The Military Thread

When two meme procurement programs collide:

Breaking Defense: South Koreans offer Aussies new subs in 7 years to close Collins gap.

CANBERRA: At a large dinner here attended by its ambassador and a host of senior acquisition officials, South Korea made clear its eagerness to deepen defense ties with Australia, making the bold offer of building advanced conventional attack submarines in “seven years from signature to delivery.”

The reason South Korea is making this play is simple: Australia may face a capability gap if its Collins class submarines can’t operate until the first Australia-made nuclear attack submarines deploy. The Collins are now expected to sail safely until 2030 or so, but few experts believe Australia can get its first nuclear-powered attack boat into the water until closer to 2040. The Albanese government plans to announce by March whether Australia will use US or British nuclear sub designs as the centerpiece of the AUKUS agreement, and when these would hit the water.

It’s reasonable to expect that the government will also decide by then whether Australia will need an interim capability.

South Korea is already deep into a campaign here to win the first contract for as many as 450 Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicles for the Australian Army. South Korean defense giant Hanwha is widely viewed as having the best chance to win the big contract instead of Germany’s Rheinmetal. In addition, Hanwha Defense Australia plans to manufacture 30 self-propelled howitzers and 15 armored ammunition resupply vehicles at the Avalon Airport in Victoria, Australia, where the biennial air show is held, in a new 32,000 square meter center. The company netted the $1 billion AUD ($700 million US) in December and started work on the new facility earlier this year.

But, as conversations at the Thursday dinner with the Korean ambassador, Jeong-sik Kang, and several senior Korean defense officials made crystal clear, each program in and of itself is less important to the Koreans than building a broader and deeper defense relationship with Australia.

They came armed with glossy brochures, big submarine tie clips, much of the embassy’s defense staff and a host of Korean company officials. Over three-and-a-half hours, nine speakers discussed the Redback offer, last week’s first flight of the supersonic and sort of fifth-generation KF-21 fighter, the sub, a Low Earth Orbit national communications system, and even passenger trains that Korea is selling Australia.

To receive the Korean officials were more an estimated 20 Australian defense officials; William Paterson, a former Australian ambassador to Korea; and, for effect, several defense journalists. Before sitting down to dinner, a Korean civilian defense official was eager to show Breaking Defense a table with two models of Korea’s proposed KSS-III, billed as the world’s largest and quietest conventionally powered attack submarine, as well as the first Air Independent Propulsion-powered sub that can handle SLB Ms, or submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The Koreans were almost ebullient in their presentation during the dinner, referring to the large lithium battery that powers the AIP system. The 3,700 ton boat’s cruise range grows because of the combination of the advanced diesel engines used for long-distance cruising and AIP, as illustrated in the chart below. The Koreans also said the sub boasts comfortable quarters in a deliberate attempt to boost crew morale and effectiveness. That could be a selling point for Australia, which has had issues attracting enough submariners to man their boats at times, so this may be aimed at allaying those concerns.

But despite the enthusiastic pitch, the consensus of three Koreans and two Australians involved with defense procurement at the dinner was that before Australia accepts any bids from South Korea, Australia must decide if there is a capability gap, how long it will be and whether, most importantly, Australia can afford to build and support a nuclear submarine enterprise at the same time.

Your daily dose of HIMARS shitposting.

A production rate of 9000 missiles per year is kind of unimpressive, though. With 12 missiles per attack it would only suffice for 2 attacks per day.

*12

They don't need to send the entire pack on one target. That's the entire point of GMLRS, they individually seek their programmed targets. They scalpel, not spam.

Really just depends how destroyed something needs to be.

Chieftain reviews the tank scenes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Saving Private Ryan, Fury, Fast & Furious 6, GoldenEye, Batman Begins, Courage Under Fire and Kelly's Heroes:

The Polish government officially aaid that they are signing a contract for buying K-2 tanks, K-9 self-propelled howitzers, and FA-50 light jets.

The Polish defence agency said that as part of phase 1 of the plan, they will buy 180 K2 tanks and for phase 2, they will locally produce more than 800 K2-PL tanks.

Also, Poland will buy 48 FA-50 light fighters, 12 of which will be delivered next year. Additionally, 48 K-9 self-propelled howitzers will be imported as part of phase 1, and some of them will arrive this year, to fill the gap caused by sending gear to Ukraine.

I would also recommend the Israeli miniseries Valley of Tears, which is one of the only works I've seen that depicts relatively modern tank combat (the Yom Kippur War of 1973) instead of the classic World War II setting.

Given what tanks are used even today, it is probably can be called “modern “. But really, 1973 is much closer to WWII then to 2022.

Probably worth mentioning that the gunsight depicted in that clip (1:15) seems to be the simplified reticle of the M32 battlesight on the M60 Patton (Magach 6), rather than the old-timey graticule^* Couldn't find a picture, but here's a similar reticle◊ from a WWII-era Comet tank. of the No. 30 gunsight on the Centurion (Sho't Kal). The four horizontal lines around the crosshair make out the rough size of a target tank at the range the sight is set at, and Israeli doctrine put emphasis on getting off the first shot quickly in order to land the first hit. So rather than taking their time with the stereoscopic rangefinder, Israeli M60 gunners (not sure about the Centurion) were ordered to set their battlesights at 1,200 metres and use the reticle as a visual reference — e.g. if the target tank were half the height of the reticle, then it's roughly 2,000 metres away and they should aim at the top of the silhouette, while the target being larger than the reticle would mean that it's close up and they should aim low.

Later, in the Gulf War, USMC M60A1 RISE crews (who lacked the modern optics and digital fire control of their colleagues in the M1A1 and M60A3 TTS) would employ the same battlesight shooting drill against Iraqi tanks.

The Taiwanese Air Force posted some rare photos of its hardened underground hangars from the ongoing Han Kuang exercises. Not sure why the maintenance crews seem to be wearing bicycle helmets rather than proper hard hats, but hey, if it works.

Because a construction helmet is more for if you get something dropped on you rather than if you whack your head on something or fall.

Yeah, those helmets look fine for what they're doing. Anything that might fall on them is either light enough to bounce off the helmet or heavy enough to flatten them along with any hard hat.

Also in my experience, construction helmets tend to not have chinstraps and rely more on a headstrap inside the liner. I would presume that if struck by falling debris, the Taiwanese bicycle helmets won't immediately fall off like a hardhat would.

Here's another clip from Valley of Tears:

I'm not sure whether it's actually historically accurate, but we should have a war movie trope for "if there's a tank battle, the protagonists will command while exposed unbuttoned, while the faceless enemy tank commanders will be buttomed up."

I've noticed this in everything from Fury, Kelly's Heroes, Patton, and Saving Private Ryan. Curiously, the Russian T-34 is aversion and both the Soviet heroes and the German villains fight while buttomed inside their tanks instead of outside.

That seems like a tank version of HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic.

Edited by Risa123 on Jul 27th 2022 at 5:23:19 PM

Have to see the hero's face.

They can show it inside, like the rest of the crew. More likely they don't want to show enemies' faces. And also want to show the hero as especially brave. Not that it works very well, as given the first reason, we never see any other commander die because they are riding unbuttoned. At least in tank combat stories. Tank-less action heroes use their opponent unbuttoned state frequently.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Jul 27th 2022 at 7:26:20 PM

Agree on brave part it looks cool.

What I find it funny is exactly how the Chieftain explained in his Fury rating segment about why Western Tank Commanders fight heads out while the Soviet block fight heads in.

Outright doctrine, for the Western tankers, the commander is an extra set of eyes that needs as much visibility as possible, in order to prevent the tank being hit by something they can't see from inside the tank.

Meanwhile the Soviet doctrine has the commander stay inside the tank to keep it protected from artillery, shell fragments and snipers. This comes at the cost of outright missing something that would be a threat to the tank.

Even in the current fight in Ukraine you see most of the commanders inside the tanks, even when they are using older models without CITV with thermals or NG Vs, despite being a fairly good idea, since you can actually see outside.

On the topic of helmets as a side note, for anyone who doesn't know, it's worth remembering Helmets aren't interchangeable due to being meant to protect against specific things, and that remains true for Military gear, which can actually bug you a lot if you watch the early GI Joe cartoon since they basically just put on the Infantry helmets Joe Greenshirts/Clutch/Steeler/Grunt wear when flying Skystrikers (Based off the F-14 Tomcat) around. Isn't until pilot-specialized Joes like Slipstream, Lift-Ticket or Ace show up that they give them proper headwear. Course, around that same time they do show up, the show starts observing Helmets Are Hardly Heroic for the other Joes flying planes or helicopters when they're going somewhere. Cobra's just as bad for it as well.

Edited by Pendrake on Jul 27th 2022 at 7:47:10 AM

The two main flavors of helmet are ballistic helmets and bump helmets. Ballistic helmets are pretty self explanatory, they're rated to resist fragmentation and some small arms fire. Bump helmets are more or less the same thing as a bicycle or rock climbing helmet, they're designed to protect you from a knock on the head. Ballistic helmets used to be extremely heavy, so sometimes troops would be issued bump helmets to mount night vision and communications equipment on for use while driving, with the added bonus of head protection in the event of a rollover. These days ballistic helmets are light enough to make that a non-issue.

The only other major variation in helmet design would be vehicle crewman/aviator helmets. Vehicle crewman helmets are ballistic helmets, but they generally have a cut that covers more of the head and more recent ones will have built in noise cancelling and stuff like that. Aviator's helmets are well known enough that I won't go into detail. Generally speaking though, helmets are specialized based on the role of the person wearing it rather than a specific threat profile, unlike body armor which has multiple variations such as stab-resistant armor.

True, but even with "Bump on the head" helmets, you still need to wear the proper one for your activity. A Hockey Helmet and a Bike Helmet for instance are meant for different speeds of impact.

I’m not sure that comparison has any relevance here, especially considering bike helmets and hockey helmets are essentially the same technology when you get down to it. Obviously helmets are specialized by activity, but in the military (or in sports, for that matter) they all protect against the same thing. There aren’t different helmets for different threats because there’s really just one main threat on the battlefield, which is something very small moving towards you very fast.

There are other specialized types of helmets too, to include helmets designed for work around power lines (less emphasis on impact protection, more emphasis on preventing a live wire from making contact with your wetware).

It has been far too long since I was my unit's AFOSH rep for me to be sure, but I think the reason construction helmets usually lack chinstraps is because if something falls and bashes your helmet, having the helmet get knocked loose as it falls past you is considered safer than having the helmet drag you along by the chinstrap. Construction work, unlike ground combat, involves relatively little crawling around, crouching behind cover, or combat rolls so there is less concern of the helmet falling off by accident.

I know that motorbike helmets are only good for a single impact, are military helmets the same? Obviously they’re only good for a single case of being shot, but I’m talking bump/crash impacts.

its generally a good idea to replace any protective system after one incident of it functioning, since even if it visually remains in tact the structural integrity could be compromised.

Same as "take helmet off, place over grenade" which is So P for the whole "leaping on a Grenade bit (as it increases the chances of the Leap-ee actually surviving).

Obviously, regardless of the shape it ends up as, that Helmet needs to be replaced.