Briefing For The Incoming Minister of Defence

[Dave Homewood]

I just had this link sent to me. Some here may find it of interest.

www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2020-12/Defence.pdf

[tbf2504]

Interesting to see how much of this briefing has been redacted

[skyhawkdon]

They don't want to upset China! Bring back the ACF (and the other missing NZDF combat capabilities) is all I see reading this. Times have changed and the future is far from secure or benign!

[thelensofhistory]

Dec 17, 2020 14:29:59 GMT 12 skyhawkdon said:

They don't want to upset China! Bring back the ACF (and the other missing NZDF combat capabilities) is all I see reading this. Times have changed and the future is far from secure or benign!

The RNZAF F-16s (or their eventual replacement),  four RNZN Anzac class frigates and a (full strength) deploy-able Army Reserve battalion would have all come in handy.  

[marius]

Its my belief that the New Zealand Defence Force should begin to focus its efforts on finding and assisting allies to begin to combat Russian and Chinese expansionism. With the current instability in the United States we can no longer rely on them to effectively combat them both anymore, it is time for New Zealand to step up to the challenge just like we did with Covid-19 to help our allies defeat this threat. Our allies and potential allies like Australia and India respectively along with ourselves and other like-minded nations must not make the mistake of Neville Chamberlain and never appease Russia and China never causing confrontations but never backing down from them either.

I want to reiterate Russia and China must be stopped in their colonial ambitions and New Zealand must step up to help fill the void left over from the US and while we should never advocate for war we can never run from it. There is a quote from the Romans, "Si vis pacem parabellum" which means "If you want peace prepare for war" this perfectly personifies what New Zealand and our allies must do.

[marius]

To do this the New Zealand Defence Force is going to need reforms. These reforms would need to focus on drone swarms, quick reaction forces, amphibious expeditionary forces, small long range highly mobile gun boats similar to the Iranian Navy, cyber warfare and making its forces as quick, light, versatile and agile as possible. The last recommendation should encompass the entire tri-service in the NZDF and adopting similar tactics in that of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I don't believe that increasing the amount of frigates to four is a good idea due to the fact that in a conflict the enemy can easily replace a lost ship however if New Zealand loses a ship that'll be an entire national asset gone that would not be able to be easily replaced. It also will place easily identifiable targets to strike, compared to having many smaller gun boats like the pt boats of World War 2 will make it much more difficult to identify targets to hit. These gun boats will also be much easier to replace domestically due to them being much cheaper to produce as well as needing less crew to maintain and operate allowing for many more ships to be built and utilized. During peacetime these ships can also be used as maritime patrol stopping illegal fishing and other illegal acts in our exclusive economic zone.

[futurenz]

Wow haven't been on here for so long but the forums are still alive!

Being able to identify a frigate is only an issue if you are trying to use it for covert ops. Not even relevant for patrol assets where you want your adversary to know that US is not the only actor to think about. However, if your frigate is identifiable then it must also have sufficient capability to defend itself, which is not the case with our current frigates.

"Gun boats" are not very survivable in a war scenario (basically kamikaze boats) and need to be an intentional part of a wider strategy that specifically requires expendable speedboats. The only countries that should consider such a strategy need to have bases within range of potential threats, where the boats can preferably live at dispersed covert bases that won't be targeted themselves (being within range of such threats). Fast lightweight boats don't have the range or seakeeping to self deploy across the Pacific, so they certainly can't replace the long range OPVs we need for fishing surveillance.

This can be mitigated by having 5 or 6 very capable frigates, with the extras rotating through the fleet as attrition/maintenance spares. I know, it won't happen. But any combat vessel that joins an allied force in the Asia-Pacific may need to defend itself against a coordinated attack of submarines and multiple hyper-velocity ASMs. If the ship can't take care of its share of defence then its a liability, or at best a decoy.

[marius]

I acknowledge gunboats wont be very survivable in a conventional war scenario but that is not what they would be used for they'd be used in hit and run tactics in weak points like small isolated groups or supply convoys headed to fleets from the mainland in harassment operations not in kamikaze attacks that would not be a effective solution for New Zealand. You did correctly state that "gun boats" won't have enough range for fishing surveillance but they aren't the only assets available to New Zealand, we have the Orion aircraft and soon the Poseidon aircraft though they alone won't be enough to properly survey our exclusive economic zone. These gun boats would have to be specially designed for long range patrols. If however range does become an issue treaties can be made with pacific island nations to refuel and resupply on their islands.

The gun boats could possibly have drone swarms added to them to assist in patrol missions in peace time and to use against enemy ships along with numerous anti ship weapons and mounted machine guns similar to the pt boats of world war 2 used against Japanese shipping in the pacific. As for the threat of submarines small groups of potentially 6-8 gun boats dispersed across the water along with their speed would prove difficult to sink and spending an entire missile on a single gun boat would not be worth it.

Working in conjunction with Allied forces would primarily take the shape of assisting them by operating away from them because in order not to out run the fleet they would have to operate away from them and not create unnecessary casualties.

[Dave Homewood]

This is turning into one of those annoying "what if" fantasy threads . I think the topic has run its course.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks for giving me a good laugh Marius for reporting me to the moderators for closing the thread when you had not finished your off-topic ramblings. That is gold. Signed, the Admin (and one of the moderators who decided to close this thread because it was drifting into off topic rambling).