Well said AE. :)

"when was the last time in 50yrs the RAN stood alone by itself against an agressor?" 17 June 1968, HMAS Hobart at that stage the RAAF F-111s were still hanger queens and the fighter force was not in combat (and wouldn't be for the better part of 30 years).

Show some leadership. Resorb the RAAF into the army.

when was the last time in 50yrs the RAAF stood alone by itself against an agressor?

>>>Show some leadership. Resorb the RAAF into the army.<<< No, Air power needs to be a seperate force. I just wish its supporters would not be so dismissive of anything without wings.

JSF will be fine, boys, grease up your checkbooks.

"The RAAF is basically the only offensive force we have." that has done SFA for half a century, wasting how much money that the deployable services could use? "If you want to talk about things that have never and will never be used, look at the Leos and Abrams. " Of course that ignores the fact that in the last 50 years the Centurions were used extensively in combat. "AWDs are similar. When are we going to have to defeat saturation missile attacks, when are the AWDs going to get a work out. You don't need a 2 billion dollar ship to deliver NGFS. The FFGs and the ANZACs will probably be able to deal with the odd anti ship missile or MPA." Meet HMAS Hobart, a RAN destroyer struck by 3 missiles whilst on NGS duty. Actually I want a balanced defence force, which is why I'm happy to see cuts to the RAAF (or its disbandment) - we don't need 100 x JSF - we won't ever use any of them as long as the RAAF has them, go with 50 - 20 for the RAN, 20 for air defence of Aust (airshows) with AWACs and tankers (the tankers will make a real addition to coalition ops, unlike the fighters), 10 x attrition reserve and do the strike by cruise missile (split RAN and Arty), maritime patrol to RAN, Transport a/c to army, training a bi service responsibility. Save a fortune on admin, strike manning, equip and training and useless 'fighter' Sqns, whilst giving the fighters to a service that will take them in harms way.

"JSF will be fine, boys, grease up your checkbooks. " We were told the same thing about the F-111 at roughly the same stage of development. It became a fiasco and the cost tripled.

Why does AF need to be separate? In the US, USAF IMHO is too independent. They shun (and underresource) crucial missions like CAS and transport as inglorious. Yet they won't turn over the A-10s and are muscling in on UAVs. Pfui.

Look at the F-111 weights.