, seven of Australia's Seasprites were built between 1963 and 1965.
The remaining four were constructed between 1985 and 1986.
The original $667 million contract with Kaman, signed in 1997, .called for the supply of 11 helicopters. The one-off project involved fitting a wholly new avionics package designed for the Royal Australian Navy into a 1960s airframe3.Other people scrap metal,My treasure bought at gold price
The US Navy phased out Seasprites, nicknamed "Seapigs" by their American crews, in the early 1990s (Note:Aussie contract sign in 1997!!)and the last of them stopped flying with a US naval reserve unit in 2000.Oh I just know Aussie, like SG,
Seasprites, nicknamed "Seapigs"to be chopped.Aussie tax payer now kiss the A$1,000,000,000 or $1 billion away,even the project is 6 years behind schedule.
was riddled with "deep-seated and continuing corruption".
Tibet got army meh? they actually only got a navy with two submarines.Originally posted by bigmouthjoe:What about the Tibetian army? I would love more info on them..
Er..... Isn't Tibet... annexed by China?Originally posted by bigmouthjoe:What about the Tibetian army? I would love more info on them..
Ah that is the interesting part... see so much mystery surrounding the tibetian army. I would love for you experts to shed some light on the mysterious tibetian army!Originally posted by sgdiehard:Tibet got army meh? they actually only got a navy with two submarines.
running down our fighting personal will not justify the delays and extra dollars on your projects. Flatter yourself as you like about your "world class fighting personal", but on learning to fight, we learn from the israelis and the american. We only need the oz land for practice, and nothing else.Originally posted by digger:Wow ! lionnoisy you've been giving us a bit of a kicking lately on this forum,(some of it justified), there has, however, been circumstances behind the projects that has caused delays and of course dollars.
At the end of the day I guess you could say that we have lousy pen-pushers but world class fighting personal, whilst Singapore has exactly the opposite problem.......
Maybe you guys can teach us how to keep books better and we can teach you how to fight ?
Nine Seasprites have been provisionally handed over to the navy but the fleet has been grounded for nearly a year after a series of software engineering and airworthiness issues.
Defence estimates the Seasprites will not be fully operational until 2010 at the earliest, six years later.2.Full story
--http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21431201-31477,00.html
US maker warns battle on if Seasprites junked
* Patrick Walters, National security editor
* March 23, 2007
THE US maker of the navy's troubled Seasprite helicopters has warned the Howard Government of a lengthy legal battle should the $1billion program be scrapped.
In a letter sent last week to Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, Kaman Corporation's chief executive defended the company's performance on the long-running contract and urged the Government to allow the Seasprites to become operational.
Nine Seasprites have been provisionally handed over to the navy but the fleet has been grounded for nearly a year after a series of software engineering and airworthiness issues.
The twin-engine SH-2G(A) Super Seasprites, equipped with Penguin anti-ship missiles, are designed to operate from the navy's Anzac-class frigates, providing a maritime strike and surveillance capability for the surface fleet.
Defence estimates the Seasprites will not be fully operational until 2010 at the earliest, six years late. Cabinet's national security committee will consider a Defence submission recommending the Seasprite contract with Kaman be terminated. Senior defence sources say the legal implications of junking the Seaprites have been the key factor delaying a final decision on the fate of the aircraft.
In his letter to Dr Nelson, Kaman boss Paul Kuhn urged the minister to complete the program, saying a fully mission-capable aircraft would be available in the second quarter of this year and that air certification was the only major work left.
"The cost and time required to bring the aircraft to the point that the commonwealth believes is needed for certification purposes is $US37.7million ($47 million) and up to 29 months, which is substantially less than the cost and time that would be involved in pursuing a different aircraft, none of which have the complete mission capability of the Seasprite," Mr Kuhn said.
Cancellation would mean an arbitration process "which promises to be lengthy and provide much opportunity to keep the Seasprite program in the public eye, will uphold the reputation of the SH-2G and Kaman's contract position (resulting in a substantial damage award to Kaman) while also exposing weaknesses in the commonwealth's defence-procurement system," he wrote.
Xue Rengui (Chinese: ѦÈʹó pinyin:Xu¨¥ R¨¦ngu¨¬; Wade-Giles: Hs¨¹eh Jengui, 614-683), also known as Xue Li (ѦÀñ), was one of the most famous Chinese general during the early Tang Dynasty. He was born in Longmen (�úÃÅ, now under the Yuncheng, Shanxi jurisdiction) and was excellent at horse riding and archery.
End of Zhenguan(Õê¹Û), Xue joined the army and participated in the battles between Tang and Koguryo(¸ß¾äÀö). In the battle in Anxi City against Koguryo (located in the south of Haicheng City in Liaoning Province). The retreating Tang under Taizong were trapped by the Koguryo troops that were familiar wih their country's environment and outnumbered the Tang, Xue arrived with reinforcements; he wore white and fought bravely to push the Koguryo back. After the slaying of a few of the Koguryo commanders, the Koguryo troops surrendered. It is recorded that the general dressed in white caught Taizong's attention, whom ask his deputies who is this young general, and they give him the reply, "It is Xue Renqui." After the victory, he was appreciated by Taizong (Ì«×Ú) and soon rose to the rank of Youji General (Óλ÷½«¾ü). Although the first war against Koguryo was a losing cause for the Tang, Xue distinquished himself in the war that would allow him to take revenge years later under the banner of Gaozong.
After the death of Taizong, Gaozong decide to ally with Silla to launch another attack against Koguryo, Xue Renqui have distinquished himself in battles against the Western Turks prior to the last battle and joined the war this time as a garrison commander. He quickly distinquished himself by pushing his army all the way to Pyeongyang, with few losses throughout the years. Against Xue, even the elite soldiers of Koguryo found themselves challenged. During one of the battles against Koguryo, it is stated a general of Koguryo have boosted to have more than a hundred Tang soldiers, Xue angered by this fact, lead his cavalry into the enemy's camp, and upon seeing the general, rushed into him and captured him alive. After Koguryo was destroyed, Gaozong felt that the Korean peninsula was pacified, and sent Xue to fight the Khitans.
Xue spent most of his later years fighting against the Tibetans and Uyghurs, who were rising in power. He was dismissed at one point since many of his fellow generals envious of his deeds, were also opposed to the fact he was not of noble birth (and had no family members in the Yang imperial court) makes him lose the chance to stop the early Tibetian advance in central Asia and the rebellion in Silla raged on the Tang. Folklore states that upon the fact Xue did not participate in the battles against Silla, the Tang troops lose hope and began to desert, the Silla troops took advantage of it and begin to advance. When Gaozong knew this, it was too late and the Silla were pushing into the border, he again asked Xue for help and once he is in the post, the Silla troops dared not to cross into Manchuria where his forces were garrisoned. Xue Renqui is reputed to be the general that guide Tang to its peak of power.
He also appears famously as a hero in Chinese folklore in which he is the father of the fictional general Xue Dingshan and the father-in-law of the Turkic princess Fan Lihua. The story of Xue Dingshan and his wife Fan Lihua is often used as a subject for Chinese opera. Because of his campaigns in Korea against both Koguryo and Silla, he was referred as the "The General who Pacified the East" for the Tang. It is ironic, since Xue's fictional son is referred as the "The General who Pacified the West" for the Tang because of his fictional campaigns against the Turks, however, the campaigns against the Turks should also be attributed to the latter Xue. In the folklore, Xue Rengui was known to have a massive appetite in which he was thought to be possess by the "hungry god." The legend of Xue Dingshan and Fan Lihua takes place between the Tang and the fictional Turkic kingdom of Western Liang, ironically there was a real Western Liang during the Sixteen Kingdoms period that was thought to be the ancestors of the Tang.
THE Navy's $1 billion Seasprite helicopters appeared headed for the scrapyard last night, with senior ministers expected to endorse a defence recommendation that the program be terminated.--http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21466209-31477,00.html
Cabinet's national security committee met to decide the fate of the helicopters and to determine Australia's future troop commitment to Afghanistan.
Legal issues surrounding the Seasprite program are a potential headache for the Government, with the helicopter's US manufacturer, Kaman, threatening a lengthy court battle should the $1billion contract be terminated.
"There has been a profound loss of confidence by the customer in the contractor," one senior government source told The Australian.
One of Australia's leading defence experts, Desmond Ball of the ANU, last night made a strong attack on the Government's handling of long-term defence planning......
Dr Ball said the defence force structure was being distorted, and its integrity undermined, by poor decision-making and questionable equipment purchases. Dr Ball said military equipment was being bought that had not been adequately justified in internal defence planning or public information.
"They cannot be afforded, except at the expense of more vital requirements," he said.
Delivering the ANU Blake Dawson Waldron lecture at the Australian War Memorial, Dr Ball said there was a real risk Australia would be caught short in some critical systems.
He said political factors had intruded to "unprecedented and ultimately damaging extents".
Tibet is situated between the two ancient civilizations of China and India, but the tangled mountain ranges the Tibetan Plateau and the towering Himalayas serve to distance it from both. The Tibetan language is a member of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Tibetan history is characterized by a special dedication to the Buddhist religion, both in the eyes of its own people as well as for the Mongol and Manchu peoples. Tibet is nicknamed "the roof of the world" or "the land of snows".So Tibet actually had an army...
Tibetans are thought to have originated as a nomadic people on the steppe. Chinese and "proto-Tibeto-Burman" may have split sometime before 4000 BC, when the Chinese began growing millet in the Yellow River valley while the Tibeto-Burmans remained nomads. Tibet split from Burman around AD 500.[1][2] Racially, Tibetans can be divided into brachycephalic, or round headed (historically peasants), and dolichocephalic, or long headed (historically nomadic or noble). This suggests a nomadic conquest in the distant, unrecorded past.
Prehistoric Iron Age hill forts and burial complexes have recently been found on the Chang Tang plateau but the remoteness of the location is hampering archaeological research. The initial identification of this culture is as the Zhang Zhung culture which is described in ancient Tibetan texts and is known as the original culture of the Bön religion.
A series of emperors ruled Tibet from the 7th to the 11th century. At times Tibetan rule extended as far south as Bengal and as far north as Mongolia.
The Chinese Communist government led by Mao Zedong which came to power in October lost little time in asserting its claim to Tibet. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of Chamdo, crushing resistance from the ill-equipped Tibetan army. In 1951, Chinese representatives in Beijing presented Tibetan representatives with a Seventeen Point Agreement which affirms China's sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later.[54]
The Chinese government at first attempt to reform Tibet's social or religious system in Ü-Tsang. Eastern Kham and Amdo were incorporated in the provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai respectively. Western Kham was put under the Chamdo Military Committee. In these areas, land reform was implemented. This involved communist agitators designating "landlords" — sometimes arbitrarily chosen — for public humiliation in "struggle sessions."
The Chinese built highways that reached first Lhasa then later to the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani borders. The traditional Tibetan aristocracy and government remained in place and were subsidized by the Chinese government. During the 1950s, however, Chinese rule grew more oppressive with respect to the lamas, who saw that their social and political power would eventually be broken by Communist rule. Prior to 1959, Tibet's land was worked by serfs which represented a majority of the Tibetans.
By the mid-1950s there was unrest in eastern Kham and Amdo, where land reform had been implemented in full. These rebellions eventually spread into western Kham and Ü-Tsang. In 1959 (at the time of the Great Leap Forward in China), the Chinese authorities treated the Dalai Lama, by now an adult, with open impiety. In some parts of the country Chinese Communists tried to establish rural communes, as was happening in the whole of China. These events triggered riots in Lhasa, and then a full-scale rebellion occurred.
The Tibetan resistance movement began with isolated resistance to PRC control in the late 1950s. Initially there was considerable success and with CIA support and aid much of southern Tibet fell into rebel hands, but in 1959 with the occupation of Lhasa resistance forces withdrew into Nepal. Operations continued from the semi-independent Kingdom of Mustang with a force of 2000 rebels, many of them trained at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, USA. In 1969, on the eve of Kissinger's overtures to China, support was withdrawn and the Nepalese government dismantled the operation. See [10].
The rebellion in Lhasa was soon crushed, and the Dalai Lama fled to India, although resistance continued in other parts of the country for several years. Although he remained a virtual prisoner, the Chinese set the Panchen Lama as a figurehead in Lhasa, claiming that he headed the legitimate Government of Tibet in the absence of the Dalai Lama, the traditional head of the Tibetan government. In 1965, the area that had been under the control of the Dalai Lama's government from the 1910s to 1959 (Ü-Tsang and western Kham) was set up as an autonomous region, the Tibet Autonomous Region or TAR. Autonomy provided that head of government would be an ethnic Tibetan; however, de facto power in the TAR is held by the general secretary of the Communist Party, who, as of 2006, has always been a Han Chinese from outside of Tibet. The role of ethnic Tibetans in the higher levels of the TAR Communist Party remains somewhat limited, despite the success of Tibetan cadres such as Raidi and Pasang.