Quotulatiousness

September 30, 2011

British defence minister tries to justify decommission of HMS Ark Royal and the Harrier

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:19

In an update on the EMALS electro-magnetic catapult (things appear to be going well, which is good news for both the USN and the RN), Lewis Page finds the British defence minister still in full denial mode over the decision to scrap the navy’s last carrier and take the Harrier out of service:

The Royal Navy has been doing its best to overcome its current lack of carriers and Harriers in the Libyan campaign, instead inviting a group of the Army’s Apache attack choppers aboard the assault ship HMS Ocean. The Apaches have been doing useful work in the skies above Libya, which they can reach just minutes after taking off (as opposed to the hours it takes for land-based RAF jets to fly in from Italy or — as they are still routinely doing — all the way from the UK). Long haul operations by the RAF are putting its air-to-air tanker fleet under serious strain, and it will not have escaped carrier fans that the just commencing PFI tanker deal is set to cost much more than the Prince of Wales and sister ship Queen Elizabeth combined.

Defence minister Liam Fox made a bizarre statement on the question to reporters yesterday, claiming:

“Harrier could not have carried the weapons we have used to such great effect. They are too heavy. Harriers would have been no help to us at all. The critics have been silenced.”

The weapons used by the RAF so far have mainly been Paveway smartbombs and lightweight Brimstone anti-armour missiles, with a few dubious Storm Shadow air-launched cruise jobs mixed in (these latter missions are normally flown all the way from the UK).

The Harrier was the first British aircraft to be cleared for the latest Paveway IVs — the main weapon now in use by British planes over Libya — ahead of the Tornado and the Typhoon, as the RAF will tell you. It could also carry Brimstone. The Harrier GR9 could also carry Storm Shadow, supposing you actually wanted to.

September 27, 2011

Britain (finally) admits it will “never again be among the global superpowers”

Filed under: Britain, History, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:56

For something that’s been obvious to casual observers since 1945 (1956 if you’re generous), it’s taken a while to admit:

The warning comes from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) thinktank in a tough report which questions whether Britain’s defence crisis is really over.

Last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review led to sweeping redundancies across all three services, and the early mothballing of, among others, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, and the fleet of Harrier jets.

In a brutally frank assessment of the British military, the report states: “The UK will never again be a member of the select club of global superpowers. Indeed it has not been one for decades.

“But currently planned levels of defence spending should be enough for it to maintain its position as one of the world’s five second-rank military powers (with only the US in the first rank).”

Many in the military are likely to bridle at the analysis; last week the former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Lord West, struck a completely different tone, causing a furore when he said the UK should not consider itself a second-tier power like “bloody Belgium or Denmark”.

Except for brief wartime surges, Britain’s military strength has rarely been the army: it’s been the Royal Navy that provided Britain with both military and economic clout. Gutting the striking power of the navy (HMS Ark Royal and the Harriers) was merely the final admission that the government had higher priorities domestically than internationally. As Admiral Cunningham once said, “It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition. It’s remarkable how quickly one can destroy a tradition.

September 24, 2011

Canadian military: “the bureaucratic tail is wagging the Parliamentary dog”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:48

Christie Blatchford looks at the amazing ability of the military bureaucracy to frustrate, delay, obfuscate, and disobey their parliamentary masters:

Written by distinguished military scholar and veteran Dr. Jack English, it shows how the bureaucracy in Ottawa — an incestuous nest of regular army bosses with turf to protect and intractable civil servants — has consistently ignored or thwarted government directives to increase the size of the reserves.

What’s more, either those defence ministers whose pledges came to nought had the collective attention span of gnats, or they failed to grow a set of nuts sufficient to demand their instructions be followed, or they were simply shifted within Cabinet and the new fellow came in.

Any way you look at it, Dr. English says, the bureaucracy is calling the shots.

In the result, despite pledges to grow the reserves, the militia part-time head count remains still at about 16,500, or, as Dr. English wryly notes, about the size of National Defence Headquarters, or NDHQ as it’s called.

By the way, just getting the damn numbers out of NDHQ is a trick.

[. . .]

Virtually everyone who has studied the Canadian army, and their number is legion, agrees on a couple of things: The bureaucracy is obscenely bloated, far out of proportion for the size of the army; the citizen soldier, who until called up to full-time service costs only about 20% of the regular one, is a bargain for the taxpayer; the militia is more diverse, ethnically and otherwise, than the regular army.

September 21, 2011

Report shows military bureaucracy defied government orders

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Military — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:34

It’s not really a surprise that the bureaucrats don’t want to increase the size of the militia, but it is surprising that they’ve been willing to ignore direct government orders on the subject:

Canada’s bloated military bureaucracy has consistently defied explicit orders from government ministers and failed to increase the size of the army militia as directed.

The accusation is made in a scorching but carefully documented report done by pre-eminent military scholar Jack English for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and obtained in advance of its release Wednesday by only a few media outlets, including Postmedia.

It is a “wretched saga” that Mr. English describes as marked by “sandbagging, obstruction, futile wheel-spinning, and endlessly wasted staff effort.”

Using statements made by a series of defence ministers and recommendations either from special commissions or in government “White Papers” — all of them pledging or urging that the part-time militia or reserves, whose members most proudly call themselves citizen-soldiers, would grow — Mr. English shows how bureaucrats and leaders within the regular army, who saw any move to increase the militia as a threat, stubbornly stymied the wishes of their political masters.

In the numbers game, NDHQ has drawn level with the entire militia force, and like all bureaucracies, wants to continue to grow.

F-22 flies again

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:21

The months-long grounding is over:

On September 21st, the U.S. Air Force will allow its F-22 fighters to fly again. The aircraft had been grounded for 140 days because of problems with the pilot’s oxygen system. The air force is not giving out many details on exactly what the problems is, although they say a report on the F-22 oxygen system will be out by the end of the year. Each F-22 will undergo a detailed inspection before it is cleared to fly. This may have something to do with earlier remarks about toxins somehow getting into the pilot’s air supply. The problem was always about something bad in the air supply. This has kept all 168 F-22s grounded since May. The only exception was a squadron based on the Virginia coast, that was given permission to fly out of the way of hurricane Karina. Those F-22s encountered no problems with their air supply.

[. . .]

During the grounding, pilots and ground crews used simulators and (for the ground crews) maintenance exercises on the grounded aircraft to keep their skills sharp. In addition, everyone helped checking out a growing list of aircraft components in support of the search for the breathing problem). The air force was also under time pressure to fix the problem. That’s because after 210 days on the ground, aircrew have to undergo extensive retraining to regain combat flying status. This added a little more urgency to fixing the problem quickly. The grounding also left a dozen F-22s stranded at a training base, where they were for live weapons exercises. At least six new F-22s could not be delivered because of the grounding.

September 19, 2011

HMS Astute seaman convicted for murder of officer

Filed under: Britain, Law, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

Able Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan has been sentenced to life in prison for his shooting rampage on board HMS Astute earlier this year:

Able Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan, admitted murdering Lt Cdr Ian Molyneux, 36, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, on board the nuclear submarine HMS Astute.

He also injured a second crewman, Lt Cdr Christopher Hodge, while the sub was docked in Southampton on 8 April.

Donovan, 22, of Dartford, Kent, was told he must serve at least 25 years by the judge at Winchester Crown Court.

Donavon of Hillside Road, also admitted the attempted murders of Lt Cdr Hodge, 45, Petty Officer Christopher Brown, 36, and Chief Petty Officer David McCoy, 37

Donovan, who was put on sentry duty despite being drunk, fired six shots from an SA80 rifle in the control room as local dignitaries, including Southampton City Council’s mayor, chief executive and leader, were being given a tour of HMS Astute, the court heard.

After reading about the attack, I posted an entry calling for Royston Smith’s heroism to be recognized in the next honours list.

That’s a civilian, charging a gunman armed with a battle rifle, and disarming him before the trained military personnel could intervene. There are very few people who could have reacted so quickly — and correctly — in that situation. That’s heroism.

How spendy will those whizzy F-35 aircraft end up being?

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:31

Strategy Page has a state-of-play report on the escalating cost of the F-35:

The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force are trying to agree on what the new F-35 fighter will cost. The air force insists that it is $65 million each, while the Department of Defense says when all costs are included; it will be more like $111 million each. Another number being debated is how many F-35s will actually be produced. The air force assumes 3,162, but the Department of Defense is not so sure that many will eventually be built. Total development cost is now put at $65 billion, which comes to over $20 million per aircraft if 3,162 are built. Development costs for the new U.S. F-35 fighter-bomber has grown by more than a third over the last few years. The additional development costs are accompanied by additional delays. Current estimates are that the F-35 will enter service in another 6-7 years. The Department of Defense believes production and development costs will continue to rise, and that the number to be built will decline. Both trends increase the average aircraft cost. Based on past experience, the higher Department of Defense estimates are more likely to be accurate.

And then there are operating costs. Earlier this year, after months of contentious disagreement, the U.S. Air Force came around to agreeing with U.S. Navy claims that the F-35 will cost much more to maintain, rather than (as the F-35 promoters assert) less. It was over a year ago that the U.S. Navy, after nervously watching as the manufacturing costs of the new F-35C and F-35B carrier aircraft increase, concluded that these aircraft would also be a lot more expensive to maintain. It comes down to this. Currently, it costs the navy, on average, $19,000 an hour to operate its AV-8 vertical takeoff or F-18C fighter aircraft. The navy calculated that it would cost 63 percent more to operate the F-35C (which will replace the F-18C) and the F-35B (which will replace the AV-8). These costs include buying the aircraft, training and maintaining the pilots, the aircraft and purchasing expendable items (fuel, spare parts, munitions.) The navy concluded that maintenance alone would be about a third more.

In a vicious circle, the higher the cost per plane, the fewer planes will be built, which increases the cost of the planes that do get built. At some point, the costs will get so high that foreign buyers (who are expected to buy more than half of the planned production) will reduce their orders or even back out altogether. The F-35 was supposed to be cheaper to operate than the aircraft it will be replacing, but that appears to be a badly mistaken estimate. That will also tend to ratchet down the foreign interest in purchasing the aircraft.

September 18, 2011

The Pentagon’s current big fear: the sequester

Filed under: Economics, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:17

George F. Will explains why Leon Panetta, the secretary of defense, is very worried about the outcome of the “supercommittee” deliberations:

This would take from military budgets nearly $500 billion, in addition to a minimum of $350 billion cuts already scheduled. An almost trillion-dollar trimming, Panetta says flatly, “cannot take place.” Actually, he knows it can: “The gun to the head could really go off.” Even without a sequester, the military “is going to be a smaller force.” And with a sequester? The 1.5 million active-duty members of the armed services and 700,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department depend on an industrial base of more than 3.8 million persons. According to the Pentagon, a sequester would substantially shrink those three numbers, perhaps adding a point to the nation’s unemployment rate. The cuts would leave the smallest Army and Marine Corps in more than a decade and the smallest tactical Air Force since this service became independent of the Army in 1947. The Navy has already shrunk almost to its smallest fleet size since World War I.

Time was, when Democrats looked at the defense budget with a skeptical squint, Republicans rallied ’round it. No more. Few tea partyers remember Washington’s hawk-versus-dove dramas. They live to slow spending, period. They are constitutionalists but insufficiently attentive to the fact that defense is something the federal government does that it actually should do. And when they are told that particular military expenditures are crucial to force projection, they say: As in Libya? Been there, don’t want to do that.

Much of the defense budget is consumed by pay and health care for uniformed personnel, who have been abused enough by repeated deployments. The priciest new weapon, the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (at least $90 million per plane), is vital for the continued salience of aircraft carriers, which are the basis of the U.S. strategic presence in the Western Pacific. Inferring China’s geopolitical intentions from its military purchases is difficult, but Panetta says guardedly that in five years China’s force projection will be “much better.” The Marines, with their smaller carriers, need a short-takeoff model F-35. Cut the number of planes built, the cost per plane rises, and the ability to recoup costs through sales to allies declines.

September 15, 2011

Is the end of the manned fighter plane at hand?

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:08

Yes, I know we’ve gone through this discussion before (and the comment thread on that first entry is still a good summary of the counter-arguments). Air-to-air combat has become only a small part of what the air forces of the world are expected to do: ground support, while generally disdained by air force brass hats, is the most common combat task now. Here’s the state of play, according to Strategy Page, as far as the future of air combat is concerned:

The last decade has revolutionized air warfare, and air forces. This revolution was brought about by two technologies (smart bombs and UAVs) that have been around for decades but, over a decade ago, became reliable and capable enough to have a decisive effect on warfare. Now UAVs armed with smart bombs are poised to replace manned aircraft. Moreover, the proliferation of GPS guided weapons and short range guided missiles have greatly reduced the need for ground strikes by manned or unmanned aircraft. Since World War II, air forces have demanded, and obtained, a disproportionate share of military budgets. No more.

[. . .]

Underlying all of this is the appearance of so many cheaper, reliable, precision weapons in the last decade. This has changed tactics on the ground. While the air force doesn’t like to dwell on this, it’s the war on the ground that is decisive, not what’s going on in the air. This proliferation of precision has also changed the way smart bombs were designed. With the ability to put a weapon within a meter of the aiming point (using laser guidance) or 5-10 meters (using GPS), smaller is now better, at least in urban areas where there are a lot of civilians about, troops have changed the way they fight. There is more movement in urban warfare because of all this precision firepower, and fewer friendly fire casualties from bombs and artillery. But it’s not just the air force and their smart bombs that have brought this on. The army had precision missiles on the ground long before JDAM came along. Now the army has more of them. Thus, over the last five years, there has been a competition between the army and air force to develop smaller, cheaper and more precise, missiles and bombs.

[. . .]

The air force is not happy about the army having a large force of armed UAVs. Many air force generals believe the army should not have the MQ-1C, or at least not use them with weapons. That has already caused some spats in the Pentagon over the issue, but so far the army has prevailed.

The army argument is that these larger UAVs work better for them if they are under the direct control of combat brigades. The air force sees that as inefficient, and would prefer to have one large pool of larger UAVs, that could be deployed as needed. This difference of opinion reflects basic differences in how the army and air force deploy and use their combat forces. The army has found that a critical factor in battlefield success is teamwork among members of a unit, and subordinate units in a brigade. While the air force accepts this as a critical performance issue for their aircraft squadrons, they deem it irrelevant for army use of UAVs. Seeing army MQ-1Cs doing visual and electronic reconnaissance and firing missiles at ground targets, the air force sees itself losing control of missions it has dominated since its founding in 1948.

[. . .]

Meanwhile, the navy has taken the lead in developing larger, jet propelled UAVs like the 15 ton, X-47B. This UAV uses a F100-PW-220 engine, which is currently used in the F-16 and F-15. The X-47B can carry two tons of bombs or missiles and maneuver like a jet fighter. The X-47B is fast and agile enough to carry out air-to-air missions. With the right software, it can do this autonomously (without human intervention). This is being worked on, and the navy already has perfected the software that enables a UAV to land on aircraft carriers.

The coming decade will see more and more UAVs replacing manned aircraft. Thus after only a century in action, manned combat aircraft are on their way out.

September 14, 2011

The risk of terrorism doesn’t justify current US military spending

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

September 12, 2011

Is the People’s Liberation Army a paper tiger?

Filed under: China, Economics, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:36

An interesting article at Strategy Page looks at the myth and reality of China’s army and navy:

You don’t see much in the media about the poor training of Chinese military personnel. You don’t hear much about the poor leadership and low readiness for combat. But all of this is common knowledge in China. There, the military is not walled off from everyone else. Cell phone cameras and the Internet make it easy to pass around evidence (often in the form of “hey, this one is hilarious”). The government tries to play up how modern and efficient the military is, but most Chinese know better, and don’t really care. China is winning victories on the economic front, and that what really counts to the average Chinese.

Meanwhile, U.S. military leaders and defense industries are looking for a sufficiently impressive foe to help scare more money out of Congress. The Chinese Navy (or, more correctly, the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy) is now the favorite candidate, for navy and defense industry analysts, to become the new Big Bad. Just how dangerous are these Chinese sailors and their ships? It turns out that, on closer inspection, not very.

This is the sort of thing that what went on during the Cold War. Russian military prowess was hyped by the American military, and their defense suppliers, to justify further increases in defense spending. When the Cold War ended, it was revealed how the Russian military, and defense manufacturers, played the same game. It also revealed that Russian military capabilities were far less than the hype indicated.

The basic weapon for this sort of thing is FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Works every time, although it is difficult to pitch the Chinese navy as a crack force. Most of their ships are elderly, poorly designed and rarely used. Their nuclear subs are worse than the first generation of Russian nukes back in the 1960s. The most modern Chinese ships are Russian made, Cold War era models. Chinese ships don’t go to sea much, not just because it’s expensive, but because Chinese ships tend to get involved in nasty incidents. Like the submarine that killed its crew when the boat submerged (and the diesel engines did not shut down when the batteries kicked in, thus using up all the oxygen.) Breakdowns are more common, as well as a lot of accidents you don’t hear about (weapons and equipment malfunctions that kill and maim.) Nevertheless, the Chinese are working to change this. Ships are going to sea more each year, and troops are getting more training. But unless the corruption is curbed, this could all be wasted.

Of course, if China isn’t the big military threat to the rest of the world, how will the Pentagon get Congress to go along with its perpetual demands for more funding?

September 6, 2011

Turkey approaching combat situation with Israel?

Filed under: Media, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

Strategy Page has a summary of the situation:

Turkey’s Islamic government has backed itself into a corner by demanding Israel apologize for defending itself when halting the 2010 blockade-breaking ships. The Turks demand an apology, compensation and an end to the blockade. This, despite the fact that Hamas (and many other groups in Gaza) are recognized as international terrorists and that Turkish activists on the ships were videoed attacking the Israeli boarding party. The Turks will not back down, and now threaten to send warships to escort yet another group of blockade breakers. This is pretty extreme, as the Israeli Navy has a lot more combat experience, and the Turks would be in waters long patrolled by the Israelis. This could easily escalate into an air war, another area where the Israelis have a lot more experience. The Arabs and Palestinians are all for this, as the Israelis have consistently defeated Arab forces, but the Turks are seen as much more capable. But are they capable enough?

Here are links to earlier reports on the flotilla incident, Turkey’s conspiracy theorists, and the very weird world of Turkish media.

Update, 8 September: Turkey escalates the threat level for combat with Israel:

Turkish warships will escort any Turkish aid vessels to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has announced.

He also said Turkey had taken steps to stop Israel unilaterally exploiting natural resources from the eastern Mediterranean, according to al-Jazeera’s Arabic translation of excerpts of an interview conducted in Turkish.

His comments came after Turkey’s ruling party said the country’s ties to Israel could be normalised if the Jewish state apologised for the killing of nine pro-Palestinian activists last year and accepted it should pay compensation to their families.

I am not a lawyer, but I’d imagine that an attempt to use naval vessels to break a legal blockade would be tantamount to a declaration of war. I have a hard time believing that Turkey is that eager to test Israel’s resolve (and military might).

September 3, 2011

US troops allegedly handcuffed and executed children in 2006

Filed under: Middle East, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

Wikileaks may have been sitting on a particularly disturbing report:

A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks suggests that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi.

The unclassified cable, which was posted on WikiLeaks’ website last week, contained questions from a United Nations investigator about the incident, which had angered local Iraqi officials, who demanded some kind of action from their government. U.S. officials denied at the time that anything inappropriate had occurred.

But Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said in a communication to American officials dated 12 days after the March 15, 2006, incident that autopsies performed in the Iraqi city of Tikrit showed that all the dead had been handcuffed and shot in the head. Among the dead were four women and five children. The children were all 5 years old or younger.

Claims of American troops committing atrocities were very common, but few of them appear to have been anything other than Al Qaeda propaganda exercises. This may well be another case of this, but the initial investigation implied otherwise:

The original incident report was signed by an Iraqi police colonel and made even more noteworthy because U.S.-trained Iraqi police, including Brig. Gen. Issa al Juboori, who led the coordination centre, were willing to speak about the investigation on the record even though it was critical of American forces.

Throughout the early investigation, U.S. military spokesmen said that an Al Qaeda in Iraq suspect had been seized from a first-floor room after a fierce fight that had left the house he was hiding in a pile of rubble.

But the diplomatic cable provides a different sequence of events and lends credence to townspeople’s claims that American forces destroyed the house after its residents had been shot.

August 31, 2011

O’Neill: Winston Smith is working overtime in NATO’s “Ministry of Truth”

Filed under: Africa, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

I guess you could say that Brendan O’Neill wasn’t a fan of the NATO intervention in Libya:

Not since Winston Smith found himself in the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984, rewriting old newspaper articles on behalf of Big Brother, has there been such an overnight perversion of history as there has been in relation to NATO’s intervention in Libya. Now that the rebels have taken Tripoli, NATO’s bombing campaign is being presented to us as an adroit intervention, which was designed to achieve precisely the glorious scenes we’re watching on our TV screens. In truth, it was an incoherent act of clueless militarism, which is only now being repackaged, in true Minitrue fashion, as an initiative that ‘played an indispensable role in the liberation of Tripoli’.

Normally it takes a few years for history to be rewritten; with Libya it happened in days. No sooner had rebel soldiers arrived at Gaddafi’s compound than the NATO campaign launched in March was being rewritten as a cogent assault. Commentators desperate to resuscitate the idea of ‘humanitarian intervention’, and NATO leaders determined to crib some benefits from their Libya venture, took to their lecterns to tell us that their aims had been achieved and they had ‘salvaged the principle of liberal interventionism from the geopolitical dustbin’. In order to sustain these bizarre claims, they’ve had to put the real truth about NATO’s campaign into a memory hole and invent a whole new ‘truth’.

Over the past few days every aspect of NATO’s bombing campaign has been, as Winston Smith might put it, ‘falsified’. Since everybody now seems to have forgotten the events of just five months ago, it is worth reminding ourselves of the true character of NATO’s intervention in Libya. It was incoherent from the get-go, overseen by a continually fraying and deeply divided Western ‘alliance’ and with no serious war aim beyond being seen to bomb an evil dictator. It was cowardly, where all alliance members wanted to appear to be Doing Something while actually doing as little as possible. This was especially true of the US, which stayed firmly on the backseat of the anti-Gaddafi alliance. And it was reckless, revealing that military action detached from strategy, unanchored by end goals, can easily spin out of control.

Despite media reports, Australia didn’t “screw up” torpedo purchase

Filed under: Australia, France, Italy, Media, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

Strategy Page expresses a bit of contempt for the Fairfax media reporters who mangled a story to get a juicy headline or six:

Another good example of mass media screwing up a story on the military recently appeared in Australia. Fairfax, the largest media group in Australia ran a late August story asserting that the Australian Navy had mishandled the acquisition of new anti-submarine torpedo from France, and had to hire translators to turn the French and Italian user and technical manuals into English. The Defense Ministry quickly responded and pointed out that the Fairfax reporters had misunderstood the situation. The contract to purchase the torpedoes stipulated that all documents be in English. This is standard for such purchases, and has been for a long time. The Fairfax reporters should have known that. The Defense Ministry was hiring translators to handle additional data, not covered by the MU90 purchase, on some of the 200 test launches of the torpedo. This would save the Australian Navy a lot of money as some of their own test launches could be skipped, if the French and Italian tests covered the same situations. But the documents on most of those tests were in the language of the navy conducting them (French or Italian.) The reports were classified, but the two navies were willing to share them, although it was understood that Australia would have to handle translations. This has been standard practice for decades, but the Fairfax reporters didn’t dig that deep. This sort of facile military reporting has become increasingly common. It goes beyond calling all warships (except carriers and subs) “battleships” (a class of ship that went out of wide use half a century ago) or calling self-propelled artillery (or even infantry fighting vehicles) “tanks” simply because they all have turrets (but very different uses). The bad reporting extends to many other basic items of equipment, training, leadership, tactics and casualties.

The argument from the press is probably that the public doesn’t know — and doesn’t care about — the differences between warship classes or armoured vehicles anyway, so they don’t “waste their time” by being accurate.

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