Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee has signaled he wants to sell two of New Zealand’s four Inshore Patrol Vessels (IPVs), brought into service only seven years ago.
According to Brownlee, the inshore boats aren’t seeing enough service partly because they are not so good at handling the rough seas further out in our EEZ.
By contrast the two Offshore Patrol Vessels have been useful on missions ranging from the southern ocean to the Pacific Islands, commonly on fisheries protection duties.
It is hard to tell if Mr Brownlee is right about the IPVs. We need a review to find out how well the different state agencies, together, are meeting New Zealand’s maritime protection needs. The Defence Force works closely with the Police, Conservation, Customs (on its contraband and biosecurity mandates) and the Ministry of Primary Industries (on its fisheries mandate). Police, MPI and Customs also have their own vessels.
A key question is how well the fishing in our EEZ is being monitored. The Air Force Orions have the capacity to keep track of ships across the EEZ, assisted in this task by satellite imagery and the fishing vessels carrying GPS transponders. New Zealand fisheries officers are also present on some fishing vessels. So, do we have enough maritime capacity to check those suspected of breaching fishing rules? And following on from that question, are our Navy IPVs optimised for this task? If they are not, should we get rid of some of IPVs, as our Defence Minister has suggested?
No New Zealander wants the government to waste money on unnecessary naval capacity, but in that respect the first assets to get rid of are the navy’s two frigates. They are designed for combat operations in a larger (American-led) task force. The problem is that America is increasing its naval projection into the western Pacific, supposedly to counter China’s growing influence. It is not in New Zealand’s interests to be part of this. China might be America’s main adversary in the Pacific, but she is our main trading partner. New Zealand is better placed to be a peacemaker, not a warmaker, in our region.
The two frigates are hugely expensive to maintain. The 2014/15 budget to maintain Te Kaha and Te Mana was $337 million. Add to that a big chunk of a separate $474 million general budget item for the “generation of Navy capabilities”.
And then there is the huge amounts spent on upgrades, to keep up with the US, British, Canadian and Australian navies. The frigates are soon to be sent to Canada, one at a time, for a weapons systems upgrade costing $440 million. Basically, the frigates are getting new missiles and torpedos and all the electronic guidance systems to go with them.
Such equipment is taxpayers’ money down the drain unless you envisage New Zealand participating in another Asian war alongside America.
I wish New Zealanders would pay more attention to this. It is all very well to debate whether we should have spent $26 million on a flag referendum. But every year we waste about 15 times as much on running the frigates, and we’ll soon be spending another $440 million on a frigate weapons system upgrade. Does that concern you?
The U.S. Donald Cook was disabled by unarmed Russian jets using zero point energy (explained by M T Keshe of Keshe Foundation).
http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html
What is the point in having frigates?
Change of attitude from aggression to peace would be welcome.
So……why not invest in THE PEOPLE OF NEW ZEALAND.
Ahha, the Donald Cuck – I bet they thought they were in for it a second time when they saw Sukhois heading for them the other week!
Got psyched out lol
I believe they can’t get the command crews to man them.
Quite frankly, fisheries patrol is far more important, to New Zealand as a whole, than playing with Frigates.
dear leader wants to be in the club and we are paying for his ego
As much as I agree that Dear Leader wants to kiss US arse we do actually need a capable defence force.
About those frigates: All of new Zealands wealth is shipped by sea, if we didn’t at least have four frigates that can sail to Singapore, conduct anti piracy missions in contested waters, that means at least two of the four frigates should be fitted with over the horizon (27ks) surface to air missiles and surface attack missiles that can reach out to at least 40ks with the other two frigates fitted for but not with weapons. The two frigates not fitted with weapons should be ice strengthened so we can make runs down to Arctic fishing grounds. You need a big hull that can chase boots around the arctic for 3 months and store an extra months fuel just for fiery time. You can only fit all that in a hull about 3000 tons, so you may as well buy in bulk and get a discount on 4 frigates,
The IPVs and offshore patrol vessels, we should sell them. The IPVs can deploy for 7 days at a time, we allocate over a hundred days of patrol time each so I don’t know why such a high priority was given to the IPVs in terms of hull numbers. The Off shore patrol vessels are ice strengthened which makes them uneconomical to run for long periods of time. The strength a smaller patrol vessels is that they’re easy on the gas. It’s a stupid idea to operate ice strengthened hulls the Pacific Ocean (what was Goeff thinking?)
So scrap the 6 protector hulls for 4 new build off shore patrol vessels that are not ice strengthened. The navy needs a patrol vessel that can stay out for 30 days and it needs a hanger cause helicopters are cool. When you are out for 30 days some times you can’t bring every so it is a nice to have ability to fly out a customs or fisheries officer and increases a vessels visual range massively which is very important with only 4 hulls.
We also have to pair these new hulls with new patrol aircraft seeing as our P3 Orions are up for replacement. We need a patrol aircraft with massive range and a strong radar, only the new P8 fits the bill, it comes with anti submarine warfare capabilities as standard which makes them super expensive. IMO replace our 6 P3 Orion’s with 4 P8’s and 6 cheaper tier 2 patrol aircraft for patrolling the waters around New Zealand so the P8s can do laps around the pacific and artic.
If we don’t have a navel combat ability then the burden of regional defence falls on our Aussie cousins. We have been bludging of the Aussies for the last 30 years. We can’t do anything with out Aussie assistance. New Zealand has to start pulling its weight in therms of retinal defence.
We don’t even need to increase the defence budget to deal with the problems they face. Right now defence is budgeted 3.2 billion (approx) but with Key Running defence like a business he implemented a capital charge which means 40% of defence spending gets raided so defence actually receives 1.4 billion. It is amazing that NZDF has been able to accomplish what they have done since Key took office. He gave then a lot more work while cutting staff numbers and there budget. So scrap the capital charge should be priority number 1.
‘should be ice strengthened so we can make runs down to Arctic fishing grounds’
WTF?
Why would NZ want to send ships to the waters between Canada and Russia?
You’ll have to do better than that boi
I’d probably look at switching out the patrol craft to corvettes at least. The new US Littoral combat ships look like a good fit.
Probably essential but I’d also like to see NZ have decent satellite capability.
We should research, develop and build all of this here in NZ including the satellites and space launch capability. And, yes, we can afford it.
I’m a fan boy of the Ulster Xbow hull design.
In this link https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GJsogw9fHE0
You can see a comparison and how the Xbow design has a much easier ride.
I don’t see the need to develop a space launch capability just for 3 to 6 launches. Space X has the cheapest rockets available. I just don’t think we need to bust our arse on that capability. I would probably spend that money on more helicopters for the navy first. Then some drones, then 3 satalites.
The Navy needs some new duildings and training facilities. I would probably start there as well as an extra 1000 new recruits. Maybe a new pool and marine testing facilities. And some extra pay or benifits or a combination. There is no defence lifestyle any more, its just another job. As an industry defence just can’t compete in a really tight jobs market.
I think it’s safe to say that I disagree with Kieth Locks entire defence outlook. We were meant to improve on our East Timor experience. And since the Indonesians are still up to there same tricks in the same region with west Papua. It’s ridiculous to want to down grade our defence force.
I’m talking over 100 satellites giving coverage over NZ every ten minutes. Also, NZ is well placed for commercial launch of polar orbit satellites.
Then there’s the research and development of other weapons and civilian systems that would benefit having our own launch capability.
Actually, we did – until the company sold out to a US company.
It’s all part and parcel of the R&D that we need to do to develop both our economy and military defence capabilities.
We’ve got over 100k people unemployed. It shouldn’t be that difficult to get some of them into our defence forces.
But you’re right in that it can’t be just another job but a career/lifestyle. One that has meaning and respect for/from the rest of society.
My Christmas wish list would include a combate search and rescue capability, a contested beach capacity, navel air combate force with flat top and early warning aircraft based on the osprey tilt rotar, P8s satalites and drones, C2/ coastal radar system to track ships out to 200ks.
But now Iv just asked the tax payer for 30 billion dollars. The thing is we already spend 3 billion a year in defence so if you spread my wish list over 10/20 years it’s actually achievable. I’m not saying we should purchase F35 lightnings I’m just saying we don’t spend our defence dollars properly. A lot of that is due to politicians and the media leading the public astray and lying about defence issues, actually we all have played a part in the gradual destruction of NZDF
Oh how did I not see this before? We should definitely have Ospreys! But definitely no F35s – in our weather you’d only be able to fly them a couple times a year!
Ospreys are a good bit of kit. I would also pair them off with some C17s and logistics vessel larger than the Cantabury.
Yeah I’m not sold on the F35 either. But if we did get back into the fast jet game then I wouldn’t get anything less than a 5th gen fighter. Knowing us it will be around for 50 years. I’m not sure I would want to be flying around in F16s in 50 years. They would be 80 years old by then
We spend that long building up our own capability of producing the hardware that we need.
We can already design and build our own ships. What we need there is the electronics which we would have to buy initially until we developed our own.
Same goes for fighter jets really and pretty much everything else. The hard part, and the part that we presently don’t have the capability for is the electronics and so we should be developing that in both civilian and military capability.
A fabrication plant can be built for about $3 billion and none of the basic stuff about them is patented or patentable and is well known.
Extraction and processing of the raw materials would probably cost more but worth it in the long run. And again benefits are both military and civilian.
I don’t mind seeing uninformed commentary following uninformed blogs, but it’s somewhat worrying when it’s obvious uninformed decision making is taking place at governmental level.
(1) We are an island nation. Based on this fact alone, it’s imperative we have an efficient navy. As an independent state, we require an efficient, comprehensive, defence force, fullstop/period. Having frigates, doesn’t add to our ability to contribute to a U.S. military action unless we compliantly, complacently, apathetically permit it. They provide us with a statement of our independence.
In the past, the opposite has been true.
We have been persuaded out of our military capability into a condition of dependence. Non-existent threats such as ‘The Yellow Peril’ have been dangled in front of our eyes while the requirements of others, facilitated by our unique geographical location, such as Waihopai, have been slipped in the back door.
Doubly worrying is that out-fitting/upgrading is to take place in Canada and the U.S., which means inferior capability. Why are we paying for that. I know where it’s possible to get far better at half the price.
David what is the ‘efficient’ navy going to do, or fend off. I am in favour of us having good systems for our fisheries end of story. We are a tiny island nation and anyone bigger than us can simply over run us no matter how big our ‘efficient’ navy. What is the actual point of it all, other than as many say being in ‘the club’.
‘only the new P8 fits the bill’
Wrong!
Really? Like what? Magic fucking unicorns?
What concerns me about it is that we’re not doing it ourselves. Being dependent upon weapons systems developed and produced entirely offshore is a recipe for disaster. We simply won’t be able to defend ourselves if the purchase of those weapons systems is in anyway disrupted.
Our present government proves that there are people in governments that are quite happy to attack other countries and so we do need that defensive capability.
In fact, I think we should be increasing spending upon defence.
SAM I assume you mean that we need 2 more frigates?
Yes, actually kind of. 4 new frigate hulls and 4 new corvette hulls. That’s about 700 million for the hulls. Instead of running midlife extensions we sell our current fleet of patrol vessels and frigates to fund new hulls. A hull is half the cost, the other half is weapons and censors. Our ANZACs cost a touch over 500 million, that’s 250mil for the hull and 250 mill for weapons and censors.
With our ANZAC frigates going through weapons and senior upgrade we can pull that new technology through to a new hull. That’s if you really want to penny pinch. The ANZACs have to be replaced by 2025/2030, and the protector fleet is due for midlife extensions by about 2025 so if we begin planing now we can unfuck ourselves instead of pouring money into missions that has no relevance to New Zealand
What is required is to farm the inshore vessels out to Customs and Fisheries, so that they can perform their own functions, then leave the Navy to perform theirs.
Frigates are actually one of the smaller classes of naval vessels and, if I had my way, we wouldn’t have them, because most corvettes, the next class down, these days are made large enough to qualify as frigates in size.
The Russian Steregushchy class, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jC17kC5qUg
Four of those and, after that, a couple of destroyers and a cruiser would form the basis of a solid, small nation naval defence force.
Manning is another matter, but that’s just a reflection of much of the rest of the country and, to amend that, we need something more than an American as a Prime Minister.
There are kids going hungry in a country which has some of the richest growing country in the world. What gives with that?
You’ve got kids running round the street with no sense of mana whatsoever, and the best future they’ve got going for them, apparently, is selling each other ice over the back fence.
When you have a disaffected demographic, what you do is talk to them, find out what the issues are, and resolve them.
You don’t just declare war on them, stick them in prison, and try to out do the U.S. in the cheap prison labour market.
We need some political leadership.
Not something that was turned when he was over there working in the banking industry for years, and will go back there, reserving no more than a holiday home here, when he’s finished the hatchet job.
Why a Destroyer? Or cruiser hull?
IMO 6000 tons is big enough. At 6k you can fit 32 vertical missile launchers, a towed sonar array, a hangar and other weapons and sensors and still have room left over for future capability creep.
What’s your rational behind a three vessel navy weighing approximately 26k tons?
For the same amount of tonnage you could have 4 frigates weighing 6000 tons so we could have one on patrol, one ready to deploy, one training and one in maintenance.
Upgrade the frigates to destroyers and fit them out with Russian S-400s. We’d never need combat air force for homeland defence again – or to play games with America.
I think we really only need CAMMS-ER (Sea cepters older brother) it has a range of ~45ks. That in my opinion is enough. I suppose I should declear my bias towards more hull numbers than hull size.
CAMMS are light enough so we could have smaller but more numerous hulls.
There’s a couple of reasons why I always recommend latest stuff:
1. Usually you get greater range from the same size package. Sometimes even smaller. Check out the S350 mobile launchers on the link to the S500 I mentioned above. The S500 have near space capability and that’s also being rolled out to existing S300s. Kinda critical in war theatres that have ballistic anti-ship missiles. And we need a missile shield for our land itself.
2. The newer tech has far greater capability in range, hit probability and dodging
And no, 45km isn’t actually viable as aircraft can launch missiles from greater than 45km. And those older missiles aren’t going to be taking down modern incoming missiles. Using old tech just doesn’t work which is why I think we need to develop our own. Maintain standards for compatibility while also maintaining our defence forces on the leading edge of military tech
I don’t rate an adversary high on my threat profile that can overwhelm a single RNZN frigate with a 32 cell VLS, or an adversary that New Zealand is willing to declear war against. I’m also not looking for NZDF to take on a larger adversary. All I’m saying is NZ requires an escort capability because all NZs wealth is transmitted by sea.
Here are some reasons why I think we need a minimum two credible frigates or a naval combat force that fits with in our current budget
-America and China are in a pissing contest in our back yard
-it takes 10 years to introduce a new naval combate force, it’s not something you can just cut and buy back latter.
-oil will be a strategic resource for the next 50 years, New Zealand has only one LNG tanker supplying NZ with natural gas, we have to be able to garrentee it’s safety if the U.S and China decide to take pot shots at each other.
-we also need to improve on the lessons learnt from East Timor if we want to support West Papuans in the democratic rights against Indonesia. And we have to be prepared to go that one alone.
The ability to operate with in a coalition navel force that is conducting operations against China rates really low on my list of things to worry about.
Cams-ER is what the surface to air missile the U.K is putting on there ships, which is the older brother to sea ceptor, sea ceptor is replacing our current missiles. So we will always surplus missiles we can buy on the cheap, cheaper than we could ever manufacture.
We shouldn’t be looking to participate in a battle for the pacific but we should at the very least be able to secure our shipping in tbings go hot between the U.S and China.
When I consider defence I consider the most powerful force that could be thrown at us. So, I think about an invasion force of 100,000 troops and supplies escorted by two US carrier battle groups and then think what’s needed to stop that cold 2000km out. The answer is land based missiles and satellite surveillance.
It’s not about declaring war against someone, it’s about who may declare war against us. And recent history shows that even not being a threat to someone may get you invaded.
For the escort duties that you mention then heavy corvettes and frigates are good. But I’d still be looking to put the equivalent of the s350 mobile systems on them. I’d also like these for them as well as a last ditch defence against planes and missiles.
Being able to develop and manufacture our own weapons removes a significant weak point in our defences.
If the US and China do get into a serious pissing contest, and by the looks of things they will, then there’s a high possibility that we won’t be able to secure weapons from anywhere. It could be that we’re simply blockaded or that the US is buying up all the weapons available.
If/when that happens then we need to produce our own to maintain our own defence.
New Zealand is in a great place right now. The only countries with the capabilities and logistics that can launch a succesfull landing on NZ soil with in 5 weeks are Australia, Italy, France, UK, Japan, China, India, Russia, U.S. We can rule Australia and the U.S out. There is no way the Australians will let an invasion past there territory unmolested, we have Aussie subs patrolling our souther reaches so no straight shot there, and America to our east. Any one would be crazy to send and armada around the American Continent. You’d have to spend years and billions building up a force capable of invading NZ to which the UN Security Council will properly respond with sanctions.
For an opposing force to invade New Zealand they would have to fight on two fronts by taking Austrlia and the U.S first because there is no way either will play dead.
That just leaves us Kiwis to look after our end with escort vessels, logistics supply, sea and airial patrols that contribute to regional stability in times of crises such as disaster relief or democratic instability. Showing leadership on climate change would go along way to regional stability. Being a voice of reason in UN Security Council meetings.
With all due respect, in my opinion we do not require a ballistic missile capability to achieve NZs strategic objectives. Any adversary that can neutralise Australia and the U.S on there way to invading NZ would have no problems overwhelming our defences.
Our best defence has and always will be New Zealands reputation at home and abroad. NZDF is a fantastic ambassador in this respect.
In the presently collapsing world I don’t think it’s viable to rely upon allies for our defence. Especially when at least one of those allies has a history of invading other nations for their corporations benefit and we have to change our financial system away from the Ponzi Scheme that it is now.
My position is that with out a conflict spilling over into our region we will be will served by funding defence at 2% GDP sustainably
2% is probably good if we had the capability of producing our own weapons which we don’t.
So that means a push to develop that capability. So up to 3 or 4% of GDP until we have the necessary capability and then dropping down to 2% again and maybe slightly higher to maintain good R&D.
Please don’t get me wrong. At the very least we should be doing all of our maintenance and upgrades on NZ soil, we have that capability now. We should also be producing our own ammunition, there is a lot of fat we have had to trim off defence because of this accrual accounting, capital charges and capital deprecation ie how much real estate can the government flog off.
It takes time and money to develop a work force of skills that can produce military hardware. We barley have enough people power to run our navy. We are also supposed to be able to deploy a battalion, it would take one heck of an imagination to accomplish that with the gear NZDF has.
I know I’v said this a few times now but I just want to emphasis it one more time. With out a credible threat we won’t get the ten year funding cycles you would need. First reason all that fails is because any political party can run a campaign saying they will cut defence spending and they will probably win, knowing how little the average New Zealander knows about defence. The beauty of the Swedes is that they have Russia near there boarder so every one knows what the justification is for defence spending. New Zealanders on the other don’t know what we are fighting for, we hardly even know what a kiwi is any more. Are we egalitarian or are we free marketeers?
There are only two types of boats, submarines and targets.!
Only no more solders = no more war.
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