conversely be enhanced by the fielding of that capability, then it even more so validates the logic.

whilst anything is theoretically possible, I’m thinking currently the Apaches supposed demise is unlikely.
 
R

Reptilia

Active Member
Cutting Tanks?, Apaches? Cant see any others getting cut down. Those additional bushmasters cut reprioritising strikemasters?
 
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Redlands18

Well-Known Member
The current Government may have wanted to cut the tanks, but by the time they released the Defence Update, they got told it's too late and with penalties you would not save enough money.
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
There is a question mark over the suitability of Apache for long term deployment on the LHDs. The UK had serious issues with theirs on Ocean.
 
W

Wombat000

Active Member
Volkodav said:
There is a question mark over the suitability of Apache for long term deployment on the LHDs. The UK had serious issues with theirs on Ocean.
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I might suggest that the suitability of Apachies on LHDs is directly related to the suitability of LHDs in the amphib role.

The LHD is just a fwd operating base or a method of transit.

if Apachies are deemed unsuitable, then the whole point of LHDs as a relevant and survivable amphib asset is also in question.
tactically tho, Im thinking it might relate to how Apachies/ARHs are actually employed.
(Apache and ARH Tiger are synonymous)
 
Takao

Takao

The Bunker Group
Volkodav said:
There is a question mark over the suitability of Apache for long term deployment on the LHDs. The UK had serious issues with theirs on Ocean.
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I'd be curious as to what, as that's the first I've heard of issues, noting my info is years out of date. I was in the SPO at the time of Libyan ops, leading the LHD integration work, so got a fair few RAF and French Army briefings. On the main issue that people bring up, corrosion, the last brief I had was there was no way of identifying the WAH.1 that had deployed into the Med on-board ships v the rest of the fleet - a significant difference to our our S-70 fleet where the ship-deployed aircraft were very obvious. In fact, the very high success of WAH.1 on Ocean against Libya formed a significant part of the base engineering case for certifying Tiger for LHD operations. Noting the WAH.1 has continued to deploy to see, I'd suggest that corrosion isn't an issue

As for actual ship ops, the biggest issue was a lack of automatic blade folding. Tiger has the same issue, and while it is no where near as easy (and in some conditions, safe), it has not been enough of an issue to stop operations. The only other issue I can think of was the ship degaussing negatively impacting the helicopter instrumentation as the helicopter left the ship, but that was the French Tiger's off Tonnerre, but that was a pretty quick engineering fix that we rolled out across the ARH fleet before LHD first of class flight trials started.
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Takao said:
I'd be curious as to what, as that's the first I've heard of issues, noting my info is years out of date. I was in the SPO at the time of Libyan ops, leading the LHD integration work, so got a fair few RAF and French Army briefings. On the main issue that people bring up, corrosion, the last brief I had was there was no way of identifying the WAH.1 that had deployed into the Med on-board ships v the rest of the fleet - a significant difference to our our S-70 fleet where the ship-deployed aircraft were very obvious. In fact, the very high success of WAH.1 on Ocean against Libya formed a significant part of the base engineering case for certifying Tiger for LHD operations. Noting the WAH.1 has continued to deploy to see, I'd suggest that corrosion isn't an issue

As for actual ship ops, the biggest issue was a lack of automatic blade folding. Tiger has the same issue, and while it is no where near as easy (and in some conditions, safe), it has not been enough of an issue to stop operations. The only other issue I can think of was the ship degaussing negatively impacting the helicopter instrumentation as the helicopter left the ship, but that was the French Tiger's off Tonnerre, but that was a pretty quick engineering fix that we rolled out across the ARH fleet before LHD first of class flight trials started.
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It was corrosion I was referring to but your information is likely more relevant than mine. I was under the impression that a number of airframes had to be retired due to severe corrosion, but happy to stand corrected.

I believe there was some public domain stuff that Peter Dutton, when he was defence minister, was very annoyed that he hadn't been informed.
 
M

Maranoa

Active Member
At the end of the day Marcus Hellyer is just guessing like the rest of us even though informed guesses. But, Marles has publicly stated his intention to reduce some programs and cancel others. More to follow on this in the next few weeks.
 
A

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Maranoa said:
At the end of the day Marcus Hellyer is just guessing like the rest of us even though informed guesses. But, Marles has publicly stated his intention to reduce some programs and cancel others. More to follow on this in the next few weeks.
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Hellyer isn’t informed on the issue he is venturing a personal opinion, that predates the current government and it’s budget cutting (cough, sorry) it’s “strategy”. He made the same point when the Apache was selected by the former Government. He seems to have the unusual opinion that Western manned helicopters are unsurvivable but appears to hold a strange contrary opinion on the survivability of Sino-Russian ones…

The cuts referred to are the impending “adjustments” that are being made to the integrated investment program, none of which will impact existing programs, except perhaps in sustainment. The cuts in the IIP are programs yet to be funded or approved. Marles said as much during his speech at the Sydney Institute.

The devil will be in the detail but he referred specifically to the ‘over-programmed’ IIP projects that have no funding linked to them, not already funded and approved projects.


It’s interesting, though not unusual that Government is dealing with “over-programming” by simply cutting, delaying or rescoping them. There is of course another obvious way this “odious” issue could be addressed, particularly given he also tells us we are in the “worst strategic situation” we’ve been in since the 1930’s and that this also happens to be coupled with an unexpectedly huge Government surplus about to be delivered…

But no…
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
ADMk2 said:
Hellyer isn’t informed on the issue he is venturing a personal opinion, that predates the current government and it’s budget cutting (cough, sorry) it’s “strategy”. He made the same point when the Apache was selected by the former Government. He seems to have the unusual opinion that Western manned helicopters are unsurvivable but appears to hold a strange contrary opinion on the survivability of Sino-Russian ones…

The cuts referred to are the impending “adjustments” that are being made to the integrated investment program, none of which will impact existing programs, except perhaps in sustainment. The cuts in the IIP are programs yet to be funded or approved. Marles said as much during his speech at the Sydney Institute.

The devil will be in the detail but he referred specifically to the ‘over-programmed’ IIP projects that have no funding linked to them, not already funded and approved projects.


It’s interesting, though not unusual that Government is dealing with “over-programming” by simply cutting, delaying or rescoping them. There is of course another obvious way this “odious” issue could be addressed, particularly given he also tells us we are in the “worst strategic situation” we’ve been in since the 1930’s and that this also happens to be coupled with an unexpectedly huge Government surplus about to be delivered…

But no…
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There are fully funded programs that have been overtaken by events and underfunded necessities that are facing bottlenecks due to years of underinvestment.

There are so many things we should be doing but can't because of structural and supply issues caused by decisions made as far back as the Keating and Howard years.

There is worse to come because, while there are insufficient qualified and competent personnel to do the current, let alone upcoming work, the fact we can't do the current work effectively, is undermining aour ability to train and develop the people we need.

Spending money in ways that doesn't improve the situation is wasting it. Far better to spend more on stem and infrastructure than upgrading and retaining platforms and assets that we can't currently adequately crew.
 
A

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Volkodav said:
There are fully funded programs that have been overtaken by events and underfunded necessities that are facing bottlenecks due to years of underinvestment.

There are so many things we should be doing but can't because of structural and supply issues caused by decisions made as far back as the Keating and Howard years.

There is worse to come because, while there are insufficient qualified and competent personnel to do the current, let alone upcoming work, the fact we can't do the current work effectively, is undermining aour ability to train and develop the people we need.

Spending money in ways that doesn't improve the situation is wasting it. Far better to spend more on stem and infrastructure than upgrading and retaining platforms and assets that we can't currently adequately crew.
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There are far more things we are not going to do, simply because they refuse to fund it.

Real projects that actually exist and will deliver much needed capability, if only funded.

But they won’t be as Marles has already plainly stated, not ‘hinted‘ as some “media” are describing it as…

We’ve already seen cuts to capability as a direct result of DSR and more is coming and that is nothing to do with historical issues I am afraid, but present day ones.
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
ADMk2 said:
There are far more things we are not going to do, simply because they refuse to fund it.

Real projects that actually exist and will deliver much needed capability, if only funded.

But they won’t be as Marles has already plainly stated, not ‘hinted‘ as some “media” are describing it as…

We’ve already seen cuts to capability as a direct result of DSR and more is coming and that is nothing to do with historical issues I am afraid, but present day ones.
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Cuts to proposed but not funded capability. Funding going to new capability.

How much capability do you think we will get when the roles critical to developing the capability are vacant and being advertised with salaries $100k below market rates?

There are so many structural problems that literally can be traced back decades.

I don't give a flying proverbial which side is in power or who the defence minister is, the problems are real, they are systematic and they need to be fixed.

History lesson how useful were all the Fairy Battles, light tanks, 2pdr AT guns that were punched out prior to WWII? The only real value they added was as training aids for industry and the expanded forces.

Same now, infrastructure and personnel are critical, then equip them with the best gear available.

Upgrading last millenniums also rans to serve another 40 years and building last decades mediocre stuff doesn't cut it.
 
A

Armchair

Active Member
ADMk2 said:
We’ve already seen cuts to capability as a direct result of DSR and more is coming and that is nothing to do with historical issues I am afraid, but present day ones.
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Historical issues determined that at the point of DSR the Australian Army was replacing every CRV, every APC, (almost) every howitzer, every tank, every air defence weapon, and almost every helicopter. It was doing all of those things (and more) at exactly the same time, and in most cases it was replacing the existing systems with much more advanced systems with new training and maintenance burdens and (in the form of IFVs augmented by armoured combat engineering vehicles and SPHs) obtaining an actual 21st century deployable (as opposed to training) combined arms combat capability.
At a corps level the (historical) Australian Army of 2023 had 7 infantry battalions, and 3 armoured, 4 artillery, and 2 aviation regiments (leaving out SF support). Of those 16 units, 12.7 were planned to be fully re-equipped almost simultaneously.

Along side those replacements the Army was supposed to be acquiring rocket artillery, littoral lift vessels and maritime strike capability.

My guess is that even with unlimited funding It would have been impossible for the Australian Army to staff all of the planned capabilities, at the planned scale, in the planned time frame in peace time. Something had to give (and, again due to history, the RAN did not have the capability to safely lift a rearmed Army in high threat environments so that had to be fixed).
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Armchair said:
Historical issues determined that at the point of DSR the Australian Army was replacing every CRV, every APC, (almost) every howitzer, every tank, every air defence weapon, and almost every helicopter. It was doing all of those things (and more) at exactly the same time, and in most cases it was replacing the existing systems with much more advanced systems with new training and maintenance burdens and (in the form of IFVs augmented by armoured combat engineering vehicles and SPHs) obtaining an actual 21st century deployable (as opposed to training) combined arms combat capability.
At a corps level the (historical) Australian Army of 2023 had 7 infantry battalions, and 3 armoured, 4 artillery, and 2 aviation regiments (leaving out SF support). Of those 16 units, 12.7 were planned to be fully re-equipped almost simultaneously.

Along side those replacements the Army was supposed to be acquiring rocket artillery, littoral lift vessels and maritime strike capability.

My guess is that even with unlimited funding It would have been impossible for the Australian Army to staff all of the planned capabilities, at the planned scale, in the planned time frame in peace time. Something had to give (and, again due to history, the RAN did not have the capability to safely lift a rearmed Army in high threat environments so that had to be fixed).
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We have fallen back into the old trap of senior management / leadership, priding themselves in their lack of technical knowledge.

The general manager with no specific knowledge is back in vogue, the MBA is again King. Technically competent people are a resourse to be used and consumed, listened to when desired, ignored when convenient, blamed when required.

A horrific number of PMs have no technical background whatsoever, nor do most have any operational experience. They often see engineers and operators as an impediment to pushing their projects through.

It's not just defence, look at Boeing and their issues. Over commit, over promise, schedule and cost (profit) is paramount.
 
M

Maranoa

Active Member
Boeing's problems are worse than people realise. An inside view of the senior staff, especially its second tier of management is sobering. Diversity hires in droves using the company as a stepping stone to other things, technical experts in short supply. Their social media streams don't even pretend that the company is aerospace focused.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Apparently another employee is claiming manufacturing issues with 777/787 jets wrt bonding sections together (gaps and excessive force needed to fit parts together. Don't have the link but it was on CBC so likely other media are reporting on this.
 
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