Stuart on Aussie/NZ Strategic Policies, SSKs, and Nigerian Bordellos...

[MKSheppard]

Australia's new submarines - What do we need?

Stuart
Mon Mar 08, 2010 10:17 am

OK, lets have a look at the supply side of this equation.

There are five suppliers of diesel-electric submarines on this earth. The Russians offering Project 636 and Project 677, the Chinese offering Project 039 and 041, the Japanese building Soryu, a Franco-Spanish consortium offering Scorpene and a German-Swedish consortium offering Klasse 212 and Klasse 214. Everybody else who builds submarines licenses the design from one of those five.

Of these, the Japanese do not offer their boats for sale on the export market so they can be dropped from consideration. The Chinese boats are junk. The Russian designs were pretty good twenty years ago but their sensors, silencing and command systems are now decades behind world standard. They'e a good deal for a navy that isn't very serious about operations and/or is desperately short of cash but for a serious power-projection navy, they just don't hack it. So the Chinese and the Russians can be dropped from consideration. That leaves just the French-led team with Scorpene and the German-led team with Klasse 214.

There are five suppliers of nuclear-powered submarine technology on this earth. They are the United States with Virginia, Russia withe Project 885 and Project 971, China with Project 093, the U.K. with Astute and France with Barracuda. The Chinese boats aren't just junk, they're dangerous junk. The United States does not and will not export its nuclear technology. So they're both out. The U.K. is joined at the hip to the United States so they're out. That leaves Russia and France, both of whom have signed deals to export nuclear submarine technology. The Russian boats use highly-enriched reactor fuel, the export of which is prohibited under nuclear proliferation treaties. That's why they lease the boat to India, not sell it. If the boat needs to be refuelled, it goes back to Russia. Also, the Russian boats are years behind the curve on submarine technology. They're best boat is, at best, 1990s standard and that just doesn't hack it. So, we're down to France.

Just on plain availability, the choice is strictly confined. If the selection is for a diesel-electric it's either France or Germany. If its a nuclear boat, its France.

So, let's look at that nuclear and diesel-electric choice. This is largely a matter of geography. Australia's position in the world and its shape means the submarines have to have long range. Great. It's a long way from Australia to the operational scenarios. That means the boats have to have long range. They'll be operating in waters dominated by a very numerous navy with large numbers of assets albeit employing ASW operators with the technical skills of the Three Stooges. But, ASW is a numbers game and the sheer volume of assets is critical. So, the submarines will require a long underwater endurance. Because they have a long transit time, they require a large weapons load-out in addition to their large fuel supply to provide endurance on station. They also require a sophisticated sensor suite so they can locate and engage targets/missions without external assistance. So speaks the operational requirement.

Congratulations, the Australian Navy has just defined a nuclear-powered attack boat and they know it.

This isn't a new conclusion. Back when the Collins Class was being formulated, the fact that the operational requirement was perfectly well known and accepted. In fact, the operational requirement can only be met by the use of a nuclear-powered design. If the nuclear-powered option is ruled out, then the operational requirement has to be compromised in order to provide a submarine that can be built using diesel-electric technology. That's what basically lies behind the Collins Class; the competing design teams (France, the UK, Germany and Sweden) offered submarines that were the closest approaches to nuclear-powered performance that they could manage. The French, the Germans and the UK knew what they were doing and what the task required; their boats were big, heavy and very expensive. The Swedes didn't; they had no real idea of what building a modern ocean-going submarine involved let alone one with the Australian specs. All they had ever built were little coastal boats that tooled around in the Baltic. They got the idea that if they enlarged one of said coastal boats they could achieve miracles. And therein lay the seeds of the Collins class fiasco.

Since then, air-independent propulsion has arrived. Wheee, it allows us to build a diesel-electric boat with the performance of a nuclear boat. We know that because there's this article in Naval Technology that says so. Hang on a minute, that article was written by the AIP sales team. Could it be exaggerating a little? No, its exaggerating a LOT. What AIP buys you is the ability to charge batteries under water. It does not increase speed of advance (4 - 6 knots for a diesel boat, 30 knots for a nuke) it does not increase overall endurance and may actually reduce it. Depending on the technology chosen, it may preclude charging batteries while under attack.

There are two choices for AIP. One is the Stirling diesel; this allows the use of standard bunker fuel to run the diesels underwater without snorting. It's simple, relatively economic and noisy. The other is fuel cell technology. This requires LOX tanks to run a fuel cell system that generates electricity. It's blindingly expensive, very complex and silent. The Germans love it. Note that AIP in whatever form doesn't actually buy us very much so why is it being promoted so heavily? Well, back in the 1980s and 1990s people sold a lot of diesel-electric submarines on the export market and these boats were delivered at the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s. They're pretty much new. The catch is that the building surge meant that everybody who wants a new submarine pretty much has one. So, somehow, they have to be persuaded that the boats they just bought are obsolete and need to be replaced. Enter AIP. It's not a survival system for submarines, it's a survival system for submarine builders.

OK, so we have the choice between an AIP-equipped diesel-electric and a nuclear-powered boat. The politics against nuclear-power in Australia are pretty strong and appear to be firmly entrenched. That basic political constraint means that a diesel-electric boat is the preferred option. That means the bidders will be French and German and here's the catch. The Klasse 214 comes nowhere near matching the specification. Nor does Scorpene, even the largest member of the Scorpene family (the Spanish S80) doesn't come close. So, those two designs can, at best, be used as a basis for a much larger design that would meet spec. It doesn't really matter which is chosen, the two boats are very close in overall quality and I wouldn't care to chose between the two design teams.

However, at this point, something interesting happens. There already is a large, long-ranged version of Scorpene; its called Barracuda and it's nuclear-powered. As the French design team get to work on their Scorpene (AUS) bid, they'll use a conventionally-powered version of Barracuda as a base. Essentially, they'll put a diesel-electric + AIP power train into the Barracuda hull. Somebody is going to ask why are we doing this? Why are we compromising a perfectly good design?

Let's look at Barracuda a little more closely. As we do so, something becomes apparent; this is not the same as the US, UK and Russian boats. It's designed in a quite different way and the reason why comes from its design history. Back in the 1970s, the French produced the Agosta-70 design diesel-electric boats for their own navy. At the time they thought that quite a few navies would be interested in an export nuclear-powered submarine so they created a nuclear-powered version of Agosta-70. Because this was an export boat, it had to use low-enrichment fuel to avoid restrictions from non-proliferation treaties. So, they designed the power train to use low-enrichment fuel and accepted the shortish life between refuellings by designing the system to be very easy to refuel. The idea flew like the proverbial lead brick. Nobody was interested. So, the French Navy decided to adopt the design and put their own electronics into it (not the kiddie playschool stuff they give to export clients) as their Rubis class fleet SSN. Well, when they did, they got a horrible surprise. The basic hull form of the Agosta was totally unsuited to nuclear power employment. The Rubis class were about as noisy as a steam train with arthritis having an orgasm. The hull needed a major rebuild to "cure" the noise problem. This rebuild was called Amethyste (it's a contorted French acronym, AMElioration Tactique, HydrodYnamique, Silence, Transmission, Ecoute if you really must know) and the rebuilt submarines became the Amethyste class. Now, at that time, Agosta-70 was looking pretty ancient on the export market and an attempted upgrade, Agosta-90 wasn't much better (only Pakistan was dumb enough to buy it). So, somebody came up with a bright idea, why don't we put a diesel-electric power train in the Amethyste hull and that'll give us a world-class diesel-electric boat. So, they did, they tinkered with and improved it and cleaned it up and that gave them Scorpene. Then, since the French Navy now needed a nuclear-powered boat to replace the Amethyste class, they stuffed a nuclear reactor into the Scorpene hull and that gave them Barracuda (a little bit more complex than that but the short version will do). Now, put the kiddie playschool electronics back into Barracuda and we have a nuclear-powered export SSN.

Just recently, the French sold a package to the Brazilian Navy that includes four diesel-electric Scorpenes and one nuclear-powered Scorpene. You see, the French stil use that low-enrichment, easy-to-refuel reactor system so their submarine don't need to breach the non-proliferation treaties. In fact the nuclear-powered Scorpene doesn't need any shore-based nuclear infrastructure at all It uses exactly the same fuel rods that are used by French-designed commercial nuclear reactors. They can be changed either in Australia using existing shoreside infrastructure (a deliberate design choice by the French) or the boats can be sent back to France for refuelling once every ten years. The package bought by the Brazilians actually includes shoreside facilities for making their own fuel rods but that's their option, it isn't a necessary part of the deal. The idea that Australia would need an extensive shoreside nuclear power industry to support an SSN fleet simply isn't true for the nuclear-powered Scorpene. The boat was specifically designed not to need that. It would be needed for UK or US designs because they use highly enriched, weapons-grade fuel (and thus need refuelling once every thirty years if that) but the French boats don't.

So, putting it all together, my personal recommendation would be the purchase of an enlarged derivative of the Scorpene with DCNS being told to put in an unrequested second bid with nuclear-powered Scorpene as an alternative. That way Defence can either go with existing prejudices and buy the diesel-electric variant or (if they have a sudden attack of common sense) take the nuclear option. Or, they can get the first and they do a crafty switch to the second later.

Stuart,

Which particular treaties ban the export of high grade { >20 percent U235, > 12 percent U233, unsure for Pu } fissile material? How many of them have come into force this century?

As I understand it, under the NPT, a non-weapon State { eg, Brazil } can legally pursue high grade fissile for all bar device use - powering ships and submarines is not a problem. Diversion, of course, is another issue entirely.

Similarly, HEU export by at least one weapon State - the USA - has happened enough times to spawn a regulatory structure around it - the NRC. Was that permitted under treaties the US had ratified, or did it happen despite such ratification? Another instance, this time involving reactor fuel, is a 1998 Russo-German agreement involving approx 1200 kg U{90} supplied to the FRM-II research reactor near Munch.

Well, it's 2 am local and my keyboard is playing up on me, so I'll shut up now.

The problem here is the definition of high grade. 20 percent enrichment for power stations etc is perfectly OK and that's what the French ships (surface and submarine) are designed to use. As I said, the fuel bars used in the French naval reactors are exactly identical to those used in commercial power stations and are handled the same way. That was a deliberate design choice. 20 percent is a "high" level of enrichment by commercial standards.

The enrichment levels used in US and UK naval reactors have much, much higher levels of enrichment than 20 percent. They need to be handled very carefully indeed. The Russians are intermediate between the two.

If the Aussies really want nuke boats they could work with the Brazilians in order to reduce cost of development, but if they want to stick with SSKs an enlarged an upgraded TR-1700 is a possibility (it is much longer ranged than the largest Scorpene).

Except the TR-1700 is a long-obsolete design produced by a design team that doesn't exist any more (TR-1700 was more of a rival to Klasse 209 than anything else although, again, the situation is more complex than that). In addition, the TR-1700 design really, really sucks. It gets its long range by having fuel tanks stuffed into every tiny portion of the hull which means there are large numbers of oddly-shaped tanks. Maintenance is a real nightmare. Remember TR-1700 was part of the original competition for the Collins class and it was kicked out at an early stage. Why that happened was something of a mystery for a few years until the Argentines opened up and blew the gaff on how much trouble they were having with them,

The range thing is interesting. On paper, the TR-1700 has almost twice the surface range of a Scorpene (12,000 nm vs 6,500 nm) but expressed in terms of endurance, the Scorpene has more than twice the endurance (50 days as opposed to 30). That suggests that the stores capacity on the TR-1700 is disproportionate to the fuel stowage. The only real explanation for that is that TR-1700 was designed to run on the surface at high speed for long periods and thus gulp fuel.

Hey Stuart, what do you think of Canada's needs for a sub? We have all that coastline in the north to patrol, plus our eastern and western coasts as well. Would it be practical for Canada to get submarines, nuclear or diesel? Or would we be better off with ice breakers for the same price?

The first question, as always, is what do you want the submarines for? Or, more precisely, what is the operational requirement that a submarine force is supposed to fill?

If the job description is to provide ASW training facilities against diesel-electric submarines of a technical and operational standard equivalent to the British Commonwealth (the Australians, Canadians and British having the best sub-drivers in the world) then the Victoria class will do fine especially since they were virtually given away.

If, however, the RCN is serious about patrolling the far north and wants to poke around under the ice, then nuclear submarines are the only choice. Taking a diesel-electric under the ice is far too dangerous to be recommended as standard practice and should be done in fear and trembling. Back in the 1980s, Canada actually recognized this and launched a proposal for a fleet of twelve (count'em) SSNs. The bidders were Trafalgar from the UK and Rubis from France. Trafalgar would have got the contract but economic sanity prevailed and the project was dropped. That means the poking around under the ice bit has to be left to the USN.

I remember hearing a rumor that Taiwan might license the design for the Barbel-class diesel-electric, have you heard anything about that?

I heard the rumors; they were never anything more than that. The Barbel design is more than fifty years old and it's so far behind the curve that it isn't funny. The latest Chinese boats are more modern. The problem isn't just hull design although that's some of it, its the sonar and command systems on the boats. Integrating these for a specific submarine design is fiendishly expensive. Also, the silencing and machinery standards of the Barbels are far behind world standards. I think the stories came from people looking through Jane's Frightening Slips for a submarine that wasn't from one of the five and eventually coming up with that.

I've often wondered why Australia even needed submarines in the first place, but I'm sure they've got their reasons.

Power projection. Australia is indefensible once the battle gets to home shores. So, the objective is to intercept a threat at a substantial distance from said home shores and make sure it doesn't get any further. Submarines are good for that; they exrt a vague, unquantifiable menace that is hard to ignore. They're also great for collecting intelligence and doing other things that extend the military reach by a disproportionate amount.

Another problem Australia has is that its short on accessible manpower. That means it has to rely heavily on force multipliers. Submarines are a potent force multiplier. The list of other reasons could go on for pages but basically, Australia is one of the countries that actually needs a potent submarine fleet, The tragedy is, they're not prepared to go the whole hog and get nuke boats.

This makes me wonder. Stuart, what kind of submarines should the Philippines get to defend its waters? Because the Philippines is poor, assume that this submarine can be like a generous donation from any nation in the world that feels pitiful for our crappy country

Err none? The primary problem the Philippines has (especially down in Mindanao) is internal security. What the Philippine Navy needs (and needs very badly) is a lot of patrol ships. The Danish Absalom class is a good bet there. A good, old-fashioned frigate transport that is inexpensive, got a lot of firepower and the ability to carry goodies whether they be infantry for landing or supplies following a disaster. But, without any money, the Philippine Navy won't be seeing anything good any time soon.

Why's that? I always thought nobody in the area had the sealift capability to land troops in Australia and supply them.

The problem in Australia is that most of the country is divided up into non-mutually supporting pockets that can be isolated and defeated in detail. That basic perception drives a lot of Australian defense concepts. Another problem is that, while Australia may not be directly involved in a conflict, it could very easily get involved on the "innocent bystander" basis. So, the driving consideration isn't a threat to Australia per se but a general level of surrounding instability creating conflicts that could spill over into Australia.

For example, in a conflict (say) between China and India that degenerates into a stalemate, either India or China might get the idea that they could gain an advantage by mining Australian ports and thus cutting the supply of strategic materials to their opponent. Without power projection capability, there is no way Australia could get at either party to convince them that's a bad idea. With (for example) submarines, the ships doing the mining could be torpedoed and sunk while the Australians look saintly and swear blind it was somebody else.

Sadly, yeah, the Philippine Navy is shit. I guess that's your field of expertise, so you'd know about that. I was half expecting that the Philippines would be some ignorable forgettable fringe world for even you, and that you guys wouldn't even bother to factor the Philippines in any major naval tech/whatever analysis.

Actually, the Philippines is one of those countries I study in some detail. Strategically, its an important bit of real estate. Mindanao is essentially the training ground for Jamyaat Islamiyah and a lot of other fundamentalists groups. I'll be down that way later this year.

Yeah, our hardware is pretty shit. We're literally stuck with Vietnam-era hand me downs. But our soldiers are still pretty badass! They don't have MREs, they have instant noodles! They don't have tactical radios, they have cheap cellphone and buy prepaid load from local stores! Hooah! Hut-hut-hut!

Their last attempt at a coup was pretty awful. Still, they have a nice choice in hotels for their headquarters. If one is going to try and overthrow the government, there is no reason to be uncomfortable while making the effort. However, when organizing a coup, it's not a good idea to put the names of everbody involved and their financial backers on an unencrypted computer disk, make lots of copies and then lose some.

Still, the troops are pretty good. The problem is corruption at medium and high levels. But then, that's the whole Philippines story isn't it. Great people, lousy leadership.

Doesn't matter anyway. NZ is so far off the side of the globe people could forget it existed beyond the Lord of the Rings. Nzers have it lucky that there's nothing strategic about their position and could probably get away with maybe a fairly large coast guard navy.

Got news for you New Zealand has got a Coastguard Navy and that's it. Two underarmed frigates, a MPV, two OPVs and four OPCs. Good, sensible force structure. NZ is so far removed from the rest of the world that, unless there is a sudden worldwide interest in having carnal relations with sheep, nobody will want the place. It doesn't need an air force (so hasn't got one) needs only a Coastguard Navy (which it has) and a small but efficient army (to stop the sheep escaping).

I got the impression it was more like "let them destroy/occupy Perth and/or Darwin, then let's see them just try and cross that desert to anywhere else without supply".

That's more or less it. The catch is that its quite possible to seize one place as a bridgehead and then use that for leapfrogging amphibious operations along the coast, basically picking off each center of population at a time. That's very hard to defend against. Essentially it turns the "just try and cross that desert without supply" against the defenders. The only real option once things get that far is to pull back and defend a single national redoubt and let the rest go hang. Better to make sure things don't get to that point.

Our armed forces are not a product of thought, more of public ignorance of reality and history, Labour ideology and the intellectual slovenliness of the local Tory party.

Actually, for the first time in many, many years the New Zealand Defense Forces are the product of thought and rational analysis. Now, the results of that rational analysis may not be to your taste ('rational analysis' does not always equal 'the right answer') but the analysis was there.

The basic problem New Zealand faced (and faces) is that its economy is a one-trick pony. If the market for agricultural products sinks, the economy gets torpedoed. Over the decades, various New Zealand governments have tried to deal with that problem with remarkable lack of success. In the process, defense funding as a proportion of GDP sank steadily. For many years, the cuts resulting from that slow, steady drop in funding were distributed on an "equal pain for all" basis. By the late 1990s, this had reached the point where none of the armed services were capable of doing very much. The Navy drove a collection of geriatric and toothless frigates, the Air Force a handful of decrepid and over-modernized light attack bombers and the Army was a handful of battlegroups equipped with Vietnam-era cast-offs. It was not a pretty sight; in fact, for the military capability offered vs the money spent, a serious case could be made that the armed forces should be stood down altogether.

So, a rational analysis was made of New Zealand's defense requirements and strategic position. This revealed several interesting points. Distance was one of them; it is so far from New Zealand to anywhere else that any military assault on the country would be a massive undertaking. So much of a massive undertaking that if it was attempted at all, it would be attempted in such force that any resistance New Zealand could mount without equally massive external aid would be futile. In fact, under those circumstances, New Zealand's own forces would be virtually inconsequential compared with those of its enemies and allies. This was a hard nut to swallow and gave rise to the inevitable references to New Zealand efforts during WW2 but those complaints all missed one salient point. This is not WW2. Armies today are a lot more complex and a lot more expensive than they were back then.

This gave rise to another question, why would anybody attack the place? There are no real assets there worth a massive assault. In strategic terms, New Zealand is inconsequential. So, the "national defense" task went out of the window. The country isn;t worth attacking and is indefensible if it is attacked. Having cleared that out of the way, the next problem came down to "if the country can't be defended by a reasonable defense force, what can the defense forces do.

Protecting maritime resources and maritime law enforcement was one obvious task. That needs to be done but the remarkably toothless Leanders driven by the RNZN weren't the ships to do it. They had large crews, were expensive to run and had virtually no armament worthy of the name. The MEKO frigates were OK, they had their problems but as long as the bows didn't fall off one dark and stormy night upon the ocean They'd do fine as the heavy mob. (In passing it's notable that, with the MEKO-200 class, the Germans finally cured the problem of the sterns falling off their ships. In MEKO-200 the bows fall off instead). Getting rid of the Leanders and some other junk allowed the institution of Project Protector that essentially turned the RNZN into a Coastguard. That provided one multi-role vessel that doubled as a deep-water patrol vessel and a small LPD, two offshore patrol vessels and four offshore patrol craft. The execution of that program left much to be desired (they really should have looked at the ships they were ordering before signing on the dotted line) but the heart was in the right place. Maritime patrol and policing was Task One, that's where the real operational need lay. With Project Protector, the RNZN was orientated towards Task One as long as its MRV stayed upright anyway.

The next question was, what to do with the Air Force? The Skyhawks were a joke; their modernization amounted to installing a full GPS navigation system into a 1972 Morris Marina. They contributed nothing and drank up resources. They went. Without them, there was no need for fast-jet trainers. They went. That left the Air Force essentially flying P-3s and C-130s. The P-3s fitted nicely into the maritime patrol and policing requirement so the money that had been spent on allowing NZ pilots to think they were Biggles went to upgrading the P-3s and C-130s. The P-3 upgrade appears to have been successful and it reorienated the P-3K force (now the P-3K2) away from ASW and towards maritime control. If pinch came to shove and somebody did send a couple of warships into NZ waters with homicidal intent, the P-3K2 force could give them a nasty seeing-to with stand-off attacks. (Remember, this far from anywhere, a small naval task group would have no organic air cover). The C-130s? We'll get to them.

That left the Army. Now, the Army at that time was essentially a small, ill-equipped imitation of a conventional army. To be truthful it wasn't really useful for very much. It was too ill-equipped to be allowed on a mdoern battlefield and it was too small to do anything really useful. So, what to do? Well, the first question was, what does the Army have running for it? And the answer was, it had extremely good personnel. In fact, it probably had the highest quality troops around. That was a shocker because it showed just how much these troops had been let down by the "equal pain for all" policies. To slightly misquote Blackadder IV, the New Zealand Army was a collection of excellent soldiers armed with soft fruit.

Now, this gave rise to thought. Although a long way from anywhere, New Zealand was still a part of the international community. That meant taking part in the general course of international affairs. The way land combat affairs were (and are) going, small, well-equipped and well-trained forces make mincemeat of much bigger, ill-equipped forces. So, taking that logic further, a small, well-equipped and well-trained New Zealand force that could be deployed easily could - would - be a valuable partner in any international affair. So, the money saved by curring out redundant capability (and then some) was invested in correcting the years of deficiency in Army investment. The useless old Scorpions went; LAVs came in (too many and the wrong types I grant you - the Army is trying to trade the ones it doesn't need for the ones it does). Trucks dating from the 1950s went out, new ones came in. Most importantly, long-absent kit like body armor, night vision equipment and modern communications and battle management systems have been purchased. In effect, the Army has been converted from a 1960s force that tried to do everythinga nd could actually do nothing to a 2000s force that tries to do one thing and is very good at it. That makes their presence a valuable asset (instead of a liability) and that gives the NZ Government leverage in international affairs.

That brings us back to the C-130s and the MRV. They give the NZG not just a smallish but rather capable battlegroup, they can actually move it around from within their own resources. This adds to the value of any offers of military forces NZ offers. Current rumbles are that the existing C-130s may be replaced either by C-130Js or (wait for it) C-17s.

Viewed in the context of its times, the 2002 defense review was certainly courageous and it did address the main problem with the then-defense structure. That was much spending for little return. After the NZDF were restructured according to the review, they were at least getting capability in needed areas. Arguably a different set of decisions may have got them more but that's debateable.

There's another defense review going down now and it will doubtless change course to some extent. However, a few ground rules are already becoming apparent. If any more money is made available, it won't be much. The economic situation just doesn't allow it. Maritime patrol and policing are still Task One and that requires long-term thought leading to the possible replacement of the P-3s in the far term. The MEKO frigates desperately need modernization - is it worth spending money on that or would that cash be better invested in additional OPVs and OPCs? The New Zealand Air Force wants a large fleet of F-22s so they should be taken out into the parking lot and severely beaten. Seriously, there is a lobby pushing for the return of fast jets but it seems unlikely they'll get anywhere at this time. The Army is spending a lot of money quietly on new command and control capabilities and that looks set to continue.

A quick PS.

It'll be interesting to see what the new defense review in New Zealand actually comes out with. There's a lot of noise and posturing at the moment but the last NZ defense budget was essentially marking time until the review comes out. It's already been delayed a couple of times and word from the herd is that the Government is having a hard job finding sensible changes to make. It may have to settle for a few foolish ones.

How can you look after your own interests when your nation's so tiny, like your military? The best thing you can do is to make sure your interests coincide that of the big boys, so when you're looking out after your interests they'll also be looking out for their interests which is your interests. Which means, like, New Zealand can deploy its entire military and send its five soldiers on a boat to help the Americans kill Hitler. The best thing you can hope for is to play backup for the big mangs.

There's a balance question here. Because modern methodology and weaponry means that small, well-equipped forces will butcher large, ill-equipped ones, a small, well-equipped and capable force may well hold the balance between a campaign being plausible or so under-resourced as to be implausible. This argument has existed before (for example it was quoted as being one reason to send the BEF to France in 1914; because the BEF was so markedly superior to the French and German armies, it was argued that they would be just enough to tilt the balance irretrievably in favor of whichever sid ethey went in on. Didn't work like that.) but its stronger now than its ever been. For example, the Australian and New Zealand contingents in Afghanistan are reckoned to be worth more than the whole of the NATO forces put together.

So, small forces can exert political influence (or provide political leverage) out of all proportions to their numbers. That's the situation the NZG is aiming at.

A quick PS.

It'll be interesting to see what the new defense review in New Zealand actually comes out with. There's a lot of noise and posturing at the moment but the last NZ defense budget was essentially marking time until the review comes out. It's already been delayed a couple of times and word from the herd is that the Government is having a hard job finding sensible changes to make. It may have to settle for a few foolish ones.

I can tell you some things, and its not interesting. Service chiefs will probably be one stars, Joint HQ will be two star and CDF at three stars. CDF will finally get authority over service chiefs. Due to the recession some unpleasing choices will be made, one of which may be the seasprite helicopters due to Kaman not being all that reliable on the spare parts front, that may get canned, frigate upgrade is on thin ice or may be gone.
If defense want anything new, beyond that which is budgeted for or brought, it must come from the existing budget, and this is true of just about every government department.

I think that there will be tinkering, the budget will not be reduced, but there will be no increase, because the finances just wont support it. But if you want a view of what wont happen look at what the government is not saying, literally. National does not know what to do with defense, never have, so nothing will happen beyond a superficial rearrangement of the deck chairs. In short, the noise and posturing you hear..its nothing but hot air, my sources tell me that not not much will happen.

The interesting thing is the strategic vision..or lack of, when the report comes out. That is what you should look at, you wont see much, because National has none. If you want a clue, have a look at Wayne Mapp's public statements and interviews recently with Guyon Espiner on TVNZ..not much going on there, which will show you what will happen on the capabilities side.

Our armed forces are not a product of thought, more of public ignorance of reality and history, Labour ideology and the intellectual slovenliness of the local Tory party.

Actually, for the first time in many, many years the New Zealand Defense Forces are the product of thought and rational analysis. Now, the results of that rational analysis may not be to your taste ('rational analysis' does not always equal 'the right answer') but the analysis was there.

Oh yes, I will grant you that thought has occurred, within the Labour party only; but most of us on the right here tend to think it was from false premises, that is to say an ideologically imposed mental vacuum leading to faulty conclusions.

The basic problem New Zealand faced (and faces) is that its economy is a one-trick pony. snip

You are right about the economy, but what you are not seeing is the way the forces spent the money they had, which was badly and that accounts for a lots of the 1980's issues. Spending millions on certain fire control 'computers' when a hundred or so calculators could have done the job for a few thousand, for example. As for the gear..well have a word with some of the people who excersized with us as I have..the gear was crap, but we made fools of a lot of overconfident allies at certain levels.

So, a rational analysis was made of New Zealand's defense requirements and strategic position. snip

Ok. You are getting your history mixed up here, in a major way. ANZAC frigates were a 1980's choice by Labour, mainly for political reasons; Navy wanted Dutch frigates, Kortenaars (sp?) and the last Leander, Canterbury, was retired a few years ago, replaced by L421, the new Canterbury.
No one in authority has ever seriously considered that invasion was going to happen, although there were contingency plans during the wars. The entire purpose of the navy and the air strike arm was to secure NZ waters from sea raiders and assist army against raiding parties on land, which were expected to go after econnomic/political targets, that was all that was expected, and we only ever got the sea based raiders. After that they may have been attached to allied forces where appropriate if the threat to NZ allowed it, that was the last two wars and never really changed.

The army was always an expeditionary force and had been since 1910 or so, based on the Boar war experience. Right up to the 1950's the plan was to raise a division and go and thump people a long way away, if we could get a lift and the gear. From the 60's onwards it was a deployable light infantry brigade. If you look closely at the territorial reserve you can still the shadow of the old division planning.

The First attempts at proper planning was the defense beyond 2000 report, in 99, and that, iirc advocated the axing of the P3's, eventually the frigates and the A4's with the army reduced to peace keeping only.
And then East Timor happened and all that went out the window.
Reality slapped Labour in the face and the Green Party couldn't come up with a defense policy for 9 years out of sheer embarrassment. All of a sudden NZ Frigates were at a war footing and tracking potentially hostile submarines, the A4's were bombed up and ready to go after enemy ships; the army might have to go into sustained, conventional combat for the first time since Korea and WW2. Left wing pacifism in NZ had a choice, and a crisis of belief, fight or be the one's who deliberately allowed mass murder on our doorstep. The public at the time, interestingly, was actually happy to fight Indonesia for Timor.
Once thing settled down then you get the armed forces as they are now, but the assumptions for that choice are based on Labour's historic dislike of the armed forces, an unwillingness to see beyond the pacific for defense planning, and other spending priorities like the ballet (its a good ballet btw). 9/11 caused a brief rethink on activities beyond the South pacific, but that was nothing that could not be met from existing forces, principly SAS and light reconstruction forces, the Bamiyan PRT. Hence the 2002 review was a preordained in the same manner as a train..the government had already laid down the tracks; a repeat of Timor, but without the nasty fast jets, anti-sub P3's. LAV3 was kept because of the Bosnia experience, not Timor, but that was because of pre 2000 army lobbying of Labour when in opposition.

Some points. The P3's..no ASM's: plan was to look at Harpoon, but that hasn't come about. We only ever got enough to track one sub at a time, but aI doubt we could do that now and their replacement may not be a modern equivalent like P8.

Restoring the Jet trainers/fast jet ability..nasty rumor started by me a few others, but you never know what might happen if the Singaporeans do send their pilots to Ohakea as I have been reading about recently.

C130's: that upgrade is a disaster we hope will not reach Aussie SH2G levels. C17 in the RNZAF: they wanted A400M, but as that has turned to custard the replacement will be probably be C130J and anything more will be spare capacity on Aussie C17. Their is a rumor about C27 as an Andover replacement, which wouldn't go astray for a lot of pacific island work, in conjunction with a pair of C17's, but I doubt it from the POV of platform redundancy, perception of cost.

LAV3. They wanted two battalions worth, but forgot about training and attrition reserves, made up some bullshit about only wanting one battalions worth and an independent squadron on reflection, to cover the error. As it happens I think they should have more of the other varieties in addition to what they have, and some tracked fighting vehicles. But the issue is not gear, even if they could get it, its lack of people, most of the LAV fleet are up on blocks at Linton, I think, as a result.

Project Protector: lots of lessons to be learned..some of which I cannot mention here, but planning was piss poor at navy and at government level.
Point to note: Heard that PM Clark actually said that they should have got a third frigate as well as the patrol ships on reflection on Timor and other activities, but it was to late by then for various reasons, mainly budgetary and political.

Us on the right of the debate here in NZ want spending back at 2% or 1.5% minimum, which would allow the restoration of a lot of lost equipment, and decent equipment levels, but as alluded to above, thats not the problem, the real problem is lack of people, gear means naught with out well trained people and we still have a recruitment problem.

Oh yes, I will grant you that thought has occurred, within the Labour party only; but most of us on the right here tend to think it was from false premises, that is to say an ideologically imposed mental vacuum leading to faulty conclusions.

I don't think that the basic premises of the 2002 Defence Review can be faulted. NZ is a long way from anywhere, it hasn't got anything that people want and it's too small to support armed forces large enough to make it an important ally unless resources are concentrated on something that makes it a valuable ally With the Navy reduced to patrolling and policing home waters and the Air Force restricted to the same tasks plus carrying things, that left funding available to be concentrated on the Army. The questionable presumption was that a dramatic increase in defense funding could not be made available. That was a dubious proposition in 2002 although it is probably correct today. In that sense, 2002 was a wasted opportunity, although I doubt even a major increase in funds would have justified saving the Skyhawks.

You are right about the economy, but what you are not seeing is the way the forces spent the money they had, which was badly and that accounts for a lots of the 1980's issues. Spending millions on certain fire control 'computers' when a hundred or so calculators could have done the job for a few thousand, for example.

That really reflects what I said about the New Zealand Armed Forces trying to be smaller versions of major forces instead of making fundamental priority decisions. That artillery fire control system is a good example. For armies that have a lot of artillery and a lot of troops to support with that artillery, those systems are a godsend. They allow targets to be switched very quickly, guns to be massed on target and then dispersed to provide general support, then massed again. They also allow ammunition supplies to be matched to requirements etc etc. But, for an army with a handful of guns and a handful of troops to support, those facilities just are not needed. It's like somebody getting dressed up in full Hell's Angels regalia and then going out to ride a bicycle.

As for the gear..well have a word with some of the people who excersized with us as I have..the gear was crap, but we made fools of a lot of overconfident allies at certain levels.

As I said, the great strength of the New Zealand Armed Forces was and is superb personnel. That's why concentrating on the Army makes so much sense. It leverages assets and applies force multipliers to advantages rather than just carrying on in the same old way.

Ok. You are getting your history mixed up here, in a major way. ANZAC frigates were a 1980's choice by Labour, mainly for political reasons; Navy wanted Dutch frigates, Kortenaars (sp?) and the last Leander, Canterbury, was retired a few years ago, replaced by L421, the new Canterbury.

I know the history of the ANZACs very well. Basically the New Zealand Government saw the opportunity of getting a couple of new frigates cheap by piggy-backing the 8-ship Australian program. In isolation that wasn't a bad idea. What it did mean was that the decisions were made in Australia. Saying the NZG chose ANZAC for political reasons isn't entirely accurate. They chose to piggy-back the Australian program for economic reasons and the Australians made the selection of MEKO-200 for largely political reasons. The NZG was stuck with it. They did wave their hand and say they didn't like MEKO-200 but they were pretty bluntly told that they were buying two ships out of ten so would they please shut up and take what they were given. And they did. Now, serious questions can be asked about whether buying those MEKO-200s at all was a good idea although it should be noted that the last experience of buying used-British wasn't too thrilling. Leanders were good ships but were expensive to crew and run. Essentially they'd reached the point where age meant maintaining them was reaching the levels of buying a new ship (for a British-built ship, that's around 20 years. For Dutch-built ships, it's closer to 30). The big debate was really about the third frigate for which an option was held (and allowed to lapse). One can argue that either way; my own feeling is that the frigates were of such limited value that probably letting the third ship lapse was the right decision.

The army was always an expeditionary force and had been since 1910 or so, based on the Boar war experience. Right up to the 1950's the plan was to raise a division and go and thump people a long way away, if we could get a lift and the gear. From the 60's onwards it was a deployable light infantry brigade. If you look closely at the territorial reserve you can still the shadow of the old division planning.

This is really where things have changed dramatically since 1945 and I don't think the implications of those changes were fully understood until the late 1980s and for New Zealand until a decade after that. In 1945, another light infantry brigade was an OK contribution. It had its uses even if it was poorly equipped. By the late 1980s it was simply in the way. It absorbed transport lift that could be better used to support modern formations. In 1945, offering an infantry brigade was something substantial and concessions could be gained in exchange for it. By 1990, a poorly equipped infantry brigade was a liability and concessions had to be offered to gain its acceptance. It took the New Zealand Army a decade to understand the implications of that. What this meant was that the force had to be equipped to a standard that, once again, made it an asset not a liability and it had to be provided with the lift that allowed it to deploy independently.

(snip)

The P3's..no ASM's: plan was to look at Harpoon, but that hasn't come about. We only ever got enough to track one sub at a time, but aI doubt we could do that now and their replacement may not be a modern equivalent like P8.

The P-3K2 is Harpoon-capable; for-but-not-with. The presumption (a correct one) is that Harpoons could be obtained very easily if they were needed

Restoring the Jet trainers/fast jet ability . . nasty rumor started by me a few others, but you never know what might happen if the Singaporeans do send their pilots to Ohakea as I have been reading about recently.

I hope not. Utter waste of money. There are much, much higher priorities than buying a handful of fast jets (small numbers mean very high per capita operating expenses)

C130's: that upgrade is a disaster we hope will not reach Aussie SH2G levels. C17 in the RNZAF: they wanted A400M, but as that has turned to custard the replacement will be probably be C130J and anything more will be spare capacity on Aussie C17. Their is a rumor about C27 as an Andover replacement, which wouldn't go astray for a lot of pacific island work, in conjunction with a pair of C17's, but I doubt it from the POV of platform redundancy, perception of cost.

The C-130 problems have a long way to go before they reach Australian SH-2 levels. That being said, a lot of the problems are due to the age of the aircraft and buying new ones would have been a better investment. One obvious choice is to go to the C-130J, the other plan mooted is the C-27/C-17 mix. That's expensive but with Protector out of the way, the money is available - especially since the US procurement of the C-17 is ending and Boeing is desperate for all the orders it can get to keep the line open.

They wanted two battalions worth, but forgot about training and attrition reserves, made up some bullshit about only wanting one battalions worth and an independent squadron on reflection, to cover the error. As it happens I think they should have more of the other varieties in addition to what they have, and some tracked fighting vehicles. But the issue is not gear, even if they could get it, its lack of people, most of the LAV fleet are up on blocks at Linton, I think, as a result.

They are; about half the fleet is in long-term storage and are up for sale. The "other variants" are needed and the Army is looking for swapsies. There is also talk of a switch to Strykers funded by sale of most of the existing LAVs

Lots of lessons to be learned..some of which I cannot mention here

You don't have to - I know them.

but planning was piss poor at navy and at government level.

Much worse than that. The problems with Canterbury were systemic, not isolated. Basically nobody knew what questions to ask and nobody had the gumption to ask which questions to ask (bad New Zealand trait here that keeps biting the NZDF in the ass - they will not go to other people for help when they are stuck. Australians have a lesser version of the same syndrome). Essentially, Canterbury is a militarized version of the commercial ferry Ben-My-Chree. She was a relatively short fat ship optimized for short-haul ferry duties in the relatively calm and placid waters of the Irish Sea. Nobody ever thought to ask wht that made a suitable basis for a long-duration military surveillance and transport mission in the wild waters of the South Pacific. In passing it's fun watching the crew go apeshit when they lose lateral control of an LCVP hanging from a crane. I haven't had so much of a laugh since I watched a crew with a wrecking ball discover they'd knocked down the wrong building. Nobody from the people doing the program oversight flew over to the UK and watched the Ben-My-Chree at work. Then there was the whole thing about accepting an OPC design that the Australian Navy had thrown out the window. But I digress. . . . .

Heard that PM Clark actually said that they should have got a third frigate as well as the patrol ships on reflection on Timor and other activities, but it was to late by then for various reasons, mainly budgetary and political.

The third frigate was actually the third MEKO-200 and that option lapsed in November 2003 so I doubt if it was really on. Anyway, MEKO-200 isn't really that hot. They're OK now since they are existing assets and they make a useful heavy mob to back up the OPVs. If we could turn the clock back, it would have made more sense to buy (say) four or six French Floreal class frigates than two or three MEKO-200s. Floreal is a grossly under-rated design, primarily because people keep thinking of it as a frigate when its actually an OPV. If we had a clean-slate option today, buying a quartet of Absalom class frigate-transports would make a lot of sense. The problem is neither option is really open

Us on the right of the debate here in NZ want spending back at 2% or 1.5% minimum, which would allow the restoration of a lot of lost equipment, and decent equipment levels, but as alluded to above, thats not the problem, the real problem is lack of people, gear means naught with out well trained people and we still have a recruitment problem.

Exactly. That's a problem that affects nearly everybody these days. The shortage of people pretty much defines which options are accessible. I think the 2002 Defense Review actually did a pretty good job of balancing things; the execution may have been flawed in some respects but even there, the NZG did a whole lot better than some countries I can think of (accusing stare: British government goes bright red and shuffles its feet). A lot of the problems are due to inexperience. New Zealand simply hasn't managed large, modern defense programs before and they tripped over their own feet. The real criticism is that they wouldn't hire in help from people who had done such things before.

Why exactly are the MEKO 200 that bad?

There's nothing particularly bad about them, its just that there's nothing particularly good about them. They're typical small frigates designed for the export market and priced for a quick sale. So, everthing on them is the cheapest kit that can be found. A problem peculiar to the MEKO series is that their weapons and sensor systems are containerized; they're delivered to the ship already fitted into a standardized container and that container is then lowered into a standardized receptacle. You may remember about two years ago, the U.S. Navy adopted this approach for LCS and called it a revolutionary development which rather surprised Blohm + Voss (aka Boom and Fuss) who had been doing it for twenty years and RDM who had been doing it for thirty. But I digress . . .

The problem is that the decks have to have additional headspace to make the containers fit and that results in internal volume not being used very efficiently. So MEKO-200s tend to be underarmed for their size.

From what I hear, the Braunschweig class corvette and the Brandenburg class frigates are pretty decent designs. (Though yes, the sterns needed some strengthening.)

The F-123 (Brandenburg) and F-124 Sachsen are both modified MEKO-360 designs (the F-122 Bremen is a German half-sister of the Dutch Kortenaer which, in turn is a Dutch version of the British Type 22). MEKO-360 is the destroyer version of the MEKO-200 (the numbers give design displacement; MEKO-140 = 1,400 tons, MEKO-200 = 2,000 tons, MEKO-360 = 3,600 tons). Only five original MEKO-360 class were built, four going to Argentina and one to Nigeria where she served for many years with great distinction as a floating bordello. The MEKO-360 was a much better design than 200 simply because it was larger and could absorb the inefficiency in use of internal volume more easily.

The K-130 Braunschweig class are not happy ships. They're based on the next-generation MEKO-A140. Unfortunately, the German Navy "improved" the design. As a result it's slow (designed for 28 knots, can barely make 25) and has maneuverability problems that required a bow-thruster to be fitted. They were pretty much a mistake; originally the plan was to build 15 but that was cut short in favor of the F-125 frigate when the K-130s deficiencies became obvious.

Only five original MEKO-360 class were built, four going to Argentina and one to Nigeria where she served for many years with great distinction as a floating bordello.

Wait, what?

That's right. She was about the only part of the Nigerian Navy that actually performed to her (revised) spec. When she joined the multinational force operating off Sierra Leone, her arrival was marked by joyous outbursts of enthusiastic cheering from the crews of the other warships. The UN officials were the only ones around who didn't understand why.

One day I'll tell you how the Nigerian Navy managed to sink two frigates by removing all the cockroaches.

Now I find myself irresistibly curious: What did Blohm und Voss do to get the nickname?

It's just one of those nicknames people came up with

GEC-Marconi became Gak-Macaroni

Krupp-Atlas became Crap-Witless

Janes Fighting Ships became janes Frightening Slips

Duilin and Gartze became Dubious and Ghastly

and so on.

Eh....did her crew just have a certain well-deserved reputation and a high percentage of women aboard or did the officers really ran a prostitution ring out of her?

The Navy ran a prostitution ring in her. Whores first class used the officer's cabins, then down through the ranks until the girls at the bottom did it standing in the engine rooms. (Touch of hyperbole there but that's more or less how it worked). The ship was alongside, never went to sea but spent her time rocking gently.

Interesting....

Basically, what happened was that the ships were never cleaned and were heavily infested. So much so that opening a hatch would sweep a path through inches of roaches on the deck. The ships was literally seething with the things. Anyway, finally there was an effort to clean them up with the ships being fumigated and then people shovelling dead cockroaches into skips. It was that bad. Then they found that the ship's water and septic system was also infested with roaches. The pipes were literally blocked with the things. So, it was decided the best way of cleaning them out was to pour acid down the piping. So they did, concentrated sulphuric acid. Only, then they discovered that, before deserting en masse, the crew had stolen all the naval-standard copper piping in the ship and replaced it with commercial grade PVC pipes. The moment the acid hit that, it ate straight through them. The acid then poured into the ship's bilges (we're talking tens of gallons of the stuff) and ate through the ship's bottoms. Both ships sank at their moorings. In 1996, both ships were written off but eventually one was salvaged and rebuilt

Jeesus. Any links for both stories and was somebody ever punished for this sort of incompetence?

The Enymiri class story was in Combat Fleets of the World with pictures of the half-dissolved ships sitting on the bottom. It's amusing to note that these two ships are very rarely mentioned in Nigerian naval articles.

The bit about the Aradu was also mentioned in Combat Fleets. She served as a bordello from around 1988 to 95. She's still around but she's a real mess.

I don't think anybody was ever punished for any of this stuff. Too many fingers in the till for that. There comes a point where corruption is so established that there is nobody left to say otherwise.

The Enymiri class story was in Combat Fleets of the World with pictures of the half-dissolved ships sitting on the bottom. It's amusing to note that these two ships are very rarely mentioned in Nigerian naval articles.

Do you know which edition by chance? The latest one is on Google but shows the one of the things afloat, also mentions it had an engine room explosion in 2004. How the hell that works with a diesel powered ship is beyond me, using unrefined crude for fuel in the best Imperial Japanese traditions maybe?

The details and pictures are in the 1990/91 edition page 397. The incident actually happened in April 1987. The two ships were the Otobo and the Dorina; the Dorina was so badly corroded by the acid she was left in situ then scrapped in 1996; the Otobo was raised and taken to OARN, Genoa for repairs in 1989. Nothing had happened by 1998 and IIRC she was eventually used as an alongside training hulk.

PS. When Aradu turned up for a refit after her collisions (she had three in one year), the dockside workers found a torpedo firmly rusted into one of her torpedo tubes. There were rude jokes about that given her primary operational role.

How on earth does acid eat through the bottom of a ship's hull?

Concentrated sulphuric acid + steel = hole.

In fact, the damage extended far beyond the ship's bottom. I was looking at a picture last night and the acid damage extends throughout the whole ship. There's massive black-stained damage to the superstructure as well.

I don't think that the basic premises of the 2002 Defence Review can be faulted. NZ is a long way from anywhere, it hasn't got anything that people want and it's too small to support armed forces large enough to make it an important ally unless resources are concentrated on something that makes it a valuable ally With the Navy reduced to patrolling and policing home waters and the Air Force restricted to the same tasks plus carrying things, that left funding available to be concentrated on the Army. The questionable presumption was that a dramatic increase in defense funding could not be made available. That was a dubious proposition in 2002 although it is probably correct today. In that sense, 2002 was a wasted opportunity, although I doubt even a major increase in funds would have justified saving the Skyhawks.

The 2002 review was a political document, that is to say it was a political Fait accomplii that had everything to do with Labour's view of the world, and makes sense if you accept their world view as fact. Funding would not change and that is what led to what happened (bear in mind the 1991 cuts). You need to look at what was going on behind closed doors, although the Green party even admitted it before the review was done, they were openly boasting that they had killed of the strike arm.
In NZ, reviews are seldom independent, they are a formalized statement of the governments idealogical view or a statement of political expediency.
There is a Yes Prime Minister episode about this.
Now I will grant you that NZ has not got anything any one would want, it has always been thus, but defense planning, historically, has never been about what others want so much as what NZ wants, that is to say, trade, which is a our foreign policy.
When they said they could not increase funding it was because Labour had other uses for the money, the Ballet was one of them as was the NZ Symphony Orchestra, I shit you not. Follow the money.
You have to look at who is saying what, and why. In this case the Labour party was, and still is, animated by views which date to the student political left of the 60's and 70's. Indeed, Clark, Goff and most of the MP's that defined the Labour defence ideal are of that political generation; anti-american and isolationist.

That really reflects what I said about the New Zealand Armed Forces trying to be smaller versions of major forces instead of making fundamental priority decisions. That artillery fire control system is a good example. For armies that have a lot of artillery and a lot of troops to support with that artillery, those systems are a godsend. They allow targets to be switched very quickly, guns to be massed on target and then dispersed to provide general support, then massed again. They also allow ammunition supplies to be matched to requirements etc etc. But, for an army with a handful of guns and a handful of troops to support, those facilities just are not needed. It's like somebody getting dressed up in full Hell's Angels regalia and then going out to ride a bicycle.

No, that artillery 'computer' was an ancient POS, the job of which could have been done for the price of said calculators, and that was the problem, the money was not spent properly. Thats not simply my opinion either, btw, but that of the artillery officers who where there at the time and a number of subsequent reviews.. Why spend millions on one old system when the same job can be done for a lot less by another? What could the saving have gone to?

As I said, the great strength of the New Zealand Armed Forces was and is superb personnel. That's why concentrating on the Army makes so much sense. It leverages assets and applies force multipliers to advantages rather than just carrying on in the same old way.

Well, when we can recruit and retain them at any rate, but thats another issue.
The same 'old way' was a result of budget cuts and inefficient use of existing funds. The same 'old way' was always for Air strike/Navy to be for local use at a given threat level, nothing more and was doable at a given funding level, around 2% GDP, double what we have now. Army was always supposed to be a high quality job for expeditions, but it never quite worked out that way. Once funding dropped below that magic level, something had to give, so one must ask why did funding drop? Look at politics for the answer.

I know the history of the ANZACs very well. Basically the New Zealand Government saw the opportunity of getting a couple of new frigates cheap by piggy-backing the 8-ship Australian program. In isolation that wasn't a bad idea. What it did mean was that the decisions were made in Australia. Saying the NZG chose ANZAC for political reasons isn't entirely accurate.

I did say mainly

They chose to piggy-back the Australian program for economic reasons and the Australians made the selection of MEKO-200 for largely political reasons. The NZG was stuck with it. They did wave their hand and say they didn't like MEKO-200 but they were pretty bluntly told that they were buying two ships out of ten so would they please shut up and take what they were given. And they did.

In the 80's, Navy wanted six, Labour was happy for two, with options for two, expectations where that at least three would be purchased. Final decision/fight 1998/99.

Now, serious questions can be asked about whether buying those MEKO-200s at all was a good idea although it should be noted that the last experience of buying used-British wasn't too thrilling. Leanders were good ships but were expensive to crew and run. Essentially they'd reached the point where age meant maintaining them was reaching the levels of buying a new ship (for a British-built ship, that's around 20 years. For Dutch-built ships, it's closer to 30).

As it happens, a lot of that was because of Labour unions and Muldoon era local politics, rationality had nothing to do with it.
Navy wanted Dutch ships new built.

The big debate was really about the third frigate for which an option was held (and allowed to lapse). One can argue that either way; my own feeling is that the frigates were of such limited value that probably letting the third ship lapse was the right decision.

I well remember this one, you must remember that its was political, not for any other reason. As to value for money, well the bang for buck on the ANZAC class is pretty limited, weight/space issues which were apparent in the mid/late 80's.

This is really where things have changed dramatically since 1945 and I don't think the implications of those changes were fully understood until the late 1980s and for New Zealand until a decade after that.

No, I don't think that true, NZ has only ever been able to field small forces, so what we did send must be of high quality, 1st Division (ww1) is a case in point. NZDF knew full well what was going on, because its a situation we have always had to live with, being small. Problem was NZDF couldn't win the political fight, or spend money efficiently plus lack of strategic vision.

In 1945, another light infantry brigade was an OK contribution. It had its uses even if it was poorly equipped. By the late 1980s it was simply in the way. It absorbed transport lift that could be better used to support modern formations. In 1945, offering an infantry brigade was something substantial and concessions could be gained in exchange for it. By 1990, a poorly equipped infantry brigade was a liability and concessions had to be offered to gain its acceptance. It took the New Zealand Army a decade to understand the implications of that. What this meant was that the force had to be equipped to a standard that, once again, made it an asset not a liability and it had to be provided with the lift that allowed it to deploy independently.

Ok, the correct, staff, time line for you, post 45.

Division; untill mid to late 50's
Light Brigade, 60's-89
Light Brigade/Battalion 90-95ish depending on who you talk to.
2000 onwards: no one now seriously thinks a battalion group is doable outside of a Timor repeat, the gear and people just are not there.
The above assumptions were based on getting the gear, and a lift.

Its worthy of note that when Lange asked for a a 'mini invasion' of Fiji in 87, CDF told him to get stuffed, no one thought a toe hold could be established there, especially if the Fijians were wired on Fiji bitter. SAS were considered for a hostage job when an Air NZ plane was taken over in Fiji, even that wasn't considered doable, good thing the cabin staff belted the miscreant with a bottle of whiskey to save the day. NZDF knew damn well their limitations, what they never realized was their inability to spend money efficiently to remedy some of their shortcomings was one of the issues, or the fact that service chiefs/CDF could not see past the strategic horizons of their last command, so they could not, therefore, play the political game or even know what they needed.

(snip)

The P-3K2 is Harpoon-capable; for-but-not-with. The presumption (a correct one) is that Harpoons could be obtained very easily if they were needed

Well, unless you think that was included in the stated upgrade, I doubt it. The last LTDP to the Labour government stated that that was a capability that was to be looked at, cost unknown, in the next few years, nothing more. There has been no change to that since National got into government. The P3 upgrade was specifically for data management, sensor, communications and navigation systems, there was nothing in the upgrade program for harpoon and if there were, it would,as a matter of course, been made public in the budget/LTDP, advice to incoming government, as matter of course.

I hope not. Utter waste of money. There are much, much higher priorities than buying a handful of fast jets (small numbers mean very high per capita operating expenses)

This is something that a number of us have been concerned about, including a former commander 1 NZSAS, that we now lack the ability to train our forces in the use of close air support, defence against air attack etc. While we realize that the active strike arm is long gone, the trainers could be used for simulation, and that is the intent. The trainers are also brought and paid for. They also represent the ability to bring back a proper strike arm if needed. Of course, if they do get sold, which is probable, it then becomes irrelevant.
What I think you are not seeing is what happened to the defense budget in 1991, which is the financial reason for the loss of the air strike arm, the money was there, if 45% of the budget had not vanished for no apparent reason when Ruth Richardson was finance minister.

The C-130 problems have a long way to go before they reach Australian SH-2 levels. That being said, a lot of the problems are due to the age of the aircraft and buying new ones would have been a better investment. One obvious choice is to go to the C-130J, the other plan mooted is the C-27/C-17 mix. That's expensive but with Protector out of the way, the money is available - especially since the US procurement of the C-17 is ending and Boeing is desperate for all the orders it can get to keep the line open.

They could have gone for J model Herc's, but, once again, it was political, Labour never wants to spend money on defence unless it has to; upgrade was seen as a cheaper alternative (and hopefully shift the replacement burden to National, maybe)
As for new transport planes, well you are quite wrong about new spending,the money is not available; Finance Minister Bill English has publically stated there will be no increase in spending, not with government borrowing at 240 million a week to keep things as they are. Protector has nothing to do with it, thats brought and paid for, and departments have been told their budgets will not change, money for new projects must be found from existing budgets, new funds will not be made available.
Now what things are like in five years, I don't know, but if the C17 line is still open, then its an option, but one I would not want to fight past the combination of Labour/Green/Maori parties on a C17 buy given that National has historically not been able to argue the case for any defense spending that is not supported by Labour.

They are; about half the fleet is in long-term storage and are up for sale. The "other variants" are needed and the Army is looking for swapsies. There is also talk of a switch to Strykers funded by sale of most of the existing LAVs

They are not for sale, nothing more than talk/kite flying, I have correspondence from the Minister to show this. That was Wayne Mapp pandering to those who subscribe to certain 'Sparkie' ideas about wheeled vehicles, nothing more, and its not an army view as far as I know.

You don't have to - I know them.

Yeah, gets like that doesnt it?

Much worse than that. The problems with Canterbury were systemic, not isolated. Basically nobody knew what questions to ask and nobody had the gumption to ask which questions to ask (bad New Zealand trait here that keeps biting the NZDF in the ass - they will not go to other people for help when they are stuck. Australians have a lesser version of the same syndrome). Essentially, Canterbury is a militarized version of the commercial ferry Ben-My-Chree. She was a relatively short fat ship optimized for short-haul ferry duties in the relatively calm and placid waters of the Irish Sea. Nobody ever thought to ask wht that made a suitable basis for a long-duration military surveillance and transport mission in the wild waters of the South Pacific. In passing it's fun watching the crew go apeshit when they lose lateral control of an LCVP hanging from a crane. I haven't had so much of a laugh since I watched a crew with a wrecking ball discover they'd knocked down the wrong building. Nobody from the people doing the program oversight flew over to the UK and watched the Ben-My-Chree at work. Then there was the whole thing about accepting an OPC design that the Australian Navy had thrown out the window. But I digress. . . . .

You are soooo right about this. What NZDF often forgets is that there is so much we did not inherit from the Brits with respect to institutional knowledge/strategic insight, and they are simply to proud to ask about now (same is true for the politicians, but for different reasons). They should know better, the last time they had any real experience with amphibious shipping was in 1942/43 and before that, 1915 at Gallipoli.
What was frustrating also was that a group of people, 15 minutes walk away from NZDF HQ, at the ferry terminals, could have told them a some of it, but navy didn't want to know, they thought they knew best. Incidentally, Navy wanted a proper battalion landing ship originally, LPD iirc, but Labour said no.

The third frigate was actually the third MEKO-200 and that option lapsed in November 2003 so I doubt if it was really on.

Yeah, political/budgetary

Anyway, MEKO-200 isn't really that hot. They're OK now since they are existing assets and they make a useful heavy mob to back up the OPVs.

If they get the upgrades, essm, AUSPAR, etc..a very big 'if'.

If we could turn the clock back, it would have made more sense to buy (say) four or six French Floreal class frigates than two or three MEKO-200s. Floreal is a grossly under-rated design, primarily because people keep thinking of it as a frigate when its actually an OPV. If we had a clean-slate option today, buying a quartet of Absalom class frigate-transports would make a lot of sense. The problem is neither option is really open

Yep, couldn't agree more. What the NZ frigate replacement will be will be interesting, I wonder what the Brit T26 will be like, or will that be a cock up ?(I just hope Aussie yards have their shite sorted, which was another complaint of the ANZAC class, pork barrel job with inexperienced builders)

Exactly. That's a problem that affects nearly everybody these days. The shortage of people pretty much defines which options are accessible.

True, and not a problem that I can solve.

I think the 2002 Defense Review actually did a pretty good job of balancing things; the execution may have been flawed in some respects but even there, the NZG did a whole lot better than some countries I can think of (accusing stare: British government goes bright red and shuffles its feet).

Well if one takes it in isolation, from a certain political viewpoint, it does, but then I don't share that view

A lot of the problems are due to inexperience. New Zealand simply hasn't managed large, modern defense programs before and they tripped over their own feet. The real criticism is that they wouldn't hire in help from people who had done such things before.

You will not be surprised to learn that you are not the only one saying that, its something said internally in NZDF, but too often the people who are saying it are not in a position to do anything about it, guess who are in the position to do something, and don't, and why?

The 2002 review was a political document, that is to say it was a political Fait accomplii that had everything to do with Labour's view of the world, and makes sense if you accept their world view as fact. Funding would not change and that is what led to what happened (bear in mind the 1991 cuts). You need to look at what was going on behind closed doors, although the Green party even admitted it before the review was done, they were openly boasting that they had killed of the strike arm. In NZ, reviews are seldom independent, they are a formalized statement of the governments idealogical view or a statement of political expediency. There is a Yes Prime Minister episode about this. Now I will grant you that NZ has not got anything any one would want, it has always been thus, but defense planning, historically, has never been about what others want so much as what NZ wants, that is to say, trade, which is a our foreign policy. When they said they could not increase funding it was because Labour had other uses for the money, the Ballet was one of them as was the NZ Symphony Orchestra, I shit you not. Follow the money. You have to look at who is saying what, and why. In this case the Labour party was, and still is, animated by views which date to the student political left of the 60's and 70's. Indeed, Clark, Goff and most of the MP's that defined the Labour defence ideal are of that political generation; anti-american and isolationist.

Sure they were, but there is a chicken and egg situation here. Labour etc aren't really interested in defense because the truth is that New Zealand has only a minimal need for defense. Frankly, the ballet and a good orchestra are at least as good an investment and if they get a few extra tourists to arrive, better. They may be the political left (and therefore nuts) but that doesn't mean they can't get things right now and then. The trouble is, it is very, very hard to justify much defense expenditure in New Zealand. I do appreciate the need to know what goes on behind closed doors, but remember in my job, I'm often behind them.

No, that artillery 'computer' was an ancient POS, the job of which could have been done for the price of said calculators, and that was the problem, the money was not spent properly. Thats not simply my opinion either, btw, but that of the artillery officers who where there at the time and a number of subsequent reviews.. Why spend millions on one old system when the same job can be done for a lot less by another? What could the saving have gone to?

Which system do you refer to? The one I have listed does a hell of a lot more than just plot out fire control solutions.

The same 'old way' was a result of budget cuts and inefficient use of existing funds. The same 'old way' was always for Air strike/Navy to be for local use at a given threat level, nothing more and was doable at a given funding level, around 2% GDP, double what we have now. Army was always supposed to be a high quality job for expeditions, but it never quite worked out that way. Once funding dropped below that magic level, something had to give, so one must ask why did funding drop? Look at politics for the answer.

This brings us back to why political answers are what they are. And back to the answer that they are determined by defense needs and New Zealand doesn't really have any. To be honest, you could dump your entire defense establishment and the penalties would be limited. The existing force structure is a good compromise between the levels of zero and too high. It may be a political compromise and it may be the reasons behind its adoption were wrong, that doesn't stop the decision itself from being right.

In the 80's, Navy wanted six, Labour was happy for two, with options for two, expectations where that at least three would be purchased. Final decision/fight 1998/99.

Six never was on; it was the old game. Want four, so ask for six, they'll offer two and compromise on four.

As it happens, a lot of that was because of Labour unions and Muldoon era local politics, rationality had nothing to do with it.
Navy wanted Dutch ships new built.

New Zealand or Australia? The Australians wanted MEKO-360s. They took 200s as a compromise. Given their head, they actually wanted into NFR-90 but that was way too expensive.

No, I don't think that true, NZ has only ever been able to field small forces, so what we did send must be of high quality, 1st Division (ww1) is a case in point. NZDF knew full well what was going on, because its a situation we have always had to live with, being small. Problem was NZDF couldn't win the political fight, or spend money efficiently plus lack of strategic vision.

You misunderstand. What changed was the definition of high quality. A top-line 1945 elite infantry outfit was a battlefield liability in 1995.

Well, unless you think that was included in the stated upgrade, I doubt it. The last LTDP to the Labour government stated that that was a capability that was to be looked at, cost unknown, in the next few years, nothing more. There has been no change to that since National got into government. The P3 upgrade was specifically for data management, sensor, communications and navigation systems, there was nothing in the upgrade program for harpoon and if there were, it would,as a matter of course, been made public in the budget/LTDP, advice to incoming government, as matter of course.

Somebody pulled a fast one. The data handong system upgrade just happened to include Harpoon compatability. Or, more precisely, Harpoon compatability is an inherent result of the capability upgrade. I would guess it would take ten minutes and a screwdriver to make 'inherent' 'actual'.

This is something that a number of us have been concerned about, including a former commander 1 NZSAS, that we now lack the ability to train our forces in the use of close air support, defence against air attack etc. While we realize that the active strike arm is long gone, the trainers could be used for simulation, and that is the intent. The trainers are also brought and paid for. They also represent the ability to bring back a proper strike arm if needed. Of course, if they do get sold, which is probable, it then becomes irrelevant.

You needn't worry about training; keep taking part in international operations with us and we'll bomb you sooner or later. The key word in your post are "if needed". There is no way New Zealand needs or can use an Air Force. Actually, it would be better if the C-130s were handed over to the Army, the P-3K2s to the Navy and teh Air Force stood down completely.

What I think you are not seeing is what happened to the defense budget in 1991, which is the financial reason for the loss of the air strike arm, the money was there, if 45% of the budget had not vanished for no apparent reason when Ruth Richardson was finance minister.

You're missing the point. NZ does not need an air force, it has nothing to use it for. Even if there was a 45 percent increase in the defense budget (or a 450 percent increase) there are still better things to spend the money on.

They could have gone for J model Herc's, but, once again, it was political, Labour never wants to spend money on defence unless it has to; upgrade was seen as a cheaper alternative (and hopefully shift the replacement burden to National, maybe) As for new transport planes, well you are quite wrong about new spending,the money is not available; Finance Minister Bill English has publically stated there will be no increase in spending, not with government borrowing at 240 million a week to keep things as they are. Protector has nothing to do with it, thats brought and paid for, and departments have been told their budgets will not change, money for new projects must be found from existing budgets, new funds will not be made available.

The point is that one major procurement item is over; that means there is room within the existing budget to do something else. How much is a good question and what on is another one.

They are not for sale, nothing more than talk/kite flying, I have correspondence from the Minister to show this. That was Wayne Mapp pandering to those who subscribe to certain 'Sparkie' ideas about wheeled vehicles, nothing more, and its not an army view as far as I know.

That's good to know. Thank you.

Stuart, you should do a "Stuart reviews Country X's military" series. That would be really quite fascinating, and informative.

I do, more or less. Each country survey covers things like governmental system, judiciary, human rights standards, economic and industrial developments, national budget, military budget, key military programs, force structure, military imports and exports, research and development and a detailed (8 - 20 page) analysis of what it all means. Costs USD 1,935 per copy.

[Craiglxviii]

It’s a shame indeed he didn’t live to see AUKUS…

[Simon Darkshade]

It is doubtful that any of us will live to see the Aukus submarines at this pace, should the agreement and alliances hold.

[Belushi TD]

I do miss Stuart.

*lifts Laphroaig in salute.*
*Drinks*
*Smashes glass*

Belushi TD