Woman in Military Combat Roles

Greg Sheridan is 100% right. When I see women playing first grade Rugby in any number is when I'll believe they should be in Army combat roles. They just don't have the physical strength. Its a attempt to weaken our military.

Saying standards will be maintained and only woman who meet those standards will be accepted is nonsense. If that happens only a very small percentage will make the grade and you can bet for political reasons those standards will be lowered. Also it will be interesting to see how many women will injure themselves trying to keep up with the men.

The army is pitched at the average Australian male. The idea is in time of war you can drag an ordinary bloke out of the pub and make a solider out of him. The average woman is just not as strong as the average man. End of story.

Women have no place in combat

• BY:GREG SHERIDAN, FOREIGN EDITOR 
• From:The Australian 
• September 29, 2011 12:00AM 
 

A NATION that sends its women into front-line combat, into close infantry, hand-to-hand fighting and killing, is a nation that either doesn't take combat seriously or doesn't take respect for women seriously. This wretched decision to make all combat roles in the Australian military available to women moves Australia closer to both outcomes. It will make our military less effective, and less respected, and it will make women less respected as well.

It is a decision born of a postmodern fantasy, a kind of derangement of nature contrived by ideology against reason, common sense, military professionalism and all human experience. It is almost certainly a sign that the Gillard government has more or less stopped taking defence seriously.......

It gets worse

The ADFA  sex webcam scandal is bringing out even more disturbing allegations. Now its allegations of rape and cover up:

On Thursday, new claims of rape and sexual misconduct at the college came to light.
A former divisional officer who worked at the academy in 2006 says he quickly left because of the culture of covering up misbehaviour and misconduct.
"I had a cadet in my actual division who was actually stalking and harassing another first-year female," Mark told AAP on Thursday.
"He blatantly lied to me and my divisional sergeant.
"I asked for action to be taken against him in the way of formal charges; they wouldn't do it."
A woman in Brisbane said her niece was raped while training at the academy.
"She was told by her commanding officer to suck it up," the woman told ABC radio in Brisbane on Thursday.
"The defence force did absolutely nothing."

Now lets be clear, these are allegations not proven facts. But if I was the Minister I would want a full independent investigation of the ADFA. I find it hard to believe that the web cam scandal is some one off. I suspect a misogynist culture that  turns a blind eye to such activities.

Unexceptable

It is utterly unacceptable that cadets would humiliate a fellow cadet this way. In a few years time they will be  officers  literally making life and death decisions . They have to be man and women of the highest integrity  and honor. The cadet who set up the webcam should be thrown out of the academy pronto. The others who were watching the video should be severely disciplined. And she was told to apologise!? For what?  I think the ADFA may need a new Commandant.

The woman at the centre of a Defence sex scandal reportedly was told to apologise to her fellow cadets after she went public with her story.

The 18-year-old student at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) unknowingly was filmed by webcam while having sex with another student.

Six other students were watching on in an adjacent room.

Following a meeting on Tuesday with senior staff, including ADFA head Commandant Bruce Kafer, the woman was told she would have to apologise for embarrassing fellow students at the elite academy by going public, Network Ten reported.

Obama achieves Reagan's dream

Back in the 1980's  one of President Reagan's great hopes was for the USA and the Soviet Union to jointly build a missile defense shield. Well, it looks like it may finally happen thanks to President Obama:

LISBON - Russia agreed Saturday to cooperate with NATO on building a U.S.-planned anti-missile network in Europe as part of what was described as a new era in security relations between the former Cold War enemies.

The accord, announced at a NATO summit in Lisbon, symbolized a conclusion by the United States and its main European allies that Russia is not a threat to be protected from but a potential ally in girding the continent against possible ballistic missile attacks from Iran or elsewhere.

I hope he follows the Gipper more often.

Nukes for Defense

The Rudd Labor government has a complete ban on nuclear energy for Australia. However concerns over global warming has increased support for the nuclear option. After all nuclear energy is the only emission free method of producing base load power. Tony Abbott believes its an option we need to seriuosly consider. Peter Cosgrove has come out in support and so has Labor Party stalwart Bob Carr. Yet there is another reason to support nuclear power – defense.

Now I'm not considering nuclear weapons here. The only time that would be an option would be if there was a nuclear arms race in the region and we should all pray that never happens. My concern is nuclear propulsion for the navy, especially for our submarines.

Our six Collins class subs are classified as guided-missile submarines (SSG) most other conventional submarines are hunter-killer (SSK). Most SSK patrol close to their bases or at most 1000 nautical miles away. .Our boats are required to operate at greater distances, To reach the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Japan the Collins boats need to travel over 4500 nautical miles. Therefore they are considerably bigger then other conventional submarines and uniquely designed for our usage. That brings its own problems. It makes them more expensive and less reliable then a more common design would be. Importantly they never did meet their original design specifications. They were originally specified with a submerged transit speed of 16 knots over 10,000 nautical miles. That was reduced to 10 knots over 9000 nautical miles as the technology just wasn't available. The lower transit speed reduces the time they can spend on patrol by nearly half.

The government is now considering a replacement for the Collins subs. One option is an improved version of the current Collins boats but they would still have the speed limitations issues. That's why an increase to twelve subs has been proposed. Considering we have enough difficulty finding crews for six subs how we would crew twelve remains an unanswered question. Another option is to improve their performance by adopting new technology such as high temperature superconductor motors and Li-ion batteries. Again that raises concerns over their ultimate cost and reliability.

None of these problems would arise if we had nuclear subs based on proven designs. They would have all the range and speed we would require.. A local nuclear power industry would make maintaining nuclear subs easier but its not really required. For one thing there is no direct link between civilian reactors and submarine reactors . Their design is very different with subs using highly enriched fuel. Also refueling is not a requirement as modern submarines need to be only fueled once for their 20 year plus service life. The maintenance and operation issues could be addressed by requesting US help until we train our own people. That's what the UK did that when they constructed their nuclear fleet. However the government ban on things nuclear means nuclear subs can not be considered.

Labor's ban on nuclear reactors not only reduces our options to reduce CO2 emissions it also reduces our options to properly defend our nation.

Readers are referred to Vital Sign by Abraham Gubler in Defense Technology International April 2008 for more information regarding the current non nuclear options.