WI Australia bombed Jakarta with F-111 during the East Timor Crisis?

[Mimihitam]

WI Australia bombed Jakarta with F-111 during the East Timor Crisis?

Inspired by this article (published in 2001): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...as-set-to-bomb-Jakarta-in-Timor-conflict.html

 

[Cryhavoc101]

WI Australia bombed Jakarta with F-111 during the East Timor Crisis?

Inspired by this article (published in 2001): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...as-set-to-bomb-Jakarta-in-Timor-conflict.html

If the Indonisian forces - principly their submarine (s? I beleive they had 2) had activily opposed the 'ANZAC' intervention then I think it would have been an appropriate response.

I would not be suprised if the Indonisians had not been 'warned' of the impplications of any action on their part - but as it was the Aussies found the Indonisian submarine operating in the region and let the Indonisians know that they had found it.

 

[comrade cat]

I genuinely think that it was quite implausible that Indonesian military will openly confront INTERFET forces at that time. Any Indonesian military top brass with half a brain will realize that there was no way Indonesia could stand Australian retaliation as the military at that time was totally in shambles, perhaps even more than the economy as the United States imposed arms embargo to Indonesian from 1999 to 2006.

Indonesian military has done many things that people could considered as evil, but believe me, they're not stupid or crazy.

EDIT: that being said, I still find the idea of East Timor crisis escalated into F-111s bombed Jakarta to be very interesting (in the Chinese sense, of course)

Let say that some top brass was crazy enough to pull an attack on one of INTERFET's troop ship and Australia really retaliated by bombing Jakarta.

Welp, the most obvious immediate effect would be into the economy. Open conflict with Australia will certainly worsen the already in shambles economy. Even if Australia only targeted military infrastructures, the conflict will make the whole thing even more unstable.

The political effect, I'm not quite sure about it. Indonesia was at its early staged of democratic reform at this point, after almost 32 years of autocratic rule by Suharto. As Indonesians generally were, and are very nationalistic, Bombing of Jakarta could whipped the population into nationalist frenzy and undone the democratization process, basically killing it on its crib......or it could discredited the old regime even further as the populace could see that the remains of the old regime dragged them into a pointless conflict (I say pointless because there's no way Indonesia would win in this one, so no "victory to distract the populace") instead of attempting to feed them.

 

[sdgottsch]

The Australian F-111s would not bomb a city. They were very accurate bombers and would have been used instead to attack facilities like cutting military airfields or bombing military storage areas that were supporting the Indonesian invasion. Please note, they would have done this IF the Indonesians would have done something militarily to the Australian Forces.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The Australian F-111s would not bomb a city. They were very accurate bombers and would have been used instead to attack facilities like cutting military airfields or bombing military storage areas that were supporting the Indonesian invasion. Please note, they would have done this IF the Indonesians would have done something militarily to the Australian Forces.

They were not intent on bombing the city itself but a main Military HQ facility based in the city or its fringes

 

[Riain]

If the RAAF gets involved in combat operations around Timor then the TNI-AF and TNI-N will cease to exist, destroyed by the F111s, Hornets and the RAN. I'd suggest this would cause Aceh and West Papua rebellions to flare up without Indonesia being able to respond with superior force, particularly West Papua where Australian forces in East Timor and PNG will isolate the theatre.

 

[markus meecham]

The Australian F-111s would not bomb a city. They were very accurate bombers and would have been used instead to attack facilities like cutting military airfields or bombing military storage areas that were supporting the Indonesian invasion. Please note, they would have done this IF the Indonesians would have done something militarily to the Australian Forces.

but malfunctions happen a lot, imagine if a short circuit made one of the missiles hit a school or something?
(just to make things interesting in the chinese sense)

 

[Riain]

but malfunctions happen a lot, imagine if a short circuit made one of the missiles hit a school or something?
(just to make things interesting in the chinese sense)

F111s bombing targets deep in Indonesia would be because of an acknowledged hot war where Indonesian forces would be fighting Australian forces wherever they could engage them, rather than a big bully beating a few defenseless tribesmen. In such a situation, where Australian troops were dying in battle, few people would give a shit about the odd bomb that misses a military target and hits a school, everybody would know the RAAF wasn't aiming for the school.

 

[Fred the Great]

It wouldn’t be happening in isolation. The US supported INTERFET, the Brits and others were active participants. And I doubt the F-111s would have gone after targets in Java straight up. More likely targets much close to East Timor / Timor Leste.

 

[comrade cat]

This would've set Australian-Indonesian relations back years. We haven't exactly been on the best of terms, but Australian aircraft bombing the Indonesian capital would be a extreme escalation of what was supposed to be a minor conflict.

Had they actually gone through with this and killed Indonesian civilians, there would be a great deal of resentment against Australia among the Indonesian people. The government would've probably cut diplomatic ties with Australia which would've hampered Australian influence in the region. it would've also hurt our attempts at maintaining a stronger border, since Indonesia is the starting point for asylum seekers who want to come to Australia by boat. If our relations were cold, Indonesia would probably let the asylum seekers go to Australia as a middle finger to the country that bombed it's capital during a minor conflict against terrorists in East Timor.

I think it's quite clear that Australia won't bomb Jakarta out of the blue. The purpose of the F-111s being bombed-out, as stated in the news, is deterrence, so Indonesian military won't do anything funny to INTERFET forces during their initial phase of landing in East Timor. IOTL, Indonesian military saw the writing on the wall and backed down after that show of force.

The question is, what if they didn't back down and attack on INTERFET ships were actually attempted? (regardless on how unlikely it was)

 

[destiple]

What was the AAW capability of the indonesian fleet ?

 

[Riain]

What was the AAW capability of the indonesian fleet ?

Minimal to non-existent.

In 2002, the closest Janes I have to 99, the most powerful ships in the TNI fleet were 6 ex Dutch Leander class frigates with a pair of quad Sea Cat launchers. 4 smaller frigates had SSM and 16 ex East German corvettes had SA7s for self defence. This would be woefully inadequate against F111s and Hornets with dumb bombs, let alone stand-off guided weapons.

 

[Spens1]

Some kind of political crisis with Howard being removed faster than you can say coup d'etat most likely.

If we had bombed a city in retaliation, their would be huge resentment against Australia (and rightfully so), i think people here would be wondering what on earth is going on. We've never really been in the business of bombing cities and civilians (at least not at that point), especially at that stage so it would be a huge shock and departure for us to suddenly do that it would send huge shockwaves across the country. I'd say even within the coalition you'd have massive disagreements with the move, let alone what Labor would be up to.

Relations would be super cold, in fact i wouldn't be surprised if Indonesia tried to do something out of spite. The asylum seeker issue becomes a much bigger issue as you won't have any agreements between the two countries to help stop the flow of refugees and asylum seekers.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Minimal to non-existent.

In 2002, the closest Janes I have to 99, the most powerful ships in the TNI fleet were 6 ex Dutch Leander class frigates with a pair of quad Sea Cat launchers. 4 smaller frigates had SSM and 16 ex East German corvettes had SA7s for self defence. This would be woefully inadequate against F111s and Hornets with dumb bombs, let alone stand-off guided weapons.

Our submariners would be returning to port flying the Jolly Roger.

I drafted a TL whereby the USN presence (USS Kitty Hawk IIRC) wasn't provided due to an impeachment of President Clinton with a number of errors leading to conflict localised around East Timor in 1999.

Should really dust it off and finish it one day.

 

[Riain]

Some kind of political crisis with Howard being removed faster than you can say coup d'etat most likely.

If we had bombed a city in retaliation, their would be huge resentment against Australia (and rightfully so), i think people here would be wondering what on earth is going on. We've never really been in the business of bombing cities and civilians (at least not at that point), especially at that stage so it would be a huge shock and departure for us to suddenly do that it would send huge shockwaves across the country. I'd say even within the coalition you'd have massive disagreements with the move, let alone what Labor would be up to.

Relations would be super cold, in fact i wouldn't be surprised if Indonesia tried to do something out of spite. The asylum seeker issue becomes a much bigger issue as you won't have any agreements between the two countries to help stop the flow of refugees and asylum seekers.

The RAAF wouldn't be carpet bombing residential suburbs, it isn't WW2 or even Vietnam.

They'd be precision bombing strategic targets, perhaps the power station which supplies electricity to the TNI HQ or whatever.

 

[Spens1]

The RAAF wouldn't be carpet bombing residential suburbs, it isn't WW2 or even Vietnam.

They'd be precision bombing strategic targets, perhaps the power station which supplies electricity to the TNI HQ or whatever.

in that case even that would be unprecedented.

 

[Riain]

in that case even tahat would be unprecedented.

Australia and Indonesia getting into a shooting war is unprecedented, F111s conducting precision strikes on strategic targets is virtually cliche.

 

[Pangur]

The RAAF wouldn't be carpet bombing residential suburbs, it isn't WW2 or even Vietnam.

They'd be precision bombing strategic targets, perhaps the power station which supplies electricity to the TNI HQ or whatever.

Very much so. The F111`s were ready to go, exactly where is the question. Attack ships don't think so, that's the job of our subs, naval ports; yeah thats very likely. Command and Control, thats a given. There is zero gain in dropping bombs at random and our defense forces are not dumb

 

[Spens1]

Australia and Indonesia getting into a shooting war is unprecedented, F111s conducting precision strikes on strategic targets is virtually cliche.

It still would be the first time in a long time that we, on our own have gone into a conventional war, especially one we would be escalating. If we're going after strategic targets though it would probably be a lot better received, however the Indonesians will probably still hate our guts.

 

[Fred the Great]

It still would be the first time in a long time that we, on our own have gone into a conventional war, especially one we would be escalating. If we're going after strategic targets though it would probably be a lot better received, however the Indonesians will probably still hate our guts.

Goodness me. It’s basically ASB to say we would have gone into a war on our own. As I said above, INTERFET was an international operation. The Brits were there and the US was providing support. Australia would have acted in self-defence or in response to severe provocation and other nations would have joined in or at least supported our action.