the M1A1 Abrams tank - could be too heavy to transport to
Darwin.
---New tanks coming, if not too heavy,By Kasey Brunt,September 24,
2006
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/09/25/1159036468575.html
The report said they can not travel by rail because the Adelaide
to Darwin rail network does not have the equipment needed to carry
such a heavy load.
And they cannot be transported by road because several Territory
road bridges can not hold mass over 50 tonnes.
2.my god!! They have plenty of time and have not considered
optios,
evaluated and decied the best options and do it.
How can they do things in this way.They hv few years to
prepare
and still in tis way.What if a new siuation coming up........
2.Armoured
white elephants,Date: September 26 2006,
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/09/25/1159036468575.html
THE arrival of the army's new Abrams tanks makes one wonder who,
if anyone, is in charge of spending at Russell Hill, the defence
headquarters in Canberra. Although the 59 second-hand tanks were
projected as a bargain at just $550 million, including training,
spares and some maintenance, this is just the start of the
spending. The defence forces are being altered to accommodate them,
to no convincing strategic purpose.
The 68-tonne behemoths may provide the ultimate in air-conditioned
battlefield comfort and security for their four-man crews, but the
difficulty for Australia will be getting them to battle, or
anywhere. They are too big and heavy for existing rolling stock on
the railway to Darwin, where they will be based, or for any ships
or aircraft in the present navy or air force inventory.
They are too heavy for any road bridges in the Northern
Territory, let alone those in the South-East Asian or Pacific
neighbourhood. They chew up four times as much fuel as the
army's existing Leopard tanks to travel the same distance.
But not to worry, those helpful American arms salesmen have sold us
four C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft that were awaiting buyers
on the Boeing production line, for just $2 billion. And anyway, we
don't need to transport them anywhere. They are just for training
the crews. When we assign our tank forces to the next American
operation, the US army will have identical-model Abrams tanks
positioned on the battlefield for Australian crews to operate.
Presumably they'll be allowed to fly their own flag.
The Abrams deal is a sign of the way the Iraq intervention is
distorting defence policy, quite aside from the debate about its
place in the campaign against terrorism. The army-based
expeditionary force has been raised to cult-like status. Defence
doctrine has been shifted significantly with little scrutiny.
Where defence chiefs once envisaged a nimble, "knowledge-based"
force for the new century, using intelligence and communications to
make up for limited numbers and firepower, now there is talk of a
"hardened" force able to take part in high-intensity battle of a
kind we are unlikely to see in our region, outside perhaps in
Korea.
This profligacy is coming at a time when "block obsolescence" has
put heavy demands on the defence budget, not to mention the
billion-dollar fiasco of the navy's helicopters. Spending on
capital equipment for the defence forces over the next 10 years is
already slated at $54 billion, assuming no major overruns or hidden
costs. In addition, Canberra recently announced a $10
billion plan to raise two new army battalions, one of them an
armoured unit, at a time when the forces are struggling to maintain
their present modest strength of 52,000 and just before a
demographic shift will reduce the traditional recruiting pool of
17- to 20-year-olds. Despite past claims by government ministers
that geography no longer matters, policy reviews still endorse the
longstanding, bipartisan agreement that the defence priority is
Australia and its immediate region. The Abrams tanks don't fit into
this, and seem destined for white elephant status.
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