by Quentin Cockburn

I am thoroughly sick of this business about Jap subs.

Allright then, they’re not regarded highly in this country and I suppose that has a lot to do with the first time they tried subs in Sydney harbour.

Australia’s Midget Submarine

Midget subs, manned by dwarves. Useless, and yet they persist with this federal Government in the hope, (probably proven) that we’ve forgotten about Commander Iwaki, and Lieutenant Ito.

But what irks me more profoundly is that we still become ensnared in lengthy, costly and prohibitively time consuming contracts with overseas suppliers (our glorious allies) to get the very worst result for defence, taxpayers and border security.

Shall I mention them?

Alright, the Collins Class, Dud. The F1-11 Dud. The Stealth Fighter, unproven and expensive Dud. The Navy helicopters that never flew, Dud.  The U.S auxiliary ships riddled with rust, Duds. We never learn. And if you want to go back in time there’s the Brewster Buffallos’, (Duds) and the Beaufort’s (Dangerous Duds). In short we are crap at defence, when we buy off the shelf, unproven and expensive material we don’t need with prohibitive spares and maintenance costs.

It’s time we consulted the ledger of history rather than leave it to the same dolts, (Army, Navy and Air force procurement teams) who seem more interested in junkets than providing what we need, and what is proven.

The Japs have failed at submarines. Their effort in Sydney pathetic.  They are no good with nomenclature either. Why on earth would you have aircraft with such prosaically quaint names, as ‘Oscar, Emily, Mavis, Nell, Kate, and Tony’. No wonder they flopped with the ‘Cedric.’ The only one I can think of that worked was the ‘Zero’, not many Zeros around these days either.

So give the Japs the flick, go to them for suicide planes, torture devices and public transport infrastructure, they have proven expertise there.

Where else would you go other than Germany for Submarines. U boats came closer than any other weapon in bringing us to our knees.  They were readily mass produced, feature prominently in ‘Das Boot’, and have funky insignia, brilliant uniforms and use such words, as ‘verdammt, teuffel, Englander and Torpedo Los’!.  We could at the very least get the Williamstown shipyard to produce, not twelve or eight, but several hundred type seven’s and larger 1X’s at half the cost of one Collins.  They could be on constant patrol and employ wolf pack tactics in pursuit of our major threat, boats teeming with refugees and asylum seekers.

Similarly I would rebuild Kittyhawks, Spitfires and Lancaster’s for air defence, and re- equip the army with the proven Lee Enfield and Bren Gun Carriers.  They say the next war is always fought in the strategy of the previous war.  Should’ve learnt from Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, The Somme.  Its axiomatic, If you want to get ahead in war, know your history.   Big ticket items will send you broke.  How useful was our very own Dreadnought (HMAS Australia) in defending us in the First World War?  Nought.

What we need is a proven strategy of cost effective equipment and mass production at affordable prices. What cost? Military intelligence. Sorry that’s an oxymoron.