Army Black Hawks 'too vulnerable for Afghan war'

[Trojan1981]

Army Black Hawks 'too vulnerable for Afghan war' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/31/2530679.htm)
Army Black Hawks 'too vulnerable for Afghan war'
Posted Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:50am AEDT
Updated Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:15am AEDT


'Too vulnerable': A newspaper report says none of the army's 33 Black Hawk helicopters can be used in Afghanistan (Department of Defence: SGT John Carroll)
The Defence Department needs to explain why its Black Hawk helicopters cannot be deployed to Afghanistan, Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Andrew Davies says.

A report in today's Australian newspaper claims a lack of upgrades to military equipment like fighter jets and warships means they are too vulnerable to be used in war zones.

It says none of the army's 33 Black Hawk helicopters can be used in Afghanistan because they are susceptible to heat-seeking shoulder-launched missiles.

Mr Davies has told ABC 2 News Breakfast that other countries in the Afghanistan, such as the US, are using Black Hawks in the conflict.

"They have shielding on their exhaust to cut down the heat the missile homes in on," he said.

"We've been in Afghanistan for six years now and our Black Hawks still can't deploy there. So there's a question to be asked as to why that is.

"In terms of the equipment we have - the high-end equipment like the fighter jets and the war ships - if we were asked to deploy them into our conflict zone today we wouldn't be able to because they wouldn't have the systems required to operate safely."

The Federal Government is close to completing a Defence white paper, to be released later this year, which is set detail major reforms to the armed forces.

Mr Davies says Defence has lost the balance between being ready for future conflicts and maintaining current equipment to be ready for immediate deployment.

"We're now nine years since the last white paper, and the last white paper said we don't always know what sort of warning time we're going to get so we need to maintain a reasonable amount of readiness and I think when you look at the ADF today we're not really there," he said.

"I think we've not got the balance right betwween managing things so that they're ready to go when we need them."

[slow n low]

It says none of the army's 33 Black Hawk helicopters can be used in Afghanistan because they are susceptible to heat-seeking shoulder-launched missiles.

Mr Davies has told ABC 2 News Breakfast that other countries in the Afghanistan, such as the US, are using Black Hawks in the conflict.

"They have shielding on their exhaust to cut down the heat the missile homes in on," he said.



So is Mr Davies suggesting we have, or have not got "exhaust sheilding" on our Blackhawks?? :confused:

Perhaps an EW course is in order for the good Mr Davies.

[Barry Bernoulli]

Exhaust shielding = EW?????

[tsalta]

It's a helicopter.

They are all, susceptible to man portable air defence systems.

[slow n low]

Barry,

Yes, IR weapons theory is included in this area of study. It might also give him half a clue as to what S70 does and does not have. And it may enlighten him as to what other considerations there are besides "heat seeking shoulder launched missiles" :hmm:

[Sunfish]

The disease that affects our entire defence force is called "Fitted For, But Not With".

Take the Oliver Hazard Perry class Destroyers. They are all "fitted for" a Phalanx Close In Weapons system (radar controlled minigun) to defend against anti ship missiles. But of course we didn't buy enough Phalanx systems plus spares so that the ships could all be "fitted with" a system all the time.

The standard line from Defence is always "Ahhh! But when the time comes, we will simply buy more of them and fit them as required". But of course the time never comes, and Defence can proudly point to the billions in savings this policy has produced over the last Two decades.

However, it's a little bit like thinking that the zero is never going to come up on the roulette wheel, or the thinking that produced the first space shuttle disaster. As time rolls on, the policy becomes more entrenched because nothing has happened, but in reality the probability of policy failure remains exactly the same.

You will no doubt find that there will be a IR shielding retrofit kit (assuming Sikorskis logistics are no longer the complete mess they used to be.) for the Blackhawk that we decided not to buy.

There is "stuff" that we should have for Army Navy and Airforce that was never bought, or if it was, it was bought in only token quantities so that the Minister could announce our proud new capability, even though it was largely illusory.

As a comment, my departure from the Army years ago was initiated by the Defence Minister proudly announcing that he was buying Stinger Manpads for the Army and neglecting to inform the public that these infantry platoon weapons were actually not going to be bought in any quantity, were going to be held by a specialist anti aircraft battalion, and would never reach infantry battalion level where they might actually one day be required.

To put it another way, this is the same thinking that caused the sacrifice of so many militia on the Kokoda track.

[Trojan1981]

buying Stinger Manpads for the Army

How come we still have that RBS-70 crap then?

Worse than dud equipment is dud training, a bloke I know from 16AD Regt told me he had only fired 4 live missiles in five years:eek:.

We can join in our big brothers' coalition ops, but we can't defend ourselves...

[fleebag]

I've been told they are also under powered for Afghanistan, can any one confirm?

[Captain Sand Dune]

"The standard line from Defence is always "Ahhh! But when the time comes, we will simply buy more of them and fit them as required". But of course the time never comes, and Defence can proudly point to the billions in savings this policy has produced over the last Two decades."

Let's be clear here. "The standard line" comes from the political side of the defence department, not the uniformed side.
What we need and what we get are often two entirely diferent things.

[DBTW]

Helicopters are vulnerable without bottom and top cover. Whether it's Afghanistan or anywhere else, battlefield helicopter mobility comes with many strings attached. Radar and IR warning, and decoys by many, are what is needed. Even then, small arms are the biggest threat on any battlefield to any low flying aircraft.

Whilst I am fairly sure the OHPs came to the RAN with Phalanx fitted, not so sure the ANZACs are "finished" yet. And if they are, it was quite late in the piece with several deploying under or ill equipped. Sunfish's message is correct. "Fitted for but not with" is a malaise and a cop out which needs attention at all levels of Defence. Speaks more than the comment that you should remember every component of your aircraft has been manufactured by the lowest competitive bidder if you add the further comment that some "essential for battle" components weren't even fitted (despite the fact they are manufactured by the lowest competitive bidder) because we couldn't afford them. The clear observation being that if we can't afford all the kit, should we afford the degraded capability with the certain knowledge we can't sensibly use it?

[Brian Abraham]

if we can't afford all the kit, should we afford the degraded capability with the certain knowledge we can't sensibly use it
I wonder if its a repeat of the Vietnam experience with the RAAF Hueys, we can't afford the loss of such an expensive piece of kit, having so few of them in the first place. Never mind not being able to afford to hang the necessary bits and pieces off them.

[Captain Sand Dune]

So I guess we wait until we lose lives before we pay the money?