Hello rjtjrt; thank you for the heads up re font change – screen resolution perhaps! I began using it in a website development project because the wider spacing of characters seemed easier reading for older eyes, but we will reconsider. Gratias!. Have changed this from Courier New to Arial.
For others. Forums like this are only worthwhile if there is reasoned open-minded debate. My contributions have nought to do with nostalgia as proffered by Emergov or lack of appreciation of armed recon and other Army roles, as indicated by Trojan 1981. But there are plenty of lessons to be learned from past conduct of operations that have not really been heeded.
Army Aviation handicapped itself by dogged pursuit of Project Air 87 resulting in forfeiture of more versatile scout recon and utility gunship capabilities. Had they not been so focused on an AAH capability, then they might not have got sucked into the European origin Tiger. And regarding your single Service rant T1981, I do not have an Air Force biased perspective and have argued for decades that RAAF priorities could be better balanced, much to the dismay of some colleagues.
T1981; the push behind LPD acquisition was capacity to deploy largish expeditionary forces which the former Chief of Army, General Peter Leahy recently opined was not an affordable concept of operations for Australia. He postulated that the primary emphasis in defence planning should be affordable means of deterrence against interference with trade corridors. Having acquired these big platforms, they would of course be used where appropriate to support say regional intervention operations. It thus makes sense to me to base Tiger on these seaborne means and have all the European origin helo platforms (Tiger, MRH90, Squirrel) operated by the same service. There seems no reason why Navy aircrew could not operate the Tiger when required for Army support requirements, as is intended with MRH90. Tiger roles could be activated when any national strategic assessments indicate regional interventions might be necessary, as it arguably does not have justifiable role applicability on continental Australia.
There are a few informed people in the defence commentariat expressing concerns like 'formulation of DWP2013 is apparently not going well'. It seems the cloistered process will not embrace public input as previously and maybe the Services are not even involved, such is the Public Service domination of DoD. Significant economic constraints are on the horizon for Australia so there will likely be some changes of direction from DWP2009 planning.
There is somewhat hysterical clamour about defence budget cuts and the lobbying for increased expenditure continues; but few are addressing that the ADF could be much better managed within existing or even less funding. Like it or not, there will have to be some economies made and what is arguably least affordable is maintaining 3 separate air arms within the small ADF. Just how that might be rationalised has been the gist of some discussion here, which could be recognized more by some contributors as just debate.
Last edited by Bushranger 71; 18th Dec 2012 at 22:01.
Reason: Addendum