Australian Army Discussions and Updates

[Tasman]

Is it?

The tiger is being replaced a decade early for a reason, and it’s not because it is providing a satisfactory capability.

Hmm - sounds like it still isn't providing the service needed by the ADF! Lately some fairly senior sirs have been singing its praises on twitter, etc. It would be unfortunate if this results in the true story being glossed over and past mistakes repeated. As I said in my previous post, I am uneasy about the Tiger upgrade proposal. Raven22's comment reinforce that unease!

 

[StingrayOZ]

I think it the Vipers Zulu's would be interesting with the US Marine rotations and the amphibious capability Australia is building. I think it just fits in better with where we are going and what we are likely to use it for. There is definitely a need out in the amphibious space for fire support etc, and regionally its ARH role is more likely IMO to be off ship based platforms. Are there still ~12 new builds awaiting immediate delivery (originally Pakistan order)? I am sure Bell could put together a very aggressive IOC time-frame and a very good price. 12 for immediate delivery today, US Marines support and training/support/logistics already on the ground, immediately. If we wanted additional frames beyond that the window is still open till 2022. (rounding up to 36 would be nice if it proves itself).

 

[Raven22]

Hmm - sounds like it still isn't providing the service needed by the ADF! Lately some fairly senior sirs have been singing its praises on twitter, etc. It would be unfortunate if this results in the true story being glossed over and past mistakes repeated. As I said in my previous post, I am uneasy about the Tiger upgrade proposal. Raven22's comment reinforce that unease!

The Tiger does provide a capability, it’s just not proportional to the resources expended on it, nor does it provide all the capability required. To provide all the capability required, and make serviceability acceptable, would cost so much money that it is literally cheaper just to buy a new helicopter that we know works and with a known sustainment cost. Hence the recommendation from the Houston review to replace the Tiger more or less immediately.

I wouldn’t put too much faith in the public words of senior sirs - they can hardly do anything else but sing the praises of what they have.

 

[Boagrius]

Raven do you have an inkling of who the front runner is likely to be? From the outside it seems like a fairly even contest between Apache with its better sensor suite and established path to UAS integration, and the Viper with its "out of the box" marinisation and USMC interoperability.

 

[Raven22]

It’s well outside of my lane, but I would put money on Apache. I don’t think the marinisation of the Viper will be compelling enough overcome the advantages of Apache.

 

[Takao]

It’s well outside of my lane, but I would put money on Apache. I don’t think the marinisation of the Viper will be compelling enough overcome the advantages of Apache.

Zulu was very third in AIR 87 and nothing has really happened to it. The other two are rather different aircraft, both being significant upgrades over the options offered for AIR 87.

 

[Takao]

The Tiger does provide a capability, it’s just not proportional to the resources expended on it, nor does it provide all the capability required. To provide all the capability required, and make serviceability acceptable, would cost so much money that it is literally cheaper just to buy a new helicopter that we know works and with a known sustainment cost. Hence the recommendation from the Houston review to replace the Tiger more or less immediately.

I wouldn’t put too much faith in the public words of senior sirs - they can hardly do anything else but sing the praises of what they have.

Helicopters aren't proportional to the effect they bring, not for an Army our size. Unfortunately, for the fleet of any ARH we would need to become useful it is no longer affordable. Noting that the other two options offered less aircraft (and support systems), just how useful would 4 - 6 ARH be for the billions spent on it? That's all we were going to deploy with those numbers.

And of course it's better to replace Tiger now. Its reached its PWD. Army should be pushing this all the time. Otherwise we get crap like the M-113AS4. We want to be a first line military that is joint and capable of the three SDOs in the DWP? Then that comes at a cost - a replace every 15 - 20 years (with a MLU / LOTE / CAP at the 10 year mark). That's the price you pay for Accelerated Warfare and all the words that are coming out of Russell.

Noting that most of the sustainment $$ problems came down to poor CoA decisions and people, why are any of our helicopter projects going to be different?

 

[Volkodav]

The word from US Army aviation ref the AH-64E is it is grossly over rated and having serious teething issues. It and the Zulu are recognised as being at the end of their development and will need replacement by the mid 2030, the US has already kicked off the replacement programs for both.

There is also the fact that the Tiger out performs both in every important area and US exchange personnel sing its praises. It is a more modern, higher performance, considerably more survivable platform than either the Zulu or Guardian.

In a nutshell the Tiger is the Army's equivalent to the Collins.
Were there more cost effective options at the time? Yes.
Was the project kicked off too late and rushed? Yes.
Was the cost and risk under estimated? Yes.
Was the capability under funded, causing significant sustainment and availability issues (not to mention increased costs) down the track? Yes.
Were too few airframes ordered? Yes.
Was the jump from the Kiowa to Tiger under estimated? Yes.
Should the CoA have acquired a bridging or training capability before Tiger? Yes.

I could go on.

Essentially replacing the Tiger now would cost more than upgrading it and buying additional airframes, would be poor value for money, reduce capability, increase risk and perhaps worst of all, result in the ADF being lumbered with an obsolescent type in need of replacement less than a decade after acquisition, and potentially no money to do so.

 

[MickB]

Rarely on this site have I seen such strongly opposed opinions about a platform.
Just in the last few posts we have two Defense Pros, who have many times in the past demonstrated their knowledge, give complete opposite statements.

Raven 22 says it is under performing and is cheaper to replace with a new type.
Volkodav says it out performs the others and is cheaper to upgrade.

If the Pros are this far apart think how confusing it is to the lay person.

PS : Rather like Volkodav's assessment of the entire Tiger program.

 

[Raven22]

Essentially replacing the Tiger now would cost more than upgrading it and buying additional airframes, would be poor value for money, reduce capability, increase risk and perhaps worst of all, result in the ADF being lumbered with an obsolescent type in need of replacement less than a decade after acquisition, and potentially no money to do so.

It’s a shame then that the study into this very thing, lead by a retired Air Chief Marshall and with all the facts available, recommended immediate replacement of the Tiger. The facts were it was cheaper to replace Tiger immediately than continue to sustain Tiger out to its LOT, even without upgrade.

Surely you cannot be recommending that Australia absorb all the risk in developing an upgrade to Tiger to make it competitive? That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Even if an upgraded Tiger was theoretically better, the risk is simply not worth it. There’s a big difference between theoretical platform performance and an actual capability. Buy something we know works, with a known support cost, guaranteed development path and commonality with our allies. It’s not rocket science.

 

[Takao]

It’s a shame then that the study into this very thing, lead by a retired Air Chief Marshall and with all the facts available, recommended immediate replacement of the Tiger. The facts were it was cheaper to replace Tiger immediately than continue to sustain Tiger out to its LOT, even without upgrade.

The Houston Review isn't infallible, there are enough questionable issues relating to some of his conclusions (Tiger doesn't work in hot humid zones far from Brisbane like Darwin, so move to Townsville? That'd be the not hot, not humid, outer suburb of Brisbane...). Furthermore, this is the CDF who supported the purchase of MRH despite knowing of the issues surrounding Eurocopter / Airbus as a contractor. There are other flaws and it's also rather old.

I'm not sure when you are talking about the budget being cheaper to replace than sustain. If you are talking now, well - yes. LAND 4503 is there and it's been my constant point that we should replace now and not defer. But if you are talking in the past, I can't think of when. Knowing what else we would have had to purchase beyond AIR 87's initial funding allocation to support a Boeing or Bell product, I'm not sure how at any point the others would not have been comparable or more expensive.

Surely you cannot be recommending that Australia absorb all the risk in developing an upgrade to Tiger to make it competitive? That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Even if an upgraded Tiger was theoretically better, the risk is simply not worth it. There’s a big difference between theoretical platform performance and an actual capability. Buy something we know works, with a known support cost, guaranteed development path and commonality with our allies. It’s not rocket science.

Generally I'd agree, although I'm actually happy to take some risk for acquisition. But what mess are we in? @Volkodav is correct and I've actually used his point in the past, Tiger = Collins. There is one line in his post above I disagree with (of the three options, Tiger was the most cost effective - even in retrospect) but other than that he is spot on. It's not in a mess (although it's getting old) and it does what we need it to. Hell - I know individuals who made bad decisions that ended up delaying the capability or hurting the CoA's legal stance. I also know the guys and girls who dragged it kicking and screaming into a deployable, feasible capability.

Your second last sentence highlights the quandary that AIR 87 tender evaluators faced. Of the three contenders, what was "Buy something we know works, with a known support cost, guaranteed development path and commonality with our allies"? Factor that into today, and the LAND 4503 people are going to face similar issues.

In the wider view, the idea that "just buy US and all will be solved" is not a guarantee for success like many think it is. The C-17 is held up as an example, and it certainly seems to be. Some of the equipment we have bought is top notch (M-1), but because of how we use it and the like, often has issues. It's not Australianisation - it's just us breaking different things. Sometimes we go cheap (S-70) that gives us a good capability, but with more issues than are worth. Two things about the latter, one small and one with wider issues that many forget about when talking about US equipment. The first is that no H-60 self-protection gear actually fits beyond the IR exhaust suppressors. Not a biggie - but if we wanted to push the S-70s overseas against a proper threat, it would have needed a bunch of money and time thrown at it.

Critically though, an anecdote. In 2004 the Black Hawk family had bad blade cracks - it was impacting about 30% of the blade fleet. A US Army one actually lost a blade in flight. Well, 2/3.... Either way, our's were grounded until new stocks could be bought. AASPO was excellent, and they were able to tell the user units that the Army Black Hawks were the number 2 customer for Sikorsky. Which sounds excellent - until they went asking who number 1 was. "That's be the US military - and your estimated date of delivery is mid-06". Now, we were able to work around that, but when you have ~38 of 4000 Black Hawks, or 72 of 3500 F-35, or other similar fleet sizes, your "special relationship" doesn't mean squat. When you have 22 of 180 Tigers you can, generally speaking, have a much greater say and much more attention when you need it. Not the only consideration - but sometimes we just don't have the mass to get a say with the US, and their product may be ok, but not optimal for us.

 

[Stampede]

Rarely on this site have I seen such strongly opposed opinions about a platform.
Just in the last few posts we have two Defense Pros, who have many times in the past demonstrated their knowledge, give complete opposite statements.

Raven 22 says it is under performing and is cheaper to replace with a new type.
Volkodav says it out performs the others and is cheaper to upgrade.

If the Pros are this far apart think how confusing it is to the lay person.

PS : Rather like Volkodav's assessment of the entire Tiger program.

Yep its a confusing one.

I see merit in an upgraded Tiger, but if I was a betting man I'd suggest it will be the AH-64E.
I'm not a defence professional, but what I have observed a couple of times over the years at the Avalon Air show, is the frustrated look on the face of a representative of 1st Aviation Regiment when asked by some bogan if they've seen the AH-64.
It must be a frustration not having the recognition of the hard work put in to making the Tiger work, just to have some fat dude with lowered jeans not covering his bum crack, crap on about the big American whirly bird on display and how it looks really cool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I st Aviation Regiment I thank you for your service.

What ever the out come, I hope a decision is made that is acceptable to our defence needs and that the future aquisition does not become a political football.
I guess in not too many years we will know the outcome

Regards S

 

[Raven22]

The Houston Review isn't infallible, there are enough questionable issues relating to some of his conclusions (Tiger doesn't work in hot humid zones far from Brisbane like Darwin, so move to Townsville? That'd be the not hot, not humid, outer suburb of Brisbane...). Furthermore, this is the CDF who supported the purchase of MRH despite knowing of the issues surrounding Eurocopter / Airbus as a contractor. There are other flaws and it's also rather old.

The Houston review may not be infallible, but I would certainly trust it far more than Eurocopter marketing materials. I also think you are misrespresenting some of the recommendations. There was far more to moving 1 Avn to Townsville than just the humidity.

I'm not sure when you are talking about the budget being cheaper to replace than sustain.

The numbers crunched around the time of the Houston review showed that a buy of Apache would pay for itself in a decade or so, based on sustainment savings compared to continuing to fly Tiger. While I am sure the assumptions used were the best possible to support the argument, it is hardly an endorsement of Tiger. It's certainly not something that helps the argument that we should upgrade Tiger rather than replace.

Generally I'd agree, although I'm actually happy to take some risk for acquisition. But what mess are we in

I agree there are times that acquisition risk is worth it, but that is when the forecast outcome is superior enough to the alternatives to make the risk worth it. JSF is a good example. It is that much more advanced than the alternatives that accepting the risk is worth it. I'd strongly suggest the same isn't true of Tiger. What capability does it provide that is that much better than the alternatives to make it worth the risk?

The mess I was talking about is the fact that it took 15 years from contract signature to get a somewhat useful capability, and even today the Tiger is still not meeting serviceability goals and is costing far more to sustain that it should. It is obvious in hindsight that the Tiger was still a development program, and the schedule, cost and capability risks were far greater than anticipated. And, now that we have got it to a somewhat useful capability, now what? There is no upgrade path available. The only way to upgrade Tiger is to shoulder all the development risks ourselves, again. Einstein had a saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

@Volkodav is correct and I've actually used his point in the past, Tiger = Collins. There is one line in his post above I disagree with (of the three options, Tiger was the most cost effective - even in retrospect) but other than that he is spot on. Your second last sentence highlights the quandary that AIR 87 tender evaluators faced. Of the three contenders, what was "Buy something we know works, with a known support cost, guaranteed development path and commonality with our allies"? Factor that into today, and the LAND 4503 people are going to face similar issues.

I agree with the comparison to Collins. But I look at it the other way - it doesn't matter how good the platform capability is if it doesn't work often enough to get it to sea, and costs so much money to sustain it distorts the budget for other things. The Collins may be the best submarine in the world, but it wouldn't have mattered if they were needed a decade or so ago, because they weren't going to sea. If we needed an ARH capability a decade ago we didn't have one. The fact that we have one now somewhat misses the point. It's the same for the ARH replacement. Do we want a helicopter that works now, and one that will probably work in a decade?

With the Tiger, the AIR87 decision may not have been a bad decision, but it was certainly the wrong decision. An alternative helicopter would have been in useful service a decade ago, and almost certainly deployed to Afghanistan. This is why I can't fathom people supporting Australia once again shouldering the risk of developing a Eurocopter product when there is quite clearly suitable alternatives that, while not perfect, are good enough and a known quantity.

In the wider view, the idea that "just buy US and all will be solved" is not a guarantee for success like many think it is.

We don't have to buy US. We just have to buy what works.

 

[Volkodav]

It’s a shame then that the study into this very thing, lead by a retired Air Chief Marshall and with all the facts available, recommended immediate replacement of the Tiger. The facts were it was cheaper to replace Tiger immediately than continue to sustain Tiger out to its LOT, even without upgrade.

Surely you cannot be recommending that Australia absorb all the risk in developing an upgrade to Tiger to make it competitive? That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Even if an upgraded Tiger was theoretically better, the risk is simply not worth it. There’s a big difference between theoretical platform performance and an actual capability. Buy something we know works, with a known support cost, guaranteed development path and commonality with our allies. It’s not rocket science.

First and foremost Australia would not go it alone on a Tiger upgrade as we have been invited to participate in a whole of fleet program by the other operators of the type, including the Germans, who want to more closely integrate theirs with vehicles such as the Boxer. There is nothing theoretical about the Tigers performance, it is real and it is being demonstrated throughout the year

Houston's review was a snapshot in time conducted when there was still a very adversarial relationship between defence and the contractor, the contractor had not provided a way forward, the platform was not delivering, and there were still multiple unknown unknowns (to quote the other Donald). Army was still coming to grips with the jump in technology (an issue aided in the end by the lateral transfer of personnel from the UK in particular the RN, a substantial RAAF presence and the contractor stepping up to support maintenance). There was a shortage of trained and certified pilots and maintainers, in particular at Captain / Major and Sergeant / WO2 level, lack of available airframes making training difficult to impossible, something that would have impacted any platform.

The elephant in the room was the loss of a German Tiger in Mali resulting the grounding of the fleet. Australia for some reason kept Tiger grounded long after other operators returned to flying and even full operation, there was no evidence to support this, rather it was a lack of risk appetite within Aust government circles. The cause of the loss was a contractor not aligning flight controls in accordance with procedure, something that could easily (and usually does) result in the loss of any platform.

Many of the problems Tiger had would have also been encountered by Apache or Cobra, the real culprit being a lack of understanding of what was involved in moving to an modern ARH from a Vietnam vintage LOH. Tiger was the superior platform but was still highly developmental and definitely not an integrated capability, but the time it was selected the ADF was not very good at purple and there is no guarantee another type would have been integrated more successfully. With the Tiger the ADF also was leading the way with flight hours, encountering problems before the parent operators.

1 Avn is stationed in Darwin and lacks many of the support structures and capabilities enjoyed by units based in Townsville or Sydney, also a little out of site, out of mind. Stuff happens in Darwin that would not be tolerated elsewhere, leaders (already established as often not as experienced or senior as ideal), in many cases, are a long way away from supervision, mentoring and accountability, and (without knowing any better?) do stuff that they would be called out on in the big army. There are retention issues and a lot of multi hatting as a handful of experienced certified people cover many different critical roles.

As for your final sentence, the planned development path for the Apache and Zulu, is to introduce their replacement into service at about the time they would be achieving IOC with the ADF. To put this in perspective, Army may as well replace the M-113 with M-2A3 Bradleys and the ASLAV should have been replaced with LAV III, or looing at the technology discrepancy between the FMS options and Tiger, maybe ASLAV should have been replaced with an upgraded M-113.

My final point, something I have noticed in both the old Navy (they are trying to grow it out as quickly as they can with a lot of success) and todays Army, is the default position that

The Houston Review isn't infallible, there are enough questionable issues relating to some of his conclusions (Tiger doesn't work in hot humid zones far from Brisbane like Darwin, so move to Townsville? That'd be the not hot, not humid, outer suburb of Brisbane...). Furthermore, this is the CDF who supported the purchase of MRH despite knowing of the issues surrounding Eurocopter / Airbus as a contractor. There are other flaws and it's also rather old.

I'm not sure when you are talking about the budget being cheaper to replace than sustain. If you are talking now, well - yes. LAND 4503 is there and it's been my constant point that we should replace now and not defer. But if you are talking in the past, I can't think of when. Knowing what else we would have had to purchase beyond AIR 87's initial funding allocation to support a Boeing or Bell product, I'm not sure how at any point the others would not have been comparable or more expensive.



Generally I'd agree, although I'm actually happy to take some risk for acquisition. But what mess are we in? @Volkodav is correct and I've actually used his point in the past, Tiger = Collins. There is one line in his post above I disagree with (of the three options, Tiger was the most cost effective - even in retrospect) but other than that he is spot on. It's not in a mess (although it's getting old) and it does what we need it to. Hell - I know individuals who made bad decisions that ended up delaying the capability or hurting the CoA's legal stance. I also know the guys and girls who dragged it kicking and screaming into a deployable, feasible capability.

Your second last sentence highlights the quandary that AIR 87 tender evaluators faced. Of the three contenders, what was "Buy something we know works, with a known support cost, guaranteed development path and commonality with our allies"? Factor that into today, and the LAND 4503 people are going to face similar issues.

In the wider view, the idea that "just buy US and all will be solved" is not a guarantee for success like many think it is. The C-17 is held up as an example, and it certainly seems to be. Some of the equipment we have bought is top notch (M-1), but because of how we use it and the like, often has issues. It's not Australianisation - it's just us breaking different things. Sometimes we go cheap (S-70) that gives us a good capability, but with more issues than are worth. Two things about the latter, one small and one with wider issues that many forget about when talking about US equipment. The first is that no H-60 self-protection gear actually fits beyond the IR exhaust suppressors. Not a biggie - but if we wanted to push the S-70s overseas against a proper threat, it would have needed a bunch of money and time thrown at it.

Critically though, an anecdote. In 2004 the Black Hawk family had bad blade cracks - it was impacting about 30% of the blade fleet. A US Army one actually lost a blade in flight. Well, 2/3.... Either way, our's were grounded until new stocks could be bought. AASPO was excellent, and they were able to tell the user units that the Army Black Hawks were the number 2 customer for Sikorsky. Which sounds excellent - until they went asking who number 1 was. "That's be the US military - and your estimated date of delivery is mid-06". Now, we were able to work around that, but when you have ~38 of 4000 Black Hawks, or 72 of 3500 F-35, or other similar fleet sizes, your "special relationship" doesn't mean squat. When you have 22 of 180 Tigers you can, generally speaking, have a much greater say and much more attention when you need it. Not the only consideration - but sometimes we just don't have the mass to get a say with the US, and their product may be ok, but not optimal for us.

Thanks for that, you covered everything I was going to plus some.

The key issues with the tiger all relate to the fact a 1950s technology, 1960s designed, 1970s built platform was replaced with a state of the art, developmental one in the 2000s. This impacted availability, sustainability, logistics, training, and operations. Then the entire regiment was located thousands of kilometres away from its parent formation, project office, design authority, and training establishment.

In my opinion most of these issues would have occured irrespective of platform. I don't think an optioned up evolved Kiowa Warrior could have actually performed any better in a project sense. Then again, I have difficulty thinking of a single, non FMS, capability acquisition from the late 90s early 2000s that wasn't a mess, irrespective of service, country of origin, or contractor.

 

[Takao]

The Houston review may not be infallible, but I would certainly trust it far more than Eurocopter marketing materials. I also think you are misrespresenting some of the recommendations. There was far more to moving 1 Avn to Townsville than just the humidity. The numbers crunched around the time of the Houston review showed that a buy of Apache would pay for itself in a decade or so, based on sustainment savings compared to continuing to fly Tiger. While I am sure the assumptions used were the best possible to support the argument, it is hardly an endorsement of Tiger.

1 Avn is stationed in Darwin and lacks many of the support structures and capabilities enjoyed by units based in Townsville or Sydney, also a little out of site, out of mind. Stuff happens in Darwin that would not be tolerated elsewhere, leaders (already established as often not as experienced or senior as ideal), in many cases, are a long way away from supervision, mentoring and accountability, and (without knowing any better?) do stuff that they would be called out on in the big army. There are retention issues and a lot of multi hatting as a handful of experienced certified people cover many different critical roles.

The numbers Houston used were based on the AIR 87 tenders which had the small flaw in being not practical. For starters, Boeing offered AH-64A - not D. By the time Houston wrote his report, the A was not available. The D was - but a lot more expensive. On top of that, it was less than 22 airframes. One of Tigers issues is that there just isn't enough airframes to do ready/reset/readying let alone normal aircrew training. Less airframes is just going to hurt more. Finally, Boeing's bid was for helicopters and logistic/engineering through life support. No simulators. No training aids. So An AH-64D buy in the mid-2010s would have cost billions.

I'd be curious as to what 1 Avn is missing that 5 Avn or 6 Avn has. I'm not sure as to 171's maintenance facilities, but the general maintenance facilities in Darwin are superior to almost anywhere, with the exception of a handful of Regt's constructed since. There are some finiky bits and the Avn RPS could be bigger but otherwise it is pretty good. As for aircrew, last I heard was some better digital architecture in the Sqn building's would be appreciated, but there aren't too many concerns. I'm not sure what behaviour occurs up there - but when I was last up there we didn't have any issues. Troubleshooting att JNCO level was rough - that'll teach us to believe Eurocopter pamphlets (oops, no it didn't - with MRH or other, non-European, air platforms) - but we the SNCO / WO / CAPT / MAJ levels were highly experienced. In fact, the only incidents I can think of are from 2005 and 2007 - both predating Tiger. Fundamentally, 16 Bde has little to do with the Regt. It's not deployable and only some elements of airworthiness go through it. From a maintenance point of view, the difference in distance between Melbourne and Darwin v Townsville is insignificant. Darwin has retention issues, yes - as does Townsville - but that's a strategic issue that Government needs to consider. I, for one, would have no problems going back to Darwin, but am unlikely to want to go to Townsville.

If we needed an ARH capability a decade ago we didn't have one. The fact that we have one now somewhat misses the point. It's the same for the ARH replacement. Do we want a helicopter that works now, and one that will probably work in a decade?

With the Tiger, the AIR87 decision may not have been a bad decision, but it was certainly the wrong decision. An alternative helicopter would have been in useful service a decade ago, and almost certainly deployed to Afghanistan. This is why I can't fathom people supporting Australia once again shouldering the risk of developing a Eurocopter product when there is quite clearly suitable alternatives that, while not perfect, are good enough and a known quantity.

We had a better Tiger capability in 2011 than many "deployable" capabilities now. We had a deployable option from this point on that could have been enacted. It was put together and provided to Russell; political considerations did not see it enacted. It wasn't yet IOC, but with one exception the issues would not have been an issue for a Tp or smaller deployment. That one was an amphibious deployment (it hadn't finished FOCFT) - but I suggest that the issues with our amphibs were much greater than Tiger. Note also that Eurocopter was prepared to come to the party with significant support for "free" as it would have been the first deployment of Tiger.

Now, what of the other options? Zulu is behind Tiger. Gosh, we had RAEME officers aiding the USMC in dealing with problems on Zulu that we had solved on Tiger. In fact, last I heard, the USMC still used two pieces of kit developed in Brisbane to fly day-to-day missions with Zulu. Apache could have been deployable - at least from an airframe point of view. Without the simulators and training aids, the course development and the like we may have been lagging on the training front (especially of aircrew) but for a Tp deployment it was probably feasible. The kicker would have been the cost of deploying 4 aircraft - more than 25% of the fleet would have had significant issues. Now, while Tiger would have had a similar proportion initially, the upgrade of 003 and 004 would have improved that quickly, along with the delivery of 021. I'd suggest that deploying Apache at that point would have had systemic flow on effects that delayed IOC and FOC to at least what it ended up being, if not longer. raising 162 Sqn would have been brutal if those aircraft had spent more than 18 months in theatre.

Tiger was the superior platform but was still highly developmental and definitely not an integrated capability, but the time it was selected the ADF was not very good at purple and there is no guarantee another type would have been integrated more successfully.

Tiger gets beaten up about its lack of integration, but the reality is that all three started from the same base line and, when Elbit was selected for BMS, had the same issues. Zulu would have been the same, but Apache would have been harder to integrate it. As frustrating as putting BMS on the aircraft was, there are two points to consider. One was the *ahem* poor ability for Army to force through engineering changes and the second was the political issues in mating European, Israeli and American systems together. The former delayed integration by around 24 - 30 months and the latter, well...

Many of the problems Tiger had would have also been encountered by Apache or Cobra, the real culprit being a lack of understanding of what was involved in moving to an modern ARH from a Vietnam vintage LOH.

This. It's a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle to a 2008 Porsche 911. With no-one aware of just what that jump entails. No engineer, no pilot, no finance person, no General. No-one. It didn't matter that it was a Tiger, or developmental, or European. All with the expectation that everything works from day one.

Now, no-one here is arguing Tiger is perfect. I think that almost all our issues come down to one line in the tender documents that, when combined with our poor project management in the mid-2000s, hurt us. It was to do with reliability and I think that if the CoA had probed a bit more there we could have stopped a lot of hurt. It doesn't help when we say we have learnt lessons - and then buy MRH and repeat our actions. Most of the issues since then have either been self induced (taking a company to arbitration and getting pinged by the arbitrator for not even fluking one decision in our favour?!) or a consequence of flying aircraft (smoke and fumes, split pins etc all have caused groundings of all our and the US aircraft fleets). But the aircraft is a good one, and it has been for years. The men and women in Darwin and Oakey are kicking goals and no-one really gives a shit. But they do damn good work and, if called upon, will put an excellent capability into the field.

One final point to clarify. I don't comment on 4503. If Eurocopter puts in a bid - fine. If they don't - fine. There are some top notch people working on that project and we will get the best answer we can. It won't be perfect; but that's ok too. If they recommend to Government that Tiger III is the answer - fine. If they recommend AH-64E - fine. I just want to draw some positive light onto TPR Alert and her Regiment.

 

[old faithful]

Volk, I think you might be reading into perceives problems that don't exisit, re- big army.
There has been 1 range incident that has been a big issue, but those incidents happens back in big army , 1 brigade in the 80,s -90s.
As for mentoring.....??? We used to call that micro managing. There is now a wealth of experience due to Afghanistan and Iraq add Timor.
The logistics are good, and the cross training with the Yanks is excellent and plenty of hanger Oners from down south enjoy deployments north to cross train.
Retention has always been a problem, no matter where the servicemen are based. Under a labor government , Hawks and Keating years, the defence budget was raped, which left 3RAR with 2 capable companies and C Coy reduced to a platoon plus. Don't forget that 3 RAR was the poster boy Bn at the time. When 1RAR deployed to Somalia in 92, they took about 100 men from 2/4 RAR, so retention in Sydney and Townsville were problematic back then to. Morale is what is killing retention ATM, 2 CDO are also struggling to keep men. Morale problems are caused by all sorts of issues, the main one ATM being the PC stupidity that is being forced upon an organization that should be immunes to that social cancer.

 

[vonnoobie]

If I might make a point the Houston review that a few of the gentleman from the blue man group (tongue in cheek) having bought up a couple of times is now actually 3 years old and the information within it older again. I do apologize but it makes me think people around the Collins class using outdated information. What we need is an updated review even a cursory glance. Not so much making recommendations just looking at the numbers.. Cost's to fly, availability, failure rates etc.

Regards, vonnoobie.

 

[Massive]

Is an ARH an essential capability for the ADF? Are there alternatives to this capability that cost less (e.g some combination of Fast jets, Drones (armed or otherwise), artillery - tube and rocket, NLOS etc - all being acquired with the exception of NLOS).

Have wondered the same about the NH90 - could purchasing more CH47 remove the need for an additional type, keep most of the capability, but with significantly fewer airframes?

Given helicopters take up a third of the sustainment budget are we getting a good return on this investment.

Just asking.

Regards,

Massive

 

[Raven22]

Is an ARH an essential capability for the ADF? Are there alternatives to this capability that cost less (e.g some combination of Fast jets, Drones (armed or otherwise), artillery - tube and rocket, NLOS etc - all being acquired with the exception of NLOS).

Have wondered the same about the NH90 - could purchasing more CH47 remove the need for an additional type, keep most of the capability, but with significantly fewer airframes?

Given helicopters take up a third of the sustainment budget are we getting a good return on this investment.

Just asking.

Regards,

Massive

I think it’s a valid question. My point of view is that an ARH as envisaged by AIR 87 has no future. With advances in lethality and the proliferation of weapons to pretty much everyone, no manned aircraft is going to survive flying forward of the FLOT for very long. With such a small number of available airframes, the ADF can’t really accept the risk. Even today, trying to get an ARH to fly over uncleared ground is like trying to pull teeth.

Clearly, the future is in either making the aircraft far more survivable (and we all know what happened to Commanche) or in unmanned aircraft. As the requirement for Land 4503 shows, the future almost certainly is in manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T). The helo itself works in tandem with unmanned aircraft that can actually be risked in places the manned aircraft can’t. It’s largely why I think the Apache is all but a shoe-in for the ARH replacement - it is the only contender that has a proven ability to conduct MUM-T. If the requirement is written to prefer solutions to be as MOTS as possible, it’s hard to see Eurocopter or Bell even bidding.

 

[Massive]

As the requirement for Land 4503 shows, the future almost certainly is in manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T). The helo itself works in tandem with unmanned aircraft that can actually be risked in places the manned aircraft can’t.

Thanks for the reply Raven22.

My follow-up question would then be why does the manned component need to be a very expensive to own and operate, and vulnerable, helicopter - is it due to latency?

Regards,

Massive