Blue and Gold
 

America had it's Blue and Gold crews for the boomers to keep'em at sea. Now the Aussie's take it a step farther with Blue and Gold SUBS!

No disrespect to my Aussie submarine friends, but what's up with the brass?


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...0-2702,00.html

Its a bloody mess..

Half the problem is that the subs are mainly based out of Perth, WA. sure there is a nice bonus for joining subs, but the navy can't compete with the mining sector in terms of wages and conditions!! Anyone who's looking for a job and has an electrical / engineering degree is getting picked up by the mines further up the WA coast.

the additional problems of having to be away from home is an issue, as is the fact every bloody schoolteacher in the country is telling kids that war is always bad and anyone who is involved in any way are going straight to hell... theres simply noone filling the gaps.

And Kruddy wants to grow the navy.... i'd love to know how. its more of his hot-air BS

Ater seeing the documentary on the collins class sub a couple of year back I can see why this has happened, when a wife was told on her wedding day by the captain that he would be away from her for over 3/4 of the year, you can see the choice.

Be paid well to live in a steel tube with 40 others for months on a end, or

Be paid more for a job where you can see the wife on a more regular basis, and the kids don't see you as a stranger!:-?

They really should have had two crews for each boat, it would have ment the boats could have been at sea for longer, and the crews under less stress.:roll:

Yup and KRudd carrying on about an Asian arms race is NOT going to encourage more people to join the forces either.

Come get paid less for worse conditions and have an increased possiblity of getting killed whilst doing your job. Not what I'd call a good marketing pitch.:nope:

Only sufficient numbers to crew 1/3 of the fleet :hmm:

Simple solution.....up the wage structure....your certainly not talking in numbers like millionns.

My bloodpressure shot through the roof after reading that article in the Oz. :damn: :damn: :damn: :damn:

Can we start paying these guys what they are worth please? :roll: Otherwise we are going to have half a dozen expensive white elephants. :down:

I feel like my hard earned tax dollars have been used to finance a few floating museums. :x

Precisely.....up the coin of the realm or cut down on the number of units :know:

Since we spent so much bleedin money building them ourselves and dealing with all the problems afterwards I would choose the first option. Just pay our sailers better and offer stronger incentives so that the only time our Collins class subs are in drydock is for repair/rest/re-fit.

There is a nice fat surplus in the budget waiting for the "future". :hmm:

One wonders when the future will come?

I don;t advocate spending it all, but I'm also not paying tax to have a bunch of cash sitting around not doing anything when the country has a number of problems that could be solved by spending some of it.

But we can't spend the surplus, that would mean baaaaad economic management...

I must admit, my initial reaction to upping the pay was not a good one - a submariner who goes to sea will bring home around 120k.

But then i thought hang on.. that same submariner could go to the mines and drive a truck, see the family and have leave for 90k.

up the pay!!!!:up:

Upping the pay may help, but giving them better conditions and more family time would atract more to the subs and keep more in the service. The Army and Airforce don't have they same problem, as the end of most days work you can go home. A little hard on a ship that is at sea!

Is it possible to train Kangaroos to drive these boats....:hmm:

The problem is. they have long tails which tend to get jammed in the watertight hatches :p

I'd hate to see what happens to a Roo when it crosses the equator for the first time. ;)