Australian Defence Force

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Mercator
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Mercator »

The other impression I get is that without a new White Paper, I don't think he (the Defence Minister) will upturn the applecart all that much on his own. So it could be just a few boutique 'extras' that satisfy his intervention (politically):

Marles said a key mission of the snap strategic Defence Force review he announced earlier this month was to ensure Australia could project enough lethal force to defend itself against an attack by a would-be aggressor.

As well as the long-range nuclear submarines that will be delivered under the AUKUS pact, he pointed to the possible acquisition of hypersonic missiles that can be fired thousands of kilometres.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... 5bd3x.html

Without the political cover of a team of experts producing a White Paper, anything he cuts and any political constituencies he annoys, will hold him personally responsible. The guy has ambitions. I don't know that he'll be too brave, too early in his ministerial life.

R686
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by R686 »

Interesting to see the debate in regards to B21 growing, apparently via the the global times the CCP said that if Australia gets B21 it makes Australia a target for the H20.

Me thinks Australia was always a target irrespective if the RAAF gets its mits on B21 as the Chinese will want to deny the use of Australian infrastructure to the USAF. Also an interesting titbit within the article which doesn't seem to get much attention. I wonder if they are starting to realise that our aircraft are now to far exposed to strikes and raids either by long range missiles or other means and the need to protect them in hardened shelters after all besides the hangers our aircraft shelters are glorified carports
Royal Australian Air Force chief Air Marshall Robert Chipman said the Labor Government’s defence strategic review would re-examine Australia’s long-range capability. “We’d also need to be able to protect and sustain those platforms while they’re on the ground in Australia. So, while we might work with the US on B-21, that’s a small part of an overall strike capability that we would need,” he said.



https://www.news.com.au/technology/inno ... 956a0b7d09
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Little J
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Little J »

Is it realistic to expect Australia to buy? Or for that matter, for the US to sell?

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by R686 »

Little J wrote: 27 Aug 2022, 20:39 Is it realistic to expect Australia to buy? Or for that matter, for the US to sell?

Who knows in this climate realistically. never thought I would see the RAN get nuclear boats either.

As far as I know there is nothing in law banning the export of long range bombers, I think no one has actually asked before. Obviosity the only obstacle is congress and the President if either of them say no for political reasons as we saw with Turkey and the F35
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by wargame_insomniac »

R686 wrote: 27 Aug 2022, 22:08
Little J wrote: 27 Aug 2022, 20:39 Is it realistic to expect Australia to buy? Or for that matter, for the US to sell?

Who knows in this climate realistically. never thought I would see the RAN get nuclear boats either.

As far as I know there is nothing in law banning the export of long range bombers, I think no one has actually asked before. Obviosity the only obstacle is congress and the President if either of them say no for political reasons as we saw with Turkey and the F35
But that was because of Turkey's continual links with Russia and specifically their buying of Russian S-400 SAM systems in defiance of US objections.

Whereas Australia is arguably top one or two of USA's longest and most loyal allies. And Australia spending more on their military and taking a more active stance against China helps US out massively in the Pacific.
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SW1
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by SW1 »

Why would Australia want the b21? Can only see this making sense if it was heading down the air launched nuclear role similar to some nato countries.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Scimitar54 »

Preparing the ground for an Australian SSBN?

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by R686 »

Scimitar54 wrote: 28 Aug 2022, 09:50 Preparing the ground for an Australian SSBN?

That would contravene the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons unless AU/US got into a nuclear sharing policy not sure if that would contravene the treaty

Zeno
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

Would a number of long range bombers make up for the time taken for the introduction of nuclear submarines?, its hard of course comparing apples with oranges but there would be a deterrent factor ,I would not dispute that it would be extremely expensive and so would getting any platform with similar capability ,its like you need to be an economist balancing some very large numbers.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Lord Jim »

A long Range Stealth Bomber armed with US LRASMs or other munitions would be very effective at enighing sea space to enemy warships, and would be a logical successor for the F-111C with Harpoon. WIth a good sensor suite it would have significant recce capabilities near the "First Island Chain", Two Squadrons of say eight could replace the F-18E/F and G. IF the rotary launcher(s) in the B-21s weapons bay can accomodate the LRASM it could carry a considerable number of weapons internally increasing its Stealth level. But it ain't going to be cheap and the SSN programme needs all the funding it can git as far as I am concerned.
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Zeno
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

I have read suggestions that the Poseidon's armed with the new jassm-er
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news ... er-package , could be effective long range bombers ,Im not so sure they could perform this role in a contested environment against peer adversaries a slow large non stealthy platform may easily be a target
Perhaps to afford something like the b-21 the number of nuclear submarines could be cut back a balanced number of nuclear submarines and b-21s should be a fair old porcupine.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

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SW1 wrote: 28 Aug 2022, 09:11 Why would Australia want the b21? Can only see this making sense if it was heading down the air launched nuclear role similar to some nato countries.
Zeno wrote: 28 Aug 2022, 23:35 Would a number of long range bombers make up for the time taken for the introduction of nuclear submarines?, its hard of course comparing apples with oranges but there would be a deterrent factor ,I would not dispute that it would be extremely expensive and so would getting any platform with similar capability ,its like you need to be an economist balancing some very large numbers.
It's all about the deterrent. The US provides an explicit nuclear umbrella that *should* ensure that any nuclear attack on Australia is answered in kind (it's always theoretical until it happens, but that's always been the case). Now if any US administration was to waver on this commitment (and the Trump administration came close with its isolationism), Australians might reassess their nuclear posture (and their commitment to non-proliferation treaties), but that hasn't happened yet. So, what we're really talking about is some sort of conventional weapon that provides sufficient *hurt* in numbers, location and effect that it *should* deter the Chinese.

The idea was that the "future submarine", first diesel powered and then later nuclear, would provide this deterrent (especially by getting in close to deliver the payload). 10 or 15 years ago, when the project first started, it was assumed there was time – strategic warning. Then stuff like this happened:


Now everyone is in a hurry to deliver some sort of *hurt* quicker, still with aggressive aspirations as to how far they can penetrate the Chinese IADS, still with sufficient payload and numbers. The B21 is definitely a possibility, but so are stealthy cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles with sufficient range and payload, provided some lesser aircraft can get close enough to launch them in sufficient numbers. Some of our strategic commentators (like ASPI), have a hard on for the B21 and have been pushing this wheelbarrow for a while. But there are usually other more sensible folk in the room when these things get decided, and I'm sure an analysis of effects will help them decide (and it's probably already been done a few times at this point). The Defence Minister has already discussed the possibility of hypersonic weapons:

"As well as the long-range nuclear submarines that will be delivered under the AUKUS pact, he pointed to the possible acquisition of hypersonic missiles that can be fired thousands of kilometres."
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... 5bd3x.html

I personally think that the review being undertaken at the moment will be very modest in its *improvements*. The whole government, let alone the Defence Minister and his review, would be very brave to embark upon an extremely expensive B21 program as well as a nuclear submarine program. The bleeding in the budget would be absolutely epic and I'm quite sure the government would be scaring the shit out of us to prepare for a commitment like that. There's a bit of that, but very modest. I think they would be doing a lot more to prep the public to this sort of commitment, and frankly the B21 might not be the best capability to deliver the effect. The US obviously think it has its uses, but they're doing all the other stuff as well, so read whatever you like into that.

So, my own personal opinion is that any changes will be flashy in PR terms, but probably not a huge financial commitment and definitely conventional weapons. They would have to double or triple the scare campaign for a B21 and probably blackmail bunch of "Green" politicians to get us to change our nuclear posture. It's less impossible than it once was – and some strategic commentators definitely talk about it – but that sort of change still seems pretty unlikely, so far. I think hypersonic weapons will get thrown into the mix, and that's it for now. If they win another election and the Chinese keep scaring them a bit, the government might feel more ambitious, but not yet.

Just my thoughts.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

Agree that the B-21 is extremely expensive would Australia have a better balanced defence force with it possibly it would have many more options the "big ticket " items include the F35A another squadron has been proposed would cutting back on this and the numbers of proposed nuclear submarines from twelve to 8 ,(there is not any fixed time when we would get the first one anyhow ) meet the cost of this bomber and its support certainly the b-21 is mooted as carrying the newly developed jassm-xr a heavier and longer ranged version of the jassm of a thousand nautical miles.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by SW1 »

I get that for Australian or any country you ensure you can inflict as much damage to attacking forces. But that’s surface to air, control of the air and long range surface to surface and ensuring u have the intel and your mobile and can hit and run attacking forces where and when they move.

But to acquire a weapon system which is to be used against mainland China or Russia it is bread for the nuclear mission. You aren’t attacking either of those countries without that being the default. It’s what we build tornado for tactical nuclear lay down that was there cold war mission. It’s what b21 is built for too

We won’t even supply fighter planes to Ukraine because it could be escalatory so what would hitting targets in the country be.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

I never said anything about mainland China , my thoughts were on this in an anti shipping capacity it might also include small disputed islands

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Little J »

If a B-21 suggestion is supposed to be a stop gap till the new subs arrive, I would suggest the B-1 instead. They'd be available way sooner than the B-21's

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Re: Australian Defence Force

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SW1 wrote: 29 Aug 2022, 07:56 I get that for Australian or any country you ensure you can inflict as much damage to attacking forces. But that’s surface to air, control of the air and long range surface to surface and ensuring u have the intel and your mobile and can hit and run attacking forces where and when they move.

But to acquire a weapon system which is to be used against mainland China or Russia it is bread for the nuclear mission. You aren’t attacking either of those countries without that being the default. It’s what we build tornado for tactical nuclear lay down that was there cold war mission. It’s what b21 is built for too

We won’t even supply fighter planes to Ukraine because it could be escalatory so what would hitting targets in the country be.
U.S. Air Force website:

Mission
The B-21 Raider will be a dual-capable penetrating strike stealth bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions.
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets ... 21-raider/

There are conventional missions where the U.S. Air Force will employ a "penetrating" strike stealth bomber. Heck, it's why cruise missiles exist and various other permutations of long-range conventional weapons. Conventional weapons can be escalatory, but I think you overstate the conditions where that transition is to a nuclear escalation. I mean the sheer volume of conventional long-range weapons and aircraft demonstrates that. Take the invasion of Taiwan, for example. Neither side will have any interest in escalating that to a nuclear exchange, but that won't mean that there aren't target sets deep inside China that need destroying. You can't attack Taiwan with your H-6 and call foul if someone follows you home and takes out your base. An attack on Australia would probably use the same target sets and would also endeavour to remain conventional, provided the Chinese don't start lobbing nukes themselves. I don't think any of this is controversial in the strategic community, so I think you're mistaken in your assessment of the utility of the B-21 with conventional weapons, including in the defence of Australia.

Now, I'm not personally a great fan of the B-21 for Australia, mostly because the US will already have them for the Taiwan scenario (and others), and frankly, Australia is a better friend. I imagine they'll use them in our defence too. So I have trouble conceiving scenarios where US capabilities like the B-21 are not available. Even if we owned some, I reckon the US would still hold some sort of implicit or explicit veto on their use anyway, even if it's just withholding spares (but there's a lot more they can do to us if they wanted to). If the US doesn't stand with us against China, we really are all kinds of screwed. That said, you still need to turn up and pull your weight as an ally (and we've always understood that). I just happen to think 1000 cruise/hypersonic missiles of various sorts, with at least a 500km range, would be a serious contribution in that class of weapons. 100 fifth-generation fighters, a similar number of drones and probably a dozen tankers would probably round out a reasonable national deterrent, and we already own about three quarters of it. Australian money would be better spent rounding out that force (that has broad capabilities across a range of scenarios), in my opinion.

So, while not a fan of Australia wasting our time buying them, I do think the B-21 is a useful US capability in a broad range of *conventional* contingencies in our region. I hope the US bases dozens of them somewhere in Australia.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

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heh:

“One of the reasons we want to build ships here is because it plays into helping build a sovereign sustainment ecosystem for us. That’s the real goal that we want to achieve, the ability to operate our ships unfettered by foreign influence,” Mr Dalton said after a tour hosted by BAE Systems at its Adelaide shipyard for journalists and defence officials.
The irony. An impossible goal. At least with the UK and the US. Just as well we get along.
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SW1
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by SW1 »

Mercator wrote: 29 Aug 2022, 10:03
SW1 wrote: 29 Aug 2022, 07:56 I get that for Australian or any country you ensure you can inflict as much damage to attacking forces. But that’s surface to air, control of the air and long range surface to surface and ensuring u have the intel and your mobile and can hit and run attacking forces where and when they move.

But to acquire a weapon system which is to be used against mainland China or Russia it is bread for the nuclear mission. You aren’t attacking either of those countries without that being the default. It’s what we build tornado for tactical nuclear lay down that was there cold war mission. It’s what b21 is built for too

We won’t even supply fighter planes to Ukraine because it could be escalatory so what would hitting targets in the country be.
U.S. Air Force website:

Mission
The B-21 Raider will be a dual-capable penetrating strike stealth bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions.
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets ... 21-raider/

There are conventional missions where the U.S. Air Force will employ a "penetrating" strike stealth bomber. Heck, it's why cruise missiles exist and various other permutations of long-range conventional weapons. Conventional weapons can be escalatory, but I think you overstate the conditions where that transition is to a nuclear escalation. I mean the sheer volume of conventional long-range weapons and aircraft demonstrates that. Take the invasion of Taiwan, for example. Neither side will have any interest in escalating that to a nuclear exchange, but that won't mean that there aren't target sets deep inside China that need destroying. You can't attack Taiwan with your H-6 and call foul if someone follows you home and takes out your base. An attack on Australia would probably use the same target sets and would also endeavour to remain conventional, provided the Chinese don't start lobbing nukes themselves. I don't think any of this is controversial in the strategic community, so I think you're mistaken in your assessment of the utility of the B-21 with conventional weapons, including in the defence of Australia.

Now, I'm not personally a great fan of the B-21 for Australia mostly because the US will already have them for the Taiwan scenario (and others) and frankly, Australia is a better friend and I imagine they'll use them in our defence too. So I have trouble conceiving scenarios where US capabilities like the B-21 are not available. Even if we owned some, I reckon the US would hold some sort of implicit or explicit veto on the use anyway, even if it's just withholding spares (but there's a lot more they can do to us if they wanted to). If the US doesn't stand with us against China, we really are all kinds of screwed. That said, you still need to turn up and pull your weight as an ally (and we've always understood that). I just happen to think 1000 cruise/hypersonic missiles of various sorts with at least a 500km range would be a serious contribution in that class of weapons. 100 fifth-generation fighters, a similar number of drones and probably a dozen tankers would probably round out a reasonable national deterrent, and we already own about three quarters of it. Australian money would be better spent rounding out that force (that has broad capabilities across a range of scenarios).

So, while not a fan of Australia wasting our time buying them, I do think the B-21 is a useful US capability in a broad range of *conventional* contingencies in our region. I hope the US bases dozens of them somewhere in Australia.
Yes I agree with your general argument and in particular your last paragraph and around the airborne/space based recon sensors and long range missiles just don’t think the expense of a penetrating bomber is how u do that or add that to a conflict. A modern and more mobile version of project Emily is probably a better defence and allocation of money for all outside the US with how missile tech is develop.

The US has a very different need for a conventional deterrent as well as the nuclear one. Because it may attack non nuclear countries. I struggle to see any reason however when talking of Russia or China how we take the risks/difficulty of penetration of their mainland air defence systems for mass conventional attack because we know how they would respond.

Attacking there forces outside of the mainland may well be a conventional war as we see in Ukraine and perhaps similar to what we saw in Vietnam and Korea.

The expense of the system it has been designed principally to be the airforce arm of the nuclear triad. Like it’s present bomber force the conventional side is certainly incredibly useful. It did take the b2 quite a while to get the conventional capability after entering service.

Zeno
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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

I think getting a forty plus years bomber a bit of a stretch if a b-2 is too expensive you could look at the f-15 silent eagle it has been considered to follow the f35,s in .
https://www.military-today.com/aircraft ... _eagle.htm a bit of fantasy lol

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Lord Jim »

For Australia to have an aerial denial capability as well as penetrator/attack capability it either needs a larger air force with squadrons forward depoyed like in the past or a platform with a much longer range than the F-18E/F/G and F-35A.Australia has such a large rea to cover the two platfrms mentioned have great difficulting covering it even with AAR. Deployed USAF assets will help but the issue still exists. What is really needed is a Modern F-111, so possibly a version of the F-15E might not be such an outlandish idea.

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

An f-15 -silent eagle equipped with the forthcoming jassm-xr, a thousand nautical mile missile could be a very useful deterrent the aircrafts high speed would make up in some way for its lack of stealth ,you would expect with an aircraft not in production its unit cost may be similar to the f-35a but perhaps able to carry munitions designed for the U.S airforce
https://www.military-today.com/aircraft ... _eagle.htm
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military ... ssm-xr.htm

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Re: Australian Defence Force

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More on the Type 26 build:

https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/ ... f-52460361

Also, this longer piece from the same magazine (thanks Donald!):
https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/ ... celerated/
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Re: Australian Defence Force

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https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Intern ... -shipyards

Meanwhile, Australia's Deputy Prime Minister attended the Commissioning Ceremony of HMS Anson in Barrow-In-Furness on 31st August 2022....

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Re: Australian Defence Force

Post by Zeno »

In this article there was a suggestion of a collaborative submarine between the three programs by the British defence secretary Ben Wallace?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-01/ ... /101394250

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