Intelligence must prevail on patrol boats

EVERY so often when he tires of such mundane matters as the increasing man-eating crocodile threat, far-north Queensland’s political pundit Bob Katter turns his mind to defence. As turns go, it’s not very consequential mind you, more of an intellectual wobble in his determination to remind all Australians of his and his family’s crucial role in the nation’s military history.

Never mind Bob’s recollection of events compared with the official records of his service part company on several crucial points, it takes little encouragement to coax him to speak of his exploits. He is after all the 49th Bn - his and his father’s regiment – official historian, a claim which was news to the battalion elders when they first heard it.

You’ve all heard the story, 18 years old, on standby to fight the Indonesians, an SLR, two full magazines of ammunition, dog tags and telephone numbers of two next of kin. That he didn’t reluctantly join the Queensland University Regiment until some years later, a training unit exempt from deploying people anywhere is mere distraction.

Nor was Australia then “at war” with Indonesia or anyone else for that matter.

Katter trained at QUR to be an infantry platoon commander, though there is no record to show he actually commanded a platoon.

In a recent letter to The Bulletin’s sister publication, The Cairns Post, Katter called for the federal government to commit to building “patrol boats with missile capacity” to serve from an upgraded Cairns Port.

“To have expended $4bn on a dozen patrol boats whose total armaments is one machine gun,” thundered Katter in a classic non sequitur, “… My platoon had 30 men, six machine guns and 26 semiautomatic rifles!”

Really?

Every then infantryman irrespective of rank understood a fullstrength rifle platoon had 33 men, three machine guns, 30 self-loading rifles plus close-range support weapons.

“Intelligence must at some stage prevail and serious missile platforms will be built,” Katter continued.

Intelligence must prevail but patrol boats, as their name suggests, are intelligence gathering platforms not combat multipliers, with or without missiles.

If they had missiles, for what purpose, type and how many?

The boats’ limited range from Cairns would ensure hostile forces could penetrate within effective range of their own weapons before any surviving boats could respond.

Close in defence would then be the responsibility of the multiple resources of Katter’s Kloncurry Karabineers.

Bob save all of us.