Australia rejects Ukraine helicopter request
 

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia...5aff0943d7e8fc

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fc58116e2.jpeg

Their request was 3 months too late apparently, after disassembly for disposal had begun.

It's a pretty thin excuse. If you're disposing of a useful military asset at the moment, the first question you should be asking is "would this be useful to UKR", not "can I sell it for parts to make some money back"

“before suggesting it was simply the "cheapest thing to do" to disassemble and bury the choppers on a defence site.”

Wow. Someone in Oz really hates those things.

Could we not sell them cheap to the companies fighting fires around the world? Justa thought.

We have an idiot as minister for Defence and a PM who doesn't want to upset China, Russia or any muslims. They couldn't get them fully serviceable in how many years, but manage to get them all totally unserviceable in a few months. So poor.

What Australia has done is to stick two fingers up to the defence of western europe.
Fair enough their choice.
Our choice when China comes knocking on Australias door.

eric, I appreciate the sentiment (I too find the choice to bury them unfortunate) but I am pretty sure that Oz isn't looking to the UK as their primary ally/support if and when China comes knocking, all AUKUS considered.

Based on some of the nuttier logistics and systems decisions that over the years have happened over here in the land of Yanks, I am going to guess that someone ran a spread sheet / calculation on what it would cost to box them up and ship them to Ukraine from OZ, along with spares and tools, etc.
It was discovered that it would cost more money than they wanted to part with.
(And maybe someone knew someone who could bury them at a certain price and a deal was in the works?)

Getting someone else to cover the shipping may not have occurred to the functionary who was looking into this...

There's a supply/logistics nuttery thread in MIl Aviation with similar stores of "Wait, you did what?" as regards that side of mil aviation. This seems to fit in a similar category.

they would sell well on ebay, for people converting them into AirBnB places.

eg

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/2092...y-airbnb-army/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...mping-pod.html

Is there an option for the beds to start a one-per vibration if one puts a coin in the slot? :E

Not just U.K whole of Europe.
Who is going to be Australias primary support, America?
Looking less and less likely with America not wanting to be the worlds fireman.

If they had given them to Ukraine and the Ukrainians had demonstrated high serviceability in a combat environment, how red faced would the Australians be?

Like a cheap crime drama, best to bury the evidence.

The part out already has an end user, that's why.

I love your sense of optimism but getting the entirety of Europe to respond to aid Australia is naive.

That is not what I meant.
Europe is a major arms supplier and I suspect it's order books will be getting full. Where in the queue do you want to be.
Maybe the British might get involved, however unlikely as our armed forces have been run down so badly by the incompetents running the show that we can hardly defend ourselves.

As Neither Mod nor Admin
While they may be feeling overburdened in Washington of late, does not the recent AUKUS activity suggest that the Americans are prioritizing their relationship with Australia and the Pacific?
(And didn't they conclude an Apache (AH-64) sale to Australia recently?)
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Fair enough.

Update on these helicopters, of note is the high-up maintenance chief who said he'd volunteer his personal time to get them back to being serviceable, but lots of parts are already gone and sold off.


Ukraine was also offered 41 Australian F-18 Hornets but rejected them as "flying trash".

Where is the source of that? Is it referring to the RAAF ones specifically, or the type in general. If the latter then it’s certainly an incorrect statement!

It was the RAAF ones.

This is the only logical explanation, along with the slight risk that something would happen in a Taipan and our bleeding hearts would blame Australia for the loss, no matter the benefit it brought. The Ukrainians would have those machines running and working great and it would expose how useless all levels of Australian military and government are compared to the rest of the world, nobody in the top brass wants that.