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Post by senob on Jul 8, 2019 21:13:09 GMT 12
There is no New or Used is always better, we must always be focused on the best value through clever use. The short sighted politicians are real but the problem is much bigger than that. Defence spending in the long term must keep going down for the simple fact that economically NZ is equivalent of an eastern Europe country and rapidly slipping behind (nearly all growth for the last decade or two has been purely driven by population grow i.e add 10% to the population, add 10% to GDP). An example of clever might be that its not hard to build kit to allow converted airliners to unload unassisted (5 mill tops). I would dispute most of your post because from memory govt statistics over the last 20 years would disprove your claims regarding GDP and growth. However this is not the place and it is off topic. Even if you are able to design, prototype, certify and build the required kit as you suggest, would it allow for the carriage of a NZLAV, NH90 or some other piece(s) of outsized awkward kit? I would also say that your statement above is an oxymoron because as I have shown in my earlier post we would obtain better value for money from new bought equipment. Clever use is good in an ideal world, but we operate in a real world and we don't have the luxury (or possibly time) of being able to be clever all the time. To a degree that cleverness is dependent upon the politicans support for NZDF and that is never a given.
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Post by isc on Jul 8, 2019 23:15:20 GMT 12
The aircraft we buy today probably has to live for the next 50 years, but if war happens, we must be prepared to lose each aircraft on it's first mission, maybe a bit longer with transport aircraft. It would be if the aircraft were on active service that second hand could be useful for short term use.isc
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Post by mcmaster on Jul 8, 2019 23:30:34 GMT 12
Shame that there wasnt a good Canberra replacement, we could have still been flying them. Interesting perspective pjw. Can you expand? What was ...or was there a Canberra replacement?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 9, 2019 8:09:03 GMT 12
I thought the Skyhawk was a very good Canberra replacement.
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Post by tbf25o4 on Jul 9, 2019 14:12:47 GMT 12
The Skyhawk was the best replacement for the Canberra that NZ could afford at that time. If you look at the history of that purchase, Morrision wanted F4 Phantoms but when the A4 became an option that was the best buy with the government signing off on 14 aircraft only, not the 18 that had been requested. Look at the history of the RAAF Canberra's in the Vietnam war to see how they were not up to the CAS tasks required for the new battlefield. The RNZAF's role had changed from interdiction and strategic bombing to CAS, hence the A4 was the right choice
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Post by senob on Jul 9, 2019 23:33:36 GMT 12
The aircraft we buy today probably has to live for the next 50 years, but if war happens, we must be prepared to lose each aircraft on it's first mission, maybe a bit longer with transport aircraft. It would be if the aircraft were on active service that second hand could be useful for short term use.isc Yes and because since 1991 the policy of the governments of the day have been to acquire equipment quantities that offer minimum levels of operational capability. When the next war comes and in the likely event that we will have to rearm and reequip at the last second, just like in 1939 and especially after 7/12/1941, we won't be in the position of having the US being able to provide significant quantities of arms and equipment like it did in WW2. It doesn't have the industrial capacity that it did then and aircraft in particular are far more complicated and time consuming to manufacture. Used aircraft could be a cost effective viable option if we were ever to stand up the ACF again. From memory, 18 Skyhawks were required in order to meet the govts policy objectives. If we're to acquire 18 F16V new builds we would be looking at around $4.0 - 4.5 billion. There would be opposition to that from within government (whichever party that was), Treasury and certain segments of the population. So it would be a reasonable political risk and some leaders would be somewhat hesitant to spend what would be significant political capital on such an expensive acquisition. However whilst I have argued that new is better than used, in this case where we would be standing up an ACF again, used aircraft could be a less expensive way of reintroducing the capability whilst we relearn from scratch how to operate fast combat jets. We could contract the Lead In Fighter Training component to RAAF, RCAF, RAF, USAF or USN. At the same time we could have the fast jets checked and delivered. First of all it would have to be determined by govt what roles the aircraft would provide. My own preference would be maritime strike, followed by air defence, followed by CAS. CAS today is pretty much platform agnostic due to PGM: in Afghanistan and the Middle East, they've used everything from B-52s to A-10s for fixed wing CAS. We could also look at doing EW with the fast jets. F-18G Growlers are very expensive, but there are EW pods that can be carried on hardpoints of fast jets; not as effective, but effective nevertheless. Apparently it takes 10 years to stand up a fully functioning and qualified ACF from beginning and in that time we would be able to start determining the replacement capability requirements for the used aircraft. This would be part of the MLU program that we would undoubtedly undertake on the original used aircraft. However in this particular case this is just theoretical because there is no political will too reinstate the ACF. I'm only using it as an example.
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Post by mcmaster on Jul 10, 2019 2:01:00 GMT 12
The Skyhawk was the best replacement for the Canberra that NZ could afford at that time. If you look at the history of that purchase, Morrision wanted F4 Phantoms but when the A4 became an option that was the best buy with the government signing off on 14 aircraft only, not the 18 that had been requested. Look at the history of the RAAF Canberra's in the Vietnam war to see how they were not up to the CAS tasks required for the new battlefield. The RNZAF's role had changed from interdiction and strategic bombing to CAS, hence the A4 was the right choice Yeah I thought the A4 seemed the right choice allowing for factors at the time and stayed a solid pick over its service life. However what if’s are so tempting and I wondered if pjw was hinting at this scenario. If NZ got F4s would/could they have better survived the H Clark and NZ Treasury razor gang? Ie a purer air defence aircraft. Say half these F4s were based in Darwin or in SE Asia as forward air defence rather than half the A4s at Nowra supporting the RAN. Did the Nowra deal whilst great for us aussies and the RNZAF make the bean counters arguments easier? Did the A4 as jack of all trades do it in?
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Post by mumbles on Jul 10, 2019 9:42:41 GMT 12
If NZ got F4s would/could they have better survived the H Clark and NZ Treasury razor gang? Ie a purer air defence aircraft. The F-4C was the preferred option I think, but would have been just as multirole in RNZAF service as the A-4, probably more akin to the RAAF use of the F-4 than anything. By 2000 if anything I would think they would be much more expensive to operate and harder to justify than the A-4's
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Post by horicle on Aug 4, 2019 17:15:24 GMT 12
Bear in mind that during the years the RAAF F-111's were sitting in the States due to various problems the RAAF were loaned F-4's (was it 24 ?). When the F-111's were delivered after some six years (?) The F-4's were offered to to the Aussies for a very low price. Apart from the fact that they were no longer needed the Aussies now new how much it cost to operate an F-4 fleet. They could not get rid of them fast enough.
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