I suppose the willingness to appoint people with different ideologies is a good point.

 

That aside we should be looking at nukes as the requirements indicated in public so far will be difficult and very expensive to achieve with an AIP design.

I heard him speak at the KF YSLC in June (?) .....seemed to be part of the ANU Defence Literati, but was an engaging speaker and knew his stuff.

 

Whether this is a 'good' development overall remains to be seem. A strong advocate for a significant number of (possibly nuc) subs, but likely to want a disproportionately strong emphasis on regional Light Infantry ops as a opposed to combined arms capable battlegroups/battalion groups and I am not aware of his views on the RAN surface fleet.  Might have to see what he has written on defence issues and see where he lies on the 'issues'.....

 

Brett.

And I don't think there will be too much wrong with that definition either. Timor and RAMSI are predominantly light infantry based operations and future operations are likely too, if Timor and RAMSI style operations are to be the "template" for the future.  

  

Of course it is equally plausible to call them combined arms operations if you wish, because there IS armour on the ground, helos in the air and engineers building schools, roads and sanitation systems, but the armour and helos are used predominantly for transport with limited re-supp and recon duties. But you are starting to move into the area of semantics if there is no fighting to be done. Is a battlegroup still a "battle" group if there are no battles to be fought?

 

When there is not much in the way of fighting to be done, armour and helos only do the transport and light recon tasks anyway. Infantry do the patrolling, searches, overwatch duties etc, while the enginneers build and repair things, civilian/military liaison teams (usually provided by artillery) make friends with everyone and the bosses go over for a 24 hour period to gain an active service medal....

 

I very much doubt that Combet would be against the deployment of Bushies and ASLAV's on ideological grounds  if another "failed state intervention" type operation had to be conducted.

 

It is sheer reality that the digs on the ground cannot walk everywhere... In any case, just as was the case in Timor if the s**t hits the fan and contacts start happening, then armour will be deployed into theatre and helos will start taking on a fire support role, even if only as "light fire teams" as was the case in Timor (MAG-58 7.62mm and 5.56mm/7.62mm small arms from helos).

 

In the first few weeks of Interfet, the digs were predominantly being moved around in Landrovers, until the contacts started and M113's and ASLAV's started becoming a priority for deployment and the effort increased...

 

I can't imagine Combet, being the intelligent person he seems to be, objecting to the deployment of armour and fire support when digs start getting into contacts. It'd be political suicide...