Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: 1275psi

Nothing personal no -but your country is pretty nuts about how it treats its friends -half of america would not even know where australia is.
pity about sharing stealth technology - we give full access to the most stealthy submarine in the world -the collins class to your navy.
I know from personal experience -a Los angeles submarine is a rock band at sea compared to our ss

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster


I appreciate the tone of your post but the US doesn't "provide" Australia with military hardware, we buy it, just as you occasionally do from other countries too (and even Australian gear. Jindivik anyone?). This keeps American defence workers in jobs and helps offset the R&D costs.

What annoyed me was that I started a serious thread about an important topic and he posted imbecilic, trolly garbage. Now, that's his prerogative but he shouldn't be surprised if he gets an arse kicking. His accusation that we can't defend ourselves also grated when I had a career in the Australian Air Force and the Australian Defence force (ADF) is considered to be among the most efficient and capable in the world.

Cheers, Neilster

quote:

ORIGINAL: 1275psi
Nothing personal no -but your country is pretty nuts about how it treats its friends -half of america would not even know where australia is.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster


I appreciate the tone of your post but the US doesn't "provide" Australia with military hardware, we buy it, just as you occasionally do from other countries too (and even Australian gear. Jindivik anyone?). This keeps American defence workers in jobs and helps offset the R&D costs.

What annoyed me was that I started a serious thread about an important topic and he posted imbecilic, trolly garbage. Now, that's his prerogative but he shouldn't be surprised if he gets an arse kicking. His accusation that we can't defend ourselves also grated when I had a career in the Australian Air Force and the Australian Defence force (ADF) is considered to be among the most efficient and capable in the world.

Cheers, Neilster

No, Neilster I don't think you appreciated the tone of my post at all. If you did, you wouldn't have responded with the flippant comment splitting hairs over the term "provide".

What you don't seem to appreciate was the ingratiating tone of your original post that was rife with entitlement mentality. My guess is that the few caustic responses you got were as a direct result of the entitlement mentality evident in that first post. Entitlement mentality is the excliusive pervue of the liberals of our society.

Conservatives tend to stomp on it whenever they encounter it and it takes only a smattering of common sense to figure that the majority of people you encounter on a wargame forum will likely be conservatives as liberals tend to want nothing to do with the study of warfare.

A "Hey guys, we really deserve this, don't you think you ought to share it with us?" approach rather than a "Hey guys we are entitled to this so you should stop being jerks and let us buy it" approach would have gone long way toward precluding the responses you found so offensive.

Cheers back at ya!

Hope there are no hard feelings.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marauders

This begs the question, when is it that you believe China is going to invade Australia?

One would think the F-16 FSX/F-2 to be good enough to defend Australian air space.

Heck, I don't even believe the United States really needs the F-22.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster


I appreciate the tone of your post but the US doesn't "provide" Australia with military hardware, we buy it, just as you occasionally do from other countries too (and even Australian gear. Jindivik anyone?). This keeps American defence workers in jobs and helps offset the R&D costs.

What annoyed me was that I started a serious thread about an important topic and he posted imbecilic, trolly garbage. Now, that's his prerogative but he shouldn't be surprised if he gets an arse kicking. His accusation that we can't defend ourselves also grated when I had a career in the Australian Air Force and the Australian Defence force (ADF) is considered to be among the most efficient and capable in the world.

Cheers, Neilster

No, Neilster I don't think you appreciated the tone of my post at all. If you did, you wouldn't have responded with the flippant comment splitting hairs over the term "provide".

What you don't seem to appreciate was the ingratiating tone of your original post that was rife with entitlement mentality. My guess is that the few caustic responses you got were as a direct result of the entitlement mentality evident in that first post. Entitlement mentality is the excliusive pervue of the liberals of our society.

Conservatives tend to stomp on it whenever they encounter it and it takes only a smattering of common sense to figure that the majority of people you encounter on a wargame forum will likely be conservatives as liberals tend to want nothing to do with the study of warfare.

A "Hey guys, we really deserve this, don't you think you ought to share it with us?" approach rather than a "Hey guys we are entitled to this so you should stop being jerks and let us buy it" approach would have gone long way toward precluding the responses you found so offensive.

Cheers back at ya!

Hope there are no hard feelings.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marauders

This begs the question, when is it that you believe China is going to invade Australia?

One would think the F-16 FSX/F-2 to be good enough to defend Australian air space.

Heck, I don't even believe the United States really needs the F-22.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Armygrognard

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marauders

This begs the question, when is it that you believe China is going to invade Australia?

One would think the F-16 FSX/F-2 to be good enough to defend Australian air space.

Heck, I don't even believe the United States really needs the F-22.

There's the truth of it. The Raptor is so far advanced that it doesn't have a competitor even close to it. It is a response to a threat 20 years down the road.

Still, it's a beautiful plane to watch. I was up near Lockheed in Atlanta when one flwe over, going slow and low. Oh so nice...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Armygrognard


There's the truth of it. The Raptor is so far advanced that it doesn't have a competitor even close to it. It is a response to a threat 20 years down the road.

Still, it's a beautiful plane to watch. I was up near Lockheed in Atlanta when one flwe over, going slow and low. Oh so nice...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster

This is what I originally wrote...

The new Australian government wants the option to buy F-22 Raptors, which I believe would require a law change in the US. Defence experts here have been loudly calling for this but the previous government appeared to be on the drugs when it came to defence acquisition.

Their mystifying decision to retire the F-111 early and bridge the gap until the F-35 with (outrageously expensive IMHO) Super Hornets has been roundly criticised. The F-35 may not reach RAAF squadrons until 2018ish, leaving Australia's air defence to 24 Super Hornets and updated but aging F-18s in the meantime. There's an ongoing build-up of pretty hot Russian fighters armed with scary weaponry in our region and by 2018 there's a good chance that the 5th generation Russian "Raptorski" could be in service with our northern neighbours.

In short, the F-111 shouldn't be retired and we should request F-22s. The Triple One has unique capabilities, had a massive upgrade in the late 90s and is not that expensive to maintain. The F-22 is in service, is extremely capable, has room for capability growth and has a unit price that is coming down. A nice fat order from Oz will keep the production line open and bring down the unit price for the US taxpayer too (because I think the USAF will be buying more).

IMHO the US would be foolish to deny Australia F-22s and let us lose our regional air superiority. Australia has been a trustworthy and loyal ally and it seems like a win/win situation to sell us some Raptors.

Now exactly what in that suggests "Hey guys we are entitled to this so you should stop being jerks and let us buy it"? I used the word "request" and suggested that this could be a symbiotic relationship.

You have misrepresented my position and dragged the whole "liberals vs conservatives" war into this. I also wasn't splitting hairs over the word "provide" either. You used it in the context of the US being taken for granted and it has connotations of charity.

Cheers, Neilster

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster

This is what I originally wrote...

The new Australian government wants the option to buy F-22 Raptors, which I believe would require a law change in the US. Defence experts here have been loudly calling for this but the previous government appeared to be on the drugs when it came to defence acquisition.

Their mystifying decision to retire the F-111 early and bridge the gap until the F-35 with (outrageously expensive IMHO) Super Hornets has been roundly criticised. The F-35 may not reach RAAF squadrons until 2018ish, leaving Australia's air defence to 24 Super Hornets and updated but aging F-18s in the meantime. There's an ongoing build-up of pretty hot Russian fighters armed with scary weaponry in our region and by 2018 there's a good chance that the 5th generation Russian "Raptorski" could be in service with our northern neighbours.

In short, the F-111 shouldn't be retired and we should request F-22s. The Triple One has unique capabilities, had a massive upgrade in the late 90s and is not that expensive to maintain. The F-22 is in service, is extremely capable, has room for capability growth and has a unit price that is coming down. A nice fat order from Oz will keep the production line open and bring down the unit price for the US taxpayer too (because I think the USAF will be buying more).

IMHO the US would be foolish to deny Australia F-22s and let us lose our regional air superiority. Australia has been a trustworthy and loyal ally and it seems like a win/win situation to sell us some Raptors.

Now exactly what in that suggests "Hey guys we are entitled to this so you should stop being jerks and let us buy it"? I used the word "request" and suggested that this could be a symbiotic relationship.

You have misrepresented my position and dragged the whole "liberals vs conservatives" war into this. I also wasn't splitting hairs over the word "provide" either. You used it in the context of the US being taken for granted and it has connotations of charity.

Cheers, Neilster

I was merely trying to provide a reasonble explanation for why you found yourself on the receiving end of caustic commentary.

I see at least a smattering of "stop being jerks" in the phrase "the US would be foolish".......but I guess you don't. It also came across to me smacking of entitlement mentality and that is why I invoked the liberals vs. conservatives issue to illustrate it, but I guess you don't see any inclination toward entitlement mentality in your entreaty.

In case you didn't notice my response was NOT one of the caustic ones and I did state my support for you stated desire.

Peace through superior firepower......for the Aussies as well as the Amis!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Maromak

quote:

ORIGINAL: Armygrognard

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marauders

This begs the question, when is it that you believe China is going to invade Australia?

One would think the F-16 FSX/F-2 to be good enough to defend Australian air space.

Heck, I don't even believe the United States really needs the F-22.

There's the truth of it. The Raptor is so far advanced that it doesn't have a competitor even close to it. It is a response to a threat 20 years down the road.

Still, it's a beautiful plane to watch. I was up near Lockheed in Atlanta when one flwe over, going slow and low. Oh so nice...

Isn't the idea of any weapons system is that it should be seen to be so good that the enemy will think twice about attacking in the first place??

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

I heard a jet steaking by outside my office building yesterday and stepped out to discover it was an F-104 Starfighter which was my favorite plane when I was just a wee lad. I am told by a colleague that there are two of them privately owned stationed at the nearby Coast Guard airport.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster
I could have been a bit more tactful about the title of the post but Australians, like Americans, are straight shooters. I also still have connections in the RAAF and I know what the whispers are there and they are very direct.

The sentence you mention had an IMHO (In my humble opinion) at the front of it, so I don't think it's fair to categorise it as you have. It's my honest opinion based on my reading of the evolving geo-political situation in light of the long cooperation between Australia and the United States in defence.

I suspect there's an understandable, post 9/11-circle the wagons-it's us against the rest element to this. Perhaps the 2001 attacks came as a such a dreadful shock to many Americans that there was a natural inclination to withdraw to what was safe and known. The same thing happened here after the Bali bombings. In such a climate, and when the United States has such a revolutionary weapon, there may be a feeling that it must be reserved for your use only. The reality though is that the rest of the world contains a lot of the good guys and bearded crazies don't fly fighters.

Cheers, Neilster