Chaps & Chapesses,
Shock. Horror. A reasonable attempt from RNZ:
Hitting the right balance on defence spending
Some countries are increasing their defence budgets as the war in Ukraine rages on. The Detail looks at whether New Zealand needs to follow suit.www.rnz.co.nz
Its interesting in the amount of detail covered by MSM but still relatively simplistic.
My main critique is that it doesn't discuss what expenditure and capability that NZ should have after the strategic upheavals over the past few months. Additionally, there is nothing on rebalancing the NZ national security organisation or the impacts of our Anti-Nuclear policy on our alliances with AS & US.
Ive noticed this a lot, I can only put it down to ignorance on the journalists part. All they have seen in their lives is defence spending as opportunity cost to education and health budgets, suspect they lack a frame of reference to place it in a different context, let alone look at defence spending as a reflection of national capacity and intent for the armed forces capabilities.Chaps & Chapesses,
Shock. Horror. A reasonable attempt from RNZ:
Hitting the right balance on defence spending
Some countries are increasing their defence budgets as the war in Ukraine rages on. The Detail looks at whether New Zealand needs to follow suit.
Its interesting in the amount of detail covered by MSM but still relatively simplistic.
My main critique is that it doesn't discuss what expenditure and capability that NZ should have after the strategic upheavals over the past few months. Additionally, there is nothing on rebalancing the NZ national security organisation or the impacts of our Anti-Nuclear policy on our alliances with AS & US.
i will eat my hat if the current NZG adds additional frames to the NH90, P8 and C130 fleets, I don’t think a National led govt would do it as well. Unless the public start taking an interest the politicians won’t.
TBH I think that your hat's safe at the moment - well for this budget cycle. However a lot can change in 12 months and Jacindarella has surprised a lot of us with this deployment to Europe and the approval of lethal aid to Ukraine. The DEFMIN has also surprised us with his comment yesterday about possibility of NZDF deploying into Ukraine. So a lot has changed in the last week that we are unaware of. An extra two C-130J-30s for transport etc would be an acceptable acquisition plus the government could also acquire say three or four of either A400M or KHI C-2 airlifters for the strategic role and easily justify them to the public. This Ukrainian - Russian war has changed a lot of things and forced a lot of governments to change their views.
We've discussed this before and they've been thrashed in Pommy service. They've also been Pommyised and would mean a separate spares line. We'd be far better off getting new ones through FMS. It comes down to VfM.
I remember many years ago when we were at Townsville, when we were up on the first floor of the SNCO's mess seeing how well cane toads survived a drop check. A rather obnoxious large Aussie came out on to the balcony complaining about all things Kiwi and as he turned his back to spout off again some one? put a cane toad in his beer. He never saw the funny side of viewing a cane toad looking at him from close range as he raised his handle for a drink.
Don;t know why, it was only a small one.Probably because he knew something about Cane Toads you Kiwi's don't.I remember many years ago when we were at Townsville, when we were up on the first floor of the SNCO's mess seeing how well cane toads survived a drop check. A rather obnoxious large Aussie came out on to the balcony complaining about all things Kiwi and as he turned his back to spout off again some one? put a cane toad in his beer. He never saw the funny side of viewing a cane toad looking at him from close range as he raised his handle for a drink.
Some must have some life, and not be too UK adapted; the blue angels took one off the RAF’s hands, albeit with some modification. Still faster and cheaper acquisition than a new frame.
Faster maybe, but not cheaper when you look at its TOLC (Term Of Life Costs) with the RNZAF. It won't offer VfM (Value for Money) and that's what counts. And we could get them a lot quicker because the current RNZAF C-130J-30 deliveries were selected to meet NZ government budgetary decision making, not Lockheed Martin production slot capabilities.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to derive if it’s cheaper or not for term of life without detailed knowledge of the condition of the frame, hours, but if you can get it at a significant discount to sticker price there’s a likelihood it couldo work. Sounds like the USN believe they have VfM, although there isn’t an indication of how long they plan to use it for, whereas the RNZAF will likely be stuck with it in 2075.
When you have a fewer numbers in air frames and said air frames are probably going to do more flying hours each than larger fleets would, that VfM becomes very important and sometimes becomes a sticking point as it is not always the best option. And as we know the older something gets and more hours in the air it has done then the cost of that machine in maintenance alone goes up, it requires it more often on little things more often on the deep maintenance, and before we know we are no better off.
The reason that the USN bought the single C-130J from the RAF was to replace the Blue Angles Fat Albert C-130H flown by the USMC which had crashed. The standard length C-130J is no longer made and they didn't want the C-130J-30 so that's why Fat Albert II is an ex RAF aircraft. It's strictly a one off.
It was a C-130T, and the Blues didn’t crash it.
Yep we knew, we did not expect him to eat it. Just wanted to see the look on his face, it was priceless. Funny , he did not have anything to do with us for the rest of the deployment.
We really missed him, not.
I was doing it from memory and knew it was a USMC T that fell out of the sky. Thought it was Fat Albert when they said they had to find a replacement. I've had a few sleeps since then.
I haven't got the RAF numbers off hand, but as of recent times the NZG has shown little appetite for risky military acquisitions that are involve costly MLUs sooner rather than later. They've been bitten a few times to many in recent times. It would also be costly to bring ex RAF J-30s up to the latest standards so that they would be compatible with the new models. The five new ones are the latest in everything and are exactly the configuration as the latest USAF models. There have been no changes at all. So do the ex RAF ones have E/O turrets, uptodate SATNAVS, comms. same onboard computing systems, same self defence systems, EW and so on? If we have to upgrade them to bring them up to the same configuration then it's not worth it. The other point is that in 10 years we will have to replace them and that money is needed for other things.
i dont know if its accident you are referring to but Ngatimozart you are correct one did crash it was a MC130T of the USMC on the 10th July 2014, side number of 53000 known locally as triple nuts. A blade of number three propeller separated from the engine and embedded in the inside of the fuselage just aft of the flight deck causing the front half the the fuselage to detach and the rest is history all 16 on board were lost.
