"Ian Godfrey" wrote in message
...
i think the whole missile defence thing is a crock

theres not the slightest bit of evidence it'd work

Except of course for the times that they have done it.



besides

seems like its something you need to rely on much better intelligence to
see
know when/where a missile might actually be launched to get your assets in
place to shoot it down.

I see you've not heard of Radar.

and where your assets must be depends on the asset itself and what phase you
intend to go for the kill in.



the money wasted on this white elephant would be better spent on either
something like a couple of airbus multirole tanker transports to support
our
strategic strike force of f111s or a couple of recon sattelites to get
some
independent sattelite capability


Yes, a great idea we can pour money into a force that has never had to
strike anything and is a money sponge, that, at best might bomb missile
silos after the missiles have launched or a sattelite capability so we can
watch the launch, but not stop it.

I'm yet to be convinced that either approach is productive.

besides

we've got our own nuclear reactor, and soon to get a new one.

ANSTO, the australian nuclear science and technology organisation employs
about 150 scientists. they dont build bombs, but they DO do research into
the nuclear bomb designs of foriegn countries.

We have a network of seismic stations around australia that monitor the
global test ban treaty.

Any bombs that go off anywhere around the world register on those stations
equipment. - Our scientists at ANSTO learn a great deal about the bombs
design, yeild etc from those signatures.

we could easily (from a technical/engineering) point of view go nuclear if
we so desired. - politically however we might find it difficult
internationally.

Lesson is if anyone drops a bomb on us, and we know who it is, we could
sure
as hell drop a couple back - quite easily.

and im sure that we could "out produce" some of these threshold states.

Unless it occurred to them to nuke Lucas Heights (with the added bonus of
getting Holsworthy free)...



and we've got the nuclear capable plane to do it.
the f111

Or Amberley.


point is however ....

you need the range
and intelligence

multirole tanker
(dont expect the yanks to lend us one if we we gonna use it on a nuke
mission because someone exploded a bomb in sydney harbour)
sattelite imagery
(dont expect them or anyone else to provide us with up to date intel
either)



missile defence is an absolute waste of taxpayer monies imho



its a typically ammerhicun approach of trying to solve a problem, without
bothering to remove the problem in the first intance.


Your "solution" gives us an ability to strike back 6 months to a year after
we are struck, if our sattelite detected the launch, if they didn't nuke
ANSTO, if they didn't nuke Amberley and if they are prepared to wait until
we develop and test a nuke and if they don't have a moderately effective air
defence system that they can use to bring down a 40 year old design.

Hmmmm. waiter on second thoughts, I'll have a double portion of that BMD
thanks....