NZDF General discussion thread

[BullyHayes]

The recent sinking of the survey vessel and resultant inquiry report has made it glaringly apparent to the public what a massive mountain the NZ military has to climb to re-establish expertise and experience to be an effective organisation. I do wonder however, whether the Govt has made the same realisation

 

[kiwi in exile]

The recent sinking of the survey vessel and resultant inquiry report has made it glaringly apparent to the public what a massive mountain the NZ military has to climb to re-establish expertise and experience to be an effective organisation. I do wonder however, whether the Govt has made the same realisation

I'm sure I heard part of a clip on rnz where defmin Collins blamed part of on the mess they inherited from the previous govt. Henare also blamed our COVID response.

Even if our forces were optimally skilled and staffed for their current capabilities, big picture is we still wouldn't have relevant combat capability or deterrence for the current geopol reality, which has clearly been evolving to where it is now for 5 or so years.
There are two concurrent problems: loss of staff in terms of skill, experience, numbers. And decade long failure to build and invest in actual fighting capability (too few frigates, cancelled sopv, no missiles) etc.

We need to fix the 2 st before we can fix the 2 nd. But we need to start working on both

 

[Rob c]

I'm sure I heard part of a clip on rnz where defmin Collins blamed part of on the mess they inherited from the previous govt. Henare also blamed our COVID response.

The personnel retention problem mainly dates back to the Key government reforms of the the terms, conditions and pay of the defence personal in 2012. While there was the start of a problem concerning the retention of experienced staff as pointed out in the 2011 defence white paper, so the government instead of addressing this problem went and made it far worse by removing or reducing terms and conditions of those personnel who they had been warned that there was a problem developing. (Real Smart, not )

And decade long failure to build and invest in actual fighting capability (too few frigates, cancelled sopv, no missiles) etc.

This failure dates back far further to 1999 and the Clark government and the cancelling of the AFC and the third frigate, pluss major reductions in update and replacement projects with the exception of the LAV 111 as this was seen as good for peacekeeping.