Aussie sailors are taking their Hols.....

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RF
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Location: Wolverhampton, ENGLAND

Aussie sailors are taking their Hols.....

Post by RF »

A law firm in Britain has identified what it claims is the longest Christmas break given to employees.

It claims that the Australian Navy has granted leave of some eight weeks to all its sailors so that they can be with their famillies over the end of year period, to make the service more ''family friendly.''
The report also claims that the strongeest criticism of this has come from Australians, not least for asking why they have a ''part time defence force'' and what if the country was invaded as a result......
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
USS ALASKA
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Re: Aussie sailors are taking their Hols.....

Post by USS ALASKA »

This was brought up on another board before the holidays.

http://news.smh.com.au/national/navy-ch ... -69a7.html .

A poster from Oz wrote...

"Nope. The RAN is broken.

When I joined in '79 it was about 21,000 strong with an A/S CVL, 3 DDG used as small cruisers, 6 A/S frigates, 2 old-style DD for NGS, 6 SS, a minehunter flotilla and two flotillas of patrol craft. The old helo carrier was being replaced by a small amphib. Its optempo was fairly low, separation rate about 5%.

Now it's 3 small amphibs 12 frigates, 6 SS (of which only 2 can be manned IIRC), half a minehunter flotilla (half is in reserve) and 2 flotillas of PC. And it's got about 11,000 people, of whom 2,500 are trainees, separation rate something like 11%. It has had ships on combat-level ops in the Gulf and elsewhere since about 1990.

This has nothing to do with cost saving, it is designed to give a badly undermanned and over-stretched force time to catch its breath, hopefully clear the large number of trainees, and lower that appalling separation rate.

Hope to God it works. I am still extremely fond of the RAN and hate seeing it in this state. The RAN today is what happens with over 20 years of major capability reductions, 'commercialisation', outsourcing, salami slicing of manpower, and to be frank some periods of poor leadership - one reason I transferred to the RAAF in the late 90s. The present RAN leadership is excellent, so that one appears to be fixed.

This drastic action is needed, and it shows that the current leadership is not afraid to grasp the nettle. That is very good news."
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