Defence has announced four contenders for the Australian Army’s LAND 129 Phase 3 program to replace the AAI Shadow 200 tactical UAS in service, with Insitu Pacific, Leidos Australia, Raytheon Australia, and Textron Systems Australia all shortlisted.

The shortlist follows an initial industry survey that was issued to industry in May 2018, and a follow-on Invitation to Respond (ITR) in September 2019. The project will now progress to a Request for Tender (RFT) with submissions due by June 30.

Industry sources suggest the successful tender may be brought forward from an originally planned 2021 as the government seeks spending opportunities with Australian industry during the COVID-19-driven economic downturn.

No details have yet been provided as to what platforms the shortlisted companies are offering, but ADBR understands Insitu is offering the Integrator/RQ-21 Blackjack, Raytheon has reportedly teamed with Schiebel Australia to offer the S-100 Camcopter, and Textron’s bid is believed to be based on the Aerosonde 4.7. Leidos is yet to publicly declare what system it is offering.

The Integrator is a larger version of the familiar ScanEagle which has seen service with the Army and RAN. The Integrator is in service with the US Marine Corp as the RQ-21 and, like ScanEagle, it is launched by catapult and retrieved by a crane-like skyhook.

The S-100 vertical takeoff and land system is now familiar in Australian skies, having been leased by the RAN under Navy Minor Program 1942, and also trialled by Army in recent years.

The Aerosonde 4.7 can trace its roots back to the original Australian-developed Aerosonde UAS, but now has a more powerful engine and larger payload capacity. It is also catapult launched, and is captured by a net-like barrier.

Israeli-firm Aeronautics has recently been advertising its Orbiter 4 system in Australia, although it has not announced a teaming with any local prime.

All three systems use heavy fuels common to those used by Army vehicles and naval vessels, and all are designed to carry various payloads including EO/IR sensors, electronic warfare and signals intelligence payloads, and synthetic aperture radars.

Dear readers

Many thanks for your patience during the delayed production of the Jan-Feb 2020 issue of ADBR. It’s been a massive team effort to get the magazine done while I was off sick for most of February.

Because of the delay and because many of our readers are likely working from home and have had their hard copy sent to their work address, we’ve put the magazine online early this issue.

Please check it out at https://adbr.com.au/digital-magazine-2/ . As always, we value your feedback.

Andrew McLaughlin – MANAGING EDITOR
andrew@adbr.com.au

By Andrew McLaughlin

The evolution of RAAF fast jet training from the F/A-18A/B to the F-35A

This article appeared in the Jan-Feb 2020 issue of ADBR

The RAAF’s fighter pilot and engineering workforce training responsibilities are evolving with the transition of No 2 Operational Conversion Unit (2OCU) from the Boeing F/A-18A/B ‘classic’ Hornet to the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II.

The transition was marked by the final operational Hornet sortie by 2OCU on December 11, when the squadron flew a 10-ship of Hornets around the Newcastle area near its home base of RAAF Williamtown in a ‘2’ formation. Coincidentally, on the same day, 2OCU’s first three F-35As arrived at Williamtown as part of a seven-ship ferry from Luke AFB in Arizona.

The final flight marked the end of a remarkable 35 years of Hornet operations by 2OCU which was the first RAAF F/A-18A/B unit, with the first six pilots having taken delivery of its first two jets in the US in late 1984 before ferrying them both, A21-101 and -102 non-stop from Lemoore in California to Williamtown in May 1985. To this date, that marathon ferry flight, which included 13 air-to-air refuellings, remains the longest non-stop flight by any Hornet of any marque.

Tasked with converting pilots to and upgrading pilot qualifications on the Hornet, 2OCU had trained every RAAF fighter pilot since 1986. The squadron graduated its last group of new Hornet pilots with the return of the graduating class from Exercise High Sierra to RAAF Williamtown on December 4.

“2OCU’s critical role in preparing generations of classic Hornet fighter air crew with the skills and competency to engage in fighter combat has laid the very foundations of RAAF air power capability since the introduction of the platform in 1985,” the former commanding officer (CO) of 2OCU, WGCDR (now GPCAPT) Scott Woodland said in a December 12 statement.

“Operational conversion has been at the cornerstone of the strength of the classic Hornet platform’s contribution – taking graduate Hawk 127 lead-in fighter pilots and testing and challenging them under the most gruelling of conditions and toughest air combat scenarios,” he added. “The result has been the delivery of highly-trained, focused personnel to frontline squadrons, performing with excellence at home and abroad on operations in defence of our national interests.”

The F-35 ferry flight which arrived on December 11 was led by CO 3SQN WGCDR Darren Clare, while the new CO of 2OCU WGCDR Jordan Sander was one of the ferry pilots. The seven jets comprised five aircraft that had been withdrawn from the multi-national F-35A ‘schoolhouse’ run by the USAF’s 61st Fighter Squadron (FS) at Luke AFB in Arizona, and two newly-delivered aircraft.

The seven aircraft flew to Williamtown from Luke via overnight stops at Hickam AFB in Hawaii and Anderson AFB in Guam, and were supported by two RAAF KC-30A MRTTs. The new aircraft joined the six F-35As already in service with 3SQN at Williamtown, bolstering the strength of aircraft to ramp up the all-important Australian-specific validation and verification of the jet’s capabilities towards a projected initial operational capability (IOC) later this year, and to reinforce the in-country pilot and engineering training efforts.

“We welcome the commencement of the next phase of pilot conversion training for the F-35A,” GPCAPT Woodland added. “This represents a fundamental shift for 2OCU; one which we are fully equipped and ready to continue to deliver a superior warfighting capability – supported by highly professional, highly skilled aircrew – performing with strength and focus when called upon by government.”

The Christmas reduced activity period provided 2OCU with an opportunity to bed down its new headquarters within Williamtown’s new secure ‘JSF precinct’, and to give its new members time to post in during the annual posting cycle.

As the RAAF’s newest F-35 squadron, 2OCU conducted its first flight in the aircraft on February 6. Despite its pilots previously training on the aircraft, most of them flying at the 61st Fighter Squadron (FS) at Luke AFB, this was the unit’s first official operational sortie.

The following week, on Thursday 13 February, technical maintenance crews from 2OCU, 3SQN, BAE Systems Australia, Lockheed Martin and Marand at Williamtown conducted the first removal of an F-35A engine by an RAAF unit.

TRAINING SYSTEM

Like their Hornet brethren before them, new pilots converting to the F-35A will continue to come to 2OCU from 76SQN, the unit tasked with developing the RAAF’s fast jet pilots.

After completing basic flying training on the new PC-21 at RAAF East Sale and then qualifying for their ‘wings’ with No2 Flying Training School (2FTS) at Pearce also on the PC-21, those pilots streamed onto fast jets complete a conversion on the recently-upgraded Hawk 127 at 79SQN, also at Pearce.

After converting to the Hawk, pilots remaining in the fast jet stream move to 76SQN at Williamtown to learn combat and weapons tactics on the Hawk 127. Upon graduation from 76SQN, pilots are posted to 2OCU for an operational conversion course on F-35A, or to 1SQN or 6SQN at RAAF Amberley for the F/A-18F Super Hornet or EA-18G Growler respectively.

Previously new pilots completed basic flying training on the piston engined CT-4E at Tamworth before progressing to the PC-9/A, and then the Hawk 127. But with the retirement of the CT-4E and PC-9/A in 2019, the PC-21 offers much higher fidelity and performance pilot training supported by modern synthetic training devices.

Unfortunately, reports indicate ongoing problems with the PC-21 training courseware being supplied by industry through the Project AIR 5428 Pilot Training System, and this has reportedly caused a backlog in training throughput and the need for unspecified “work-arounds”.

But the PC-21 isn’t the only new training platform for new fast jet pilots. Following an extensive upgrade conducted under Project AIR 5438 lead-in fighter capability upgrade (LIFCAP) program by BAE Systems Australia, the RAAF’s 33-strong Hawk 127 fleet have received state-of-the-art avionics, training systems and other upgrades to provide better situational awareness and fidelity to prepare pilots for the F-35A.

These upgrades include three new high fidelity simulators, desktop training devices and simulator mission debriefing systems, all of which are supplied and operated by CAE at Pearce and Williamtown.

Changes to the aircraft itself include new mission computers and operational flight program (OFP), a traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS), mission simulated datalinks including radar, weapons, chaff/flares and radar warning receiver, the ability to carry an ACMI pod, a new IFF system, new joint mission planning system (JMPS), and a comms/audio management unit (CAMU).

During the upgrade, structural upgrades were also conducted on the Hawk to ensure it meets its planned life of type into the early 2030s.

TRAINING OUTPUT

But if we go back to when the Hornet first entered Australian service in 1985, the RAAF was still flying the Macchi as its advanced jet trainer until 2001, nearly half of the Hornet’s service life. The Macchi was designed in the 1950s when 2nd and 3rd generation fighters like the Sabre and Mirage were in service, so it was a massive step to go from the Macchi to the then ultra-modern 4th generation Hornet.

“The data absolutely shows that the graduation rates at 2OCU with Macchi were far lower,” WGCDR Sander told ADBR. “When they turned up to the Hornet from Macchi, they jumped from that ‘steam-driven’ World War II cockpit, which is almost what it was! And then when Hawk came along, all of a sudden the pass rates were much better.

“So it’s clear the success 2OCU has had with the students and the pilots that we’ve been graduating is partly attributable to Hawk,” he added. “When we bought Hawk, the RAAF had a lot of input into designing its pilot interface to make it similar to that of the Hornet. So suddenly they had liquid crystal displays and a head-up display, and that was a big step up from the Macchi.

“But there were also no Hornet simulators back then either,” WGCDR Sander added. “So to step them up to the more advanced aircraft through that basic jet trainer I think was really, really important back then. I think Air Force has left that culture behind now, and I’m sure when Hawk gets to its end, with the quality of simulators and the potential of live virtual constructive training, we might just look at ourselves and ask, ‘What is the future of fast jet pilot training? Do we still need an interim aircraft, or can we go straight to the fighter?’

But WGCDR Sander was quick to defend the Macchi too. “I think the Macchi had enough performance to teach people the BFM (basic fighter manoeuvres) basics,” he said. “If you’re talking visual manoeuvring, I think the Macchi was okay for that, and I don’t think speed was a huge factor because, to me, speed just comes back to time.

“If a student is coming home from a mission to land back at Williamtown, they need to have a list of things and checks done. If you’re going faster, you’ve just got to do it further out, but it’s still the same amount of time to go through that process.”

And even though LIFCAP was only completed in 2019, experience suggests the quality of students coming from 76SQN to 2OCU since they started flying the Hawk LIFCAP is higher still.

“The Hawk can now replicate radar intercepts and it can replicate threat reactions and other things,” Commander Air Combat Group (ACG), AIRCDRE Tim Alsop told ADBR. “Even though it’s all digitally emulated, it doesn’t matter because all you’re trying to do is give someone a certain set of information in a certain context, then work with them to get through decision points and to make sound tactical decisions, and then enact them safely. And if you can do that 50 times before you get to a Hornet course, then you’re already up on the standards.”

“The junior pilot we get out the other end now is so much better than when I went through, as far as being able to go and do the job,” he added. “Even before LIFCAP we proved that with Operation OKRA where we were confident our D-CAT mission-qualified air crew are ready to go into combat, and they performed magnificently. It is great to look back at the way that system evolved and the fact that a lot of very smart people had influence and input into that, and I think they really got the most out of that unit and that process.”

OPCON THROUGH THE HORNET YEARS

What won’t change much between the classic Hornet and the F-35A is the length of time the OPCON takes. With recruitment rates expected to remain constant, and with fighter squadrons limited to the number of bograt pilots they can safely accommodate at one time, the pilot throughput of an F-35-equipped 2OCU will be similar to that of the Hornet.

“What hasn’t changed much is the length of the time that we devote to it,” WGCDR Sander said. “So that will remain at about six months, and I think we’ve got that about right. But because the airplane has changed, the ‘customer’ operational squadrons have had to modify the skillsets they want their graduating pilots to have.

AIRCDRE Alsop pointed out that the OPCON course was always evolving even through the life of the Hornet as new capabilities were added. “I started flying the Hornet in January 1996,” he said. “But even then, the jet was in transition. I started as it was leading on to one of its interim software updates, and the vibe even then was one of great excitement because we were going from, by today’s standards, quite a simple mission system to a real step up in the way the jet worked and the number of functions that the mission computer could complete.

“If we look at the jobs the Hornet does now, it’s 10-fold, and the capability it brings is probably 100-fold what it could do back then,” he added. “This is because smart engineers and smart operators took us down a digital path when we did upgrades – to me, the sum of the parts is so much more than the whole. That’s a cliché I know, but it is so important.

“So it’s the core of that kind of thinking that is exactly what we need to take into F-35. That is about being part of a system that is quite astounding when you put capabilities together and you take the advantages of each of those, and you mitigate the disadvantages of any of them. And so the mindset we’re giving to the OPCON trainees is different. You may not go into the same amount of depth on certain topics, but you don’t need to because you’ve got to cover a lot more.

CATEGORIES

While the RAAF intends to retain its category rating system for fighter pilots, there are indications the qualifications required to attain each of these categories may need to change.

“We are going to maintain D-CAT, C-CAT, B-CAT and even A-CAT, in a way that is not dissimilar,” WGCDR Sander explained. “I think the word picture for a B-CAT is what we call ‘highly proficient’, and where 81WG would call that person a four-ship flight-lead and things like that. A C-CAT would be that person who would be a pass flight lead for D-CAT’s. There will still be an A-CAT for that individual who has had a significant impact on the Wing and on the FEG, and it’s awarded by the Commander.

“That’s a system that, in my mind, is tried and true” AIRCDRE Alsop said. “While the definition of each of those levels is completely up to us, it’s a very effective way for us to not only monitor progression, but also to monitor supervision and the way we grow the junior recruit. It also allows us to actually measure the predicted health of a squadron.”

But with pilots graduating from 76SQN to 2OCU having and requiring different skillsets due to the higher fidelity of training required for the F-35, there will be likely be differences in the competencies required for each Category. “I think academically what we’ll expect our people to know now – things like the RF spectrum – was previously considered B-CAT or even FCI knowledge,” WGCDR Sander said. “Now that knowledge will be almost D-CAT or C-CAT level of knowledge.”

Not only does 2OCU have the responsibility for training the RAAF’s F-35 pilot workforce but, in conjunction with industry contractors, has also taken on the F-35 maintenance training. “This first six months for us is really a chance for us to build our squadron to a point where we can function like a squadron,” WGCDR Sander said. “I’ve got only a third of our maintenance workforce qualified on the F-35 so far, and the other two thirds – about 70 maintenance students – are on a course.”

NEXT GEN OPCON

The F-35 OPCON is still evolving, and 2OCU’s executives are still finalising the courseware and course structure in preparation for the commencement of the first course later this year. To this end, the unit is taking some of the best of what was done with the Hornet, as well as the experience gained flying the F-35 at Luke AFB, as well as other RAAF exchange postings.

“You know, there’s a lot of wisdom in the classic Hornet world,” WGCDR Sander said. “Over 30 years they continuously tweaked and refined things. But the actual layout of the course will be similar: you learn to fly the aircraft in general flying, you then do some flying at night, you then do some formation work, and that’s the end of that phase before you move into air-to-air. And then you go through a visual manoeuvring and BFM phase into intercepts before you move into an air-to-surface phase with a deployment at the end. That is all very similar to Hornet.

“But we’ve got a lot of people who have spent time in the US and saw the way the US did business over there,” he added. “So when it comes to the details, we are going to use some of that. Examples might be in how we grade and things like that, and how much time is spent on the different elements like simulation, which will be a bit of a change from Hornet. You’ll probably see the number of flights go down and the number of sims go up, but we finalised that level of detail yet.”

But while the number of flights might go down, the total amount of time spent in the air will likely be similar. A typical Hornet training sortie is between 60 and 90 minutes, while the F-35 has much greater endurance so this will likely grow to two hours or more.

“The F-35 does hang around longer than a classic Hornet, and at the training unit that’s going to give us opportunities to get more done in a single mission,” WGCDR Sander said. “So while that appears to be an advantage, it raises other issues. If you run a traditional two-wave day of flying where aircraft come back, maintenance is performed, and we go flying again … if you extend the morning and afternoon wave times, you’ve extended the whole day. So we’ll need to consider if we have a maintenance workforce that can actually support that extended level of flying.”

New pilots coming to the F-35A will require similar basic flying skills to those converting to previous fighter types. “I think you still have to be a natural flyer because that gives you the capacity to think tactically,” WGCDR Sander said. “If flying doesn’t come naturally you are thinking about flying the aircraft, not necessarily about the mission.

“The ability to prioritise is also important, because you’re always overloaded,” he added. “There’s always going to be more stuff than what you can do tactically, maybe even domestically when coming to and from the airfield. So now they’re testing down through pilot training to make sure the right people come in the door who can feel safe – so that when they feel like they can’t cope anymore they can revert to the old school ‘aviate, navigate, communicate’ and be safe rather than focus on a tactical problem to the detriment of their safety.

“But what has changed now is (that) previously a lot of the wingman’s capacity was taken up flying in close or tactical formation, or driving a sensor, or both. But the F-35 won’t typically operate in close formation and it presents the air picture using sensors which are mostly automated. That will give the pilot more capacity. In this airplane, you generally know what’s going on which frees you up to be a tactical decision-maker, which is what I think makes the F-35 so potent.”

“So, instead of telling a 4th gen wingman, ‘Don’t go blind, shoot what I tell you to shoot, and if you get shot at, execute your defence,’ we’re now giving them priorities and just letting them execute. It’s now, ‘Priority one today is a dynamic target. If that comes up then we’re going to do this.’ So, your D-CAT wingman is now much more of a thinker.”

SIMULATION

While simulation technology has matured greatly during the Hornet’s service life, like the airframe, it has also taken a generational leap with the F-35. Indeed, with all versions of the F-35 only available as single-seaters, simulation is now an integral part of the conversion process as a pilot’s first flight will be solo.

“We have to rely on simulation a lot more because of the single seat,” AIRCDRE Alsop explained. “The Sabre community managed to make it work, but it was a much simpler aircraft and they could get away with taxiing around with someone sitting on the wing for a little while before they were sent off on their first solo. This is very different.

“But then the whole pilot training system now is different too,” he added. “Any tactical proficiency system now is so much more heavily weighted towards simulation. Even with the PC-21 – by the time a student or a trainee sees a sequence airborne they’ve done it five times in the sim. As a previous instructor, that’s fantastic. You can correct so many misunderstandings and other things on the ground, and then you can really get into the depth when you’re airborne. So it can only be a good thing.”

In comparison to the three classic Hornet HACTS simulators, the RAAF has bought 10 F-35A simulators, six of which have been installed at Williamtown while four will be installed at RAAF Tindal where 75SQN is based.

“For F-35, a lot of the basic skills can be done now in a web-based setting and with an almost Microsoft Flight Simulator-type setup that you can practice a lot of the hands-on throttle and stick integration,” AIRCDRE Alsop said. “You can do that at home, and you can practice it over and over again before you even get in the simulator. That’s something we’ve never been able to do before.

“And you can sit there and it’s like being in the jet, and start playing with the menus,” he added. “It’s incredible the amount of information that you can be presented with and how many options you have to select from for different tasks at different phases of flight. So getting to a point where you’re comfortable doing that before you get to the sim means that you can then concentrate on the actual employment of the aircraft and the aviating, as opposed to the systems operation.”

WGCDR Sander continued, “Simulation is becoming more important about how you do business. In the Hornet we have two cockpits at Williamtown and one at Tindal, and that’s quite limiting as we don’t fly around in sequence. We fly around as two-ships, three-ships, and four-ships. So that’s why Tindal has got four sims, so that they can do formation type training which is really important.

 “So a new challenge for the F-35 OPCON, and how we put it together, is going to be the amount of academics and simulation upfront before they hit the flight line. It could take pilots six to eight weeks to hit the flight line, which is way longer than a first Hornet ride. So because they have that huge simulation phase, we need to work out what we’re doing for that time flying wise. Do we need to do something?

“And if we’re running overlapping transitions or refreshers, do we start the refresher course earlier so when the OPCON is in a phase of academics and heavy simulation, that refresher is in an airborne phase? This also smooths out the demand on the flight line, so we don’t have these big peaks and troughs in when we need to go flying, or simulating.

“So, I think the answer about how much flying and simulating we’ll be doing, I think it’s going to be about 50/50. If you could do two flights a week and two sims a week, that’d be pretty good.”

In the meantime, while 2OCU is no longer producing new Hornet pilots, the jet still has about two years left in RAAF service. Williamtown-based 77SQN is scheduled to retire its Hornets at the end of this year and transition to the F-35A in early 2021, with Tindal’s 75SQN to follow the following year.

Several classic Hornets have already been retired and parked-up at Williamtown, while at least three of a planned 25 jets have been transferred to Canada to bolster the RCAF’s CF-18 Hornet fleet until replaced in the late 2020s. A March 5 media release from Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price stated that “up to 46” Hornets will be sold to US-based training services provider Air USA, although the actual number is believed to be about 38 with the remainder allocated to museums in Australia.

In closing, WGCDR Sander said the first half of 2020 is a rebuilding period for 2OCU. “We’re basically being left alone over this six months to just build a squadron and write the pilot training,” he said. “Then I think we’ll be given some validation and verification (V&V) tasks needed to achieve IOC.

“This could be, ‘Hey, go to Townsville or Amberley. We want to make sure the base knows how to deal with F-35. Do they have the right security forces? Do they know what to do if an F-35 takes the cable?’ Sometimes is not the sexy part of the capability of the airplane, but it’s important to ensure the entire RAAF is ready for F-35.”

By Dougal Robertson 

Surviving the next-generation of Chinese air to air missiles – Part 1 

This article appeared in the Jan-Feb 2020 issue of ADBR

The narrative surrounding the US defense budget in late 2019 and early 2020 has been telling. Service chiefs are demonstrating an open willingness to trade near-term projects for longer-term capability development, in a move that looks set to better prepare the US military for high-end warfighting. 

The cancellation or pausing of programs for airframes designed to fly in uncontested skies came as no surprise for those following the debate around the future role of the US military. The Pentagon is making no secret of its intent to fight an expansive, multi-domain war against a conventional adversary. It needs Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft that can survive against hostile fighter aircraft – and lots of them.  

This re-tooling of US air power has real and significant outcomes for the ADF, in dollars and in tactics, training and procedures (TTPs).  

But how significant is the counter-air threat the US is preparing to deter and defeat? 

Counter stealth 

Internet photographs of the Chinese PLA’s Very Long-Range Air to Air Missile (VLRAAM) first appeared in 2016. Speculation began that the missile – referred to as ‘PL-X’ – might be capable of ranges up to 300 nautical miles (550km).  

Media commentators and bloggers correlated the PL-X with research papers showing VLRAAM performance based on a lofted launch to over 100,000ft, SATNAV and datalink updates in midcourse phase, then a dive in terminal phase at hypersonic speeds. One paper illustrated the intended target set: key USAF force enablers such as the E-3 AEW&C, tankers and potentially F-22 and B-2 stealth aircraft whose top-down planform shape would be visible from the missile’s look down angle in the thermosphere.  

Clearly, the PLA was changing the game. The VLRAAM would force US and Allied high-value airborne asset (HVAA) aircraft to operate much farther from any battlespace, potentially negating advantages in airborne early warning and control. The concept is identical to the Russian R-37M (designated AA-13 Axehead by NATO) supersonic missile program dating back to the 1980s, but this time it was fully funded and developed.  

The stage-managed introduction of the PL-X came after internet pictures of the new PL-15 started appearing in 2012. The size of the PL-15 missile was revealing – small enough to fit inside the weapons bay of the new J-20 stealth interceptor, but large enough to pack a dual-pulse motor and an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar seeker.  

The PL-15’s range put it in a similar or better class than the new US AIM-120D AMRAAM. The USAF Air Combat Command Chief GEN Herbert ‘Hawk’ Carlisle said in 2015 that outmatching the PL-15 was “an exceedingly high priority” and that “we’ve got to be able to out-stick that missile”.  

All bases covered 

While the outline of the PLA air-to-air weapons program has been public knowledge since at least 2010, what is astonishing is the number and spread of the weapons in development.  

The PLA radar-guided AAM programs began in earnest in the early 90s, when the Aviation Industry Corporation of China’s (AVIC) 607 Institute (officially known as the Leihua Electronic Technology Research Institute – LETRI) began testing an active radar-guided missile. The PL-12 used elements of Russian technology, including the 9B-1348 seeker from the AGAT Research Institute and possibly the one-way datalink from the R-77 RVV-AE (NATO codename AA-12 Adder) missile from Vympel (now the Tactical Missiles Corporation Joint Stock Company).  

After the PLA certified the PL-12 in 2005 at least four PL-12 upgrade or follow-on programs were identified, including an upgraded PL-12B, a PL-12C with folding fins, and a PL-12D using a ramjet motor. In addition, there was an anti-radiation export variant known as LD-10. The PL-12C was later identified as the PL-15, designed to fit in the internal weapons bay of the J-20 and with a claimed range of more than 100nm (185km).  

The PL-12D may have become the PL-20, a 200nm (375km) range weapon based on a combined ramjet and solid motor (alternately there may be two PLA ramjet-based AAM programs) and referred to as the ‘Sino-Meteor’ in reference to the MBDA Meteor ramjet AAM. Then there is the PL-X, possibly designated the PL-17, a 300nm (550km) ramjet-based weapon with a dual-mode seeker and ballistic trajectory.  

Layered approach 

Like its growing ground-launched anti-access area denial (A2AD) capabilities, the PLA air-to-air missile complex is built on concentric range rings. This reflects the PLA’s plan to build an integrated air defence system, where aircraft and surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries cooperate to prevent US and Allied forces getting close to sensitive territories or being able to launch stand-off weapons.  

At the outer ring are the anti-access weapons such as the PL-X that can target US and Allied tankers and AEW&C aircraft. Then comes the PL-15, probably designed to target counter-air fighters like the F-22 and F-15C. Closer still comes the upgraded PL-12, effective to around 50nm (90km). The inner rings are based on area denial.  

The system becomes increasingly capable and dense with the addition of multiple advanced SAMs such as the Russian-made S-400 (NATO codename SA-21 GROWLER) and the Chinese HQ-9 (NATO codename CSA-21). This combined PLA air defence system could deny vital targeting information to strike and fighter aircraft, target these aircraft as they approach their weapon launch baskets, then use the SAMs to shoot down incoming missiles and any aircraft that evade the PLA interceptors and fighters.  

The Chinese system is defensive in nature, and is based on Soviet concepts of air defence that used long-range interceptors and fighters such as the MiG-31 FOXHOUND and Su-27S and Su-27P FLANKER variants as extensions of the SAM systems.  

While the advantage of an integrated air defence system lies in the ability to provide persistence, mass and survivability by backing up fighter aircraft with the SAM systems, what is new is how far that air defence system can be extended.  

The PLA air-to-air missile program may well already be a complete area denial system. This represents a big problem for the US and Allied nations because slow, non-stealthy airframes simply will not survive against an integrated air defence system. With the acquisition and integration of sophisticated airframes such as the F-35A, EA-18G Growler, and E-7 Wedgetail AEW&C, the ADF will at least be able to compete. This is especially so when they are considered as part of a broader architecture including the new Aegis-equipped Hobart class destroyer and planned Hunter class frigates.  

In the next issue of ADBR, we will examine what the US and Allied nations are doing to counter the long-range AAM threat. When Hawk Carlisle spoke about having to “out-stick” the PL-15, he might have been referring to a complete change in the US approach to counter air – and that new approach may come as a surprise to most, and not least China and other competitors. 

And while the air-to-air weapons systems themselves and the associated technology are often the focus of conversation, it is the innovation in the TTPs which provides lethality and potency. 

Dougal Robertson is the senior Executive Analyst at Felix Defence, with extensive joint operational experience as an intelligence officer and instructor in the Australian Defence Force.    

By Peter Knott 

This article appeared in the Jan-Feb 2020 issue of ADBR

In this second in a series of studying the orders of battle of nations in the Indo-Pacific region, we take an in-depth look at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force 

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has transformed itself over the past couple of decades in step with the China’s development into a global economic powerhouse. 

Gone are the copies of obsolete Soviet-era MiGs that equipped China’s PLAAF in the 1990s, replaced by the products of an increasingly sophisticated domestic aerospace industry. 

However, the links with Russian technology remain strong, from the legitimate use of base aircraft designs and engines, to the more underhand methods of acquisition represented in accusations of widespread theft and espionage.  

Aerospace industry products include China’s first stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon which is already entering service with the PLAAF’s active fighter brigades, the Shenyang J-16 – a domestic version of the Russian Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighter equipped with indigenous avionics, weapons and engines, and the Xi’an Y-20, a large airlifter that comes close to rivalling the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III in terms of payload.  

In addition, China is also fielding a host of indigenous military-grade unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and is exporting them in rapidly increasing numbers. Further development includes advances in stealthy UAS designs which are reportedly on the verge of entering service.  

With these new types, the PLAAF is becoming an all-round modern air force with the capability for a wide variety of missions – from humanitarian assistance to long-range strike.  

Fighter force 

The PLAAF’s air combat arm is nothing like that of the turn of the century. Gone is the ‘old six’, a term of endearment for the Shenyang F-6 which was a locally built MiG-19 interceptor, and which had been in service in various guises since the 1960s. Similarly, the Chengdu J-7s – a MiG-21 clone the Chinese has steadily improved over the years – are also being drawn down.  

In their place are increasing numbers of modern fighters generally regarded as at least equivalent to Western 4th generation types. The tip of the PLAAF spear is without doubt the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon, a large, low-observable fighter that first flew – with no small amount of fanfare – in January 2011.  

At approximately 66 feet in length, the J-20 is a relatively large aircraft. Delta wings combine with all-moving twin tails and forward canards to provide agility, while in stealth mode its weapons are carried internally in a large ventral weapons bay and two secondary bays at the sides of the long fuselage.  

The main bay can carry four beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, while two short-range missiles can be accommodated in the smaller side bays. The size of the bays suggests a focus on the air-to-air mission and that the J-20 is designed as a long-range stand-off interceptor. Avionics are said to be indigenous, although the prototypes and early production aircraft continued to be powered by the Russian Saturn AL-31 turbofan engine.  

Stealth shaping is present on the J-20, with close-up photos indicating China has paid attention to refining manufacturing techniques to ensure production flaws do not compromise low-observability. However, these early prototypes and production aircraft are designed with frontal aspect stealth, with less effort made to reduce the rear-aspect radar cross-section.  

The first flight was followed by a rather lengthy program of flight testing with several prototypes to refine design before the start of low rate production. The first aircraft were assigned to PLAAF operational testing units beginning in 2017. By late 2018 or early 2019 the first unit, the 9th Air Brigade at Wuhu in Anhui province, became the first active PLAAF unit to operate the new fighter. Currently, Chengdu is flight testing J-20s powered by the indigenous WS-10 engine fitted with stealthy serrated nozzles to improve rear-aspect stealth.  

If the J-20 is the tip of the spear, then half of the shaft would be a variety of derivatives of the Russian Sukhoi Flanker family. China has bought a number of Russian Flanker variants, starting with the Su-27SK interceptor in the 1990s followed by the twin-seat Su-30MKK and then Su-30MK2 in the 2000s. The latter two types are multi-role fighters, with the Su-30MK2 allocated to People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) units.  

In the meantime, China started producing its own Su-27s under licence, calling them the J-11As. They soon moved on to modifying these with indigenous avionics and weapons, and these are designated J-11B. By 2011, China started powering them with locally developed WS-10 turbofans. Subsequent development has resulted in the J-16, a twin-seat indigenous Su-30 again fitted with local avionics, engines and weapons, now entering service in increasing numbers.  

It is unclear how many J-11/J-16s China has produced, but it is believed to be several hundred. Add to that another 400-odd Chengdu J-10s. The other half of China’s duo of mass-produced fighters, the J-10 looks like and is reputed to be closely based on the cancelled IAI Lavi, an attempt by Israel in the 1980s to produce an indigenous fighter that was eventually killed off by pressure from the US which wanted Israel to buy F-15s and F-16s. 

In some respects, the J-10 does indeed look like the Lavi, and Russian sources have stated that the Israeli design served as an inspiration, at the very least for the Chinese jet. The J-10 is a single engine, delta wing that utilises forward canards for control. 

Powered by the ageing AL-31 engine, the J-10 can carry an array of air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance on 11 hardpoints (six underwing, two under the forward intake and three in the rear fuselage). China has switched production to the J-10B and J-10C, which featured progressively improved avionics as well as a redesigned, diverterless supersonic intake for improved aerodynamics and reduced radar cross-section.  

The Chengdu Aircraft Corporation is continuing to flight test the marriage of the indigenous WS-10 engine with the J-10, and flying testbeds fitted with the WS-10 recently gained a serrated, low-observable engine nozzle. However, the fact the fighter is still rolling off the production line with the AL-31 suggests testing has some way to go.  

Bombers  

The primary bomber of the PLAAF is the Xi’an H-6 which started life as a licence-built version of the 1950s-era Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 Badger.  

China received its first Tu-16s in 1958, and the Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation (XAC) signed a licence production agreement with the USSR to build the type in the late 1950s. The first Chinese Tu-16 flew in 1959 and was deployed in a nuclear strike role until China’s ballistic missile force took on this role in the 1970s, leaving the H-6 as a conventional strike aircraft.  

Its capability expanded from free-fall bombing to the anti-ship mission and, eventually, to land-attack cruise missile missions, with the basic H-6 evolving through other sub-variants with a series of incremental upgrades to its sensors, navigation and defensive avionics. By the 1990s, the H-6G and H-6H models appeared off the production line as pure anti-ship/cruise missile carriers, with defensive armament deleted, and wing and fuselage pylons replacing the internal weapons bay.  

Despite the weapons and avionics upgrades, these variants retained the basic airframe and were still powered by a pair of WP-8 turbojets, a licence-built copy of the original Mikulin AM-3 or RD-3M that powered the 1950-vintage Tu-16.  

But by the turn of the millennium, China began a program to fit new engines to the type and to bring the bomber up to date with modern avionics. The result of this protracted program is the H-6K which made its first flight in 2017.  

The most significant improvement over earlier versions of the H-6 is the replacement of the elderly WP-8 engines with Russian Soloviev D-30 turbofans, similar to the Russian Ilyushin Il-76 and Chinese Xi’an Y-20 airlifter. Fitted within enlarged inlets in the aircraft’s wing roots, the D-30s give the H-6K a claimed combat radius of 3,500 kilometres, enabling the Chinese to reclassify the type as a strategic bomber and to reach out into the western Pacific.  

Meanwhile, the nose section of the airframe has also been reworked, eliminating the glazed navigator’s station in favour of a powerful radar. The flight crew now have a modern glass cockpit, while the airframe has been reinforced using composite materials.  

The H-6K reinstated the internal weapons bay, giving the type the ability to carry out conventional bombing missions, while a variant designated H-6J is entering service with the PLANAF. H-6M cruise missile carriers have also entered service, again without the internal weapons bay.  

The most common and contemporary missile types carried by the various H-6 variants are the YJ-12 anti-ship and CJ-20 cruise missile. The former is a supersonic missile with a reported range of 400km, while the latter is a subsonic land attack cruise missile with a range of up to 1,500km.  

The latest variant is the H-6N, which adds aerial refuelling capability to the H-6 with a nose-mounted refuelling probe. It also features a semi-recessed weapon bay in its belly with reports claiming it can carry the new CJ-100 supersonic cruise missile – an air-launched ballistic missile designated by the US DoD as the CH-AS-X-13 – and even the WZ-8 high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle.  

Transport and tankers 

For years the PLAAF’s largest airlifter was the Shaanxi Y-8, an unlicensed copy of the old Soviet An-12 Cub four-engine turboprop airlifter. Roughly analogous to older variants of the Lockheed-Martin C-130, China imported a number of An-12s from the Soviet Union in the 1960s before the Sino-Soviet split in the latter part of the decade. With the import source cut off, China decided to reverse-engineer the type.  

The first Y-8 flew in 1972 and was built by the Xi’an Aircraft Corporation, with production later moving to its Shaanxi counterpart in 1975, and entering serial production in 1981. The Y-8 has since evolved into the Y-9, with both types finding additional utility for special missions such as airborne early warning, electronic and signals intelligence gathering, and long-range anti-submarine missions.  

The Y-9 is a stretched, modernised Y-8, capable of carrying 25 tonnes in its main cabin – compared to the Y-8’s 20 tons – and featuring modern six-bladed composite constant-speed fully-feathering reversible propellers. The Y-9 first flew in November 2010, entering service with the PLAAF in 2012 and achieving full operational capability (FOC) in 2017.  

Meanwhile, rapprochement following the end of the Cold War saw a renewal of Chinese and Russian co-operation to meet China’s needs for a strategic airlift capability. This came in the form of the Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter, with China eventually ordering 27, of which four have been converted to KJ-2000 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft.  

The transports serve with the PLAAF’s 13th Transport Division with two regiments based at Dangyang and Wuhan, in western Hubei province. They have taken part in several humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions in the region in recent years, including the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 off the coast of Western Australia in 2014.  

The need for an increase in strategic airlift capacity meant China’s next push was to develop its own heavy airlifter. This eventually became the Y-20, a high-wing, low-slung undercarriage airlifter, powered by four Soloviev D-30 turbofans similar to the Il-76 and H-6K. Maximum takeoff weight is reported to be 220,000kg (485,000lbs) with a maximum cargo capacity of 66 tonnes.  

The Y-20 incorporated technological advances including the use of indigenously made composites in its construction. 3D-printed parts were also used elsewhere, helping speed up the production process.  

Y-20s entered PLAAF service in late 2016, with the 4th Transport Division at Qinghai in China’s Western Sichuan province the first to receive the type. Production quickly ramped up and a satellite photo of Xi’an Aircraft Corporation’s production facility in Xi’an-Yanliang Airport, taken in late 2019, showed 20 airframes on-site in addition to about 10 already in service at the time.  

Special missions  

China is also developing the Y-20 as a tanker. The PLAAF’s modest tanker fleet has been an Achilles heel as the force modernised, with just a small number of H-6 tanker versions in service. These have limited fuel capacity due to the H-6’s relatively small size. The tanker ranks were bolstered slightly in 2014 with the acquisition of three Il-78 tankers from Ukraine.  

As is often the case with China, it is likely this acquisition will be used in the development of its own manufacturing and operational capabilities, with several of the Y-20s seen in satellite photos carrying what appear to be wingtip refuelling pods. China has not, however, officially admitted the existence of the Y-20 tanker, and no verifiable photos have been seen so far.  

Tankers are just one of special mission types in which China has invested development effort. Using the Y-8 and more recently the Y-9 airframe, it has put into service at least 12 different types of specialised aircraft for carrying out diverse missions, ranging from electronic and signals intelligence gathering, to long-range anti-submarine warfare and psychological operations.  

Each of these uniquely configured aircraft come under the ‘High New’ – or GaoXin in Chinese – code name, and each type is given a unique numerical designation after the GaoXin or GX prefix. For example, the GX-3 is a standoff electronic warfare platform based on the standard Y-8 airframe, while the newer GX-6 is an anti-submarine/maritime patrol aircraft like the Lockheed P-3C Orion, based on the Y-9 airframe in service with the PLANAF. 

Several of these special mission types have actually been involved in operations in both the South and East China Seas, where the aircraft operating over the latter are regularly photographed by intercepting Japanese fighter jets. 

The PLAAF also operates three different types of modern AEW&C aircraft. In Chinese service, these are referred to as the KongJing which is shortened to KJ and which directly translates as ‘Sky Watch’. The first of these is the KJ-200, a Y-8-based system which carries a dorsal ‘balance beam’ radar, similar outwardly to the Saab Erieye. Development of the KJ-200 took place in 2001, although the crash of a prototype in 2006 that killed 40 crew and engineers was a significant setback to the program.  

The type eventually entered service by 2009, with aircraft assigned to the PLAAF’s 26th Special Missions Division at Wuxi in Jiangsu province, west of Shanghai. At least 10 KJ-200s are in service, although the type has since been complemented with a new AEW&C design. Based on the Y-9 airframe and designated the KJ-500, the type features a non-rotating circular radome in place of the balance beam radar, mounting an AESA radar in three separate arrays angled 120° to one other for all-round coverage.   

The first KJ-500 entered service with the PLAAF in late 2014. Both the KJ-200 and KJ-500 are also assigned to the PLANAF, with that service having deployed both types of AEW&C to operate over the disputed South China Sea from bases in China’s southern island of Hainan.  

In 1996 China signed a deal with Israel’s IAI for the conversion of three of its Il-76 fleet to AEW&C aircraft fitted with Israel’s PHALCON radar. The first aircraft had been converted but not delivered when intense US pressure pushed Israel to walk away from the deal in 2000. The radar and other components were removed from the aircraft before its return to China.  

This forced China to develop its own KJ200 and a larger AEW&C platform called the KJ-2000. Fitted with a phased array radar arranged in a similar configuration to the later KJ-500, the first of four KJ-2000s entered service in 2005. The radar is claimed to have a maximum detection range of 470km (290 miles). 

Engines and future 

China’s reliance on Russian engines to power the PLAAF modernisation has always been a sticking point. An inability to reliably manufacture its own indigenous engine designs meant that China has been unable to boast of a fully indigenous military aircraft industry.  

This has not been due to a lack of effort, and now a typically ambitious effort to develop its own modern aircraft engine industry to power its latest generation aircraft is underway.  

At the forefront is the Shenyang-Liming WS-10 turbofan – an afterburning engine intended to replace the Russian Saturn AL-31 that powers most of China’s fleet of fighters. The WS-10 is reportedly rated at 27,000 to 31,000 lbs of thrust, but reliability and manufacturing problems have continued to dog the design throughout its extended development cycle. Despite being a mainstay of the twin-engine J-11 and J-16 fleets, starting in 2011, it is only in the past year or so that the WS-10 has found its way into production J-10s – a signal that China is finally happy enough with the engine to power its single-engine fighters.     

China is also developing the more powerful WS-15 for the J-20, but production is moving relatively slowly. A recent stock exchange filing by a subsidiary of China’s Central Iron and Steel Research Institute (CISRI) revealed that production of the WS-15 will only reach between three and five units a year by 2026. Instead, production J-20s will likely continue using the WS-10 in the interim. 

Imagery of test aircraft belonging to Chengdu also suggests that work in continuing on thrust vectoring versions of the WS-10, with J-10s and J-20s having been photographed with the distinctive thrust vectoring control (TVC) nozzles. The design appears to be a three-dimensional TVC nozzle which will improve the jets’ manoeuvrability in the both the vertical and horizontal axis.  

Development work is also continuing on the WS-18 and WS-20 high-bypass turbofans as alternatives for the Y-20 airlifter. An Il-76 test-bed based at the PLAAF’s primary flight test unit (CISRI) in Xi’an-Yanliang airbase, has been flying with a WS-20 for a number of years, however production Y-20s are still being powered by the Russian D-30 engine. The CISRI subsidiary’s document referenced to above suggests that limited production of the WS-20 will only start in 2024, while WS-18 development is partially suspended as new manufacturing alloys are developed. 

Development work on the next generation of Chinese combat aircraft is also ongoing. China is confirmed to be pushing ahead with the H-20 bomber, a new stealth type to replace the H-6. It is still not known which of China’s state-owned aircraft manufacturers will be chosen to undertake this project, although models of a potential offering have been displayed at Chinese defence shows on a number of occasions.  

By Max Blenkin 

This article appeared in the Nov-Dec 2019 issue of ADBR.

When the UK announced in March 2019 that it would buy five Boeing E-7A AEW&C aircraft, the Australian government promptly issued a media statement citing this as a big win for Australian defence industry. 

“The UK acquisition is expected to deliver 100 jobs to the Brisbane and Newcastle based staff of Boeing Defence Australia, taking advantage of their world-leading capabilities in systems and software engineering and deep experience in Wedgetail support, including ground based aircrew training,” then Defence Industry Minister, now Defence Minister Senator Linda Reynolds said. 

“Further opportunities – including for the more than 200 Australian companies that have contributed to our own Wedgetail acquisition and sustainment – will be available for Australian industry in the supply chain.” 

Eight months on, this has certainly created work in Australia, although perhaps not on the scale breathlessly forecast. More will certainly come, but the really alluring prospect of recapitalising of the USAF fleet of ageing Boeing 707 E-3C Sentry AWACS aircraft, remains at best, uncertain.  

Further, Boeing simply can’t sell Wedgetails to just anyone. That’s because the aircraft is full of systems containing advanced technology which falls under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and this requires State Department approval for sale. 

So how good is the UK acquisition of five E-7s going to be for Australian industry? “Great. We are supporting the UK wedgetail out of Australia today,” Scott Carpendale, the new Managing Director of Boeing Defence Australia told a recent media briefing. 

“We have a leading role in supporting the establishment of the UK program, both supporting the development of the UK aircraft and aircraft systems, but also making sure the UK Ministry of Defence is able to establish a support infrastructure that gives them the same capability as Australia,” he added. 

“We have a Project team. We have people in Williamtown who are building some of the ground segments to be shipped to the UK. We are doing software development in Australia that is part of an integrated software development team for the UK software baseline. There is a range of different areas.” 

Currently Australia, with six aircraft, is the largest operator of Wedgetail. The Republic of Korea operates four E-7 Peace Eye aircraft and Turkey also four E-7s which it calls Peace Eagles. 

It’s not clear just where Turkey now sits with the US on E-7, considering its expulsion from the international F-35 program because of its insistence on acquiring a Russian S-400 missile defence system (see article on page XX). Boeing wasn’t about to comment. But Turkey already has possession of its four aircraft, so this may not be an issue. 

Australia was lead customer for Wedgetail, developed specifically in response to the Australian AIR 5077 requirement for an advanced airborne early warning and control capability.  

When the project encountered major technical problems and delays, Australia came close to pulling the plug. But it chose to persevere, as did Boeing – which took substantial losses on the project – on the expectation it would make good on future sales. 

What emerged is very good indeed – the proven and widely used Boeing 737 airframe, coupled with the Northrop Grumman MESA (Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array) radar plus advanced mission systems. 

“We still view the Australian Wedgetail program as a world class and world leading capability,” Carpendale said. “As the threat environment of the future continues to evolve, having a capability of that nature will be attractive to multiple customers. But we are working really closely with the US as to how we pursue those opportunities.” 

Italy, Qatar and the UAE have all been reported to be interested in E-7, as is NATO which operates 16 E-3 aircraft to support its operations in Europe and internationally. But the UAE has acquired the Saab-developed Bombardier Global 6000-based Globaleye AEW&C, and Italy operates the IAI/Gulfstream G550 conformal AEW (CAEW). 

In June, NATO AEW&C program general manager Brigadier General Michael Gschossmann mused about replacing their elderly Sentry aircraft with a Boeing 737-based capability. That could only mean Wedgetail or something very similar. “We have to ensure that we acquire a system that has growth potential but that also for financial and time reasons is based on existing capabilities,” he told Reuters. 

But more recent reporting suggests NATO is instead leaning towards upgrading its E-3As instead of replacing them. 

The UK’s aircraft will be based on the Australian aircraft, technically making them E-7A. It’s not known if the RAF will retain the E-7A designation and Wedgetail name, or more likely, a combination of the numerical designation and their own name as they have done with their E-3D ‘Sentry’, and RC-135V ‘Airseeker’. 

The UK opted for a single-source procurement, going straight for the E-7 and bypassing a contest which would have involved Airbus and Saab which teamed up to offer Saab’s Erieye radar on an Airbus A330 airframe. 

The deal was announced in March but appears to have been under serious consideration for some time, with then UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson announcing last October that discussions were under way with Boeing. The UK Ministry of Defence had also talked to the RAAF, while RAF aircrew have trained in Australia aboard RAAF Wedgetails. 

Former Defence Minister Christopher Pyne took some of the credit. At the third Australia-United Kingdom Defence Industry Dialogue (AUKDID) in London in July 2018, Mr Pyne pitched Wedgetail to his UK counterparts. 

“During the Dialogue I took the opportunity to further promote Australia’s world-class Wedgetail capability to the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Defence and the then Minister for Defence Procurement,” he said. “Deeper engagement between both countries’ defence industries, including through increased exports and industry partnerships, will further strengthen our bilateral relationship with the United Kingdom.” 

UK aircraft will be manufactured in the US on the Boeing 737 production line, but will be modified to E-7 standard, with the addition of the MESA “top hat” radar and mission systems, by Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group at Cambridge in the UK. The first aircraft is scheduled for delivery around 2023. 

The UK Wedgetail acquisition follows another sole-source acquisition of Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, also based on the 737 and also operated by Australia. The first of nine RAF P-8s was handed over recently, and will be delivered to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland next year. 

The two sole-source deals with Boeing prompted criticism from some politicians that the UK was getting too close to the Americans, but the UK government’s Wedgetail announcement certainly highlighted the Australian connection. 

“This deal strengthens our vital military partnership with Australia,” said Secretary Williamson. “We will operate the same state-of-the-art F-35 jets and world-class Type-26 warships, and this announcement will help us work even more closely together.”  

Boeing Australia and the RAAF have formed what they call Team Wedgetail. The UK isn’t yet a member, but soon could be. Boeing Australia director of emerging markets Matt Buckle said the Australian and UK governments would collaborate in areas of E-7 where it made sense to collaborate. 

“It is no surprise that that is what they are looking at, and how they can learn from Australia as they introduce the capability,” he said. “But the formality of those structures doesn’t exist today.”  

One area of potential future E-7 cooperation with the UK is in an ongoing Australia-only Wedgetail upgrade program through project AIR 5077 Phase 5A. Under the Integrated Investment Plan (IIP), that phase is costed at $500-750 million. 

This program reflects the reality that although Wedgetail is considered to be a state-of-the-art capability, some of its systems have been superseded by improved technology. The first Wedgetail flew in 2002 and, once the RAAF’s classic Hornets retire in 2022, the E-7As will be the RAAF’s second oldest platform after the C-130J Hercules. 

Proposed avionics modifications will bring Wedgetails up to the same capability for navigation in congested airspace as current production civil 737s. This includes upgraded civil TCAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance) and ADS-B Out (Automatic Dependant Surveillance Broadcast) systems. 

Significantly, Wedgetail IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) will be upgraded from Mode 4 to Mode 5. This is a crucial cyber-security enhancement, with Australia following the US military. This will eventually be applied to all ADF aircraft. 

Mode 5 IFF offers more robust security, particularly against spoofing which could potentially involve a potential unfriendly aircraft pretending to be a coalition aircraft and evading air defences. Although that appears a remote possibility, it was perceived as sufficiently serious for the US to mandate moving to more secure IFF for its combat aircraft. 

Along with the IFF there will be improvements to encrypted datalinks, cryptographic upgrades for better security and also wideband satellite for the anticipated expansion in information flow, allowing Wedgetail to deal with high definition imagery. “I agree that some of this capability would certainly appeal to the UK,” Carpendale said. 

There are no upgrade plans for the actual radar hardware, although IFF forms part of the MESA software. Neither does the airframe, which is regarded as supremely reliable, need any attention. 

The USAF operates a fleet of 32 E-3 Sentry aircraft which have been steadily updated with improved mission systems. However, the Boeing 707 is long out of production – the last was made in 1994 – and airframes are becoming more costly and difficult to support. 

As well, the USAF operates 17 E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (J-STARS) aircraft, also based on the Boeing 707 airframe. This is a surveillance aircraft designed to track vehicle movements at long distance. 

With JSTARS slated to start retiring this year, the USAF has launched a new study program to look at replacement capabilities. This complex program is called Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) and, while it was initially looking at a new platform-based system, it now aims to replace JSTARS with a network of existing and new air-based and space-based sensors.  

Buckle said the ABMS program was ill-defined at this stage. “They are going for an analysis of alternatives, and that will take some time before it matures,” he said. “We’d like to think that something that is along the lines of the Wedgetail could play a role in that program. But depending on where they go in their analysis of alternatives, that may or may not happen.” 

Buckle said ABMS was now considering air battle management as a concept, not necessarily at replacing platform for platform. “It’s saying what do we need from an air battle management system going forward and what does that look like now,” he said. 

Could that involve Wedgetail or a future variant of Wedgetail? Buckle said they would be guided by the statement of needs from the analysis of alternatives. 

“We aren’t going to plough down the path of developing that capability for the US market if that’s not what they look to for their future needs,” he said. “Whether that involves space or other capabilities in terms of what their future air battle management concept is, will guide how we support that.” 

By Peter Knott 

This article appeared in the Jan-Feb 2020 issue of ADBR

In this second in a series of studying the orders of battle of nations in the Indo-Pacific region, we take an in-depth look at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force 

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has transformed itself over the past couple of decades in step with the China’s development into a global economic powerhouse. 

Gone are the copies of obsolete Soviet-era MiGs that equipped China’s PLAAF in the 1990s, replaced by the products of an increasingly sophisticated domestic aerospace industry. 

However, the links with Russian technology remain strong, from the legitimate use of base aircraft designs and engines, to the more underhand methods of acquisition represented in accusations of widespread theft and espionage.  

Aerospace industry products include China’s first stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon which is already entering service with the PLAAF’s active fighter brigades, the Shenyang J-16 – a domestic version of the Russian Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighter equipped with indigenous avionics, weapons and engines, and the Xi’an Y-20, a large airlifter that comes close to rivalling the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III in terms of payload.  

In addition, China is also fielding a host of indigenous military-grade unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and is exporting them in rapidly increasing numbers. Further development includes advances in stealthy UAS designs which are reportedly on the verge of entering service.  

With these new types, the PLAAF is becoming an all-round modern air force with the capability for a wide variety of missions – from humanitarian assistance to long-range strike.  

Fighter force 

The PLAAF’s air combat arm is nothing like that of the turn of the century. Gone is the ‘old six’, a term of endearment for the Shenyang F-6 which was a locally built MiG-19 interceptor, and which had been in service in various guises since the 1960s. Similarly, the Chengdu J-7s – a MiG-21 clone the Chinese has steadily improved over the years – are also being drawn down.  

In their place are increasing numbers of modern fighters generally regarded as at least equivalent to Western 4th generation types. The tip of the PLAAF spear is without doubt the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon, a large, low-observable fighter that first flew – with no small amount of fanfare – in January 2011.  

At approximately 66 feet in length, the J-20 is a relatively large aircraft. Delta wings combine with all-moving twin tails and forward canards to provide agility, while in stealth mode its weapons are carried internally in a large ventral weapons bay and two secondary bays at the sides of the long fuselage.  

The main bay can carry four beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, while two short-range missiles can be accommodated in the smaller side bays. The size of the bays suggests a focus on the air-to-air mission and that the J-20 is designed as a long-range stand-off interceptor. Avionics are said to be indigenous, although the prototypes and early production aircraft continued to be powered by the Russian Saturn AL-31 turbofan engine.  

Stealth shaping is present on the J-20, with close-up photos indicating China has paid attention to refining manufacturing techniques to ensure production flaws do not compromise low-observability. However, these early prototypes and production aircraft are designed with frontal aspect stealth, with less effort made to reduce the rear-aspect radar cross-section.  

The first flight was followed by a rather lengthy program of flight testing with several prototypes to refine design before the start of low rate production. The first aircraft were assigned to PLAAF operational testing units beginning in 2017. By late 2018 or early 2019 the first unit, the 9th Air Brigade at Wuhu in Anhui province, became the first active PLAAF unit to operate the new fighter. Currently, Chengdu is flight testing J-20s powered by the indigenous WS-10 engine fitted with stealthy serrated nozzles to improve rear-aspect stealth.  

If the J-20 is the tip of the spear, then half of the shaft would be a variety of derivatives of the Russian Sukhoi Flanker family. China has bought a number of Russian Flanker variants, starting with the Su-27SK interceptor in the 1990s followed by the twin-seat Su-30MKK and then Su-30MK2 in the 2000s. The latter two types are multi-role fighters, with the Su-30MK2 allocated to People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) units.  

In the meantime, China started producing its own Su-27s under licence, calling them the J-11As. They soon moved on to modifying these with indigenous avionics and weapons, and these are designated J-11B. By 2011, China started powering them with locally developed WS-10 turbofans. Subsequent development has resulted in the J-16, a twin-seat indigenous Su-30 again fitted with local avionics, engines and weapons, now entering service in increasing numbers.  

It is unclear how many J-11/J-16s China has produced, but it is believed to be several hundred. Add to that another 400-odd Chengdu J-10s. The other half of China’s duo of mass-produced fighters, the J-10 looks like and is reputed to be closely based on the cancelled IAI Lavi, an attempt by Israel in the 1980s to produce an indigenous fighter that was eventually killed off by pressure from the US which wanted Israel to buy F-15s and F-16s. 

In some respects, the J-10 does indeed look like the Lavi, and Russian sources have stated that the Israeli design served as an inspiration, at the very least for the Chinese jet. The J-10 is a single engine, delta wing that utilises forward canards for control. 

Powered by the ageing AL-31 engine, the J-10 can carry an array of air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance on 11 hardpoints (six underwing, two under the forward intake and three in the rear fuselage). China has switched production to the J-10B and J-10C, which featured progressively improved avionics as well as a redesigned, diverterless supersonic intake for improved aerodynamics and reduced radar cross-section.  

The Chengdu Aircraft Corporation is continuing to flight test the marriage of the indigenous WS-10 engine with the J-10, and flying testbeds fitted with the WS-10 recently gained a serrated, low-observable engine nozzle. However, the fact the fighter is still rolling off the production line with the AL-31 suggests testing has some way to go.  

Bombers  

The primary bomber of the PLAAF is the Xi’an H-6 which started life as a licence-built version of the 1950s-era Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 Badger.  

China received its first Tu-16s in 1958, and the Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation (XAC) signed a licence production agreement with the USSR to build the type in the late 1950s. The first Chinese Tu-16 flew in 1959 and was deployed in a nuclear strike role until China’s ballistic missile force took on this role in the 1970s, leaving the H-6 as a conventional strike aircraft.  

Its capability expanded from free-fall bombing to the anti-ship mission and, eventually, to land-attack cruise missile missions, with the basic H-6 evolving through other sub-variants with a series of incremental upgrades to its sensors, navigation and defensive avionics. By the 1990s, the H-6G and H-6H models appeared off the production line as pure anti-ship/cruise missile carriers, with defensive armament deleted, and wing and fuselage pylons replacing the internal weapons bay.  

Despite the weapons and avionics upgrades, these variants retained the basic airframe and were still powered by a pair of WP-8 turbojets, a licence-built copy of the original Mikulin AM-3 or RD-3M that powered the 1950-vintage Tu-16.  

But by the turn of the millennium, China began a program to fit new engines to the type and to bring the bomber up to date with modern avionics. The result of this protracted program is the H-6K which made its first flight in 2017.  

The most significant improvement over earlier versions of the H-6 is the replacement of the elderly WP-8 engines with Russian Soloviev D-30 turbofans, similar to the Russian Ilyushin Il-76 and Chinese Xi’an Y-20 airlifter. Fitted within enlarged inlets in the aircraft’s wing roots, the D-30s give the H-6K a claimed combat radius of 3,500 kilometres, enabling the Chinese to reclassify the type as a strategic bomber and to reach out into the western Pacific.  

Meanwhile, the nose section of the airframe has also been reworked, eliminating the glazed navigator’s station in favour of a powerful radar. The flight crew now have a modern glass cockpit, while the airframe has been reinforced using composite materials.  

The H-6K reinstated the internal weapons bay, giving the type the ability to carry out conventional bombing missions, while a variant designated H-6J is entering service with the PLANAF. H-6M cruise missile carriers have also entered service, again without the internal weapons bay.  

The most common and contemporary missile types carried by the various H-6 variants are the YJ-12 anti-ship and CJ-20 cruise missile. The former is a supersonic missile with a reported range of 400km, while the latter is a subsonic land attack cruise missile with a range of up to 1,500km.  

The latest variant is the H-6N, which adds aerial refuelling capability to the H-6 with a nose-mounted refuelling probe. It also features a semi-recessed weapon bay in its belly with reports claiming it can carry the new CJ-100 supersonic cruise missile – an air-launched ballistic missile designated by the US DoD as the CH-AS-X-13 – and even the WZ-8 high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle.  

Transport and tankers 

For years the PLAAF’s largest airlifter was the Shaanxi Y-8, an unlicensed copy of the old Soviet An-12 Cub four-engine turboprop airlifter. Roughly analogous to older variants of the Lockheed-Martin C-130, China imported a number of An-12s from the Soviet Union in the 1960s before the Sino-Soviet split in the latter part of the decade. With the import source cut off, China decided to reverse-engineer the type.  

The first Y-8 flew in 1972 and was built by the Xi’an Aircraft Corporation, with production later moving to its Shaanxi counterpart in 1975, and entering serial production in 1981. The Y-8 has since evolved into the Y-9, with both types finding additional utility for special missions such as airborne early warning, electronic and signals intelligence gathering, and long-range anti-submarine missions.  

The Y-9 is a stretched, modernised Y-8, capable of carrying 25 tonnes in its main cabin – compared to the Y-8’s 20 tons – and featuring modern six-bladed composite constant-speed fully-feathering reversible propellers. The Y-9 first flew in November 2010, entering service with the PLAAF in 2012 and achieving full operational capability (FOC) in 2017.  

Meanwhile, rapprochement following the end of the Cold War saw a renewal of Chinese and Russian co-operation to meet China’s needs for a strategic airlift capability. This came in the form of the Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter, with China eventually ordering 27, of which four have been converted to KJ-2000 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft.  

The transports serve with the PLAAF’s 13th Transport Division with two regiments based at Dangyang and Wuhan, in western Hubei province. They have taken part in several humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions in the region in recent years, including the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 off the coast of Western Australia in 2014.  

The need for an increase in strategic airlift capacity meant China’s next push was to develop its own heavy airlifter. This eventually became the Y-20, a high-wing, low-slung undercarriage airlifter, powered by four Soloviev D-30 turbofans similar to the Il-76 and H-6K. Maximum takeoff weight is reported to be 220,000kg (485,000lbs) with a maximum cargo capacity of 66 tonnes.  

The Y-20 incorporated technological advances including the use of indigenously made composites in its construction. 3D-printed parts were also used elsewhere, helping speed up the production process.  

Y-20s entered PLAAF service in late 2016, with the 4th Transport Division at Qinghai in China’s Western Sichuan province the first to receive the type. Production quickly ramped up and a satellite photo of Xi’an Aircraft Corporation’s production facility in Xi’an-Yanliang Airport, taken in late 2019, showed 20 airframes on-site in addition to about 10 already in service at the time.  

Special missions  

China is also developing the Y-20 as a tanker. The PLAAF’s modest tanker fleet has been an Achilles heel as the force modernised, with just a small number of H-6 tanker versions in service. These have limited fuel capacity due to the H-6’s relatively small size. The tanker ranks were bolstered slightly in 2014 with the acquisition of three Il-78 tankers from Ukraine.  

As is often the case with China, it is likely this acquisition will be used in the development of its own manufacturing and operational capabilities, with several of the Y-20s seen in satellite photos carrying what appear to be wingtip refuelling pods. China has not, however, officially admitted the existence of the Y-20 tanker, and no verifiable photos have been seen so far.  

Tankers are just one of special mission types in which China has invested development effort. Using the Y-8 and more recently the Y-9 airframe, it has put into service at least 12 different types of specialised aircraft for carrying out diverse missions, ranging from electronic and signals intelligence gathering, to long-range anti-submarine warfare and psychological operations.  

Each of these uniquely configured aircraft come under the ‘High New’ – or GaoXin in Chinese – code name, and each type is given a unique numerical designation after the GaoXin or GX prefix. For example, the GX-3 is a standoff electronic warfare platform based on the standard Y-8 airframe, while the newer GX-6 is an anti-submarine/maritime patrol aircraft like the Lockheed P-3C Orion, based on the Y-9 airframe in service with the PLANAF. 

Several of these special mission types have actually been involved in operations in both the South and East China Seas, where the aircraft operating over the latter are regularly photographed by intercepting Japanese fighter jets. 

The PLAAF also operates three different types of modern AEW&C aircraft. In Chinese service, these are referred to as the KongJing which is shortened to KJ and which directly translates as ‘Sky Watch’. The first of these is the KJ-200, a Y-8-based system which carries a dorsal ‘balance beam’ radar, similar outwardly to the Saab Erieye. Development of the KJ-200 took place in 2001, although the crash of a prototype in 2006 that killed 40 crew and engineers was a significant setback to the program.  

The type eventually entered service by 2009, with aircraft assigned to the PLAAF’s 26th Special Missions Division at Wuxi in Jiangsu province, west of Shanghai. At least 10 KJ-200s are in service, although the type has since been complemented with a new AEW&C design. Based on the Y-9 airframe and designated the KJ-500, the type features a non-rotating circular radome in place of the balance beam radar, mounting an AESA radar in three separate arrays angled 120° to one other for all-round coverage.   

The first KJ-500 entered service with the PLAAF in late 2014. Both the KJ-200 and KJ-500 are also assigned to the PLANAF, with that service having deployed both types of AEW&C to operate over the disputed South China Sea from bases in China’s southern island of Hainan.  

In 1996 China signed a deal with Israel’s IAI for the conversion of three of its Il-76 fleet to AEW&C aircraft fitted with Israel’s PHALCON radar. The first aircraft had been converted but not delivered when intense US pressure pushed Israel to walk away from the deal in 2000. The radar and other components were removed from the aircraft before its return to China.  

This forced China to develop its own KJ200 and a larger AEW&C platform called the KJ-2000. Fitted with a phased array radar arranged in a similar configuration to the later KJ-500, the first of four KJ-2000s entered service in 2005. The radar is claimed to have a maximum detection range of 470km (290 miles). 

Engines and future 

China’s reliance on Russian engines to power the PLAAF modernisation has always been a sticking point. An inability to reliably manufacture its own indigenous engine designs meant that China has been unable to boast of a fully indigenous military aircraft industry.  

This has not been due to a lack of effort, and now a typically ambitious effort to develop its own modern aircraft engine industry to power its latest generation aircraft is underway.  

At the forefront is the Shenyang-Liming WS-10 turbofan – an afterburning engine intended to replace the Russian Saturn AL-31 that powers most of China’s fleet of fighters. The WS-10 is reportedly rated at 27,000 to 31,000 lbs of thrust, but reliability and manufacturing problems have continued to dog the design throughout its extended development cycle. Despite being a mainstay of the twin-engine J-11 and J-16 fleets, starting in 2011, it is only in the past year or so that the WS-10 has found its way into production J-10s – a signal that China is finally happy enough with the engine to power its single-engine fighters.     

China is also developing the more powerful WS-15 for the J-20, but production is moving relatively slowly. A recent stock exchange filing by a subsidiary of China’s Central Iron and Steel Research Institute (CISRI) revealed that production of the WS-15 will only reach between three and five units a year by 2026. Instead, production J-20s will likely continue using the WS-10 in the interim. 

Imagery of test aircraft belonging to Chengdu also suggests that work in continuing on thrust vectoring versions of the WS-10, with J-10s and J-20s having been photographed with the distinctive thrust vectoring control (TVC) nozzles. The design appears to be a three-dimensional TVC nozzle which will improve the jets’ manoeuvrability in the both the vertical and horizontal axis.  

Development work is also continuing on the WS-18 and WS-20 high-bypass turbofans as alternatives for the Y-20 airlifter. An Il-76 test-bed based at the PLAAF’s primary flight test unit (CISRI) in Xi’an-Yanliang airbase, has been flying with a WS-20 for a number of years, however production Y-20s are still being powered by the Russian D-30 engine. The CISRI subsidiary’s document referenced to above suggests that limited production of the WS-20 will only start in 2024, while WS-18 development is partially suspended as new manufacturing alloys are developed. 

Development work on the next generation of Chinese combat aircraft is also ongoing. China is confirmed to be pushing ahead with the H-20 bomber, a new stealth type to replace the H-6. It is still not known which of China’s state-owned aircraft manufacturers will be chosen to undertake this project, although models of a potential offering have been displayed at Chinese defence shows on a number of occasions.  

Growing power tension in the Indo-Pacific region mean the time has come for Australia to consider broadening its security partnerships, with Japan at the forefront. 

By Peter Hunter 

As Australia confronts an increasingly unstable Indo-Pacific security environment, it is time for Canberra to carefully cultivate security relationships with a range of regional partners. There is no doubt the US will remain a pivotal player in regional affairs, but in addition to that vital relationship Australia needs to broaden its security partnerships to create further opportunities.  

The prevalence of coercive statecraft in the region begs tough questions about the application of our elements of national power, both in the way we advance our security interests in the region and, when necessary, how we counter hostile behaviour, especially political warfare and grey zone actions. All of this means we need to take a closer look at partnerships to help us meet those challenges.  

Where once we counted on our military’s possession of an edge in capability, and our alliance with the US, to provide deterrence and influence in the region, in this new era of ‘winning without fighting’ it is increasingly clear that those models are a necessary but not sufficient response. 

Defence needs to broaden its value proposition to government by being able to contribute its capabilities within a wider range of international influences. On top of its warfighter roles, this will mean closer collaboration with other government agencies and international partners to generate the access, influence and deterrence we need. 

Success will, in part, depend on achieving the mutual benefits that will come from working more closely with our friends – and Japan is such a friend. Australia and Japan already enjoy a close bilateral relationship in defence, so it stands to reason that both sides can profit by closely aligning their responses to these major shifts in geostrategic circumstances. 

Australian and Japanese military forces have been cooperating for decades on joint military training exercises and in response to security challenges. Australia’s instant response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster after the 2011 tsunami not only confirmed a real and deep friendship but also showed the region that like-minded partners can actively support one another.  

There are many other cases where Australia and Japan cooperate, whether in training for joint maritime warfare through exercises such as RIMPAC, or in training for air combat capability at exercises such as Bushido Guardian. And in Australia’s time of need in the recent bushfire crisis, the Japan Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) demonstrated the depths of the bilateral friendship through its provision of a C-130 transport aircraft. 

Equally, both governments have shown an increasingly strong concern for bolstering stability and security in the South Pacific given the challenges posed by coercive statecraft. To that end, Tokyo and Canberra alike have looked to military and other means for the demonstration of persistent presence and commitment to the security and welfare of the Pacific Island Countries (PICs).  

This is where air power can be of real and immediate benefit to our joint force and whole of government approaches to regional influence. For a start, both air forces share much in common. Not only will each have the same or similar platforms and equipment – from fighter forces equipped with the F35 to transport and surveillance aircraft – they also have shared interests in achieving interoperability and integration. And each force maintains first-rate professional and educational standards. Taken together, these all make it easier to broaden the aperture of cooperation. And the very positive tenor of the over-arching bilateral relationship makes for an environment in which to explore and build on that cooperation. 

Of course, this should start from the premise that Australia well understands that Japan’s day-to-day security environment differs from that in the southern hemisphere, and that – in many ways – the security challenges it faces are more immediate and more concrete. We need only to look at the frequency of China’s incursions into Japan’s airspace and maritime domain to appreciate this. 

But while from a Japanese perspective it may be tempting to think that Australia faces less urgent security risks (since, unlike the JASDF, the RAAF does not have to scramble its fighter squadrons) it is helpful to emphasise that Japan and Australia have a lot in common, particularly from the challenges of coercive statecraft.  

Given these commonalities, both of strategic interest and of military operating systems, it makes sense that both sides should be exploring opportunities for information sharing and cooperation on issues of air power strategy. It will help if both sides take a step-by-step approach to build on the trust and friendship that already exists. By working together, both sides can start to explore new options for creative concepts around air power that will contribute to goals of influence, access and deterrence. 

A tighter military relationship can be a significant contributor to the broader benefits that come from closer whole-of-government relationships. In terms of countering political warfare and grey zone activities, defeating the ambiguity and divisiveness on which these methods depend requires a comprehensive model for Australia-Japan strategic alignment.  

With the military-to-military relationship already in good shape, it makes sense to capitalise on that goodwill to extend the thinking out into how air power can broaden its value proposition to regional security.  

Peter Hunter is a senior adviser for air power strategy at the National Security College of the Australian National University, and Director of Air Force Strategy in Air Force Headquarters. He has more than 25 years’ experience in national security agencies in the Australian Government. 

The views in this article are his own. 

The USAF has announced it has selected Raytheon to lead the development of its new conventional and nuclear-armed Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon program.

Raytheon was announced as sole-source contractor for the LRSO on April 19 after what the USAF says was ‘an extensive evaluation of contractor programmatic and technical approach during the TMRR’s (Technology Maturation and Risk) preliminary design reviews’. Contracts were previously awarded in August 2017 to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin for the TMRR phase of the program.

“Our competitive TMRR phase, which included both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as the prime contractors, enabled us to select a high-confidence design at this point in the acquisition process,” USAF Nuclear Weapons Center commander and program executive officer for strategic systems Maj Gen Shaun Morris said in a statement. “And this early off-ramp of a contractor is completely in line with the existing LRSO acquisition strategy, which included periodic reviews to assess contractor designs.

The program office will retain its relationship with Lockheed Martin on the program to provide risk maturation work. “Lockheed Martin has been an excellent contractor and partner throughout the TMRR effort and this pivot to Raytheon does not represent a lack of effort or commitment on their part,” Maj Gen Morris added. “Lockheed Martin has supported the nuclear enterprise for decades and we continue to value their expertise in sensors and nuclear certification and surety.”

The LRSO will replace the AGM-86B/C Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) in service. The AGM-86B carries the W80 warhead and has a range of up to 1,500km, while the AGM-86C carries a conventional warhead. Both are employed from the Boeing B-52H.

The USAF had previously tried to replace the AGM-86 in the 1980s, and the low-observable General Dynamics/Raytheon AGM-129A/B Advanced Cruise Missile (ACM), and the conventional AGM-129C saw limited service with the USAF from 1990 to 2012. But the end of the Cold War saw planned production of the ACM reduced by two-thirds, and it ended up complementing rather than replacing the AGM-86 in service.

The German Government has reportedly approved a mixed buy of Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, and Eurofighter EF-2000 fighters for the Luftwaffe to replace its remaining fleet of 90 Panavia Tornados.

An April 22 report in Der Spiegel says Germany will acquire 30 Super Hornets to conduct the NATO tactical nuclear mission currently assigned to the Panavia Tornado, and 15 EA-18Gs to replace its Tornado ECR EW aircraft. Germany is also looking to replace up to 80 early-build Eurofighters with new aircraft with vastly enhanced capabilities.

While European NATO alliance members are not nuclear powers themselves, they are obliged to assign a limited number of aircraft and crews to be certified for the tactical nuclear mission in support of possible NATO operations against Russia.

The Super Hornet buy is considered controversial in Europe, with local industry advocating hard for European-built aircraft. But the Eurofighter has not been adapted for the nuclear mission, and is unlikely to be certified to do so by the US which provides the weapons to the alliance.

But while the US-built Super Hornet would be certified, it has not yet conducted flight and clearance testing of the B61 free-fall weapon, although this is reported to be imminent.

A German Super Hornet would also be capable of performing complex maritime strike missions in the relatively crowded Baltic Sea. The German Marineflieger relinquished that role in 2005 when it transferred its remaining Tornados to the Luftwaffe.

Germany already has a close military working relationship with the US DoD. Apart from its NATO ties and a number of USAF and Army units being based in Germany, the Luftwaffe has had a squadron of F-4F Phantoms, then Tornados, and now Eurofighters based at the German Air Force Tactical Training Center (TTC) at Holloman AFB in New Mexico.

The Tornado ECR is operated by Germany and Italy, and has undergone a number of improvements since entering service in the 1980. But despite it remaining quite capable, the airframes are becoming increasingly costly to sustain and operate. If the Luftwaffe acquires Super Hornets, as happened with Australia, it opens up an approval process and an economical sustainment path to operate the EA-18G which shares more than 95 per cent systems and structural commonality with the F/A-18E/F.

Germany operates the Multi-national Aircrew Electronic Warfare Tactics Facility (MAEWTF), or ‘Polygone’ ranges with the US and France in the country’s southwest, giving it an advanced EW training range on home soil it can use with allied and against dissimilar systems.

In order to provide its Growlers with complete data sets/libraries, Germany will likely have to establish a data centre in the US in conjunction with the US Navy, similar that operated with the RAAF at Point Mugu in California.

German Super Hornets will likely be of the new US Navy Block III standard as Block II production has ended, but Growler production is yet to switch to Block II which incorporates 5th gen system equivalent to the F/A-18E/F Block III.

The original Tranche 1 Eurofighters operated by Germany and other European nations entered service in the late-1990s. But Trance 1 is rapidly being overtaken in capability in the region, and are not considered to be economical nor structurally suitable to be upgraded to the latest Tranche 3+ standard.

By Thomas Withington 

SEAD is back on the airpower agenda. A2AD strategies coupled with technological advances are redefining the way this vital mission can be performed. 

The US Department of Defense defines the Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) mission as that which ‘neutralizes, destroys or temporarily degrades surface-based enemy air defences by destructive and/or disruptive means.’  

The so-called ‘Endless Wars’ in the Afghan and Iraqi theatres have seen US and allied air forces operating in a largely benign air environment. Afghanistan had no integrated air defence system (IADS) to speak of while Iraq’s air defences had, for all intents and purposes, been destroyed via the US-led Operation Desert Storm to evict Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, the subsequent enforcement of no fly zones over the north and south of the country, and the opening stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 which removed Saddam Hussein from power.  

The war in Syria has been the transitional conflict for US and allied forces as the harbinger of the Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) strategies that these forces may face in future confrontations.  

Initially the conflict resembled an insurgency: a civil war pitting the regime of President Bashir al Assad against an assortment of opposition groups. But Russia’s overt involvement from 2013 saw the deployment of at least two batteries of Almaz-Antey S-400 (SA-21 Growler) high-altitude, long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems.  

This was concurrent with the commencement of US-led air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgency group, and against chemical weapons targets belonging to the regime. The latter followed Assad’s chlorine gas attack on the city of Douma in south-west Syria in April 2018.  

Thus these retaliatory air strikes performed by British, French and US forces were undertaken in contested airspace, placing SEAD at centre stage as a key component to counter A2AD strategies, while underscoring the fact that the US and her allies can no longer expect to always conduct air operations in benign environments. 

DOCTRINE 

Air power theorist Professor Daniel Baltrusaitis established a theoretical framework for the SEAD mission in the seminal 1997 paper Quest for the High Ground: The Development of SEAD Strategy. He posited that SEAD can be performed at three distinct levels: Campaign, Localised, and Opportune.  

Campaign SEAD sees the mission performed at the operational level to roll back an adversary’s IADS across much, or all, of a theatre, contributing to the establishment of air superiority and air supremacy.  

Localised SEAD missions are performed at a specific time in a specific area in a tactical fashion to suppress elements of an IADS, or non-networked local ground-based air defences to support a specific mission.  

Opportune SEAD is concerned with “self-defence and offensive attacks against enemy air defence targets of opportunity”. Ground-based air defences may be struck as and when detected during the course of a mission, solely for the purpose of protecting aircraft. 

TOOLS 

SEAD can be brought to bear via specific aircraft, weapons and subsystems.  

The RAAF’s purchase of 12 Boeing E/A-18G Growler air defence suppression aircraft has led the field vis-à-vis regional enhancements of SEAD capabilities. These aircraft currently use the AN/ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System (TJS), reportedly capable of jamming, from 30,000ft, ground-based air surveillance and fire control/ground-controlled interception (GCI) radars transmitting across 30MHz to 10GHz wavebands at ranges of up to 400 kilometres.  

But the AN/ALQ-99 will soon be replaced, initially by Raytheon’s AN/ALQ-249(V)1 Next Generation Jammer-Mid Band (NGJ-MB). This covers a 2GHz to 6GHz waveband and is considered a sea-change in capability by employing an active electronically scanned array (AESA) and a software defined architecture making the system more reliable and capable than its predecessor. The RAAF and the US Navy could receive these pods early this decade.  

The ALQ-249(V)1 will be followed by the (V)2 Next Generation Jammer-Low Band (NGJ-LB) encompassing a 100MHz to 2GHz waveband (for which Northrop Grumman and L3Harris have been awarded development contracts), and the (V)3 Next Generation Jammer-High Band (NGJ-HB) covering the 6GHz to 18GHz band of the spectrum. These latter two pods could enter RAAF and US Navy service in the mid-to-late-2020s.  

To replace the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) gathering capabilities of the RAAF’s Lockheed Martin AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, fitted as they are with an early version of BAE Systems’ AN/ALR-2001 Odyssey Electronic Support Measure (ESM). Gathering SIGINT across a 500MHz to 18GHz waveband, the air force will acquire four Gulfstream MC-55A Peregrine electronic warfare support aircraft (see ADBR Nov-Dec 2019 issue).  

The kinetic aspects of the RAAF’s SEAD posture will be enhanced via the acquisition of Northrop Grumman’s AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, an evolution of the Raytheon AGM-88C HARM (High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile). The ‘echo’ version adds a Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) and a Millimetric Wave Radar (MMW).  

While the MMW will collect detailed radar imagery of the missile’s end game for later battle damage assessment, the GPS/INS addition is vital for nullifying the ‘switch off’ tactic where radar operators may believe that they are under attack and switch off their radar in hope that the incoming anti-radiation missile will lose its lock on the radar’s RF (Radio Frequency) emissions. The GPS/INS can store the coordinates of the targeted radar should it be deactivated.  

The use of GPS coordinates also enables the missile to be loaded with a set of parameters within which it can engage targets but which beyond it cannot fly, thus helping avoid collateral damage. In 1999 during Operation Allied Force, the NATO-led effort to end ethnic cleansing in the Balkans territory of Kosovo, an AGM-88B erroneously hit houses and cars in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.  

Some air forces may choose not to procure dedicated ARMs, as these weapons are not cheap – the AGM-88E has a reported unit price of up to US$870,000. Jamming pods offer a potential alternative. They are cost-effective as a one-time purchase open to repeated use, unlike ARMs which must be replenished.  

New pods and ARMs are in the offing from European suppliers, including the pan-European Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) pod, Saab’s Electronic Attack Jammer Pod (EAJP), and MBDA’s SPEAR-EW loitering electronic attack weapon.  

France, Spain and Sweden are jointly developing the AEA via a European Union initiative to develop an escort jammer to protect packages of aircraft in contested airspace. Specifically, the pod must counter contemporary and emerging SAM systems with engagement ranges of up to 400km – a veiled reference to the S-400 which could greatly restrict EU air forces’ use of stand-off weapons during future conflicts, according to the original AEA solicitation.  

While not disclosed, the pod may be effective against radars transmitting in frequencies of 2GHz to 40GHz, encompassing the majority of early warning, ground-based air surveillance, and FC/GCI radars that such aircraft may encounter in a future conflict.  

The AEA programme may also reflect the reality that, in future, EU nations might have to perform operations outside NATO auspices if the US is unable or unwilling to offer assistance. Hence, they will require robust electronic attack capabilities to accompany the robust kinetic SEAD assets currently maintained by EU members in the form of the Panavia Tornado-ECR air defence suppression aircraft –flown by Italy’s Aeronautica Militaire and Germany’s Luftwaffe – deploying the AGM-88.  

Saab’s EAJP is designed to engage low frequency radars across a 150MHz to 4GHz waveband. Early-warning and ground-based air surveillance radars transmitting in VHF/UHF wavebands are an increasing concern – Russia has made notable investments into such systems with NIIDAR’s Podsolnukh-E and NNIIRT’s 55ZH6M Nebo-M VHF radars which entered service from 2000 being two examples.  

Such radars may be able detect aircraft with a low radar cross-section. While not capable of producing sufficient track quality for SAM systems, they could indicate to fighters an area where hostile aircraft may be present. Jonas Grönberg, Saab’s head of emerging EW products, says that the EAJP is an escort jammer designed to get strike packages safely through contested airspace for use “against low frequency threats… to help get a strike package within stand-off range to fire their weapons”. The EAJP has been developed privately by Saab and a prototype is undergoing flight testing. Grönberg says the pod could complete development in the next three years.  

Meanwhile MBDA has revitalised the air-launched decoy via its SPEAR-EW initiative. SPEAR-EW is an outgrowth of MBDA’s Select Precision Effects at Range-3 (SPEAR-3) air-to-surface weapon currently under development for the RAF.  

MBDA says the SPEAR-EW, “will act as a stand-in jammer to greatly increase the survivability of friendly aircraft and suppress enemy air defences”. It is reasonable to assume the SPEAR-EW will transmit jamming waveforms across an 8GHz to 40GHz waveband, allowing it to engage a range of airborne, ground-based and naval FC/GCI and weapons guidance radars.  

The concept of operations is for the SPEAR-EW to be launched while an aircraft is in contested airspace to jam hostile radars as and when they transmit. It could be teamed with the SPEAR-3 so that such threats can either be electronically or kinetically engaged. The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded MBDA and Leonardo a technical demonstrator programme contract, and MBDA says “both the electronic warfare payload and missile are already at advanced stages of maturity.”  

A contract from the MOD to procure the SPEAR-EW may emerge, and MBDA says that the weapon could equip both the RAF’s Eurofighter Typhoon F/GR4 and Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning jets.  

DEBATES 

“In the past you had particular aircraft which specialised in SEAD missions. Will this be the case in the future?” asks Prof Baltrusaitis.  

To an extent, the RAAF may have answered this question as it is already viewing the mission through a holistic prism where the whole force is employed to defeat A2AD postures. The RAAF says the service looks “across the force to support the SEAD mission”. In addition to the E/A-18G, other platforms such as the F-35A and Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet will aid the fight by “mixing kinetic and non-kinetic effects” including the AN/ALQ-99, Next Generation Jammer and AGM-88s.  

This mission, the RAAF says, could be aided by Australia’s other armed services as and when required. “We have assets across the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to contribute to this mission including army and navy fires.”  

This imperative to use and coordinate other segments of the RAAF and the ADF writ large is mirrored at the international level. “Due to platform commonality with the US Navy, we often look to them for doctrine and leadership, particularly in the context of the E/A-18G. The integration of the F-35A into the force also gives us shared interest with the US Air Force … Collectively, we train together with the US services in exercises such as Red Flag which is a natural way to test our ideas.”  

The need to coordinate the force and work closely with allies is imperative vis-à-vis SEAD and A2AD. Any future confrontation with China or Russia is almost certain to be executed by a coalition, most probably under US or NATO leadership. Using SEAD to defeat A2AD, particularly at the campaign level, will require the close coordination of assets.  

It will therefore be imperative to understand how allied air forces perform SEAD and how one’s own SEAD doctrine meshes therein, and with the joint force, to ensure success. The RAAF works hard to ensure this level of coordination with allies and partakes “in exercises with a wide array of nations which helps us form a wider view of ways to achieve this mission”. 

At the technical level, debates are emerging concerning the employment of electronic versus kinetic effects to neutralise hostile radars. Saab’s Grönberg believes that in “10 to 15 years’ time it will be much more common that SEAD will be conducted primarily through EW assets directing jamming towards radars and the communications upon which networked IADS depend.”  

Grönberg expects the possession of jamming pods to be “much more common than having ARMs,” which could result from the financial considerations discussed above. Nonetheless, he stresses that the choice of attack will be dictated by the desired effect: “Do you just want to suppress enemy radars, or do you want them completely out of the game?”  

Cyber warfare could also influence SEAD. In June 2019 following the destruction of a US Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk UAS by an Iranian Sayyad-2C/3 SAM, US Cyber Command mounted a cyber attack against Iranian air defences.  

“Cyber has probably added a new dimension,” observes Prof Baltrusaitis, although he cautions that cyber capabilities must be tightly merged and coordinated with the rest of the SEAD and A2/AD effort. “You need to ensure that the cyber, kinetic and electronic elements are connected, and one force element is not taking out other nodes or effectors that other elements are exploiting. Even if you use jamming and cyber, you are always going to need some type of kinetic weapon, be that a dedicated SEAD weapon or not.”  

This reality is recognised by the US electing to use cyber, kinetics and electronic attack to support the SEAD mission. As noted above, the US Navy is acquiring both the AGM-88E and the NGJ while the USAF will acquire Raytheon’s AGM-88F HCSM (HARM Control Section Modification) missile. The latter adds a GPS/INS in a similar fashion to the AGM-88E to be employed by F-16CJ Viper Weasel air defence suppression aircraft.  

Following the retirement of its General Dynamics EF-111A Raven electronic attack aircraft in 1998, the USAF is currently bereft of any jammers that can target enemy radar systems beyond those routinely used for platform protection. Nonetheless the force is transitioning the equipment used onboard its Lockheed Martin/L3 EC-130H Compass Call communications jamming aircraft onto the Gulfstream/BAE Systems EC-37B Compass Call II for service entry from 2021.  

The US is arguably in a unique position, as it can maintain dedicated SEAD capabilities such as the F-16CJ, EC-37B and E/A-18G due to the size of its defence budget. Other forces may find themselves having to make more vexing decisions on account of their financial realities. Fortunately, the renaissance of the electronic attack pod and avant-garde capabilities, such as the SPEAR-EW, alongside non-specific kinetic ordnance, presents an array of capabilities that their air forces can use to keep their aircraft safe in contested airspace.  

These tools will be bolstered by revamped SEAD doctrines designed to counter A2AD postures, and to prosecute the mission at campaign, localised and opportune levels. The imperative to intermesh these SEAD doctrines between allied air forces, honed through regular exercises, will continue. Combining these doctrines and tools will result in potent unilateral and multilateral SEAD capabilities that adversaries must reckon with during future operations. 

Following the national lock-down and social-distancing rules implemented because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Commonwealth has moved to take its Project LAND 400 Phase 3 Australian Industry Capability (AIC) ‘roadshow’ online.

Designed to seek out and qualify Australian companies and their capabilities to join the short-listed primes – Rheinmetall and Hanwha – for the project, the roadshow had been travelling to major centres to interview potential AIC partner companies. But from April 27, the roadshow has moved to an online format for companies in Darwin, Perth, Launceston, Adelaide, Newcastle, Sydney, and Canberra.

“It is important that we continue the momentum of the roadshow, especially in the COVID-19 environment,” Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price said in a statement. “The virtual roadshow will provide companies with a similar experience using digital methods to what was provided face to face. It is critical we continue to move forward with major acquisition projects like LAND 400 Phase 3, as these projects will help to fuel our post-COVID economic recovery.”

LAND 400 Phase 3 will see the replacement of the Australian Army’s ageing fleet of M113AS4 armoured personnel carriers with a new generation of infantry fighting vehicles. Hanwha is offering its Redback vehicle, while Rheinmetall has proposed its KF41 Lynx.

Registered companies should monitor the LAND 400 web site for further updates at www.defence.gov.au/CASG/EquippingDefence/Land%20400.asp.

The Government has launched a new Defence Science and Technology (DST) strategy, with eight priority research areas to better engage defence scientists, industry, research institutions, and international partners to deal with big problems.

The list is headed by development of resilient global communications, positioning, and geospatial intelligence capabilities direct to Defence users. These would be enabled by a constellation of smart satellites in low earth orbit, all-new for the ADF and one which aligns with a growing national space capability.

The Strategy, entitled More, together: Defence Science and Technology Strategy 2030 calls these eight priority areas STaR Shots (Science, Technology and Research Shots), with the aim of concentrating strategic research efforts on a smaller number of specific and challenging problems.

“An ambitious schedule will be set, with the aim of demonstrating leap-ahead capability within 10 years,” the strategy says.

The eight STaR Shots are:

• Information warfare to deliver blended awareness and resilient effects across the human, information and physical realms through a contested information environment.
• Agile command and control to develop a capability edge at all levels to understand, shape and dominate the future multi-domain battlespace.
• Assured position, navigation and timing in a contested environment.
• To deliver emerging and disruptive weapon capabilities for multi-domain combat in highly contested environments.
• Enabling the joint force to operate safely and effectively in contested chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threat environments.
• Develop battle ready platforms through next generation data analytics and digital twin systems to guarantee platform availability and capability.
• Remote undersea surveillance through development of above and below water sensors, information processing, communication and data fusion for remote surveillance over Australia’s area of maritime responsibility.

The Strategy says these represent the most challenging, high-impact capabilities which are best solved through science and technology. Each is aligned to future force structure priorities and each has been endorsed by at least one three-star sponsor.

“Importantly, each STaR Shot will be established with a developed path for introduction into service,” it says.

Launching the Strategy, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said research and development was at the core of cutting edge military capability, generated by a strong local industry. She said the Covid-19 crisis had made us acutely aware of the inter-dependence of a sovereign nation and its industrial sector.

“In the years ahead Australia must continue to develop its defence sovereign capabilities and also its industries,” she said in an online video. “I am committed to maximising the involvement of our nation’s defence industry and science and technology research sectors to deliver next generation capabilities for our Australian Defence Force.”

Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro said Australia’s universities, industry and publicly funded research agencies did world class research and were leaders in many areas.

“But today a lot of that work is bottom-up. What we seek to do is have missions that really create a degree of focus and a greater alignment of that wonderful national capability with Australia’s biggest problems,” she said.

The first of three Loyal Wingman unmanned combat aircraft for the RAAF has been rolled out by Boeing Australia and its industry partners.

The aircraft, which at 37 feet long with a 24 feet wingspan is the size of a small fighter, can fly at high subsonic speeds with various payloads and has been designed and manufactured in Australia. The RAAF had ordered three systems so far under Air Force Minor Program DEF 6014 Phase 1, with a view to developing the concept of operating with a high-performance unmanned combat system.

Designed and developed by Boeing Australia in conjunction with BAE Systems Australia, RUAG Australia, and more than 30 other industry suppliers, the Loyal Wingman has more than 70 per cent Australian content, and is part of Boeing’s Airpower teaming Systems concept which it hopes to develop for multiple international customers.

“This project is an excellent example of innovation through collaboration and what can be achieved working together with defence industry,” RAAF Chief of Air Force, AIRMSHL Mel Hupfeld said in a statement. “This demonstrates the importance of the relationship Air Force has with Boeing Australia and defence industry more broadly. I look forward to exploring the capabilities this aircraft may bring to our existing fleet in the future.”

Boeing’s ATS program director Shane Arnott told media that the Loyal Wingman will have a reconfigurable “snap on-snap off” nose section and open systems architecture which will enable different sensor payloads to be rapidly added to suit mission profiles. “The nose is 2.5 metres in length and more then 1.5 cubic metres in volume, so it’s a lot of space to fit different payloads and sensors into,” he said. “The whole idea of this is to give flexibility to the customer and achieve multi-role capability at a fraction of the cost of what is typically possible.”

While Arnott wouldn’t be drawn on what these payloads might be, it is likely these will include air-to-surface or air-to-air radar, electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR), or electronic intelligence (ELINT) sensors, or active electronic warfare payloads. RAAF Head of Air Force Capability, AVM Cath Roberts also offered that the Loyal Wingman would assume air combat roles, and thus would be capable of employing air-to-surface or air-to-air weapons.

When asked whether a successful Loyal Wingman development and concept demonstration program might lead to the system being part of the third tranche of Project AIR 6000, AVM Roberts said it was more likely that Loyal Wingman will help to inform which way that project may go. This may result in the acquisition of the last 28 F-35As of Australia’s stated program of record for 100 jets, the retention and upgrade of the RAAF’s 24 F/A-18Fs to conduct manned-unmanned teaming operations, the formation of an operational Loyal Wingman unit, or a combination of all three.

“We are proud to take this significant step forward with the Royal Australian Air Force and show the potential for smart unmanned teaming to serve as a force multiplier,” Boeing Defense, Space & Security vice president and general manager of Autonomous Systems, Kristin Robertson said in a statement. “We look forward to getting the aircraft into flight testing and proving out the unmanned teaming concept. We see global allies with those same mission needs, which is why this program is so important to advancing the development of the Boeing Airpower Teaming System.”

In a separate statement BAE Systems Australia Chief Executive Officer Gabby Costigan said, “I am delighted to be working with Boeing Australia to bring a new defence capability to life that also offers enormous potential for the RAAF as well as future export markets. This project highlights our commitment to leading the development of new technologies and collaborating to advance autonomous capabilities. It is also an exciting opportunity to work together again, delivering a world-leading program using home-grown engineering expertise.”

The Loyal Wingman has been developed through extensive computer modelling and actual sub-scale autonomous aircraft flights to develop the concepts of flying in company with manned aircraft, autonomous swarming, and the levels of artificial intelligence required.

The first full-scale aircraft will undergo systems testing before conducing ground and taxi tests, with the goal of conducting its first flight at an undisclosed location by the end of 2020.

Chemring Australia has been awarded a US$107.5m (A$167m) contract by the US Navy to provide MJU-68 countermeasure, and MJU-61 training flares for the global F-35 program.

The contract award comes after years of qualification with the US Navy’s Naval Air System office to ensure the flares meet the demanding specifications for the F-35 program.

“This is a significant milestone, not only for Chemring Australia, but for Australia’s defence industry as a whole,” Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price said in a statement. “This will create highly-skilled manufacturing jobs in Victoria, as well as opportunities across Chemring Australia’s supply chain for many Australian small businesses from procurement of raw materials, to qualification testing and transportation.”

Australian industry has so far won $1.7 billion in production contracts for the JSF program, employing some 2,400 people.

By Dougal Robertson 

At the beginning of World War Two, German U-boat captains settled on a revolutionary new tactic when attacking against Allied ships.  

“Otto Kretschmer, one of the leading U-boat aces, began to stage his attacks from point-blank range, instead of maintaining a distance of two to three kilometres from the target as recommended by the manufacturers of their torpedoes,” says Simon Parkin, author of A Game of Birds and Wolves, an engaging history of what became the Battle of the Atlantic.  

“Kretschmer would approach a convoy of merchant ships from the rear, on the surface, at night, when it was far harder for the Royal Navy escorts to pick out the U-boat in the dark. Having snuck into the middle of the convoy Kretchmer would make his attack like a fox in a henhouse before diving to wait for danger to pass.” This pioneering tactic was adopted by many of the U-boat captains and was successfully used to evade Royal Navy ships tasked with protecting convoys.  

How did the Royal Navy attempt to understand this problem? Parkin’s research led him to the Royal Navy’s Western Approaches Tactical Unit, or WATU. WATU was formed at the start of 1942 to identify why Navy escorts were failing to fend off U-boat attacks.  

WATU’s founder, then-Commander Gilbert Roberts, re-staged a notorious battle from December 1941 using after-action reports. By reverse-engineering the battle via the wargame, he and the Women’s Royal Navy, or ‘Wrens’, who staffed WATU, exposed the secret U-boat tactic.  

“This led to a fundamental change in Allied tactics,” Parkin notes. “WATU’s great contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic was in forcing Navy Captains to think not as autonomous individuals as they had for the early part of the war, but as a unified team working in co-ordination with one another. This shift in thinking had a profound effect on the Allied fortunes in the war against the U-boats.” 

Central to WATU’s success was the creative application of wargaming. Much more than an attempt to validate existing tactics against a partially-known threat, Roberts’ and WATU’s approach was to explore a range of possible scenarios, trying to understand the enemy’s thinking by asking ‘what if?’.  

Despite none of the Wrens at WATU having had direct experience in naval warfare, through careful study and analysis they began to place themselves in the position of the enemy and understand his thought process. They began to understand the decision-making of submarine commanders like Kretschmer. 

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Wargaming 

Wargaming is central to military decision-making but is often undervalued.  

During the Cold War, nearly all military planners knew the Red Army would attack through the Fulda Gap from East Germany. The operational plan was known; all that remained was to analyse the statistics of the Central Front and use computer models to determine the rate of effort that would lead to success. But with the end of the Cold War came an end to such narrow thinking. Warfare became increasingly complex, ambiguous and multifarious. 

“In times of uncertainty people become more interested in wargaming,” says Major Tom Mouat, of the Technology School in the UK Defence Academy at Shrivenham. “The nature of warfare has changed, and understanding the problem is only part of the solution. Wargaming to understand a problem helps when the world is a dangerous place.”  

Major Mouat runs wargames for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). Since the end of the Cold War the UK MoD has moved away from the statistical analysis of operational problems posed by the Red Army to dealing with complex, ambiguous threats such as the use of political warfare against treaty states. “Computer simulations often concentrate on qualitative analysis,” Major Mouat says. “It’s important to get multiple people around a table to understand decisions and how they are made.” 

It is in the human dimension that wargames can provide the most value to military planners and commanders. Understanding why decisions are made – and preparing for the unexpected – is the real power of games. While games can be fictional, they often define reality by shaping the future.  

Major Mouat notes that military organisations are often very good at measuring success, but less confident in understanding failure. “Sometimes lack of success and failure are the same thing, such as Operation EAGLE CLAW, the disastrous US attempt to rescue hostages held in the US Embassy in Tehran.  

“But we can also have ‘unfortunate success’,” Mouat adds. “For example, what might have been the outcome of the raid to capture Bin Laden if several of his wives and children were killed and a Pakistani policeman shot during the raid? Would it have been considered decisive? Understanding the probability of something happening allows an intelligent discussion to occur about risk.” 

Defining Wargames 

What then, is a wargame? Dr Peter Perla, writing in The Art of Wargaming defines it as a “a warfare model or simulation that does not involve the operation of actual forces, in which the flow of events is affected by decisions made during the course of events by players representing the opposing sides”.  

Perla also first proposed the ‘cycle of research’, linking wargames, analysis and exercises. The cycle of research recognises the three components are not the same: wargaming focuses on human behaviour, a qualitative activity. Analysis or operational research provides a quantitative basis for decisions. And exercises test and adjust the theories and models developed during wargaming and analysis. 

While all wargaming is about understanding decisions and helping decision-makers, wargames can be split into two broad categories: analytical – or research – games, and learning – or training and education – games.  

According to Dr Robert Burks of the US Naval Postgraduate School, analytical wargames are “designed to collect and analyse information from wargame play. These results either feed directly into a decision or are used to develop other analytic products.”   

Wargames of both types can establish multiple possible outcomes for a scenario while reducing the possibility of determinism or groupthink. Analytical games set limits and allow players to explore concepts where the cost of failure is unacceptable: for example, games were used during the Cold War to try and understand and control the possible use of nuclear weapons. Training with games allows decision-makers to practice operational art and become more familiar with ambiguity and friction in warfare. 

Wargame Generations 

Wargaming goes back much further than the Second World War and the early decades of the Cold War. Matthew Caffrey, of the US Air Force Research Laboratory, draws a distinction between ‘first generation’ wargames – such as chess – that are abstract strategy games, and second-generation wargames that introduced the simulation of warfare.  

The Prussian military was the first to use second-generation wargames to solve operational problems in the aftermath of the defeat by Napoleon at Jena-Auerstadt in 1806.  

The first ‘Kriegsspiel’ dedicated to operations and tactics was introduced in 1811 by Lieutenant Johan von Reisswitz. Von Reisswitz’s son Georg then simplified his father’s game in 1824, making use of paper topographic maps instead of ceramic terrain tables. By 1837 Chief of Staff of the Prussian army Helmuth von Moltke ordered increased wargaming, introducing innovations such as the ‘staff ride’ where war college students were taken to likely invasion corridors on the Prussian border and discussed their battle plan.   

The development of second-generation wargaming spread across the world over the next 75 years, influenced both by Prussian success and the adoption of Prussian wargaming methods in the US, Russia, Europe and Japan.  

In the period leading up to World War One civilian wargames also started to grow in popularity. Jane’s Naval War Game was named for its designer, Frederick Jane. Initially the game only had detailed technical information on four British ships, and when Jane added information for the German Navy, it created a controversy. The next edition of the game then included All the World’s Warships, the first of hundreds of titles published by the Jane’s Group.  

‘Third-generation’ wargaming, according to Matthew Caffrey, is the simulation of armed conflict depicting all elements of national power and examining all dimensions of conflict within a society. Caffrey notes the development of third generation wargaming was “motivated by the need for a strategy to preserve the independence of an interwar Germany too weak to defend itself through military means alone.”  

Third generation wargaming seeks to understand the human dimension of warfare. While complex, drawing in the political context brings wargaming closer to understanding the nature of warfare beyond single engagements and operations. 

Integrating Technology 

The use of technology in wargaming has fluctuated with strategic circumstances. During the Cold War there was emphasis on quantifying solutions to a known problem – the Red Army striking through the Fulda Gap.  

But as Major Mouat notes, technology and artificial intelligence doesn’t help define the problem. “There’s this idea that as artificial intelligence becomes more pervasive then human factors will become less important. Well, the day you can make Cortana lose its temper we are back to trying to understand human emotions.”  

Mouat uses dice in the MoD wargames to get players to consider the human element. “It’s not about gambling – players can pause the game to try and increase the probability of success, based on their understanding of risk. Mouat believes technology in wargaming is best applied to enable games, such as using computer-based tools that assist play or help facilitate games.  

Technology and computers will never change the fact that war is a human endeavour, and subject to the interplay between the Clauswitzian trinity of emotion, chance and reason. This is the strength of Perla’s ‘cycle of research’, where the outcomes of a wargame are fed into operations research simulations, and the likely outcomes tested against reality during exercises. 

Understanding Decisions 

The types of future conflict involving the ADF will probably be complex and ambiguous, operating in what is termed the ‘grey zone’, short of declared or overt hostilities. In these contingencies full of doubt and traps, commanders and decision-makers must be comfortable with their own decision-making.  

“Wargaming prepares the decision-maker for a broad situation, not a specific problem,” notes one ADF insider with extensive experience in game design. “The ADF training systems are often constructed as hurdles for people to gain a specific competency – and this means they aren’t designed to develop people’s mental attitudes.”  

Wargames teach understanding: the structure within a game can limit a problem, so that human behaviour and events are seen as a chain of decisions, not the chaos and randomness that can appear to manifest in war. 

The wargame developed by Roberts and the Wrens in 1942 was ideally suited to the problem it attempted to solve. The design of the game was tailored to the asymmetrical battlefield of the ocean.  

But when fine-tuning his game, Roberts benefitted from the position of WATU’s office in Liverpool. It enabled him to interview in person naval officers fresh from action against U-boats. The reports meant he could refine the game so it was always relevant to the changing situation at sea.  

“Roberts was a talented teacher and communicator, which accelerated the effects of the wargame as he was able to drive home the lessons to his audience,” says Simon Parkin. “These naval officers were fully aware of the gravity of the ‘games’ they were playing and their potential for life-saving tactics on the Atlantic.” 

Perhaps the most profound reason for playing wargames is they are not predictive. A well-structured wargame isn’t about developing adversary courses of action or testing operational plans. Instead, it prepares the players to be surprised. We will never know the future, but wargames help us understand possible futures. And applying creative endeavour to warfare may help us maintain the peace. 

Dougal Robertson is an executive analyst at Felix Defence, with 13 years’ experience as a military intelligence officer. He has worked in tactical, operational and strategic commands and deployed with the ADF to multiple locations.  

He is a graduate of the RAAF Fighter Intelligence Instructor Course and holds Masters’ degrees in International Relations and Intelligence & Counter-terrorism. 

Next Generation Counter-air

By John Conway

History matters. While doctrine, tactics and plans tell us how to fight in the future, history teaches us what went wrong in the past.

In Vietnam, air power was used in a gradual approach to apply pressure against the political leadership of North Vietnam. It failed. US Air Force historian Richard Hallion wrote after the Gulf War that, ‘…air power was misused in Vietnam, with that misuse often clouding results attributed to the limits of air power when they really stemmed from limits on air power.’

But history can also teach us how to succeed by reminding us how we failed and what we did right, and some things did go right in Vietnam. According to Hallion, the December 1972 Linebacker II offensive shattered North Vietnam’s air defence network and compelled the North Vietnamese government to the negotiating table. It also showed how the integration of combat power and the synchronisation of intelligence and tactics could lead to battlefield success. While almost 50 years have passed since Linebacker II, the lessons from the air war over North Vietnam are still relevant

At the peak of Operation Rolling Thunder in 1967, the US lost 366 fixed-wing combat aircraft. North Vietnam seized the initiative in the air war by exploiting weaknesses in the way the US had conceived, organised, and prepared for the campaign. The US was not prepared to fight a limited conventional war from the outset – the driving force design of Cold War politics had caught the USAF and US Navy wrong-footed.

In the quest for air superiority the US applied a Cold War defensive counter-air (DCA) mindset to Vietnam. But instead of the Soviet bomber stream, US aviators faced intense air-to-air combat against small, agile fighters. Meanwhile the US offensive strike capability was dominated by aircraft and tactics that had been optimised for nuclear weapons delivery over the vast open spaces of the Soviet Union, not against tightly integrated air defences in mountainous jungle terrain.

Back in the continental US national intelligence systems were compartmentalised, controlled, and highly adversarial. Intelligence sharing was hamstrung by administrative and technological issues and cultural factors.

The ‘Green Door Syndrome’ referred to the practice of hiding valuable intelligence feeds behind partitions. While this was intended to prevent exposing sensitive Cold War signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities and the extent to which the US was conducting its wider collection operations in South-East Asia (SEA), it also meant actionable intelligence took far too long to reach key decision-makers, including aircrew fighting for their survival.

Despite pockets of tactical brilliance, there was a lack of operational synchronisation between the physical and information domains, and it was left to innovators at the tactical level to solve problems like the suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD). For example, ‘Project Wild Weasel’ – the development of a dedicated surface-to-air missile (SAM) detection and suppression aircraft – and the Iron Hand missions during Rolling Thunder relied on the bravery and ingenuity of US aviators.

What can the history of the Vietnam Air War teach us today? The integration of intelligence into counter-air operations provides an advantage in air combat. The US and North Vietnam both turned this into a decision-making advantage, providing an opportunity to get into the mind of an adversary command structure to understand intent, shape behaviour, and avoid strategic surprise.

Declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Intelligence memoranda from 1968 and National Security Agency (NSA) Cryptologic Quarterly publications from 1975 provide an alternative insight into the Vietnam War. These documents look beyond the platform-vs-platform engagements and bombing missions, and allow us to explore how to gain an information advantage.

Air Superiority Meets Air Deniability

Military and political decision-makers back in the US imposed complex, highly restrictive rules of engagement on the USAF and US Navy. The intent was to bring North Vietnam to the negotiating table through a managed escalation, while avoiding wider confrontation with the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China (PRC).

But the lack of a clear US strategy – the use of military force to achieve political goals – gave the North Vietnamese government enough time to mobilise the nation. It also gave away time and space for North Vietnam to build an integrated air defence system (IADS). The North Vietnamese understood strategy, and the IADS provided a link between strategy and task. It would provide air deniability and so draw out the war – a strategy of exhaustion applied to the US.

This meant the US was forced into a defensive mindset from which it was almost impossible to recover. The US was reactive in planning and vulnerable to operational surprise, even though the intelligence enterprise was aware of increasing North Vietnamese air activity. The Pentagon was under-prepared for events like the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the Tet Offensive in 1968 (which led to the siege at Khe Sanh), and the Easter Offensive in 1972.

Complicating the tactical task for the US was a self-imposed 30-mile buffer zone along the Chinese border and around Hanoi, and a 10-mile buffer around the port of Haiphong. While intended to minimise the risk of escalation and contain Soviet and Chinese involvement, it also allowed the unencumbered supply of war materiel, including the Soviet-delivered components of the IADS.

At the start of Rolling Thunder, policy, process and technology were fragmented to the point where the US faced the real possibility of losing the air war. It was only towards the end of the air campaign and the Linebacker raids that the combined weight of US air power was integrated and synchronised enough to destroy the North Vietnamese IADS. US air power eventually caught up with North Vietnamese decision-making, but it came at an extraordinary cost in lives and aircraft, measured in the thousands.

North Vietnam was quicker to understand the air deniability mission. The target was not US air power, it was the command and decision-making apparatus of the US military. North Vietnam also integrated its counter-air operations much faster than the US, which started the campaign with deep divides organisationally, doctrinally and culturally between Strategic Air Command (SAC) and Tactical Air Command (TAC). 

While Washington directed the strategy, the weak link between military action and political outcomes meant USAF and USN air operations lacked a unified command arrangement, didn’t share intelligence or target lists, and integrated (joint) training before deployment didn’t exist. 

Air Campaign

The Vietnam air campaign can be divided into three phases between 1965 and 1975 – Operations Rolling Thunder, Linebacker I, and Linebacker II. Each demonstrated the growing influence of technology, characterised by the integration of intelligence and electronic warfare into US command and control systems and the use of precision-guided weapons.

This period also witnessed the rapid expansion of the North Vietnamese air defence capability from insignificant – no fighter aircraft, a small number of aging anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) systems and four fire control radars – to become the world’s most dense and lethal IADS.

This IADS was organised around four functions – active and passive early warning, air surveillance, air defence which included aircraft and surface-to-air-missile systems, and the capability to control fighter aircraft, often termed ground controlled intercept (GCI). It had an information layer, a sensor layer, an effects layer, and a command layer.

By the end of Rolling Thunder in 1968 the IADS was a tightly-coupled system with 400 radars, 8,000 AAA pieces, 35 S-75 Dvina (NATO codename SA-2 Guideline) SAM batteries, 32 Soviet-built MiG-21 and 15 MiG-15/17 fighters, plus another 108 fighters based in the PRC.

When the US re-commenced bombing in the North in 1972 during Linebacker I, proficiency and technology had increased on both sides. But the US still lagged behind North Vietnamese command situational awareness and decision-making capability, due to limitations in radar coverage, airspace denial, and integration of intelligence.

North Vietnamese air defence represented everything the US was not. The air defence headquarters in Hanoi worked with North Vietnamese land forces using high frequency communications between all command elements. It employed a common signals operating and planning process fed by extensive radar coverage, which allowed commanders to see the entire air battlespace on plotting boards and radar screens.

Radar coverage was augmented by over 5,000 signals intelligence (SIGINT) operators skilled in interpreting the increased air, logistics, weather checks, air traffic and other activities that preceded US bombing raids.  Consequently, North Vietnamese air defences often had 30-40 minutes warning of an air attack, which was more than enough time to prepare for the disruption and denial of US aircraft.

North Vietnam also employed sophisticated deception measures that exploited weaknesses in US tactics, radar coverage, unencrypted voice communications, and the geographical constraints imposed by Washington. 

Beyond Integration

The North Vietnamese were integrated and synchronised. Meanwhile, the US was integrated but a long way from being synchronised. Most crucially US commanders lacked the shared situational awareness necessary for a decision-making advantage. 

US airborne radars had poor range and look-down capability, and ground-based air surveillance radars provided only limited coverage for deep strikes into North Vietnam. There was no coordinated effort to degrade and destroy the North Vietnamese IADS, and the US continued to view air superiority as a defensive task, preventing bombers from attacking US targets.

Unity of command and intelligence integration, essential for successful counter-air operations, was divided between USAF 7th Air Force and USN Task Force 77 (CTF-77) stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, so that within a few months the planned strategic bombing campaign quickly decomposed to a limited tactical interdiction effort. This was further evidenced by the need to procedurally split theatre airspace into ‘route packages’ to aid coordination and deconfliction of strike formations.

Meanwhile the North Vietnamese IADS continued to grow and US aircraft losses mounted to extraordinary levels by today’s standards. Local commanders tried to make sense of the situation while Washington continued to impose constraints and metrics, such as sortie rates. This led to a scientific approach to the measurement of air campaign success, encouraging the wrong operational behaviours, poor decisions, and insufficient emphasis on operational art. 

However, there were significant events to come which changed leadership behaviour and decision-making in Washington, and accelerated the integration of intelligence into air operations. This would move US air power slowly towards the required level of synchronisation.    

Opening the Green Doors

US intelligence had been aware of the build-up of the North Vietnamese IADS as early as 1964, yet the dissemination of intelligence was constrained by policy, administration and technology barriers across NSA, CIA and the single service intelligence organisations. This was especially true for SIGINT.

SIGINT is intelligence derived from electronic signals and systems such as communications, radars, and weapons systems. It can provide an essential insight into adversary capabilities, actions, and intentions. However, the default is to constrain SIGINT in policy, process and organisational bureaucracy. This stems from the need for operational security in collection and force application.  

The decision to release SIGINT is therefore subject to gain/loss decisions involving the benefits of providing intelligence to the operator, weighed against the potential downside of revealing sources and collection capabilities.

In Vietnam, three events involving the loss of life, materiel, and reputation progressively eased these restrictions and accelerated the release of intelligence to those who needed it most. 

On April 4 1965 a flight of USAF F-105Ds was attacking a rail and road bridge complex 75 miles south of Hanoi. Despite US technical supremacy, a pair of MiG-17 Frescos shot down two ‘Thuds’ before the supporting USAF F-100 fighters could react. This was the first air-to-air victory by either side during the Vietnam air war, and it left the USAF reeling.

Three months later, following a raid by four USAF F-4C Phantoms on munitions facilities west of Hanoi, they were targeted by an SA-2 battery – one F-4C was shot down, and three aircraft were damaged. Two days later, 48 F-105Ds took part in raids known as Operation Spring High, but the North Vietnamese had an information and decision advantage, and had set a trap – the raid turned out to be against SA-2 decoys made from bamboo. The USAF lost six Thuds and five pilots to AAA in the raid and, once again, were outmanoeuvred by a more sophisticated and integrated counter-air system.

The third event was an international incident on May 8 1966 when four EB-66 EW aircraft and four F-4Cs inadvertently strayed into Chinese airspace. Four MIG-17s were scrambled to intercept the US aircraft, and the ensuing dogfight resulted in the loss of a Chinese MIG-17. Beijing threatened escalation, while the USAF claimed it had not crossed the border. 

But imagery of jettisoned Phantom fuel tanks in the PRC provided evidence which infuriated Washington. The Pentagon demanded an investigation into why the aircraft had not been warned of the airspace violation. It became clear the problem lay not with SIGINT collection, but with the reliability and speed of dissemination of intelligence to aircrew via the US’s Hammock warning system.

Intelligence Integration

Project Hammock had been in existence since November 1965 and was the result of an operational need for better tracking data on air activity to support raids deep into North Vietnam and provide early warning of low-level MiG attacks.

Hammock involved the collection of North Vietnamese air defence communications at an intercept site in Danang, and the establishment of an encrypted network between the USAF control and reporting post (CRP) at Monkey Mountain near Da Nang, and the US 7th Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin to the US Navy controller called Red Crown.

The 7th AF Tactical Air Control Centre (TACC) at Tan Son Nhut Air Base was added to the network, but the system incurred duplication and it was slow. The manual conversion of tracks and the transmission to the CRP and TACC could take anything from 12 to 30 minutes to reach aircrew via the busy guard communications channel, and there was no assurance warning messages were received.

The USAF investigation into the PRC border incursion resulted in airborne communications relay platforms being integrated into the Hammock architecture. The TACC at Tan Son Nhut was shut down and a new one established at Monkey Mountain called TACC-North Sector (TACC-NS), with embedded staff cleared to handle SIGINT.  

To further build situational awareness the SAC Lockheed EC-121K Rivet Top was introduced into air operations in 1967 and integrated into Hammock. The Rivet Top provided an airborne extension to the TACC-NS capability. Key technologies included the QRC-248 set which could display Soviet identification friend or foe (IFF) returns from the North Vietnamese MiGs, and display data from the SA-2’s Fan Song radar.  

There was further integration of the NSA Ironhorse system which generated a visual display of SIGINT derived from North Vietnamese morse and non-morse air defence communications. The Ironhorse system provided a level of computer-enabled automation which accelerated the manual plotting systems at the heart of Hammock.

But the problem now was the sheer volume of data as air defence traffic rose exponentially during Rolling Thunder, and the Hammock system became overwhelmed. This required increasing levels of automation and improvements in latency.

Air combat activity peaked in 1967, and in early 1968 events on the ground diverted the USAF and USN air operations away from Rolling Thunder in the north to support the siege at Khe Sanh in the south. The Tet Offensive at the end of January further diverted attention, and poor weather prevented attacks on the north. President Johnson finally ordered a halt to the bombing campaign in April 1968.

Between the end of Rolling Thunder in 1968 and the start of Linebacker I in 1972, the US made significant improvements in its technology and TTPs. Yet the latter stages of the air war were again impacted by the ongoing integration of intelligence into counter-air operations, and it was the creation of a new weapons control facility – called Teaball – which finally allowed the US to achieve its goal of air superiority and bring North Vietnam to the negotiating table.

Synchronicity

Linebacker I lasted seven months, and was in response to the surprise North Vietnamese crossing of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) in March 1972, known as the Easter Offensive. Linebacker II was an 11-day operation in December 1972 and would become the final bombing campaign before the signing of the peace accords in Paris.

President Nixon had turned to air power because he wanted the withdrawal of 70,000 ground forces to go ahead regardless of the invasion so, in preparation, the number of F-4s in South-East Asia was increased by 185 to 374 and the number of B-52s increased from 86 to 210.

In the first three months of Linebacker I the US lost 48 aircraft, 21 to MiGs and 27 to ground-based air defences. When the US lost another 13 aircraft the Commander 7th AF, General John Vogt, reported to the USAF Chief of Staff they were losing the air war.

Poor situational awareness for raids to the north and west of Hanoi remained a major problem, so Vogt initiated a project which would synchronise strike and counter-air missions to a level necessary to overwhelm the North Vietnamese IADS.

Teaball utilised a previously unexploited source of communications intelligence (COMINT) that included azimuth and range positions from North Vietnamese radars. These were passed by line of sight communications to the intercepting MiGs by GCI. The communications were intercepted by U-2 aircraft and downlinked to USAF operators in Thailand. This GCI link had in fact been identified as early as 1965 by US Army intercept operators, but had not been recognised for its significance due to a lack of air domain expertise.

The range and azimuth data were fused in real time with other North Vietnamese tactical air communications, and 7th AF and CTF-77 multi-sensor information was combined into Teaball, creating an unimagined level of understanding of the battlespace. So despite the heavy losses in the early stages of the operation, by the end of Linebacker II the US had finally penetrated the North Vietnamese command layer, gained decision-making advantage, and air superiority.

The tables had been turned on the MiGs which by this stage were grounded. The IADS was rendered ineffective by a broader bombing campaign which denied the resupply of SAMs. The North Vietnamese eventually ran out of missiles, having fired 1,240 during Linebacker II alone.

Integration was an important factor in the outcome of the Vietnam air campaign, but a higher-order function was synchronisation. Once the US had synchronised the political, operational, tactical, physical and information domains, it was a match for the North Vietnamese. But before then, the US was reactive and defensive, and was losing.

Force Multiplier – Early Warning and Control

In a modern context, viewing future multi-domain operations simply as a function of tactical integration is unlikely to achieve the required decision-making tempo, advantage, and operational outcomes. A focus on synchronisation will encourage new thinking, and avoid framing our operational challenges exclusively in terms of platforms and legacy counter-air doctrine.

Synchronisation has a relationship with time, whereas integration does not. While our competitors chase systems integration, we should raise the bar and build the narrative around synchronisation. 

The legacy of Hammock, Ironhorse, Teaball, and Rivet Top lives on in a single platform concept, articulated fifty years ago by the 13th AF Technical Research Detachment at Udorn in Thailand. ‘The Teaball concept should be integrated into the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). The concept of an air mobile weapons control centre which could be co-located with a ground COMINT source, in any theatre, should be developed.

‘The AWACS aircraft would receive COMINT plots, via secure satellite data link, either as a computer-generated track or voice tells. If space and payloads permit, COMINT collection stations should be incorporated into AWACS. The improved air picture that will be available with the advent of AWACS, when integrated with the information available in COMINT, will provide a degree of command and control never before achieved.’

John Conway is the Managing Director and senior analyst at Felix Defence. He has extensive operational experience as a fast jet operator and senior commander across the South Atlantic, Cold War Europe, Balkans and Middle East theatres of operation. He is a board member at the Sir Richard Williams Foundation and spent over a decade working in the Australian Defence industry. 

UPDATED with Avalon postponement.

AMDA Foundation Limited has announced that LAND FORCES 2020 has been postponed to take place from June 1-3, 2021, and that the 2021 Australian International Airshow at Avalon has been postponed to November 2021.

The biennial trade shows organised by AMDA are Australia’s biggest land, aerospace, and naval domain shows. LAND FORCES was originally scheduled to take place from September 1-3, 2020 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, while Avalon was scheduled for 23-28 February, 2021. But with COVID-19 pandemic travel and social distancing restrictions unlikely to be fully lifted anytime soon, the decision was taken to defer the shows.

“We believe this deferral will provide greater certainty for all involved with LAND FORCES,” AMDA Foundation CEO, Ian Honnery said in a May 12 statement. “Crucially, it will allow our exhibitors, participants and stakeholders to focus on managing through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, knowing that a deferred LAND FORCES will have greater probability of proceeding and, therefore, of serving as a powerful promotional and industry engagement forum on the way to business recovery.”

In an additional statement issued the following day, Honnery added, “After extensive consultation and review, it has become clear that the impacts of COVID-19, including lengthy logistical lead times and uncertainty about availability of international travel, would pose unacceptable risks to AVALON 2021, should it continue with its original February dates. As a result, AVALON 2021, originally scheduled for 23-28 February, will be deferred to later in 2021, with timings in November being considered. Precise dates will be announced shortly.”

The decision to defer both shows means AMDA is in for a busy second half of the year next year, with the PACIFIC International Maritime Conference and Exposition in Sydney scheduled for August 18-20.

The commander of Eglin AFB in Florida has issued a ‘safety pause’ for all operations at the base following crashes of an F-22A and F-35A in two separate incidents within a week.

The F-22 crashed over the base’s extensive training range north of the airfield on May 15, while the F-35A crashed on landing on the evening of May 19. Both pilots were able to eject without major injuries.

“The events over the past few days remind us that the defense of our country can be a dangerous business,” commander of the 96th Test Wing BrigGen Scott Cain said in a statement. “It is very important to me that we now take a safety pause.”

Eglin AFB was the first training base for the F-35, with the 33^rd Fighter Wing providing pilot and maintenance training for all three US services as well as an initial cadre of international partner nations including Australia. More recently, F-22s formerly based at nearby Tyndall AFB were relocated to Eglin after Tyndall was badly damaged by Hurricane Michael in October 2018.

The organisers of the biennial PACIFIC International Maritime Exposition have announced that the show originally scheduled for August 2021 has been deferred to 2022.

To be renamed INDO-PACIFIC International Maritime Exposition 2022 to better reflect increasing naval capabilities and influence in Australia’s wider region, the show will now be held in May 2022, with the exact dates to be confirmed.

The announcement comes just a week after the LAND FORCES 2020 which had been scheduled for this September was postponed to June 1-3, 2021 due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2021 Australian International Airshow at Avalon originally scheduled for February 23-28, 2021 was postponed to November 2021.

The day after the INDO-PACIFIC dates change, AMDA Foundation announced Avalon will be held from 23-28 November, 2021.

In summary, the revised dates for all three shows are:

LAND FORCES 2021 – June 1-3, 2021
AVALON 2021 – November 23-28, 2021
INFO-PACIFIC 2022 – Dates TBA May 2022