weasel1962
New Member
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Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
Last time i checked, if Inflation was 3%, the governments income through taxes would increase by 3%. If this is incorrect, please let me know, but if true, then an x% of real growth could quite easily be promised and carried through by the government.
battlensign
New Member
1) I fundamentally, respectfully, disagree with this argument.
The argument relies on figures that are not correct/representative. Ships require tens of millions (for even destoyers) to run and not 100's of millions each year. Similarly, where did this squadron of F/A-18s come from such that is costs 6Billion? Sounds like you are attempting to identify the F/A-18Fs (Shornets) program that will have total life costs of around 6.6Billion (costing less than half of this as an initial purchase).
Additionally, how was there a cost saving measure in place if the troop numbers were merely being transplanted from one sandpit to another more mountainous one? If you meant the inflationary healing affects of budget savings I note that there was little that 400 odd million was really going to do in that department.
2) I am going to take some swings here but please understand that these are not directed ad hominem attacks, or about anyone in particular.
Why the F**K does everyone constantly talk about the costs of defence at the same time that the amounts spent as a percentage of GDP fall significantly? If we were spending what I feel would be the requisite 2.5-3% of GDP that is needed and then being unable to fund objectives from that budget I might be sympathetic, but as it stands I really couldn't care less. I swear to God, if I hear the British government make one more comment about the costs of defence I will stab someone. In relation to the supplemental funding issue the point that is important here, and I feel certain the serving forum members will back me when i say this, was that there are cost related to the raise/train/sustain of forces and then the costs associated with the operational employment of those forces. The supplemental funding is imperative because those funds ensure that the ADF is not gutted trying to maintain force structures and deployments with the same money (hence my UK point). This first year ofm the Krudd government is requiring the ADO to find 250 million of 'savings' (whatever that means - not all of it was warehouse stored tp from timor) and another 800 odd million that cannot be used from what was supposed to be the windfall of the non-farm deflater (ironically they now want to scrap this measure as it appears to be doing something that was never intended - gove money to defence).
3) Freaking bean counters!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:unknown:lulThe quoted argument smacks of the same logic that lead to (via a number of tangents):A) appeasement of Hitler (bare with me here) via the "it's too hard" mindset. Was the lose of between 55million and 100 million people really worth not confronting Hitler when he tried on the Czech fracus? (or even earlier).
B) On a more sensible level, the sale of ADF land and bases in the 'prime real estate' of the major capitals and suburban areas and then finding out that there are recruitment and rentention issues for the services based on the fact that the new facilities and instilations are all too remote. Not to mention the loss of the ability to synigise (sp?) the forces by colocating/joint basing etc.
C) The gradual erosion of conditions based on the premice that there can be significant short term (isn't that the keyword) savings from commercially contracting out services to the ADF based on the isea that it might be cheaper, then realising that in the case of many on-base positions that they were actually being used as rest deployments for people returning from operational deployments. Or alternatively, mistakinly believing that there can be a cost saving by reducing the on base messes availeble to 1 during certain periods without realising that there are times when ORs do not want to be under the thumb of the Officers or vice versa (so apparently saving money initially, but then costing retention that requires a 3 Billion package to even begin to remotely address). Or moving many positions to the civilian DOD staffs that simply do not have the drive to deliver the capability/objectives required because the go home at 5p,m and are not motivated by the knowledge that there are people in the field relying on the support networks at home to provide the operational reqiorements in a timely manner.
I am certain that I have more that I could list but it is late and I am tired.......so til another day...
Regards,
Brett.
weasel1962
New Member
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Brett, I'm hearing you here. When the diggers mess at 5/7 was civillianised they supposedly made savings (I cannot think of any other reason to do it). But what they failed to reason is that when you were out doing driver training on Holsworthy range in the middle of winter, and threw a track or snapped an idler arm in the late arvo, you realised that there was a significant repair or recovery job ahead, and that blokes were going to miss their mealtime. Call up Range control and have them call the mess to hold meals - with army cooks a corporal and a digger would stay behind hand have hot fresh meals for the cold wet and muddy blokes that would stumble in 2 hours late. With civvies there would be a popper juice and a few devon sambo's left for the guys...Hmm great for morale.
It's these little things along with all the others such as the lack of respite postings for officers and SNCO's (SO3 paperclips job on some MD headquarters) that have resulted in people going. You can try to balance the savings with the additional retention/recruitment costs, but how do you put a price on the experience lost?
It's these little things along with all the others such as the lack of respite postings for officers and SNCO's (SO3 paperclips job on some MD headquarters) that have resulted in people going. You can try to balance the savings with the additional retention/recruitment costs, but how do you put a price on the experience lost?
battlensign
New Member
1) Okay......lets take three billion from the surplus (of 22 billion) and 3 billion from the social welfare budgets (of over 90 billion) - there, just got you 6 billion a year and we are at 2.5% of GDP!
2) Th reason you hear less about the "overall budget" (whatever the hell that means...........) is because the people are simply not available to do anything much more ambitious. It's a vicious little cycle. Back in the late 80's we had the people, but not the money. Now we are getting money (but not enough to remove the hollowness completely) but we haven't got the people (Collins case in point - despite the canning of the idea because of politics, there were supposed to be 8 - not that we could man them now anyway!).
I think you will find that the broader budget issues don't get raised because the ideas behind it are broadly speaking, sound. It's at the logisitics (as you mention) and individual unit levels that the lack of funds comes into play (affecting training, equipment inventories and numbers of items - or in the case of 1st Brigade, simply no real IFV), which is why you hear the old and bolds/ retired from the services people coming here to whinge about their particular experience (and having read some of them, rightly so).
A joke I made before was about, what I personally consider the 'scariest' words in the ADO vocab (outside of efficiency dividend/drive of course!), the DLOC, because there is some truth to the notion of the political convenience of maintaining forces that are unable to perform certain roles. And YES, DLOC is absolutely government's fault! Why is it that everytime a ship has to deploy Tas has to come on this forum (well, the RAN thread anyway) and show a pic of the sexy new toys fitted for deployment only? (shouldn't many of these be standard? it means that there cannot be a really fast re-role of ships already on station). Or to use a RAAF example, given this is their thread, why is it that everytime we want to send an aircraft somewhere we need to update it in some way - EWSP, Targeting etc? (once again, what happens if we need to actually use them quite quickly?)
Brett.
The dreaded "fitted for but not with" syndrome. I'm going back a long way here but we ostensibly had units equipped with TOW anti armour SACLOS anti armour gear, but as usual the DoD was too stingy to actually purchase them. So we had a few Milan firing posts that were supposedly there so that commanders would have a better idea of how to deploy our non existant TOW... grrr. Anyway, I'm guessing that we'll shortly be fragged by admin for posting this in a RAAFie thread...
A
Aussie Digger
Guest
Government has a projected $30b surplus this year... :eek
I wonder why it needs to find 8% savings in defence this year and then 5% per year after that?
That is the mandated cost cutting level that has been imposed on defence.
As for so-called "troop withdrawal" from Iraq, SECDET will remain with a company sized force in Baghdad. The AP-3C Orions have actually been increased to 3 aircraft (up from 2 when the battlegroup was there), along with additional crew, maintainers logisiticians etc. The frigate has remained on station (replaced at various times obviously), the force level logistics asset has remained and the air movements and intell staff remain.
Simultaneously the Afghanistan battlegroup was reinforced with a mortar section, additional infantry, a RAAF Mobile Radar Control Unit and the Chinooks were sent back to the Ghan after a $30m upgrade.
The savings to be had by the withdrawal of the "Overwatch Battlegroup" are insignificant compared to the cost of the on-going deployments.
And yet the Government has ended supplementary funding for operations ENTIRELY...
Government doesn't NEED to save money. It needs to SPEND money. Sitting on a huge pile of cash, Scrooge McDuck style is not going to do ANY good for the Australian Economy, nor for the Australian Defence Force...
I've a concrete alternative. Reinstate the supplementary funding for operations instead of cutting them, there's a massive Government suplus that HAS to be spent on something and allow defence to spend it's normal peacetime budget on it's usual activities as WELL as filling the massive holes that were just STARTING to be filled with the Australian Defence Organisation.
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
Sure, and the plus side for the politicians would be that they then get to have their photo taken with soldiers in all their brand new gear and say, "we bought these guys all this new gears to make them safer, so that if we ever have to send theses soldiers/sailors/airmen into combat, they have a better chance of coming back alive." Hell, if they wanted to they could even blame the previous government for not buying the stuff, they seem to enjoy doing that.
nfloorl:Is there rule like you need number x of Tankers and Number x of SEAD/EW AWACS Planes to support x numbers of Fighters.
Or in Australias case, if they decide to deploy a Sqn of 18 JSF to a Combat Zone, how many AWACS/Tankers and in this case EF 18 Growlers would they need for this Force Package?
Scenario: Australia is part of an Coalition and the enemy has an effectice System of Fighters and Ground Based Air Defence.
Or in Australias case, if they decide to deploy a Sqn of 18 JSF to a Combat Zone, how many AWACS/Tankers and in this case EF 18 Growlers would they need for this Force Package?
Scenario: Australia is part of an Coalition and the enemy has an effectice System of Fighters and Ground Based Air Defence.
No there is no rule.
If a country was purely defensive it would need no tankers or SEAD aircraft.
If a country was offensive with capabilities to strike far countries then it needs SEAD aircraft and tankers to cover the distance. Electronic warfare aircraft are a massive help on this mission, it can reduce the performance of the enemy surface based sensors.
AWACs are in general a nice thing to have for all operations. Again there is no rule. In RAAF service we could have our future AWAC's providing 365 day coverage of the north coast of Australia, if that was the case we'd need just as many AWAC's as fighters to fill the large amount of flight hours. However thats not going to happen as we do not need such high quality levels of border patrol. If the AWAC's are mainly used for wartime duties then a smaller number of aircraft could be purchased as attrition is not a big issue.
So there is no rule, it all depends on how many flight hours you need over the life of the aircraft and to know the maximum number of aircraft u'll need in the air during a peak period. This allows you to order the right number of aircraft.
actually, there is a rule of thumb - its based on the mission type and numbers of aircraft required to sustain a nominated tempo.
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
gf, is it just me or did he contradict himself straight after he said "there is no rule" every single time?
"there is no rule, but......."
Anyway, Tankers are needed even for defensive patrols, they let you extend the time on station in the air for CAP, important especially if you have limited in theatre fighters.
A
Aussie Digger
Guest
Yep, he'll do that. Go and read a few of his older posts sometime.
He has some wacky ideas at times... :shudder
So can you explain this rule of thumb please
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #1,396
Please keep in mind that I have no experience in planning missions or anything like that. Having said that, here is my understanding of what is required.
1. Location of target
2. Defences associated with target
3. Ordnance needed for strike
4. Number of desired strikes in a given period of time
5. Aircraft available
With the above information, then estimates can be made on what is needed to successfully deliver the "package" to the target. With greater range, more fuel is required to reach the target and to allow for loitering and manuvering. Depending on the aircraft available and ordnance required, as well as target location, it is possible that a single sortie could require multiple refuelings. And the estimates would need to be made for any escorting aircraft (SEAD, etc) which might in turn require refueling. Once the number and location of refuelings is determined, then the estimates can be made on who many tankers are needed. It is possible given a number of variables, that a single tanker could be used repeatedly on the same mission, but it would need to meet a series of criteria (like range, speed, fuel available, safety, etc).
In short, estimates can be made, but it is very much dependent on the mission, given the number of different variables involved. To my way of thinking, more information would be needed (to isolate variables) to give any clearer an estimate of what would be required, Perhaps someone with experience actually planning such a mission could shed more light on what is involved.
-Cheers
Yep the rule of thumb.
Here are the variables to use in the rule of thumb formula's
C= coastline in thousands of kms that you want to patrol.
B= total yearly defence budget in billions
P= Population of country in millions
G factor = 1.5 if the liberal (pro military) government is in. 1.0 if the labour is in.
The formula is:
number of AWACS = ((C/B)*P)/6
You then multiply this by the G factor and round it up to the nearest whole number.
So in Australia that means 5 AWAC's under a labour government and 7 AWAC's under the liberals.
This rule of thumb can be used to calculate the AWAC requirement of any country and is extremely accurate. It works for all countries USA, Australia, France, Japan etc.. In the case of the US you must include the coastlines of other countries in the C variable otherwise you get the number required to only defend the US coastlines and not for overseas deployments.
The rule of thumb for fighter aircraft is classified so it can not be posted on this forum..
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battlensign
New Member
JoeMcFriday
New Member
Surely you've overlooked the 'ACF' variable required to arrive at a result? Or is that taken into account in the 'G' Factor?
Otherwise a brilliant and incisive description of the probable process.
[ACF= Alcohol Consumption Factor]
Cheers,
Mac
Otherwise a brilliant and incisive description of the probable process.
[ACF= Alcohol Consumption Factor]
Cheers,
Mac
t68
Well-Known Member
what does this stand for?ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!
Brett.