Blueprint for the New Zealand Armed Forces

It's 2017 and the New Zealand armed services keep shrinking. Will they cease to exist in my lifetime? Possibly, it's a sad state of affairs.

The reason things are in such a bad way goes to leadership. It's down to poor leadership from the people who run the country. There is no-one who can say, hand on heart, that they did their best.

The way I look at defence is like this: New Zealand has built something worth protecting, it's rich in natural resources and is a fully developed country (for the most part), all completed in less than two hundred years. The country is valuable, so look after it.

It's scary to think that one missile cruiser parked off the New Zealand coast would own the place. New Zealand has nothing to deter such a threat. Heck, ISIL or whatever they're called could load up three or four cruise ships and invade. They'd likely succeed. That's even scarier.

If you want farce and a sign pointing to just how feeble NZ is, consider when their frigate tried pulling over an illegal fishing boat in the southern ocean. It refused to comply and the frigate had to run away. I presume the fishing boat had more fire power than the frigate. Unbelievable.

If we look at comparable forces, NZ lags behind. Norway, for instance, has a similar population and standard of living as NZ and they take their military seriously. Norway is a useful benchmark; they have a long coastline, are located in a polar region, and have a large area of ocean to defend with abundant natural resources.

The following is a suggested structure for New Zealand, doing away with unnecessary parts of the force but ramping up those areas that are in dire need of enhancement.

Step 1: do away with Navy, Army and Air Force as separate services and merge everything into one force along the lines of the US Marine Corps. NZ pays lip service to the idea, so actually do it. Get rid of all those different uniforms and ranks, keep it simple.

Currently, NZ rotates the top job through the three branches. Stop that nonsense, have one top person in charge and let them keep that job until replaced by someone better or they retire. Think continuity and a clear direction.

Step 2: Reconfigure bases now everything is merged together.

Close down

Devonport
Whenuapai
Linton
Trentham
Woodbourne
Burnham

Retain

Ohakea
Waiouru - use it for exercises only, de-escalate as a base
Lake Tekapo
Other facilities not mentioned, or relocate and modernise

Build

A large base on the Kaipara harbour around where the United States set up during the Second World War (if not viable; then Opononi or Manukau, in any case west coast Northland or Auckland, not east coast). Think along the lines of Camp Pendleton. The Kaipara Harbour is shallow and plagued by tricky sandbars so difficult for an enemy to penetrate (dredge the channels). Devonport naval base is located on the Waitemata Harbour, a deep water port on the east coast and easily accessed for commercial shipping. Any student of history will know the east coast was mined during the Second World War and a ship was sunk (RMS Niagara). Why would NZ have its warships in that harbour or along the east coast?

The Kaipara base would also replace Whenuapai and the North Island army bases apart from Waiouru which would be used for exercises, rather like Salisbury plain.

The Marlborough Sounds should also be utilised more effectively (see below). You'll notice I'm putting things along the west coast of NZ, out to the Tasman Sea. There's a reason for this, any aggressor at least has to enter the Tasman to be effective. Why make things easy for the enemy?

Then build a base up around Niue, or Tonga, well into the Pacific.

Like this:

Devonport ➨                                                                          

Whenuapai ➨                                          

Linton ➨     

Trentham ➨                                          

Woodbourne ➨                                          

Burnham ➨                                        

All these merge into ➽

Pacific Islands base

Kaipara main base all-in-one

Waiouru exercise area

Ohakea air base and land forces

Marlborough Sounds subs and mine warfare

Lake Tekapo exercise area

Town depots/yards, reserves muster

Many of the town depots and facilities are now unsuitable. Take the Christchurch city base HMNZS Pegasus. Look at the US and how they operate reserves, often they base these facilities in light industrial areas with a small office, yard and warehouse. They look like a rental or hire pool. NZ could do much the same and save money overall.

Step 3: Build a proper Navy

New Zealand consists of many islands in the South Pacific. It's territory is vast and claims one of the largest areas of ocean in the world. Most just think of the North and South Islands. But New Zealand extends north to the Tokelau, Cook and Niue Islands, east out to the Chatham Islands, then south down to Antarctica. A big area in other words, which NZ defends with two frigates, a RORO vessel and two offshore patrol vessels. That's pretty much it, and they struggle with that. If you want to laugh you can, but I'm not trying to be funny.

Norway by comparison has seventy, that's 7-0- sea going warships of various configurations, but from a NZ perspective note their five heavy frigates, ice breaker and six submarines. They take mine warfare seriously too.

But wait, Norway is richer. That's right, NZ's GDP is 36% that of Norway, which means NZ should have about 25 warships. Think about it, that sounds about right.

Therefore:

Scrap or Sell

The two Anzac class frigates (now ageing and never equipped with Harpoon - see below)
The RORO
Oiler (old)

Build

2 amphibious warfare ships, utilising helicopters and landing craft, able to conduct opposed landings within the Pacific and able to operate in large swells.
4 frigates
4 submarines
4 corvettes (escorts)
2 oilers
1 dive, mine warfare
1 ice breaker, disaster relief, scientific

Retain

2 offshore patrol
4 inshore patrol
1 dive, mine warfare

Total = 25

Deployed these would form two mini groups, thus each mini group configures:

1 amphibious
2 frigates
2 submarines
1 oiler
2 escort corvettes

As a group the amphibious ship is the heart and in the middle. These ships would be around 20,000 tonnes.

The frigates protect and they must be close to being destroyers, like Norway. The subs prowl, observe and protect while the escort corvettes form the outer patrol.

Some may remember a NZ Minister of Defence in the 1990's by the name of Doug Kidd, suggesting submarines. He must have had a rare moment of clarity. Subs project power far out of proportion to their size and manning levels. Subs mean New Zealand can be unseen, observe without being observed, slip special forces ashore, and be a threat to any enemy. For some odd reason Doug Kidd was shouted down, subs seem to trigger alarm amongst the loose limbed liberals, but in reality they're brilliant and should be taken seriously, Japan's Soryu class submarine is an excellent example.

Base these submarines in the Marlborough Sounds. From there they can slip out into the Tasman or through Cook Strait and into the South Pacific.

The balance, being dive and mine warfare operate where required.

Form a coast guard division within the all-in-one service; they then operate the offshore patrol vessels, inshore patrol, and the ice breaker/scientific vessel. They would also do fisheries protection.

Step 4: Get some force into the air

This is pretty simple, go high and be able to hit. Currently NZ has no, literally no high flying and fast air strike.

The closing down of NZ's Skyhawk air strike capability was the biggest cock-up ever perpetrated on NZ's defences. It never ceases to amaze me how often I hear people talk about this, like it was a sensible decision given the planes were old. They weren't supersonic. Oh no.

Well get a grip NZ. All air combat is conducted at subsonic speeds and to secure your own airspace all you need is a capable aircraft like the Skyhawk. It posed enough of a deterrent to make anyone contemplating something, to think again. Now, there is nothing keeping NZ's airspace safe.

Back in 2005 a nutter got the idea to threaten to fly his plane into the Skytower in Auckland. No means existed to prevent him then and none exists now. The guy got airborne but chickened out, righto, and NZ seems to accept that hoping someone will chicken out is an effective defence strategy.

Scrap

P-3 Orions
C-130 Hercules
Boeing 757's

Add

Drones - for search, patrol and combat. Also invest in drone swarm attack. This is where 10 or so drones simultaneously attack a ship, overwhelming its defences in doing so. The cost of these sort of disposable drones is less than the cost of sea skimming missiles that are often less effective.
Modern airlift - 12 units of modern C-130 Hercules or similar. Consider airlift at least in part which can fly to Antarctica and back without a point of no return (the C-130 is limited by range); this means procuring at least two C-17 Globemasters if they can be found.
Additional helicopters - 16 combat types for the amphibious vessels (8 on each), plus a further 8 larger helicopters such as the Chinook (enough helicopters exist in service right now to make up the balance).
Modern passenger aircraft less than 10 years old, the current 757's break down all the time.

The thinking here is NZ needs to have some strike capability, the drones can do that, they're also more effective in the search role, being able to see through cloud and to operate at night, spending much longer over any area being looked at. Then add more air lift and combat helicopters to cover the new vessels.

Step 5: Land forces to be amphibious

The land forces should be up to brigade strength and able to operate alone. That is, fully self-contained, not having to ask the Australians or anyone else for help. More to the point, NZ should be able to keep a brigade in the field for months at a time. That means they need twice the number of personnel they have now. Then when those numbers are up, any equipment they use must be suitable for amphibious operations. Currently - not really. They can't wade ashore very easily at all.

Step 6: Use missiles too

If it's a missile get interested in it. Missiles are brilliant. New Zealand hasn't embraced Harpoon. Well, wise up NZ, and join the 21st century. Together with the use of drones, an effective air force could be quite easily obtained.

******

There you have it. What I've suggested isn't cheap. Security never is. The only time you don't regret spending the money is right after a failed burglary when they caught the bad guys. Defence of NZ would be no different, just dig deep and take a long breath. That is of course, unless NZ prefers being a lapdog to someone else. My guess is New Zealanders don't like the idea of being someone's lapdog, but I could be wrong. I prefer to think Kiwis were just lead by stupid people. Kiwis themselves are not stupid. At least I don't think so.

The way I see this force operating is like this; with the large base in Northland, it becomes cheaper to operate and helps develop that depressed province. And with a base farther up into the Pacific islands, NZ can react to anything going on up there, whether disaster relief or helping against insurgency or civil unrest.

The two mini naval groups operate in rotation. One in port and one at sea at any one time. And my hierarchy is Sea > Air > Land in that order. New Zealand is surrounded by ocean and sea power comes first, followed closely by air power.

With the decline in NZ's military, young people have drifted away and they're just not interested in joining the forces any longer. Provide the right structure, do things that are meaningful, and they'll get energised again and join up. Train them and think about post military life. The US has the GI Bill. NZ needs to look at that and see what they can do similarly. But note, the young are not stupid, they see ads on the TV with people jumping out of planes and they know that right now, it's all bullshit.

( Where I say build, NZ does the job or a large part of it, where I say add these are acquired or NZ provides a minor part of the build; does everything need to be brand new? Not necessarily if good secondhand is available).

Edit to add: This week (8-14 Jan 2017) Stuff reported Japanese reports that NZ is shopping for new aircraft: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88301398/defence-force-denies-it-has-started-negotiations-with-japan-over-aircraft-order

NZ deny of course, but who would you believe? Oh that's right, the Japanese are to be believed. It looks like NZ favours the Kawasaki P-1 and C-2. Fair enough, they share parts, but I still maintain drones like the MQ-9 Reaper make more sense than a P-1 or P-8. But heh, the fly boys have to have something to get airborne with, that'd be driving their thinking. The C-2 on the other hand is pretty good, read about it here.

Further edit to add (13 July 2018): NZ is buying the P-8. Four units, they're proven functional and there is interoperability with Australia. So fair enough, go with that (you can detect the 'my god they're buying something' reaction). Drones are a little problematic at the moment so I'm told, but the US Navy is working on a Naval example, suitable for naval conditions. Pays to keep looking at that carefully I suggest. The C-2 transporter does not work on unimproved airstrips. True, but the obvious here is that NZ buys both the C-130 and C-2. The C-130 as the utility, the C-2 to replace the 757's, also for flights to Antarctica as it has no point of no return and works well in snow and ice, and it can fit the NH90 helicopters NZ uses. It's not an either/or situation.