IIRC, Lange was in NZ during the passage of the anti-nuclear legislation, but was not during the visit of the USS Buchanon. This should have been a fairly routine port visit but permission was denied due to the vessels theoretical possibility of carrying nuclear depth charges, which was the USN's policy to neither confirm nor deny.
Exactly, so which part do you not understand, the ongoing manning issues, the new equipment coming on-board or what we did or did not use/send to ET in 1999? They are not exclusive they literally happened or are happening.
What else would you apply this percentage to? Healthcare? pay rates? Education? Police expenditure? Or does it only apply to the military? Again, why Australia? Are they somehow our default baseline? If so I should be expecting a hefty pay rise for Christmas, 3x as much according to some figures, that's how it works right? Australia does it so NZ should as well?
Yep it was Geoffrey Palmer and Helen Clarke.
You did say that (I'd say for it's size and population the NZDF contributes as well as can be expected )I don't remember mentioning anything about the items you have since raised. I would also say that during the 1980's we spent over 2% and some times close to 3% GDP on defence. We are way short of that now.
So you don't think our military does contribute relative to it's size? We literally deployed a bn gp to ET for 3 years, a coy sized gp to Afghanistan for a decade, platoon sized elements concurrently to Timor leste, Solomons, Sinai and those are just the the regulars not including HADR responses and the like, I would actually say for an army based around 2 RF bns and 1 (let's be honest) reserve bn that's actually quite a decent output.
No, what is achieved is remarkable with what they currently have. what I have a problem with is the size of our military and the fact that it is hopelessly underfunded in comparison with what was getting in the past at around the 1990's. and that this is our politicians fault. As I said before we were spending in excess of 2% and at the Hight of the cold war we even reached 3%, so it can be done. You need to stop using statistics incorrectly as the way you are using them falls under the the old saying of "Lie's, damn lie's followed by statistic's"
Touched down at Ohakea @ 1203hrs... circuit fairly busy at the time including AW109 (02) doing what I suspect was capturing aerial publicity shots of the arrival & KingAir 2350 scurrng away down towards the new 5sqn base so maybe a VIP snooping around. 4801 came across Akl CBD (@ 32000 ft I'm told), avoided Whenuapai. A new chapter beings!
Correct, what is achieved is indeed remarkable with what they currently have. Funding has been set at a level that will not in the long-term maintain existing capability and accordingly now the NZDF would struggle able to replicate ET; Afghanistan; etc deployments. What we can do now is a lot less than we could 30 years ago... it's a downward spiral. Since ET the AirForce is half the size it was (ACF & med. transports gone = substantially less regional presence) & Navy close to half that size with 1/3 of that reduced fleet also now laid up... again = substantially less regional presence.
Here ya go Gibbo, snapped at 10,000m over Auckland (hope you had your binoculars handy
), landing at Ohakea and now looks like it is parked on the hardstand by the Air Movements Terminal?Theyre not statistics, they're facts, I'm not actually using statistics at all. this may shock you but the pay in the the forces is a whole lot better then when I was in and a whole lot better again then the 80s and as you have quite clearly pointed out they were flush with numbers back then with a gradual decline ever since? so you feel by simply upping the GDP cap will solve the militaries woes? Possibly, if they gave the difference to the soldiers , sailors and airmen directly in there pay packets as I hardly think sailors are leaving in numbers because we only have 2 frigates vs 4, army are pulling pin because we have 75 LAV instead of 100 boxers and or air force are dropping like flies because we don't have a few F16s flying laps around Lake Taupo? Again you seem to be missing my point, we don't need more gear, we need more people, otherwise whats the gear for exactly? Storage?? You can keep comparing today to the 80s all you want when we arguably had more (well numbers at least...) but times have literally changed and funnily enough so have people with it, which is the main problem, not the lack of budget to fund new toys. The paralines have always been there, filling them and keeping them full is the real struggle, but yea, nothing an extra couple of P8s shouldnt sort out right?
Photos @RegR Photos and video.
Jealous much.
www.newshub.co.nz
Yea I was actually gutted I didnt have my camera, just happened to be driving past and it was a bit later in the day but I knew there was a new kid in town. There is a guy on FB getting a few decent pics I have seen, he's on to it.Photos @RegR Photos and video.
NewsHub are running a story about early retirement of the last of the Orions. It's a Reuters story so maybe a Lucy Craymar story. If it's right it's not good.
NZDF retires aircraft, leaving it short, may need to ask for help from regional partners
Three of New Zealand's nine naval ships are also sitting idle.
Bugger, yep there are some images on faceache.
What I was getting at was that your statement that "Australia can easily afford 2%, because the other 98% is still huge" Which is a statistic, What you seem to be trying to say is that 2% in Australia is smaller than 2% is in NZ. Proportionally they are exactly the same in terms of our GDP's. The remaining 98% is again proportionally the same in terms of our economy's.
Maybe... a lot of water to go under their bridge yet. Wonder what the 'aerial imagery equipment' could consist of... usefulness of optical will be limited by usual levels of cloud cover.
A definite yes to the MQ-9B SeaGuardian.
40kg isn't a lot - 40 lts of freshwater at sea level. However the prototype is just that. Undoubtedly they will have a plan for a larger variant capable of carrying heavier payloads. However, there are CubeSats which aren't large and have Earth Observation & Remote Sensing Capabilities. What their resolution is like I don't know. It may be feasible to use the remote sensing technology from them on this platform, but if the payload weight problem can be addressed, then there is still the matter of power generation and consumption. It's great when it's daylight, but what about darkness?