A decade ago, the RAAF officially took delivery of the first two of six E-7A Wedgetail aircraft, troubled then but now recognised as likely the best airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft in service anywhere in the world.

That occasion on April 30 was marked by the RAAF and by Boeing Defence Australia, but unfortunately passed mostly unremarked by the rest of the community amidst the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

“Pretty exciting achievement,” said Darryn Fletcher, Boeing Defence Australia director of commercial derivative aircraft. “The journey in getting it to delivery let alone 10 years is something we are proud to be a part of as a company in partnership with Defence. It was obviously a very complex program. The involvement of our parent company back in the US was very important as well.

“We support (the RAAF) with the sustainment program, but also the modification program for where they want to take the platform over its life of type,” he said.

For all of Wedgetail’s acknowledged capability at managing the air battlespace, much of what it can do remains classified. Therefore, Fletcher said he could not say too much. “There is only so much we can talk about in relation to the capability,” he said.

While the RAAF received its first two aircraft back in 2010, they had actually been around much longer, with Wedgetail A30-001 making its first flight in May 2004.

Wedgetail was a long time coming. Back in the 1980s, the ADF recognised the need for an airborne battlespace management capability, with the government releasing a request for proposal in 1996. Four years later it was announced the winner was Boeing with a version of the widely used 737-700 airliner, fitted with the new Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar.

It was recognised that this was an extremely innovative proposal carrying considerable technical risk, and thus this was borne out.  

Problems with the radar led to long delays, and the government came close to pulling the plug. Reassured that the radar could be made to work, the Commonwealth opted to persevere as did Boeing – which took a substantial loss on the project – on the expectation it would make good on future sales.

The RAAF declared final operational capability (FOC) in May 2015, 77 months later than originally planned.

Since then, RAAF Wedgetails have demonstrated their exceptional capabilities in support of the air campaign against Islamic State over Iraq and Syria.

Already Boeing has sold four Wedgetails each to Turkey and South Korea where they are, respectively, named Peace Eagle and Peace Eye, while in March last year Britain announced it would buy five. Italy, Qatar and the UAE have all been reported to be interested in the E-7, as has NATO.

However, the truly alluring deal to replace the USAF’s fleet of 31 ageing Boeing 707-based E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft remains uncertain. At the moment, the USAF says it’s looking to see its E-3s through to life of type around 2035, by which time the oldest airframe will be a stately 64.

Although Australia’s Wedgetails have just passed their 10^th year in service, they are no longer in their prime. Once the F/A-18 Hornets are retired, after C-130J the Wedgetails will be the RAAF’s second oldest platform.

Key Wedgetail systems reflect technology current when the aircraft came off the production line. To this end, an upgrade program dubbed Project AIR 5077 Phase 5A is under way to update navigation, IFF (identification friend or foe), tactical datalinks, communication and encryption systems.

Navigation improvements will bring Wedgetails up to the same capability in congested airspace as current production civil 737s. IFF (identification friend or foe) will be upgraded from Mode 4 to Mode 5 – a crucial cyber-security enhancement – with Australia following the US military and which eventually will be applied to all ADF aircraft.

Wedgetail Program Director Claire Kluge said AIR 5077 Phase 5A was a complex program, and the scope now was different to when it was originally contracted. “It has a number of different releases within that one program, and different aircraft over the next four years will undergo the modifications,” she said.

Like most commercial derivatives, the Wedgetail airframe has proved totally reliable. However a further upgrade to mission systems is planned under project Air 5077 Phase 6, with first pass around 2021-22, and capability release in 2025-26.

The US Army’s vertical takeoff
revolution takes shape

By Andrew McLaughlin

The US Army’s comprehensive and acronym-rich Future Vertical Lift (FVL) helicopter recapitalisation program took a big step forward in March when the shortlisted contenders for two of the key elements of the program were announced.

FVL is a family of systems designed to replace the US Army’s current vertical takeoff capabilities with a new generation of revolutionary aircraft that can leverage common hardware components, software, production, and operational elements.

The FVL program resulted from the FY2009 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in which Congress directed the Pentagon to ‘outline a joint approach of the development of vertical lift aircraft for all the military services’.

The US Defense Secretary subsequently authorised the establishment of the DoD FVL initiative to address vertical lift capability requirements, focus technology development, and determine feasible and affordable solutions beyond 2030. Four integrated product teams were formed to focus on coordinating and synchronising service activities for requirements, science and technology, acquisition, and common systems.

Leading the way for FVL is the medium-lift Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) – also known as Capability Set 3 – which will initially complement and eventually replace the Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk transport helicopter.

In parallel with FLRAA, the US Army is also developing the light-scout Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) – or Capability Set 1 – which will fill the armed reconnaissance helicopter (ARH) requirement left vacant by the failed Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche and the Bell ARH-70 Arapaho, both of which were cancelled in 2004 and 2008 respectively. Following the retirement of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior in 2017, the ARH/light attack role has been performed in service by the heavier Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopter.

There are currently no plans to replace the AH-64E or the heavy-lift CH-47F/MH-47G Chinook as part of the FVL effort, although the US Army has indicated that these could be follow-on programs once FARA and FLRAA are more advanced.

In addition to FARA and FLRAA, the FVL program is also working on two other capabilities – the Future Unmanned Aircraft System (FUAS), and the FVL Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA) – both of which are designed to be “critical enablers” across the FVL family of systems.

FUAS will work with FARA, FLRAA and current aircraft to enable long-range precision fires by combining ground-launched unmanned systems with air-launched effects (ALE) through manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T). MOSA, meanwhile, is a set of common design standards that will be applied across the entire FVL fleet to enable faster technological insertion, greater competition, and interoperability.

In the meantime, the US Army is accelerating FARA and FLRAA by deviating from the US DoD’s traditional acquisition model and applying instead the ‘Middle Tier of Acquisition for Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Fielding’ model as outlined in the 2009 NDAA. This model will see companies develop technology demonstrators and prototypes much faster, while the Army utilises its Futures Command, Capability Development Integration Directorate (CDID), and cross-functional teams (CFTs) to coordinate the FVL requirements and to develop future modernisation plans.

FLRAA

Furthest along in terms of maturity is FLRAA, even though FARA is scheduled to enter service some two years before it.

Much of the development risk for FLRAA was identified during that program’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) program which saw both contenders build and fly prototype designs – Bell with its V-280 Valor tiltrotor design, and Sikorsky-Boeing with their SB>1 Defiant coaxial rotor and pusher prop concept.

JMR-TD also provided funding for several companies to prototype and test mission systems architecture, and all the results gleaned from JMR-TD have allowed the US Army to develop its requirements for FLRAA. And while FLRAA is currently a US Army program, the US Marine Corps and US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) have also issued RFIs to industry for a similar capability.

Following a successful JMR-TD program, both Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing were awarded contracts in March 2020 to proceed to a competitive demonstration and risk reduction effort (CD&RR) to further develop their aircraft. Both teams had already built full-scale technology demonstrators and successfully explored their low and intermediate-speed flight envelopes over more than a hundred hours of flight testing since 2018 and 2019, respectively.

“These agreements are an important milestone for FLRAA,” US Army aviation program executive officer Patrick Mason the said in a March 16 statement. “The CD&RR continues to transition technologies from the JMR-TD effort to the FLRAA weapons system design. We will be conducting analysis to refine the requirements, conceptual designs, and acquisition approach. Ultimately, this information and industry feedback are vital to understanding the performance, cost, affordability, schedule risks and trades needed to successfully execute the FLRAA program.”

The current FLRAA program schedule has the US Army awarding a preliminary design contract in the fourth quarter of 2021. The successful system will proceed to a preliminary design review (PDR) in the second quarter of 2023, with first flight of the production representative prototype in the third quarter of 2024 followed by critical design review (CDR) in the fourth quarter of 2024 and service entry scheduled for 2030.

FARA

Much more ambitiously, the US Army’s light-scout requirement is considered more urgent. As such, it is expected to start fielding its successful FARA design in 2028, despite currently being less advanced than FLRAA.

In order to accommodate the accelerated development, the US Army will conduct rapid prototyping, fly-off and follow-on production awards. After an RFP was issued in September 2018, concept development awards were issued to five companies in April 2019, including a teaming of AVX and L3Harris, Bell Helicopter, Boeing, a teaming of Karem Aircraft and Northrop Grumman, and Sikorsky.

In March. the US Army announced it had shortlisted two companies – Sikorsky with its Raider X coaxial rotor and pusher prop design, and Bell with its 360 Invictus – to proceed to competitive prototype (CP) development. The FARA announcement came less than two weeks after the FLRAA shortlist announcement, with the same two companies tasked to compete on both programs.

The Raider X is based on Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider which has been flying for several years, and the technology and configuration developed for it has also been applied to its larger SB>1 Defiant FLRAA contender.

“Through our mature S-97 Raider technology demonstrator, we continue to optimize our FARA solution, which will provide the Army with an integrated weapon system that combines speed, range, manoeuvrability, survivability and operational flexibility,” Sikorsky’s vice president of future vertical lift, Andy Adams said in a March 25 statement. “This approach is driving down risk and will result in an aircraft solution that is capable of executing the Army’s joint all-domain operations.”

Bell is yet to fly its 360 which is a more conventional single rotor and shrouded tail rotor design, although it says many of its systems and dynamic components will be leveraged from its larger commercial 525 program which was recently certified.

“Bell is proud to continue work on the Bell 360 Invictus as part of the Army’s FARA Competitive Prototype competition,” Bell’s vice president of advanced vertical lift systems, Keith Flail told Defense News. “We have made significant investment and begun manufacturing in order to preserve the Army’s schedule for FARA CP and we are thrilled to continue our work on the Invictus.”

Both aircraft feature long and low-slung fuselages, a chin-mounted cannon, tandem cockpits, faceted fuselages and detailed shaping, shrouded rotor heads, and internal weapons bays. Many of these elements appear to be aimed at providing a reduced radar cross section compared to the current AH-64E Apache and other attack/armed reconnaissance helicopters.

The FARA program schedule plans for the two shortlisted prototypes to be flying by November 2022, the fly-off to be conducted in 2023, a production contract to be awarded to the winning design in 2024, and service entry is scheduled for 2028.

CAPABILITY

Both FARA and FLRAA are hoping to achieve higher speeds, greater range/endurance, and higher levels of survivability than the aircraft they are designed to replace, while also incorporating superior levels of integrated systems, sensors, electronic warfare systems, and weapons.

Sikorsky’s X2 and follow-on S-97 Raider prototypes have both demonstrated their ability to fly at more than 200kts, with the X2 holding the world helicopter speed record of 280kts. By comparison, an AH-64E has a top speed of about 190kts without external weapons. The larger FLRAA is aiming to be able to fly at speeds up to 300kts and have a combat range of more than 500nm (940km), well in excess of a Black Hawk’s 170kts and 300nm (550km).

The successful FARA aircraft will be a weapon system equivalent to a 5th generation fighter, incorporating F-35-like data-fusion and robust datalinks to provide the crew with enhanced battlespace awareness from numerous onboard and off-board sensors.

Most onboard sensors will likely be conformal or embedded within the airframe to preserve the aircraft’s low radar cross-section. Off-board sensors will include those carried by tactical and strategic unmanned aerial systems (UAS), AEW&C, satellites, ground-based joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC), and fixed or mobile ground-based sensors such as those in ground-based integrated air defence systems (IADS). All will feed data into the aircraft’s weapon system to provide unprecedented situational awareness.

Like FARA, the FLRAA will also have a much higher level of sensor integration compared to the federated ‘add-on’ systems of its predecessors. With a view to developing FLRAA into special mission variants as has been done with the Black Hawk family over the years, provision will be made in the airframe and in the aircraft’s combat system to accommodate sensors, weapons and other future-growth payloads as new roles emerge.

FVL & AUSTRALIA

The timing of the FVL program is potentially useful for the ADF. The Australian Army is currently looking to replace its Airbus Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) under Project LAND 4503, while it will be seeking a replacement of the Airbus MRH-90 Taipan medium-lift helicopter and the Tiger’s subsequent replacement from 2040.

The LAND 4503 tender process is in its final stages, with the three contenders – Boeing with the AH-64E Apache, Bell with its AH-1Z Viper, and Airbus with an upgraded Tiger complemented with a number of H145Ms – having submitted their proposals. Selection is due to be made in the next few months.

If the Apache or Viper are selected, these aircraft will start to enter service in 2024/25, and will achieve an initial operational capability (IOC) in 2027/28. Both aircraft are capable, offer US-common off-the-shelf solutions through an FMS sales process, have mature parent-service sustainment systems in place, and all their capabilities are well understood.

With a projected 15-20 year life of type, Apache or Viper should be in service until at least the mid-2040s in order to realise a return on investment. Both aircraft have been developed from vastly less-capable systems over decades – the early 1980s AH-64A Apache, and the Vietnam-era AH-1J Cobra – and there is no reason to assume their sensors, avionics and weapons capabilities won’t continue to be enhanced over the next two to three decades.

But Apache and Viper – and Tiger – are at the outer edge of their performance envelope. They will never be able to fly faster or further, or carry more than they can now.

In the January-February 2020 issue of ADBR, we took a closer look at Airbus’s upgraded Tiger option. The Australian Army currently operates 22 Tigers but has a requirement for 29 new aircraft to replace them. And because it is unlikely new-build Tigers would be available to make up the required numbers, Airbus has offered seven H145M helicopters to augment the 22 upgraded Tigers.

The chance that Army would choose to retain and upgrade the Tigers was once considered by most observers to be relatively low, especially after an adverse Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report which outlined its protracted development, sustainment and capability issues. But its chances have been bolstered in recent years by improved availability and reduced sustainment costs, as well as a quite compelling financial case to retain it.

Airbus claims it could upgrade the Tigers and acquire the H145Ms for less than $1 billion, whereas the acquisition of 29 Apaches or Vipers along with associated training, spares, ground support equipment, FMS fees, and other systems has been estimated to cost at least $3 billion.

That $2 billion saving could be redirected by Army towards other projects such as its goal to move Tiger or its replacement to Townsville, or it could be returned to Government to be put towards other parts of the budget. Another possibility is that part of those savings could be invested in joining the FVL program as a possible cooperative development partner.

It’s not just the Army which could benefit from acquiring FVL earlier from a capability point of view. If successful, it promises to deliver thousands of aircraft to the US military and allied forces, and there could be big opportunities for Australian industry to participate in the development, production, and sustainment of these aircraft over the next half century.

That option is possibly the most compelling, as it would not only give Australia a seat at the table for defining the FVL initial and future requirements but would also provide opportunities to Australian industry to manufacture components and support systems for FVL. This would meet one of the key goals of the Morrison LNP Government which is to give Australia’s defence industry greater export opportunities as well as cementing its place as a fundamental input to capability (FIC).

If Tiger is retained and upgraded, with a large proportion of the upgrade work being done in Australia, it could be phased out in the early 2030s in favour of FARA. But if Tiger is replaced by Apache or Viper, any opportunity to cooperate on FARA’s development would likely be lost due to the planned post-2040 timing to replacing them.

ADBR understands the effort to replace Tiger is causing some friction between Army Aviation and CASG. Army naturally wants a new aircraft and the off-the-shelf capabilities it will come with – with Apache reportedly the favourite – while CASG is reportedly more interested in the actual short-term and potential longer-term benefits for industry on upgrading Tiger and then going to FVL.

There is no doubt there is some risk in upgrading Tiger, especially as the alternatives will meet the requirements ‘out-of-the-box’, although Airbus and Army have learned much about the aircraft in recent years. Conversely, it would be much easier to integrate an upgraded Tiger as the training systems, ground support equipment, and spares and sustainment pipelines are already in place.

Additionally – while not yet announced – ADBR also understands Airbus’s H145M is a leading solution for Army’s Project LAND 2097 Phase 4 special forces support helicopter requirement, so there will be obvious operational and training benefits in augmenting the Tigers with the same type.

THE NEXT-GENERATION
AIR-TO-AIR MISSILE PROGRAMS

By Andrew McLaughlin & Dougal Robertson

This article appeared in the Mar-Apr 2020 issue of ADBR

The first part of this article reviewed the current Chinese
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air-to-air missile (AAM) programs.

Since the entry to service of the AIM-4 Falcon guided air-to-air missile in 1956, the US has expected to hold an AAM range advantage over any adversary. This is now being challenged by the scope and scale of the PLA’s AAM programs.

The Chinese PL-15 and ‘PL-X’/PL-17 missiles both claim ranges in excess of the AIM-120D AMRAAM. The PLA is building missiles and launch platforms to target and negate US and Allied advantages in air power: AEW&C, tanker, surveillance and intelligence aircraft, all-aspect stealth, and information-sharing. If the Soviet Union was ‘pacing’ the West during the Cold War, the PLA and a resurgent Russian military are now outpacing the US and Allied nations in some areas.

In 2019, USAF Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper spoke about replacing the Pentagon major defence acquisition program with “something that looks more like the Century Series development of the early Air Force”. The so-called ‘Century Series’ were the six aircraft designated F-100 to F-106. These fighters all came into service in the 1950s and progressed from first flight to operational acceptance in under three years.

Some industry pundits took Roper’s comments as heralding a new golden age of fighter aircraft development. But Roper was talking about air combat systems sharing design principles and functioning on a common modular open architecture, like an air power ‘App Store’ with plug-and-play components.

The first step towards realising these fast-to-build, lower-cost programs might be in air-to-air missiles.

LONG-RANGE ENGAGEMENT WEAPON
The Long-Range Engagement Weapon (LREW) concept surfaced in 2017 when Deputy US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Chuck Perkins distributed a picture showing an F-22 launching an unusual missile from the internal weapons bay. It was clearly an artist’s impression of the LREW concept and looked like a two-stage (boost and sustain) rocket motor body.

The US Department of Defense’s 2019 budget proposal stated LREW had completed engineering and design work, and combined components from existing missile systems with new technologies to provide ‘a leap-ahead increase in overall performance’.

Based on the limited information available, it’s possible LREW is the first in a modular series of missiles, combining different seeker and guidance kits in dual-mode configuration or with swappable front-ends. Whether LREW uses a two-stage motor configuration to provide range advantage is unknown.

It is also unclear if LREW will branch into production, or if it was a testbed for advanced technology. What we do know is that LREW is meant to give the range advantage firmly back to the US military, and make it happen fast.

JOINT AIR TACTICAL MISSILE (JATM)
More is known about the Lockheed Martin Joint Air Tactical Missile (JATM), designated the AIM-260. Last year, USAF program executive officer for weapons Brig Gen Anthony Genatempo said AIM-260 would reach initial operational capacity (IOC) by 2022.

The JATM will be flown first on the F-22 and F/A-18E/F before integration onto F-35. It will replace the AMRAAM, and Genatempo stated that, as JATM production increases, AMRAAM production will “start tailing off”. The last AMRAAM buy is expected in 2026.

The AIM-260 could use some form of dual-pulse motor and have a combined or dual-mode seeker. Lockheed Martin claims the AIM-260 has ‘significantly more range” than the AIM-120D. How it achieves this range is unknown but could be from a more efficient high-impulse fuel motor, a smaller warhead, or a combination of both.

Either way, the AIM-260 is the same size as the AIM-120D and is clearly designed to beat the Chinese PL-15. The missile’s rapid development suggests it uses components from existing weapons rather than being a brand-new design, with this ‘spiral upgrade’ approach being in the spirit of Roper’s desire for modular plug-and-play weapon systems.

SMALL ADVANCED CAPABILITIES MISSILE (SACM)
The Small Advanced Capabilities Missile (SACM) is another program that apparently started life as a concept demonstrator when, in 2013 Lockheed Martin displayed a small ‘hit to kill’ missile. The ‘Cuda’ was around half the length of the AIM-120 and could allow 5th generation aircraft to double or triple their internal AAM load-outs. At the time it might have been a pitch to address criticisms the F-35 could only carry a small number of AAMs internally.

In 2017 US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Science, Technology and Engineering Dr David Walker testified on the Air Force Science and Technology Program before the US House Armed Services Committee. One of the weapon programs he outlined was SACM, stating it “will be affordable and provide high loadouts compared to current air-to-air missiles.” The same year, the USAF Research Laboratory (AFRL) listed SACM as a technology demonstrator with advanced airframe design, an improved solid rocket motor, ‘synergistic control’ (combined aero, attitude control and thrust vectoring) and ‘hyper-agility’.

Then late last year Raytheon Advanced Missile Systems released details of its Peregrine missile. Raytheon said the Peregrine had “advanced sensor, guidance and propulsion systems packed into a much smaller airframe” and was faster and more manoeuvrable than AMRAAM.

Peregrine combines the manoeuvrability of the AIM-9X Sidewinder with the range of the AIM-120. While there were no details on the seeker, Raytheon described it as a ‘tri-mode’ design. Raytheon already builds the AIM-9X and AIM-120 so it is likely that technology from both missiles is used in the Peregrine.

Raytheon says the Peregrine was developed in-house and isn’t a response to any program request. The SACM and Peregrine are both touted as ‘complements’ to the AMRAAM, not as replacements, and it’s possible some of the concepts from SACM have made their way into the Peregrine.

Again, if Peregrine goes into flight test soon it’s another example of rapid development and testing of an air-to-air missile using existing technology to fill an operational requirement – in this case cramming more missiles into fifth-generation fighters to win the numbers game.

SELF DEFENCE
The traditional approach to protecting aircraft is ‘layered defence’, using stealth, electronic attack, and countermeasure dispensing systems (CMDS) to defeat the individual sensors on a threat aircraft or missile. This approach worked when there were two or three ‘factor’ missiles to defeat, like the Russian R-27 and R-77 (AA-10 and AA-12) missiles and the Chinese PL-12.

But defeating missiles requires good intelligence on how they work and their vulnerabilities. When there are almost a dozen threat systems to defeat, the Allied intelligence collection network will probably never develop enough technical intelligence for effective countermeasures. Enter the concept of kinetic defeat, ie destroying the incoming missile, surface and air.

There are two known kinetic defeat programs – the Miniature Self-Defence Munition (MSDM), and the Small High-Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD).

The MSDM came up in the same testimony as SACM. At the time, Dr Walker said MSDM would “enhance future platforms’ self-defence capability without impacting the primary weapon payload”. AFRL says the MSDM is an all-aspect self-defence weapon designed to defeat surface-to-air missiles.

It is, apparently, a hit-to-kill interceptor with a passive seeker and a planned unit cost around US$40,000, a relative bargain when compared to the estimated sale price of an S-300PMU-1 (SA-20) missile of between US$800,000 and US$1m. The MSDM is reportedly in design review and the subject of competition between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Flight test is expected next year.

While MSDM provides much better self-defence options for a range of penetrating capabilities like low-observable fighters, it could also allow high value airborne assets such as AEW&C, tankers, and intelligence aircraft to fly much closer to SAM engagement zones and potentially over contested areas where unlocated mobile SAM systems might be operating.

The idea behind SHiELD is to integrate a laser weapon system into a fighter fuel tank pod and provide self-protection against electro-optical and infrared air and surface missile threats. The US has been pursuing directed-energy weapons (DEW) for decades, but SHiELD is probably the first attempt to get an effective DEW onto a fighter aircraft. And while SHiELD will help fighters such as the F/A-18F and F-15E to survive over the battlefield, it is also a natural fit for the same high-value assets that might carry MSDM.

AUSTRALIAN COMBAT AIRCRAFT SYSTEM
There is no indication Australia is involved in any of these AAM projects. In a statement in response to questions from ADBR, an ADF spokesman told us, “Air Force will field a mix of AIM-120C-5 and -120D AMRAAM, and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles across F/A-18F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler and F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.

“The potential acquisition of additional air-to-air weapons is a matter for future consideration by the Government. Air Force is not currently participating in any air-to-air weapons cooperative programs. Current need is being met via the procurement of proven US-common weapons via foreign military sales arrangements.”

But with most RAAF combat aircraft less than a decade old and operating as a highly networked force, applying Roper’s air power ‘App Store’ concept might have advantages for the ADF. An Australian combat aircraft system of strike and electronic attack aircraft teamed with the E-7A Wedgetail command, control and battle management (C2BM) aircraft, sustained by networked KC-30 Multirole Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft and linked to a sensing grid built on persistent systems such as the Jindalee Over the horizon Radar Network (JORN) and dynamic sensors like Boeing’s ‘Loyal Wingman’, would be extremely effective.

Combining this 5th generation force with next-generation weapons would make it even more lethal and survivable.

Dougal Robertson is an Executive Analyst at Felix Defence.

The Commonwealth has released a Request for Information to industry for technologies that could lead to the replacement of the RAAF’s BAE Hawk 127 lead in fighter capability.

The RFI was issued on June 3 by CASG’s Aerospace Systems Division through AUSTENDER, and submissions are due to be received by 1600 AEST on 31 July 2020. It says it is seeking “information about these technologies while providing industry an opportunity to engage early on the capability lifecycle as it considers options that may contribute towards the next generation of LIF capability”.

While early in the planning phase, it says responses to the RFI will “inform Defence decision making in relation to the future of the LIFTS (LIF training system) capability”, and stresses that the RFI “does not form any part of any Commonwealth procurement process”. The LIFTS replacement program will be known as Project AIR 6002.

The RAAF ordered 33 Hawk 127s in 1997 to replace the Macchi MB.326 in service. The first 12 jets were built by BAE Systems in the UK while the remaining 21 Hawks were assembled at a new facility at RAAF Williamtown, and the first Hawk 127 entered service in 1999.

Very much a product of the 1990s, the RAAF’s Hawk feel underwent a comprehensive upgrade of many of its aircraft and training systems from 2016 to 2018 in order to better prepare fast jet pilots for the F-35A Lightning II and other next generation aircraft.

The Hawk is powered by the Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk 871 which, in recent years has become increasingly difficult to support and has experienced cracking in the low bypass turbine. Engine problems and a persistent wing fatigue issue have led to a couple of groundings of the fleet, the last one in 2019.

ADBR understands the RAAF is looking at an option to re-engine the aircraft with the newer R-R Adour 951 engine, although this has had a luke-warm reception due to the aircraft’s age and its ongoing fatigue issues. The Hawk also lacks the secure systems required to conduct integrated training and operations with F-35, EA-18G, E-7A, and other next-generation systems.

Industry sources suggest the program could accelerate once the RFI responses are received, and that the planned life-of-type of the Hawk could be brought forward due to the engine and fatigue issues.

Possible contender systems to replace the Hawk include the new Boeing-Saab T-7A Red Hawk, the Korean Aerospace (KAI) T-50, the Leonardo M346, and the Textron Scorpion, while BAE may offer a more comprehensively refurbished and re-engined Hawk.

The RAAF’s 82 Wing (82WG), which oversees the operations of the F/A-18F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft of 1 and 6SQNs has stood up 82 Wing Training Flight (82TF) at Amberley as part a two-year trial to provide Super Hornet conversion training in Australia.

Currently RAAF crews converting to the Super Hornet and Growler do so with the US Navy at NAS Oceana in Virginia and NAS Whidbey Island in Washington state, respectively. This arrangement was implemented in 2015 after 6SQN – the RAAF’s former Super Hornet training unit – converted to the Growler and transferred all of its Super Hornets to 1SQN.

At the same time, the expanded 1SQN stood up a third ‘training’ flight within the squadron to conduct refreshers and upgrades, but this responsibility will be transferred to 82TF.

“This program will enable No. 82 Wing to provide enduring aircrew training for the entire capability spectrum required for the F/A-18F,” OC82TF and XO82WG, WGCDR Wing Commander Trevor Andrews said in a release. “We expect significant advantages to be realised through an Australian-based operational conversion, such as improved delivery of Australian-trained aircrew back into the squadrons, increased standardisation, reduction in duplicate training overheads and increased alignment to Australian graduation requirements.”

While some RAAF Super Hornet training will continue with the US Navy, it will look to streamline the conversion training process locally for some crews coming from the Introductory Fighter Course with 76SQN. This has advantages by immediately going to Australian-specific radio and airspace procedures and Australian concepts of operations, none of which are taught by the US Navy.

Most of the RAAF’s Super Hornets don’t have a stick and throttle quadrant in the rear seat, and are instead typically configured for sensor operation and weapons employment. But all Super Hornets can quickly be reconfigured with a stick and throttle to meet training requirements.

There is growing concern over China’s ability to further exploit the First Island Chain

BY PETER KNOTT

This feature appeared in the March-April 2020 issue of ADBR

Anyone who has a passing interest in China’s military development would have heard of the term, ‘Anti-Access Area Denial’, or A2AD for short.

A2AD is an increasingly popular term for layered defence strategies. In China’s case, it is the overarching strategy in its defence posture, and what it is seeking to achieve from the massive military modernisation program it has undertaken in the past 15 to 20 years.

Simply described, A2AD is what the Pentagon’s annual report into China’s military power calls the ability for China to “dissuade, deter, or, if required, defeat third-party intervention against a large-scale, theater-wide campaign” mounted by China’s People’s Liberation Army, such as a Taiwan contingency.  

Key to Chinese A2AD efforts would be the so called First Island Chain, a string of islands stretching from Russia’s Sakhalin in the north, down through Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Borneo, encompassing everything in between, that provides a series of natural maritime chokepoints surrounding China.

This has always been seen by China as a natural means for adversaries to contain its wider ambitions to be a Pacific and global player in a geopolitical sense, with a series of carefully placed American and allied military bases designed to hem China in.

But the barrier effect of the First Island Chain can work both ways. In recent years China’s massive military modernisation effort and investment in A2AD has turned the waters inside the chain into an area where China’s adversaries will find it more and more difficult to operate freely.

Indeed, there is now a growing worry that China – should it see an open conflict as inevitable or necessary – has acquired enough capability to conduct a massive pre-emptive strike against key military facilities and targets throughout the First Island Chain, and even beyond into the Second Island Chain comprised of a line stretching from Japan’s Bonin Islands, down through the Mariana Islands including Guam, and on to West Papua.

Such a strike could potentially cripple a US military response to any regional crisis, and the A2AD capabilities could prevent follow-on forces from Hawaii and the US mainland from intervening.

The Pentagon report mentioned above echoes this, noting in its 2019 iteration that the PLA’s “A2AD capabilities are currently most robust within the First Island Chain, though China aims to strengthen its capabilities to extend farther into the Pacific Ocean”.

In a similar vein, an article by former US Navy submariner Thomas Shugart in the War on the Rocks website notes that satellite photos of missile test ranges in China suggests that it has conducted trial missile attacks – believed to be made using short or medium-range ballistic missiles – on mockups shaped to look like US air and naval bases in Japan. This would indicate that China has seen such an action as possible enough to test the viability of its missiles for such an eventuality.

AN A2AD SENSOR NET

The DoD report also said that China has robust Integrated Air Defence System (IADS) architecture over land areas, and out to 550km from its coast, that relies on an extensive early warning radar network, fighter aircraft, and a variety of SAM systems. China is also placing radars and air defence weapons on its man-made island outposts in the South China Sea, further extending its IADS.

The IADS includes early warning radars that are designed to spot inbound targets, ranging from bomber aircraft to cruise missiles, and even ballistic missiles. These include four large phased array radars for possible ballistic missile tracking similar to the American Pave PAWS system, although there is also a possibility these could be associated with anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) targeting. China has also developed and put into service high-frequency (HF) over the horizon radars at several locations throughout China that claim to be able to detect stealthy aircraft.

These include both OTH Backscatter (OTH-B), similar to Australia’s Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) and the less complex OTH Surface Wave (OTH-SW) radars, and include one set of the latter at some of the islands in the South China Sea. Chinese analysts claim that these have a range of up to 400km, although the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (CSIS-AMTI) estimates that the smaller sets in the South China Sea islands are not able to extend their coverage that far.

These ground-based sensors are backed by an increasing number of space-based sensors. The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists says that, as of 2016, China had 192 satellites in orbit (second only to the US which has 593). That number has since increased, with nearly all of these belonging to organisations or companies with close ties to the government and many with dual civilian and military utility.

These satellites include the Yaogan Weixing (remote sensing) family of approximately 40 satellites whose functions are officially civilian in nature, such as crop yield studies or scientific research. However, several of these are almost certainly used for military purposes with payloads such as electro-optical sensors, synthetic aperture radar, and electronic intelligence (ELINT). There are also constellations of Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) satellites providing persistent coverage of the waters surrounding China.

All of the above could, and almost certainly are used to support ASBM targeting and other naval purposes. With sufficient numbers and integration, they can potentially provide real time target triangulation data to build up a robust picture of the location of a target to generate a targeting solution (see below).

China is also said to be developing and trialling an underwater sensor network – similar to the US’s SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) in the North Atlantic – as part of its anti-submarine warfare efforts. Like many things about PLA developments, there is little solid information about such efforts. While the Pentagon report acknowledges the development of such a network, it adds that the PLA continues to lack a robust deep-water anti-submarine warfare capability.

It also adds that it is unclear whether the PLA can “collect accurate targeting information and pass it to launch platforms in time for successful strikes in sea areas beyond the First Island Chain”. It is this writer’s opinion that this capability is not so pressing, and the priority for the PLA is to be able to do so effectively within, but not yet beyond, the First Island Chain.

THE SHOOTERS

The PLA’s fighters typically employ short and medium-range air-to-air missiles of indigenous design in addition to Russian types such as the Vympel NPO R-77 (AA-12 Adder) for its Russian-built Sukhoi Su-30/35 Flankers, but is also developing an ultra-long range air-to-air missile. Expected to be used to target an adversary’s high value airborne assets such as AEW&C or tanker aircraft, the missile has been given the temporary designation the PL-XX, although observers believe that the eventual in-service designation will be PL-20 (see ‘Savage Skies’ in ADBR Jan-Feb 2020).

The new missile has been observed being carried on the Shenyang J-16 multi-role fighter and Xi’an JH-7 fighter-bomber. Comparing the known sizes of the parent aircraft and its hardpoints, has been estimated to measure roughly 5.8 metres in length and about 300mm in diameter. Four rear-mounted fins provide manoeuvrability and control for the missile.

By comparison, the RAAF’s longest ranged air-to-air missile, the AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM, measures 3.7 metres long and has a diameter of 180mm. There is little verifiable information about the PL-20’s performance, however a schematic of how it would be used has been leaked to the internet, showing the ramjet or solid-fuel powered missile with a range of 300km.

After launch, the missile will fly a parabolic trajectory to its target, attaining an altitude of about 100,000ft from a launch altitude of 50,000ft, before diving down onto its target. Missile guidance is expected be achieved by a mixture of GPS, INS, and space-based sensors providing launch and mid-course guidance, before an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar takes over in the terminal phase.

That the launch platform can be a relatively limited aircraft like the JH-7 lends further credence that the missile does not rely on its launch aircraft for early targeting data, with an AEW&C platform also likely to be a source of launch parameters. It is not known if China’s stealthy Chengdu J-20 interceptor can carry the missile, but it would need to be carried externally as the J-20’s internal weapons bays are not long enough to carry the missile internally.

The airborne shooters are backed up by a network of ground-based long-range air defence systems. Similarly to what it has done across its other defence domains, China has put a lot of effort in improving and modifying Russian systems for its own needs, and in recent years has developed its own line of indigenous ground-based air defence systems.

The longest ranged system is the HQ-9, a development of the Russian S-300PMU (SA-20) system that China acquired from Russia. Starting with the original HQ-9, China has since improved the system with the HQ-9A and HQ-9B introduced at the turn of the century and in the mid-2000s respectively, leveraging on improvements in technology in microelectronics and signal processing to introduce dual seekers in the latter.

The range of the HQ-9B is said to be in excess of 300km with an altitude ceiling of 134,000ft. To maximize the flexibility of the system, the HQ-9 can employ a wide range of radars, both the search/surveillance/acquisition radar and the tracking/engagement/fire control radar (FCR), however the primary FCR is the dedicated HT-233 that can also double as a search and acquisition radar if required.

Like the HQ-9 the FCR is also mobile, being mounted on a 10×10 wheeled transporter and is said to operate on the C-band at 300MHz. Performance-wise the HQ-9/HT-233 is said to be closer to the AN/MPQ-53 of the American Patriot missile system than the Russian 30N6 (Flap Lid) that supports the S-300 which is limited by its narrow beam coverage, even in search mode.

The HQ-9 has also made its way into the PLA Navy’s ships, with the navalised HHQ-9 being standard fit on board China’s Type 052C, 052D and 055 destroyers. China has also acquired the Russian S-400 Truimf (SA-21) long-range SAM system, although given past history it is likely to be seeking to reverse-engineer it for its own purposes rather than having any intentions of integrating it into its own IADS.

Given that the objectives of China’s A2AD strategy is to keep not only aircraft but an adversary’s ships away from its shores, it is also of no surprise that China has also pursued its anti-shipping options in the form of a variety of anti-ship missiles.

The most talked about of these weapons is the ASBM. As the name suggests, these are long-range, conventionally armed ballistic missiles used for attacking moving ships at sea, most notably the US Navy’s showpiece nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The theory being that a missile speeding down to sea level on a ballistic trajectory at speeds of Mach 5 or higher would prove to be an extremely difficult capability to counter.

The DF-21D is a road-mobile ASBM system that is mounted on a wheeled transporter erector launcher (TEL) to improve survivability against possible enemy counter-strikes. Said to have a range of about 1,450km, the DF-21D is derived from the DF-21 family of two-stage, solid-fuel rocket, single-warhead conventional or nuclear-warhead medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) in use by the PLA Rocket Forces (PLARF).

The US DoD suggests the DF-21D reached IOC with the PLARF in 2010. The system is thought to employ manoeuvrable re-entry vehicles (MaRVs) with terminal guidance systems assisted by China’s network of satellites such as the Jianbing-5/YaoGan-1 and Jianbing-6/YaoGan-2 that provide targeting data in the form of radar and visual imaging respectively.

There are however still questions remaining about the utility of the ASBMs. China has reportedly tested the DF-21D against fixed land targets, but it is not known to have conducted similar tests against a moving target. This makes it difficult to accurately judge the capability – particularly from the maturity and efficacy of China’s sensor net for its kill chain in generating the kind of real time, highly precise data required to enable the DF-21D, and the newer 4,000km-range DF-26 – to accurately target an aircraft carrier making 30 knots in the expanses of the western Pacific.

There is however the possibility of using ASBMs and their sensor net to keep watch and/or provide deterrence on the maritime chokepoints presented by the First Island Chain, including the Miyako Straits between Okinawa and Taiwan, and Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines. This would theoretically reduce the demand on a less-than-mature sensor net and kill chain to limited geographic areas where potential targets will have to navigate.

Considering the limited combat radius of carrier-borne aircraft without large scale tanker support, the ability to keep an American carrier battle group at arm’s length may be all that China’s A2AD capability needs.

But if required, an attack with ASBMs can be used in conjunction with air and surface-launched anti-ship missiles (ASMs), timed to arrive at the target at the same time to saturate its defences.

These attacks could be mounted from longer-ranged ASMs such as the YJ-12 and YJ-18. Both are Chinese improvements of Russian designs, derived from the Kh-31 air-to-surface missile and the 3M54 Klub cruise missile. Both are capable of supersonic speeds, with the anti-ship YJ-18A variant attaining its maximum speed of around Mach 2 in its terminal phase following a subsonic cruise, while the YJ-12 can fly at speeds of between Mach 2 and 4 depending on its launch and cruise altitudes.

Both are also very long ranged, with the YJ-12 believed to be between 200 and 400km, while the YJ-18 is believed to possess a range of 540km. The YJ-12 can be launched from wheeled TELs, from vertical launch cells on ships such as the Type 052D or 055 destroyers, or aircraft such as the Xi’an H-6 bomber, JH-7 fighter bomber and possibly the Shenyang J-11/15/16.

Meanwhile, the anti-ship variants of the YJ-18 can be launched from ships, submarines or land-based mobile TELs, offering flexibility in targeting adversary ships. There are also land attack versions of the YJ-18, which would theoretically mean that US bases such as Guam and even Hawaii could be threatened in times of conflict. The former is also within range of the DF-26 – colloquially known as the ‘Guam killer’ on account of its range.

China also has other conventional attack weapons for targeting an adversary’s land targets. These include the CJ-10 and the CJ-20 cruise missiles which can be launched from H-6 bombers and the PLAN’s newer destroyer classes, and can carry a 1,000lb conventional or nuclear warhead over 1,500 km.

One area of weapons development China is reportedly more advanced than the West is in the field of hypersonics. China became the first country in the world to officially field an operational hypersonic weapon when it unveiled the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) during its 2019 National Day parade. The DF-17 has its HGV mounted on the rocket booster of the DF-16 short-range ballistic missile and its TEL, simplifying the development cycle.

Testing of DF-17 prototypes was underway by 2014 with at least nine test flights reportedly occurring between January 2014 and November 2017. The HGV is known as the DF-ZF and adopts a very different flight profile from normal ballistic missiles by suppressing its trajectory and accelerating to reach speeds of around Mach 5 in its terminal phase.

Due to its extreme speed and suppressed/lower altitude trajectory, intercepting the glide vehicle becomes more complex than that of a conventional re-entry vehicle – already a difficult undertaking. The high-speed glide profile means the DF-ZF is more manoeuvrable with the bonus of extending its range. In a November 2017 test the HGV reportedly managed to glide at a depressed altitude of around 60km following the DF-17 booster’s ballistic and re-entry phase 1,400km downrange.

INTEGRATION UNKNOWN

Writing in the in-house blog of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace Douglas Barrie pointed out that there is always a risk of using shorthand phrases such as A2AD, and conflating the term with drawing weapons range circles on a map and declaring anywhere within those circles as a ‘no-go area’.

This is a valid point in assessing the efficacy of an A2AD ‘bubble’. For all of China’s military advancements, the waters of the East and South China Seas and the airspace above will certainly not become no go areas for the US and allied navies, even in a ‘hot’ conflict. But, where it once was a permissive environment, it will undeniably become contested space and become increasingly more so the deeper one ventures into the ‘bubble’.

While the sensors and shooters inside that bubble look impressive on paper, questions remain about their level of integration. Integration of the PLA’s various services has been acknowledged to be China’s weak spot in the past. But recent military reforms such as the consolidation of military regions from seven to five, and the formation of the PLA’s Strategic Support Forces seems to be a step in the direction of creating a truly joint force.

At the end of the day, the dearth of verifiable information coming out of China is a stumbling block to assessing how effective or how far-reaching such integration efforts are. But given that these reforms only started in 2016, these are still early days, and a true picture of how effective these efforts will be is still years away.

Raytheon Missiles & Defense has announced it has completed the first guided release of a GBU-53/B StormBreaker precision guided bomb from a US Navy F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet.

Previously known as the Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II), the tri-mode StormBreaker has been designed to be able to hit moving targets such as vehicles and small boats, while still being effective against fixed targets.

“StormBreaker is the only weapon that enables pilots to hit moving targets during bad weather or if dust and smoke are in the area,” Raytheon’s StormBreaker program director, Cristy Stagg said in a statement. “Super Hornet pilots will be able to use poor visibility to their advantage when StormBreaker integration is complete.”

The Super Hornet is the second aircraft to be integrated with the weapon after the Boing F-15E Strike Eagle. Because of its compact size, up to eight StormBreakers can be carried on an external weapons rack, and the F-15E can carry at least two such racks.

The announcement coincides with US media reports that production of the GBU-53/B has been paused since July 2019 after the discovery of technical issues with clips that hold the weapon’s folded wings. The wings deploy after launch, allowing the weapon to glide more than 100km depending ion launch parameters.

A report in DefenseNews cites a US Government Accountability Office (DAO) report that states the issue has delayed the fielding of the weapon, and that a retrofit for nearly 600 weapons already delivered to the USAF and US Navy is being developed.

“While this problem could affect all aircraft carrying the bomb, officials said the greatest impact is to the F-35, because the bomb is carried in the aircraft’s internal weapons bay and could cause serious damage if the fins deploy while the bomb is in the bay,” the GAO reports states.

Australia was approved to acquire 3,900 GBU-53/Bs for the RAAF’s F-35As in 2017, but it is not known if any have been delivered yet.

Japan suspends Aegis Ashore deployment
Japan’s defence minister Taro Kono has announced that the northeast Asian country was suspending the deployment of the Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defence system, citing cost and technical issues.

The technical issues included the failure of software tweaks of the SM-3 Block IIA interceptors to ensure that their rocket boosters will separate and fall into designated drop zones and avoid landing on nearby populated areas, with Kono suggesting that hardware modifications are needed, further adding to development costs. 

The decision to suspend the deployment of the two Aegis Ashore systems, each of which comprise a long-range radar and vertical launch interceptors to counter incoming ballistic missiles, was a surprise despite the controversy surrounding the program in recent years.

These included vociferous opposition from local governments and residents of the two proposed deployment sites, in the north and south of Japan’s main island of Honshu, over radiation and other safety concerns.

The controversy was exacerbated by revelations that Japan’s defence ministry had used erroneous data to assess the suitability of one of the sites.

China-India border standoff turns deadly
The high-altitude stand-off between the Chinese and Indian has turned deadly, when clashes resulted in the deaths of about 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese casualties

According to Indian reports, the clashes which took place on June 15 started when Indian forces detected that soldiers from China’s PLA set up tents and other positions beyond an agreed-upon disengagement line near the line of control between both countries, and a patrol was formed to dismantle them.

The dead on the Indian side included a Colonel who led the initial patrol to dismantle the PLA tents, when they were attacked by Chinese troops at an elevated ridgeline, with several of the deaths resulting from falls from the ridgeline and/or exposure to the low temperatures.

Both sides fought using clubs, rocks, and other handheld weapons, due to an existing agreement for soldiers on both sides to not carry firearms in the border area.

China has been a lot less forthcoming with its version of events beyond noting that it had suffered casualties, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accusing Indian troops of sparking the clashes by violating agreed-upon protocols and crossing into China’s territory.

India has accused China of upending the status-quo at their disputed border near the Galwan Valley near Ladakh by moving PLA troops across the line of control and setting up outposts and digging trenches, with the BBC reporting that stand-offs between both forces were taking place in at least three locations. 

China has in turn accused India of starting off the current tensions when it built a road hundreds of kilometres long connecting the area with an airbase it reactivated in 2008.

Leidos Australia’s acting-CEO, Paul Chase has been appointed to the role in a permanent capacity, effective June 15.

An engineer who also has a masters degree in law, Mr Chase was appointed as acting-CEO in March upon the departure of Christine Zeitz, and has been with the company for some 22 years in program management and new business roles.

“I’m honoured to be named Chief Executive for Leidos Australia,” Mr Chase said in a statement. “With the team, we will continue to grow our Australian business by focusing on helping our customers to deliver their mission.”

Focus on the need for a regional ISR network

By Dougal Robertson

The NATO alliance marked a quiet milestone in March with the transfer of a mobile general ground station (MGGS) to the Alliance Ground Station (AGS) Force in Sigonella, Italy.

The MGGS is the exploitation segment of the AGS Program, a 15-nation intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system to exploit and disseminate intelligence from five RQ-4B Global Hawk ‘Phoenix’ remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and associated ground stations.

The RQ-4Bs are NATO-owned and operated, in much the same way as the 14 upgraded E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft of the NATO E-3A Component. With a resurgent Russia, the E-3A Component is a pillar of the NATO Assurance Measures missions supporting smaller alliance members against Russian intimidation.

The AGS and E-3A Components provide intelligence for the NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defence System (NATINAMDS), the element of the NATO joint air power strategy that both supports air policing in peacetime and is postured for intelligence and targeting support during operations.

NATO has more than 70 years’ experience working through complex multinational integration problems. In Australia there is no joint concept linking the military services’ capabilities into a cohesive whole, and there’s even less of a framework for regional collective security.

Recently, academic and defence media commentators have focused on an independent Australian ‘strike’ capability – with differing opinions on potential requirements for range and lethality. The 2016 Australian Defence White Paper (DWP) is vague on specifics, noting only that strike capabilities will “provide flexibility for the ADF” to respond to threats and participate in regional and global coalitions.

Before the ADF can conduct strike missions, it must know what targets exist and where they are located. To do this, the ADF has to ‘sense’ and understand the battlespace. To this end, the Government’s Defence Integrated Investment Program (IIP) plans to spend close to 10 per cent of the allocated A$195 billion over the next decade on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), electronic warfare (EW), space and cyber.

AN ASSERTIVE AND EXPANSIVE PLA
Heritage Foundation policy analyst Frederico Bartels recently concluded that, properly measured, China’s defence budget at US$467.4bn is 87 per cent the size of the US ($US534.5bn).

A huge sum has been spent in the South China Sea where the PLA has militarised coral islands and reefs inside China’s claimed ‘nine-dash line’. With the completion of island outposts in the Spratly Islands at Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi Reefs, regional governments have accused the PLA, Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) and maritime militia of harassing Vietnamese, Malaysian, Philippine and Thai shipping and commercial activity. The ‘People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia’ (PAFMM) is probably used by the PLA to provide a level of unofficial or deniable aggression against other claimant states.

The physical Spratly outposts also provide the PLA with a permanent intelligence collection capability. The collection apparatus probably feeds information to senior PLA decision-makers in Beijing and the Southern Theatre Command in Guangzhou, and almost certainly provides situational understanding of the environment to enable the targeting of PLA offensive weapon systems.

The PLA has built a system to sense and understand the battlespace so it can position PLA, Coast Guard and PAFMM vessels and units where they can have the most influence.

The Economist noted that Xi Jinping “has done more in the last three years to reform the PLA than any leader since Deng Xiaoping”. Part of that reform restructured the PLA to fight “local wars under high-technology conditions” where the intensity and conclusion of conflict is controlled. The concept of war control avoids escalation and seeks to shape the international environment in China’s favour.

NATO faces a similar problem with Russian aggression in Europe. Russia seeks to avoid direct confrontation with NATO, and instead the recent targets of Russian military activity have been the Ukraine and Georgia – neither of which are NATO members. The NATO E-3A Component and the nascent NATO AGS is designed to monitor and understand the battlespace to place Russian activity out in the open, and to reassure Poland and the Baltic States.

REGIONAL INFORMATION SHARING
The question is whether a cooperative security approach such as NATINAMDS could be applied to maritime South-East Asia and the South Pacific. One answer may be to build the foundation of a regional maritime information sharing network based on the RAAF E-7A Wedgetail, like the NATO E-3A Component.

The RAAF E-7A is the most technologically advanced airborne command, control and battle management (C2BM) platform in operational service. Its networked capabilities allow the E-7A to share information from other aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon and F-35 to build a complex surveillance picture.

Boeing claims the E-7A Multirole Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) L-band radar can track airborne targets out to 350nm in look-up mode and surface targets at 150nm, while the MESA also has a passive electronic intelligence (ELINT) collection capability. The information and data fusion capabilities inherent in the E-7A make it central to situational understanding in any operating environment. The E-7A also has the capability to control and receive sensor data from unmanned aircraft – a concept Boeing demonstrated in 2009 using three of the company’s ScanEagle UAVs.

The E-7A is also operated by South Korea and Turkey and, as reported in ADBR in March 2019, the UK has ordered five E-7As based on the same 737-700IGW airframe as the RAAF aircraft.

While NATO must maintain awareness of a complex ground environment, the ADF has to build understanding of a complex maritime environment. That relies on persistence of sensors and constant presence. Even with the expected boost in spending from the IIP, Australia does not have the size and resources to maintain a constant watch on PLA maritime activity.

The US conducts freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in the Spratly Islands but does not maintain an ongoing presence. Using a highly networked aircraft such as the E-7A in cooperation with multiple P-8As, MQ-4C Tritons, and F-35As could allow the ADF to combine an effective ‘sensing layer’ with a robust ‘decision layer’ to inform government and senior defence leaders.

POLITICAL COMPLEXITY
The regional security framework in South-East Asia means it is unrealistic to expect the sharing of information that could be used for targeting or operations. But a capability that offers understanding and awareness of malign activity – particularly by sharing information from key regional militaries and fusing this information in a collaborative hub – might be a small step in the right direction.

The ADF already conducts maritime surveillance patrols in the North Indian Ocean and South China Sea as part of Operation Gateway, and there are several security arrangements in place that could facilitate a regional surveillance hub.

The existing Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) are a cooperative mechanism for the militaries of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and the UK to train together. The RNZAF will take delivery of its first of four P-8As in 2022 while, in January, the US State Department approved Singapore’s request for 12 F-35Bs to replace some of the RSAF’s 60 F-16C/D fighters. As the UK re-thinks its global position post-Brexit, a closer engagement with the FPDA is possible.

Australia, Japan and the US also signed a trilateral information-sharing arrangement (TISA) in 2016. The US Department of Defense says the TISA expedites information sharing “to enable higher capability defence exercises and operations among the three nations”. In the Jan-Feb 2020 edition of ADBR, Peter Hunter noted that Australia and Japan already have similar platforms and equipment and shared interests in achieving interoperability and integration.

It took an aggressive, expansionist Russia to revitalise a NATO joint ISR system based on historical cooperation using a single aircraft type, and Australia and the region face similar disruptive behaviour and intimidation from the PLA. Cooperation through military technology and information-sharing may be the first step towards a more cohesive regional security response. And that engine of collaboration could be the E-7A.

Dougal Robertson is an Executive Analyst at Felix Defence.

An Australian Perspective on the Exemplar JADO Mission

By John Conway

This in-depth feature outlines the need for a unifying mission to replace the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency narrative of the past two decades because it’s crucial to define the ends before choosing the ways – and current military thinking is too focused on ‘how’ as the answer.

On 2 May 1999 while conducting a suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) mission over Serbia, USAF F-16CG aircraft callsign Hammer 34 was shot down by a surface to air missile (SAM) battery. It was the opening phase of the NATO-led mission, Operation ALLIED FORCE, the airpower-led use of force to change the situation on the ground and prevent the killing of civilians in Bosnia by irregular Serbian forces.

Unfortunately, the use of airpower in ALLIED FORCE was beset by problems of authority and rules of engagement. The ‘dual-key’ strike approvals slowed down the targeting process, dynamic targeting was slow, and the European winter forced the US and NATO allies to rely on GPS-guided all-weather weapons which quickly ran out.

Compounding the problems for NATO was an aggressive and clever adversary fighting on their own terrain. The Serbs knew NATO would not commit to an all-out ground offensive and found novel ways to degrade air power’s effectiveness.

After 1999, ALLIED FORCE became a catalyst for improvements to US airpower – improvements in targeting, to all-weather weapons, in service-level integration, and in the structure of C2 in a coalition. The improvement of targeting databases to ensure information was accurate and constantly updated, and the use of ISR to gain the required intelligence for rapid dynamic strikes against fleeting targets.

In Iraq in 2003, the overwhelming success of airpower combined with ground manoeuvre was partly an outcome of the detailed operational evaluation following ALLIED FORCE.

FAST FORWARD
The pilot of Hammer 34 that day in 1999 was USAF Lt Col David Goldfein. Today, General Goldfein is the USAF Chief of Staff Gen Goldfein’s rapid recovery by the USAF Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is a compelling story on its own, and the experience shaped his career and has developed his thinking so extensively it now forms his legacy.

Gen Goldfein sits atop the USAF decision-making tree and knows the type of future conflicts the US and its allies are facing. While the technology and speed has increased, many of the underlying problems that come from facing an adaptive, thinking adversary remain.

-The operations in Bosnia had similar complexity to those likely to be encountered in South-East Asia, the Pacific Rim and Eastern Europe today. These include the use of proxy forces to complicate decision-making, the requirement to fight in a coalition with non-traditional partners, high levels of political engagement to retain public support, and adversaries who have studied our traditional advantages and how to negate them.

Gen Goldfein understands future operations require enhanced levels of synchronisation between offensive and defensive counter air (OCA & DCA) systems. Air superiority is no longer assured due to “anti-access and area denial (A2AD) threats, reduced freedom of manoeuvre, and rapid proliferation of advanced technologies,” he has said.

In response, the US military has developed the Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO) concept, and the glue inside JADO is Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

The US Army describes JADC2 as ‘not a single physical thing’, but ‘a combination of technology, new processes, and new organizations to enhance situational awareness, decrease reaction time, and enable continuous integration across all domains’.

JADC2 is meant to ‘enable any shooter, with any sensor, through any command and control node in near-real time, with the appropriate authorities to employ joint and mission-partner effects.’ It says the time gained through increased interoperability will give friendly forces ‘decision advantage’ over any adversary.

In plain English, JADC2 is the rapid targeting of an adversary by linking sensors and weapons systems in air, space, land, sea, and cyberspace.

CREATING POWER IS DIFFERENT TO FORCE
There appears to be little Australia could replicate or buy into when it comes to JADC2, as the concept is designed to deliver an updated version of American scientific management principles applied to the US art of warfighting and power projection.

But upon closer analysis, there are implications for Australia. Any significant change in the way the US military conceives, equips, organises, or prepares for operations can quickly leave the ADF out of sync, and unable to participate in a meaningful way in the type of coalition operations expected by the Australian Government.

In Bosnia the junior NATO partners became a limitation on the effectiveness of US airpower, and a decade later they were sidelined and given minor roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Australia needs to understand JADC2 and its implications for our force. Whether we become an active participant in JADC2 is a different question.

Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, Sir Laurence Freedman, describes strategy as “the creation of power”.

Creating power is different to creating a force, in the same subtle way that integration is different to synchronisation. Power and synchronisation are higher order functions, each with a direct rather than derived relationship with time. You need to create a force to create power. The force design contributes to strategy, it is not a strategy.

Spending vast sums of Australian taxpayers’ money on a force design that attempts to replicate a US system – which is designed to create US military power through the sustainment of a permanent domestic manufacturing and employment base – is never going to work in Australia.

But while joint-force integration is an essential activity, the creation and synchronisation of military sea, land, air, space, and information power with the other elements of national power is the goal. Achieving this goal, which delivers an advantage in time and space regardless of the prevailing operational circumstances, now requires a new question and new thinking.

Since 1945 the US military has focused on science and technology as the answer, applying a scientific management approach to warfare that separates it into domains and areas of specific technological expertise. This is partly cultural and partly a way of organising an extremely complex human endeavour on an industrial scale. For the US, warfare and its associated means of production is probably the most complex closed system imaginable, comparable to a society but still subject to rules and defined outcomes.

Those rules and outcomes play out in the US budget approvals process and involve the regular introduction of new ‘bumper-sticker’ definitions describing war. These slogans are often designed in the Pentagon to signal unity against a common adversary, yet mask the fierce underlying battle for resources between the services.

The Pentagon’s latest search for a unifying principle to solve the problem of a perceived decline in its relative power has, this time, been framed within the context of JADO.

The prominence of JADC2 is largely because there are six US services – Space and Cyber now being on the same level as the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marines. With the additional services comes increased organisational complexity, as traditional decision-making hierarchies clash with new ideas about the ways and means of achieving control of a domain – the core business of each military service. 

WILL JADO WORK?
Australia and regional nations must be aware of unnecessary distractions and issues unique to the US military-industrial complex. These domestic debates can waste time and effort by diverting attention away from details that are relevant to the scale and context of US-Australian interoperability. Compared to the US, Australia’s acquisition and sustainment processes are streamlined and integrated.

Dr Morgan Dwyer, a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) describes the US criteria for success as providing top-down direction to guide the bottom-up technical development and demonstration of JADC2, as well as the need to simultaneously address ‘one of the toughest problems in the Pentagon: who is in charge?’  

In a recent paper Dr Dwyer reviewed the emergence of the USAF Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) as the leading technical solution for JADC2. She notes the difficult resourcing choices ahead regarding priorities, especially in relation to command and control and identifying core missions that drive high-end requirements for JADO. 

Dr Dwyer observed that “the Air Force’s work will undoubtedly raise questions of operational and acquisition authorities that the Air Force cannot address alone … it will encounter organisational constraints that impede its ability to operate and acquire new technology jointly”. She believes that, making the most of the Air Force’s investment “requires a commitment from Department of Defense leadership to not only build technical links between sensors and shooters but organisational links as well”.

Until now, that top-down direction has been lacking. Questions remain about the purpose of JADO/JADC2 – Will it work? What is its relevance and application for Australia and other US Allies?

TOP-DOWN
In the absence of US Joint doctrine for JADO and JADC2, in March 2020 General Goldfein released Air Force Doctrine Note 1-20. He stated, “recent studies, war games, and collected observations show a need to provide a clear and comprehensive doctrinal framework for conducting JADO.”

The doctrine note, USAF Role in Joint All-Domain Operations, concedes the US’ comparative military advantage has been eroded to the point where new thinking is needed to deter and defeat adversaries that are technologically advanced and have evolved their operational approach. It also provides an insight into the gaps and risks associated with the integration and synchronisation of future operations involving the US military services.

It acknowledges the USAF already participates in JADO but that “such operations are primarily conducted in permissive environments and are not subject to the stresses likely to exist in a contested operating environment across the competition continuum.”  These stresses include denied communications and decentralised operations from forward bases at risk from air and missile attack.

In many scenarios the US can still rely upon overwhelming firepower underwritten by a nuclear deterrent to meet its objectives. But there are some objectives that will need each of the Services to operate together in a distributed way at high tempo to counter sophisticated adversary systems-approaches to warfighting.

This requires an emphasis on speed, rapid decision-making, and acting faster than an opponent. Gen Goldfein believes “the proper application of a coordinated force across multiple domains can produce effects that exceed the contributions of forces employed individually”.

His top-down guidance provides a common framework upon which each of the services can focus their attention on the most demanding missions. These missions will need the synchronised, multi-domain approach envisioned within JADO “to rapidly sense, command and control, target, and support actions across all warfighting domains”.

But to do so it must address integration shortfalls in the command of joint operations and stovepiping. These shortfalls limit “synergies between activities in separate domains, create vulnerabilities and reduce the capacity for dynamic exploitation of opportunities”.

JOINING FORCES
Although these JADO/JADC2 integration shortfalls reflect the scale of US power projection and globally-integrated operations, there are factors applicable for Australia and the region.

As well as deficiencies in C2 and sensing, the doctrine note outlines the need for ‘Agile Support’ including ‘All-Domain Protection’ and ‘Resilient Sustainment and Logistics’.  Integration shortfalls extend beyond technological interoperability. They include operational challenges due to the USAF no longer being able to assume that control of the air will be achieved through a superior air combat capability operating from sanctuary air bases with uncontested supply chains.

Perhaps the most significant shortfall is in component planning and the need for operations with space and cyberspace. These two domains must be promoted from historical supporting roles to provide ‘synergistic effects in air, space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum’.

FULL SPECTRUM TARGETING
The key integrating function in this activity is targeting.

As described in Accelerating Warfare in the Nov-Dec 2018 issue of ADBR, targeting is the sum of the effort to combine intelligence, political, legal, environmental, technological, conceptual, and moral factors into the way Western states plan and execute military campaigns and operations. It is a critical, data-intensive process that generates power by linking strategy to individual tasks and activities in each of the domains.

In the USAF doctrine note targeting is mentioned on many occasions, not just in terms of its criticality to successful JADO, but also in the context of creating an information advantage. This information advantage becomes a core element of the US definition of JADC2, defined as ‘the art and science of decision-making to rapidly translate decisions into action, leveraging capabilities across all domains and with mission partners to achieve operational and information advantage in both competition and conflict’.

In turn, information advantage is described as ‘the application of information capabilities including space, cyberspace, EMS, and influence, resulting in comparative advantage to support all-domain operations. It includes intense targeting of adversary command and control and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting.’

Specifically, ‘JADO should enable the engagement of thousands of targets in hundreds of hours’.  Yet targeting at the scale and speed described here requires an enterprise approach to the management, access, and distribution of data, without which all the talk about information advantage, JADC2, and JADO will amount to nought. ‘A central challenge of JADO is turning large amounts of multi-source data into actionable intelligence, enabling leaders to drive operations by observing, orienting, deciding, and acting correctly based on the that information’. 

Dr Dwyer’s analysis describes the data problem in the following terms, “Technical solutions to the problem of JADC2 enable operators to detect and effect targets. Therefore, in developing ABMS, the Air Force first needs to decide what data to collect and connect. Next, it needs to identify who tasks sensors to collect that data and who adjudicates competing priorities when sensors are assigned more than one task. The Air Force also needs to determine who will store and analyse data and who will decide to initiate an effect, task relevant shooters, and adjudicate competing priorities.”

Getting the technical aspects of data and targeting right solves a significant part of the any sensor, any shooter problem but ‘operationalising’ the JADC2 solution to the point where it can be used in anger will generate extraordinary challenges in preparedness.

The ability to test, evaluate and train the six US services in a contested and denied JADO context will be covered in a later edition of ADBR. At some point though, it will require the prioritisation of the likely missions where JADC2 is essential.

The past two decades were dominated by a military focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism that involved operations in all domains. The emerging multi-domain narrative has yet to mature to the point where its core mission is clear to the DOD, lawmakers, and industry alike. Given Gen Goldfein’s eagerness to take the lead, it is likely the USAF intends JADC2 to be established for the counter air mission.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
A significant amount of the ADF force structure – the ways and means to achieve power – is provided by the US. To realise the full capability of the force ‘bottom-up’ design thinking is needed to generate an integrated joint force that can operate across all domains in our area of strategic interest and still integrate with the US.

Top-down thinking requires a different approach with an emphasis on systems thinking. The combination of systems thinking with design thinking links strategy and task. Both are needed because bottom-up thinking generates the force, while top-down thinking generates power. For example, in the US approach to counter air there is a requirement for a higher-order mission that unifies the services with a common goal, linking strategy to task. This mission is best characterised as counter command.

Counter command would be the exemplar mission executed within the JADO concept of operations, and enabled by JADC2. The purpose would be the synchronisation of domain contributions and the whole of government apparatus. 

A counter command narrative signals intent, and JADO describes to an adversary the conceptual sophistication of a military force. But counter command explains what that force is going to achieve. Instead of targeting objects, counter command first and foremost removes the levers of power and control from military and political leadership. It isolates them as a group. The unstated intent is to target the individual, and the outcome is to provide a choice to an adversary that does not rely on a strategy of annihilation. The counter command mission is the off-ramp to negotiation and settlement.

While the US approach to JADO and its enabling JADC2 takes shape, we should be assured by the associated level of scrutiny. Gen Goldfein’s doctrine note is compelling and is sure to be adopted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the basis for future US joint doctrine. If successful, multi-domain operations should be able to bridge the divide between tactical excellence and strategic failure which continues to characterise modern conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia involving the US and its allies.

A synchronised counter command system, enabled by the Five Eyes intelligence sharing arrangements, and regional security frameworks, could be the answer. The question is how to build a counter command system to protect Australia and its interests. Targeting and a joint platform data is a good start point.

MISSION FIRST
In the US military this requires JADC2 – specifically the ABMS – to deliver an integrated counter air system with unified command arrangements and multi-domain expertise. Counter air is a joint mission and is approached by the services in different ways through different organisations and mission systems, with different cultures and views from and within their domains.

For example, the US Army has its own Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) for the Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) mission, and the US Navy conducts counter air using the Naval Integrated Fires-Counter Air (NIF-CA) concept.

These are the bottom-up systems that provide the ways and means of warfighting. However, the question remains. ‘in order to do what?’ Despite the services’ willingness to co-operate within the framework of JADO/JADC2, it remains to be seen whether it is too vague a concept to be of any operational use. 

It would be wrong to simply view the JADC2 challenges though the counter air lens. There are non-operational challenges, with projects, programs and the allocation of resources also an important part of the mix. The number and complexity of interfaces and requirements across the services is too difficult to contain within a single integration project.  At some point, the mission must be better defined to enable top-down to synchronise with bottom-up. 

When Professor Freedman wrote about the creation of power he was referring to the art of strategy. Force design and technical concepts are a science. The development of the force contributes to the creation of power. Concepts linking a force together like JADC2 are just as important as systems when building a force, but systems and operational concepts need to have an underlying mission and intent that is more sophisticated than ‘better, faster’.

It wasn’t until the US started targeting the command and decision-making apparatus in Belgrade and key Serb leadership that negotiations started. Not leadership targeting, but denying the ability to command. Twenty years of counterinsurgency has taught us that tactical targeting is not the answer to winning a campaign, despite its crushing success on the battlefield.

The counter command mission with an enabling system linked to clear strategic goals is how we avoid losing the next conflict.

US surges carriers in Pacific
For the first time in three years, three U.S. Navy carrier strike groups are operating in the Pacific. The carriers USS Nimitz, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan are currently in the Western Pacific, with the former two carrying out joint dual-carrier operations in the Philippine Sea, while the Ronald Reagan was operating off Japan’s Ryukyu group of islands last week.

The area was also where Japan’s ministry of defence said a foreign submarine was tracked and shadowed by its forces as it transited westward through the contiguous zone between two of its islands. The identity of the submarine’s operator was not revealed, although local media reports quoted defence officials as saying that the submarine was Chinese. 

The carrier deployment move is seen as being directed at China as tensions continue to simmer between the two powers over a range of issues, with the Chinese media agency Global Times calling it a “mere show of vanity” in a commentary. 

India seeks more Russian fighters
The Indian Air Force is seeking approval from the country’s government to urgently acquire a total of 33 more fighter jets from Russia.

Multiple Indian news outlets have reported that the request is for 12 Sukhoi Su-30MKI Flanker and 21 MiG-29M2 Fulcrum fighters, with the value of the deal reportedly worth A$1.13 billion. The request comes after rising tensions with China.

China continues border build-up
Satellite photos have shown the extent of the recent Chinese military build-up at the Galwan Valley in the Himalayas, the site of the recent clashes with India.

Reuters and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) have both noted that satellite photos obtained by both organisations show approximately 100 trucks belonging to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) near the site of the clashes the day after the incident. 

ASPI estimates that the PLA forces in the area number about 1,000, while Reuters adds that China is building roads and river crossings, as well as damming the river running through the rugged area.

Japanese Aegis destroyer starts sea trials
The eighth Japanese destroyer to be equipped with the Aegis combat system for air- and ballistic-missile defence has started sea trials. The ship, named the Haguro, departed builder Japan Marine United Corporation’s shipyard at Isogo near Yokohama, south of Tokyo on June 23.

Haguro is the second Maya class destroyer, and is scheduled to be commissioned into the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in 2021. In addition to the Aegis combat system, it is also fitted with 96 Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells for missiles such as the SM-2, SM-3, or SM-6 capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.  

Singapore takes more Leopard 2 tanks
An arms export report released by the German government states that the European country delivered two more Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Singapore, bringing the number of tanks delivered since 2016 to 45.

The deliveries bring the number of tanks delivered to Singapore since 2007 to over 200. Singapore announced the acquisition of former Bundeswehr Leopard 2A4s in 2006, saying at the time it intended to put 66 into service with the rest used as spares.

The Southeast Asian city-state is extremely secretive about its military, and has never officially acknowledged that it has placed a follow-on order for more tanks.

The anti-radiation missile sector has seldom been so vibrant. New and upgraded weapons are entering the marketplace as a riposte to enhancements of ground-based air defences.

By Dr Thomas Whitington

The Spencer Davis Group and The Righteous Brothers were celebrating on 18 April 1966. Both bands had scored number one hits with their singles Somebody Help Me and (You’re My) Soul and Inspiration in the Britain and the United States.

Thousands of miles away in South-East Asia, the US was deeply embroiled in the Vietnam War. That day the USAF ushered in a new era in its history by employing the Texas Instruments AGM-45A Shrike Anti-Radiation Missile (ARM) for the first time.

The AGM-45 was used extensively during the Vietnam War by the USAF and US Navy. Eleven variants were produced, each of which used a different Radio Frequency (RF) seeker tuned to the waveband of the radar the missile was to attack. For example, the AGM-45A/B6 detected X-band (8.5GHz to 10.68GHz) radar emissions, principally those from the SNR-125 (NATO reporting name Low Blow) fire control radar forming part of the Almaz S-125 Neva/Pechora (SA-3 Goa) medium-range/medium-altitude surface-to-air missile ensemble.

Nor were the capabilities of the AGM-45 restricted to Soviet and Warsaw Pact radars. During the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas conflict, the RAF famously used AGM-45A missiles launched from Avro Vulcan-B2 strategic bombers against an Argentine Westinghouse AN/TPS-43F ground-based air surveillance radar and Oerlikon Contraves Skyguard fire control radars accompanying Oerlikon GDF anti-aircraft artillery systems. These radars were located on the island of East Falkland and were attacked on 31 May 1982 and again on 2 June 1982.

Aside from being the world’s first operational ARM, the AGM-45 had one of the longest careers of such a weapon, eventually leaving US service in 1992. It made way for the legendary Texas Instruments/Raytheon AGM-88 HARM (High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile).

HARM IN ACTION
Just under one year after RAF use of the AGM-45, the US DoD approved the full rate production of the AGM-88. The missile subsequently made its combat debut during the Operation Eldorado Canyon airstrikes mounted by the USAF and US Navy on 15 April 1986 against targets in Libya in retaliation for the sponsorship of violent insurgent movements in the Middle East and beyond by the country’s then leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Some 34 years later, the AGM-88 shows no signs of heading for retirement. In fact, the weapon has evolved into two new variants – the Northrop Grumman AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), and Raytheon’s AGM-88F HCSM (HARM Control System Modification), both of which augment the existing AGM-88B/C variants which entered service in 1987 and 1993 respectively.

The AGM-88E adds a global positioning system/inertial navigation system (GPS/INS) and a Millimetric Wave Radar (MMW) to the AGM-88B/C. The former helps a missile avoid the so-called ‘switch off’ tactic where radar operators deactivate their equipment to break the RF lock an ARM relies upon to guide towards its target. The GPS/INS allows the missile to be loaded with the precise coordinates of the radar so that, even if it is deactivated, the missile can use these coordinates to find its target.

Secondly, the GPS/INS can be programmed with a defined area beyond which the missile is not permitted to fly. It is noteworthy that during Operation Allied Force in 1999 – the NATO-led effort to end ethnic cleansing in the Balkans territory of Kosovo – an AGM-88B ended up hitting a street in a suburb of the Bulgarian capital Sofia after having lost its RF lock.

MMW radars, which transmit on frequencies of 30GHz and above, produce highly detailed imagery thanks to their very short wavelengths. This helps in the gathering of battle damage assessment as the MMW radar can transmit detailed imagery of the missile’s end game to verify the accuracy of the attack.

Customers for the AGM-88E include the German government procuring 91 examples for the Luftwaffe’s Panavia Tornado-ECR air defence suppression jets under a US$122m (A$192m) foreign military sale announced in 2019. These will replace the current AGM-88B/C missiles used on Tornado. AGM-88Es are also furnishing the Tornado-ECRs flown by Italy’s Aeronautica Militaire.

Closer to home, the RAAF is also acquiring the weapon, placing an initial order for 16 AGM-88Es in 2015 and an additional 10 in 2018, with plans afoot for a further 14.

On 8 March 2020 Northrop Grumman announced that it had secured a US$322.5m (A$508m) engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract for an extended range variant of the AARGM, called somewhat predictably the AGM-88G AARGM-ER. The contract covers the design, test, and integration of a new rocket motor for the baseline AGM-88E to enhance its range. Development of the AARGM-ER is being financed by the US Navy which could become a customer in the future.

The AGM-88F is also a reworking of the AGM-88B/C adding a GPS/INS to the baseline version of the missile. Customers for the AGM-88F include Bahrain, Qatar and Taiwan, with a US foreign military sale being concluded in May 2019 worth US$355m (A$560m). The contract also covers the upgrade of an unspecified number of USAF AGM-88C weapons to AGM-88F status. This work, and delivery of the AGM-88Fs to foreign customers, is expected to be completed by 2027.

These contracts build on the 650 AGM-88F missiles delivered to the USAF from a contract won by Raytheon in 2012. They are deployed on Lockheed Martin F-16CJ Viper Weasel air defence suppression aircraft.

Like the AGM-88E, the AGM-88F can be deployed both with and without the Raytheon AN/ASQ-213(V) HARM targeting system. This is used with dedicated air defence suppression aircraft to provide highly accurate emitter fire control information, uploaded into the missile before launch or during its flight via datalink.

USAF sources said the AN/ASQ-213(V) is used by aircraft such as the F-16CJ Viper Weasel to provide precise emitter location information during SEAD (suppression of enemy air defence) efforts. Use of  the AGM-88 series without an ASQ-213(V) is more conducive to attacking hostile emitters in self-defence if an aircraft is illuminated.

NEW SYSTEMS
Beyond the AGM-88, other countries are entering the ARM club. These include India where that country’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is realising the New-Generation Anti-Radiation Missile (NGARM).

Work started on this missile in 2012 and reports claim ranges of between 54nm (100km) to 65nm (120km), with the weapon expected to be deployed on Indian Air Force Sukhoi Su-30MKI and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Tejas combat aircraft. Like the AGM-88E, it will include an MMW radar seeker, with the missile’s RF seeker expected to cover a waveband of 2GHz to 20GHz. Once development of the NGARM is complete, the missile may augment or replace the IAF’s Soviet-era Zvezda-Strela Kh-25MP (NATO reporting name AS-12 Kegler) ARMs.

While the IAF has been in the ARM club since the 1970s, the UK’s RAF bowed out in 2013 with the retirement of its British Aerospace/MBDA ALARM (Air-Launched Anti-Radiation Missile), a system which was last used in anger by the force during the 2011 NATO and US-led interventions in the Libyan civil war.

More recently, MBDA sources said the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), which also acquired the ALARM for employment from its Tornado IDSs, may have used the weapon during its intervention in Yemen’s civil war, although against general land targets rather than radars.

The RAF is considering acquisition of MBDA’s SPEAR-EW (Select Precision Effects at Range-Electronic Warfare) variant of the SPEAR-3 air-to-ground missile. The SPEAR-EW design dispenses with the warhead and seeker of the SPEAR-3, replacing this with an electronic warfare payload. The EW payload comprises Electronic Support Measures (ESM) to detect, locate and identify hostile emitters, and an electronic attack system to blast these with jamming waveforms.

MBDA sources said that the SPEAR-EW could be used as a stand-in capability, jamming hostile radars while an aircraft such as the RAF’s Eurofighter Typhoon-F/GR4 combat aircraft are operating in contested airspace. The SPEAR-EW is able to loiter and perform electronic attack while the jet performs its mission, or can be used to identify and jam hostile emitters which could then be engaged by kinetic air-to-ground weapons such as the SPEAR-3.

Although not formally revealed, it is possible that the SPEAR-EW will jam emitters transmitting in wavebands of 8.5GHz to 40GHz, enabling it to jam X-band, Ku-band (13.4-14/15.7-17.7GHz), K-band (24.05GHz to 24.25GHz) and Ka-band (33.4GHz to 36GHz) ground-based and naval surveillance and fire control/ground controlled interception radars and missile radar seekers. The range of the SPEAR-EW is thought to be in excess of the 75nm (140km) of the SPEAR-3. MBDA sources have told the author that production and delivery of the SPEAR-EW could occur over the next five years should the RAF place a formal order.

UAVs
Air-to-surface missiles have been the weapon of choice for attacking hostile radars, but Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) has bucked this trend with the development of the Harpy anti-radar unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which is believed to have entered service with the Israeli Air Force around 1973.

Open sources state that the weapon has an endurance of about six hours and carries a blast fragmentation warhead. After launch, it will loiter at an altitude of 6,500 feet and use an ESM to detect emissions from hostile radars. Once an emitter is detected, the Harpy will dive towards the radar and detonate.

Taiwan has taken a similar approach with the realisation of its Anti-Radiation UAV (ARUAV). Few design details have been released, although in 2017 it was reported that the weapon can loiter for 100 hours. Although not publicly revealed, sources claim the ESM equipping the ARUAV covers a waveband of at least 2GHz to 18GHz.

This may have been extended further downwards to frequencies of 500MHz allowing the ARUAV to detect emissions from ultra-high frequency (UHF) radars transmitting on L-band wavelengths of 1.215GHz to 1.4GHz. These frequencies are used by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) East China Research Institute of Electronic Engineering’s JY-14 ground-based air surveillance radar, alleged in some reports to be capable of detecting and tracking combat aircraft with low radar cross-sections. The JY-14 is reportedly the most numerous such radar in service in the PRC.

CHINA and RUSSIA
Like its rival across the Taiwan Strait, the PRC is pouring investment into ARM technology. Details are sparse regarding the performance of the Hongdu Aviation Industry Corporation YJ-91 ARM, but it is thought to have been developed from Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation’s Kh-31 (NATO reporting name AS-17 Krypton) air-to-surface weapon.

The Kh-31P ARM variant can be outfitted with a number of distinct RF seekers depending on the radar the missile is to attack. The PRC has developed an indigenous variant of the weapon – known as the KR-1 and thought to have been equipped with a single RF seeker optimised for detecting and homing in on S-band (2.3GHz to 2.5GHz/2.7GHz to 3.7GHz) ground-based air surveillance radars.

One of the principle differences between the baseline KR-1 received by the PRC in 1997 and the YJ-91 is the latter’s single RF seeker covering a wide waveband of emitters, in contrast to the KR-1’s restriction to S-band. This will allow the missile to cover, roughly, the 2GHz to 18GHz waveband used by most ground-based air surveillance, naval surveillance, and fire control/ground-controlled interception radars – the priority targets during SEAD missions. Alongside the expanded frequency range of the YJ-91, the missile may have a slightly extended range of 65nm (120km) versus the 59nm (110km) of the Kh-31P.

Since its service entry in 1991, the Kh-31P has been developed into several subvariants. Three distinct models have been identified, the Kh-31P, Kh-61PK and Kh-31PD. The Kh-31PK offers improved lethality over the Kh-31P with a proximity-fused warhead. Meanwhile, the Kh-31PD extends the missile’s range to 135nm (250km). Each of these missiles is still thought to use multiple RF seekers – reportedly designated L-111, L-112 and L113 collectively – covering a 1GHz to 11GHz waveband. All Kh-31P variants are used with the L-080/L-081 Phantasmagoria-A/B emitter locator system which works in a similar fashion to the HARM’s AN/ASQ-213(V)

In Russian service the Kh-31P series has been augmented by the Kh-58E/UShKE (NATO reporting name AS-11 Kilter) missile which has a reported range of up to 132nm (245km) and is capable of targeting radars emitting on frequencies of 1GHz to 12.5GHz. Alongside the Kh-58E/UShKE, the International Institute of Strategic Studies’ 2020 Military Balance noted that the Zvezda-Strela Kh-25M/MP (NATO reporting name AS-10 Karen) continues in service with the Russian Air Force, having been introduced in 1975. No details appear to have been released regarding the wavebands covered by the missile although, like the Kh-31P, it is thought to use an array of RF seekers which must be fitted to the missile prior to a sortie according to the radar being targeted.

ARM INVESTMENT
The prevailing paradigm of near-peer rivalry is spurring investment into ARM technology. The US and its allies, and the PRC and Russia, all field sophisticated ground-based air defences, particularly radar. As a result, defeating such threats becomes an imperative for success in the wider offensive counter air (OCA) battle.

Success will belong to those who can outclass the technological sophistication of an adversary’s radar, particularly in terms of the electronic counter-countermeasure (ECCM) techniques these can bring to bear through the technological sophistication of their ARMs. Similarly, countries such as India and Taiwan are more than aware of the importance of these weapons and are making investments accordingly. Not only will this help them develop capabilities independent of their traditional suppliers, but also help them to emerge as exporters of such materiel in their own right.

Government emphasises threats in Indo-Pacific region in
new Defence Strategy Update and Force Structure Plan

By Andrew McLaughlin and Max Blenkin

Prime Minister Scott Morrison this morning released a major update to the 2016 Defence White Paper and Defence Integrated Investment Plan.

Dubbed the 2020 Defence Strategy Update and the accompanying Force Structure Plan, the two documents will provide guidance on the ADF’s posture and recapitalisation plans for the coming decade – with a growing emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region – and will ensure Australia can respond to threats with credible military force.

“We have been a favoured isle for many decades,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at the launch at the Australian Defence Force Academy on July 1. “The only time Australia has faced an existential threat was when the global and regional order collapsed in the 1930s and 1940s.

“Now, we must face the reality that we have moved into a new and less benign strategic era – one in which the institutions and patterns of cooperation that have benefited our prosperity and security for decades are under increasing strain,” he added. “The Indo-Pacific is the epicentre of rising strategic competition. Our region will not only shape our future – increasingly it is the focus of the dominant global contest of our age.(

The Prime Minister highlighted tensions over territorial claims heightening the risk of miscalculation or conflict, unprecedented regional military modernisation, increased capabilities and reach, coercive activities, disinformation and foreign interference, terrorism, and state sovereignty being under pressure as the foundations for the strategy.

Much of what the documents outline has already been announced or is already in build, but there were a few new capabilities and announcements.

In summary, the investment of $270 billion in equipment over the next decade will include a growth in annual defence spending from $42 billion in 2020/21, to $73 billion in 2029/30. Over the same period, the acquisition of new capability will grow from 34 per cent of the annual defence budget to 40 per cent.

While the details will be found in the full documents which ADBR will study and report on in detail later today, the highlights of the package are:

• A shift in Australia’s defence posture which prioritises Australia’s immediate region – the Indo-Pacific – while remaining prepared to make military contributions outside our immediate region.
• Whereas the objectives outlined in the 2016 DWP gave an equal weighting to Australia’s northern approaches, South-East Asia and the Pacific, the new document will prioritise the ADF’s geographical focus on the area ranging from the north-east Indian Ocean, through maritime and mainland South-East Asia, to PNG and the South-West Pacific.
• An increase in Defence spending, from the $195 billion allocated in the 2016/17 to 2025/26 period, to $270 million in the 2020/21 to 2029/30.
• A greater emphasis on more potent and long-range combat systems, cyber security, and more secure supply chains.
• An increase in Defence personnel of 800, comprising 650 for Navy, 100 for the Air Force, and 50 for Army.

In the main domains, new capabilities will include:

MARITIME POWER

• Spending of between $5 billion and $7 billion on undersea surveillance systems.
• The possible acquisition of the Raytheon SM-6 anti-ballistic missile for the Hobart class DDGs.
• The acquisition of a surface-to-surface anti-ship missile such as the KONGSBERG Naval Strike Missile (NSM).
• The introduction of an enhanced mine warfare capability, with the acquisition of up to eight new vessels that may be based on the Arafura class OPV.

LAND POWER

• The possible acquisition of Lockheed Martin MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATacMS), a ground launched guided rocket able to deliver a 500lb warhead out to 300 kilometres.
• ATaCMS would form part of the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HiMARS), a truck-mounted guided rocket system able to be deployed on the RAAF’s C-130J transport.
• Apart from the replacement of the Tiger ARH capability, the document proposes a new long-range rotorcraft transport in the late 2020s, and an investment in a new “next-gen” rotorcraft in the early 2030s.
• The Plan also proposes acquisition of up to 12 riverine patrol watercraft, and several amphibious vessels of up to 2,000 tonnes under the Project JP2048 Phase 5 Future Watercraft Program to replace the retired Balikpapan class LCHs.
• Investment in the acquisition of future autonomous vehicles. The Army has already conducted substantial research in this area, converting some of the elderly M113 armoured personnel carriers for remote and autonomous operation.

AIR & SPACE POWER

• Confirmation that the RAAF will acquire the Lockheed Martin AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missile (LRASM) for employment from the F/A-18F Super Hornet and other platforms such as the P-8A Poseidon and possibly the F-35A. The acquisition of this system was approved by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) in February 2020.
• The release says the RAAF will have “expanded air combat and mobility” capabilities, including a $10 to $17 billion investment in fighter aircraft.
• The air combat part of this could be referring to the ongoing F-35A acquisition, the planned additional tranche of F-35As which is yet to be ordered and would take Australia’s total to 100, the retention and upgrade of the F/A-18Fs, the introduction of an unmanned combat aerial system (UCAS), or a combination of all four.
• The air mobility part refers to the “expanded replacement” of the C-130J transport from the late 2020s.
• “Remotely piloted and autonomous systems … including air teaming vehicles”, valued at between $7.4 and $11 billion. This is likely referring to the AIR 7000 Phase 1B MQ-4C Triton maritime ISR system, the AIR 7003 Phase 1 MQ-9B SkyGuardian armed RPAS, and the development and possible acquisition of Boeing’s ATS/Loyal Wingman UCAS.
• Between $6.2 billion and $9.3 billion has been allocated for research and development into “high speed long-range strike, including hypersonic research to inform future investments for remotely-piloted and autonomous combat aircraft, including air teaming vehicles.”
• The Plan proposes a substantial investment in space capability on which the ADF is highly reliant for communications, surveillance, and positioning. Almost all of that capability is delivered through other nation’s assets, particularly the US. In a future conflict, that capability could be congested, degraded, or denied. The investment of up to $7 billion will improve resilience and self-reliance. Much of this funding will go to upgrading satellite communications systems, including satellites themselves and ground control stations under sovereign Australian control.
• Up to $2 billion will develop Space Situational Awareness capabilities, to keep track of space junk as well as friendly and other satellites.
• The government announced its plans to enhance cyber capabilities on June 30, including offensive and defensive measures designed to protect the Australian mainland and deployed forces. Up to $5 billion will be used to strengthen Defence’s networks against attacks and intrusion by malicious actors. A further $2-$3 billion will go to improving signals intelligence (SIGINT) systems and enhancing top secret information systems.

“There is a new dynamic of strategic competition, and the largely benign security environment Australia has enjoyed – roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Global Financial Crisis – is gone,” the Prime Minister said. “Since the Government’s 2016 Defence White Paper was released, we have witnessed an acceleration of the strategic trends that were already under way.

He said the Update “makes clear the strategic environment we face, and this clarity will guide Australia’s actions,” and, “sees an evolution of strategic defence objectives in accord with our new strategic environment.”

South Korea shops for more surveillance aircraft
South Korea has budgeted US$2bn (A$2.9bn) for the acquisition of more Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) as well as Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) gathering aircraft. The country’s defence acquisitions agency says the former will enter service in 2027 and 2026 respectively.

The additional AEW&C are likely to be the Boeing 737 AEW&C platform. South Korea already operates four aircraft acquired under the Peace Eye program, and which are broadly similar to the RAAF’s E-7A Wedgetails.  

The four SIGINT aircraft being acquired are to replace a similar number of SIGINT-configured Hawker 800XPs operated by South Korea’s Air Force. These will be fitted with locally developed mission systems, and although the aircraft platform has not been chosen, the fact that South Korea already operated two SIGINT-configured Dassault Falcon 2000 business jets is likely to be a factor in the final decision.

COVID-19 forces delivery delays of submarine & helicopters to Singapore
Singapore has said the disruption to global supply chains by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the deferral of initial deliveries of a number of new military platforms, including the first of four Invincible-class (Type 218SG) diesel-electric attack submarines from Germany’s TKMS, as well as the Airbus Helicopters H225M and Boeing CH-47F Chinook helicopters.

The first helicopters will be delivered in the first half of 2021 instead of later this year, while the delivery of the first submarine will be pushed back from 2021 to 2022. However Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said that the four F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters Singapore has ordered will be delivered beginning in 2026 as planned.

Ng also said plans to expand Singaporean military training in Australia are going ahead as planned, with construction for a new training area near Townsville underway. Singapore is also working with Australia to resume its fighter training detachments to the Northern Territory later this year.

New commander for HQ IADS in Butterworth
The RAAF’s AVM Geoff Harland has assumed command of the Headquarters Integrated Area Defence system (HQ IADS) at Butterworth air base in Malaysia. AVM Harland takes over from AVM Tim Innes, who took up the position in June 2017.

HQ IADS is the main instrument for coordinating military action in defence of the Peninsular Malaysia under the auspices of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (5PDA) which comprises of Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK, and provides a platform for consultation between the partners in the event of an attack on any of the five countries.

AVM Harland is a former P-3C Orion and F-111 navigator. Prior to this latest assignment he was Director General Personnel – Air Force.

RAAF P-8 deploys to Brunei
An RAAF P-8A Poseidon has made a rare flight into Brunei International Airport in the tiny southeast Asian nation’s capital, Bandar Seri Begawan.

The aircraft was observed on flight tracking software arriving at the airport from the south on June 28, and seen again flying over the South China Sea on a north-westerly heading after departing from Brunei two days later. 

Defence has told ADBR that the P-8 was in Brunei for Exercise Penguin, a biennial Australian-Bruneian training event, with this year’s iteration including an air phase. A Defence spokesperson added that under a 1999 Memorandum of Understanding between both countries, “Australia and Brunei may make arrangements to support exercises and training in Brunei Darussalam, including aircraft and ship visits.”

Japan cancels Aegis Ashore
Ten days after the shock announcement that it was suspending the deployment of the Aegis Ashore ground-based ballistic missile defence system due to cost and technical issues, Japan has gone a step further and cancelled the program altogether.

The decision was taken by Japan’s National Security Council in late June, with Defence minister Taro Kono saying that the US ally will now revise its missile defence program and scale up its entire defence posture.

The Royal Australian Navy’s 808SQN based at HMAS Albatross near Nowra will soon replace its Airbus MRH 90 helicopters with a new utility helicopter.

As forecast in the Government’s 2020 Force Structure Plan and accompanying Defence Strategic Update released on July 1, the new utility helicopter will be acquired in the 2025 timeframe, although this may need to be brought forward in order to maximise commonality with existing capabilities.

The Force Structure Plan offers little detail, saying only that the RAN will, ‘Expand and rationalise the support and logistics helicopter fleet consistent with the expectations for larger naval operations.’ An accompanying timeline chart shows a project for a ‘Logistics Helicopter’ running from 2025 to 2031, and is valued at $1bn to $1.5bn.

ADBR understands the new capability will replace the small fleet of six MRH 90s taken on by Navy to replace its Westland Sea King Mk50/A in 2011 under Project AIR 9000 Phase 6. Industry sources claim the small fleet of MRH 90 helicopters – despite being identical to the 41 machines operated by the Australian Army – is difficult to sustain, especially when embarked at sea, and that these machines will be absorbed by Army.

After suffering multiple delays with its own AIR 9000 Phases 2/4 project milestones since the MRH 90 was introduced in 2006, Army has had improved sustainment success with and availability of its MRH 90s in recent years due to having a greater mass of machines and a joint industry and uniformed maintenance team in Townsville, north Queensland.

But, despite having a primarily composite structure, the 47 MRH 90s in Army and Navy service are not fully marinised. ADBR understands that, while corrosion prevention measures can be taken prior to embarkation, sustained operations at sea from the RAN’s Canberra class LHDs and other vessels require preventative maintenance and washing after each flight to mitigate corrosion in the drive-train, avionics, and sensors.

Instead, sources tell ADBR that the RAN is instead considering a new helicopter type with greater commonality to its Sikorsky MH-60R ‘Romeo’ Seahawk combat helicopter, of which it has 24 in service. This really leaves just two possibilities – the MH-60S ‘Sierra’ Nighthawk, or additional MH-60Rs.

On paper, the MH-60S makes more sense from a utility point of view, as it has a larger cab based on the Black Hawk airframe with double doors on both sides of the cab, seating for up to 12 passengers, and more internal space for cargo. The MH-60S also shares its cockpit, engines, and dynamic components with the MH-60R, and crews can be dual-qualified.

The MH-60S can also perform combat search & rescue, mine-countermeasures, can employ Hellfire and APKWS air-to-surface missiles, and can conduct special forces combat support missions.

But with the US Navy having fulfilled its requirement for 275 aircraft and another eight aircraft for Thailand by 2016, the MH-60S is no longer in production, and it is unclear if production could be restarted on the existing line.

The missionised MH-60R has a much smaller cab than the Sierra, with space for just a couple of seats. The dipping sonar, sonar buoy tubes, and sensor operator station can be removed to increase cargo and seating area, but this is a time-consuming and difficult task to perform at sea. Despite carrying all of the above equipment, RAN Romeos currently conduct logistics operations when embarked using an external cargo hook.

And while the US Navy has fulfilled its requirement for 291 MH-60Rs and has completed orders for South Korea and Denmark, the aircraft remains in low-rate production for orders from India and Saudi Arabia.

With the RAN’s surface combatant fleet scheduled to grow over the next two decades as the Arafura class OPVs are introduced and the Hunter class frigates begin to enter service, it is likely more than 24 combat helicopters will be required to fulfill the RAN’s combat helicopter and associated training requirement.

For its fleet of 24 Romeos, the RAN bases its current rate of effort on eight 816SQN aircraft being embarked at sea at any one time, eight being used for training with 725SQN, and eight in maintenance or being prepared for deployment.

The Romeo and Sierra are built by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky at Hartford in Connecticut, and are then flown to Owego in neighbouring New York state for the integration of their mission and combat systems.

Update July 9: In a written response to questions from ADBR, Lockheed Martin Australia Rotary and Missions Systems’ Director, Business Development, Neale Prescott told us, “The MH-60R has the capability to be reconfigured in the field to meet bespoke mission requirements including utility support. 

“Recently we have seen some operational examples of the multi-mission capabilities of the MH-60R with the RAN through the embarkation of MH-60R Nightmare upon HMAS Toowoomba during Operation Manitou.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that Queanbeyan-based Electro Optic Systems (EOS) will provide 251 remote weapons stations (RWS) to the Australian Army for Bushmaster and Hawkei protected military vehicles (PMV).

Announced two days before the July 4 Eden Monaro by-election at EOS’s Hume, ACT production facility, the announcement was somewhat of a surprise having not been included in the Government’s 2020 Force Structure Plan and accompanying Defence Strategic Update which was announced the previous day, nor had it previously been a published requirement.

“Investments such as the acquisition of Remote Weapon Stations will make the ADF more capable for the wide range of potential scenarios and threats Australia will face in the future,” Defence Minister Senator Linda Reynolds said in a joint statement.

Defence industry Minister Melissa Price added, “This investment not only secures local jobs, but it also provides certainty for over 100 supply chain businesses across Australia. More than 80 per cent of the parts that Electro Optic Systems use for these weapons are sourced through the Australian supply chain and that’s good for jobs and small businesses.”

The integration work of the RWS with the PMVs will be conducted by EOS in conjunction with vehicle manufacturer, Thales Australia. The RWS will allow vehicle crewman to operate the weapon from with the safe confines of the vehicles’ armoured cabins.

Quadrilateral military cooperation – a strategic imperative in the Indian Ocean

By Peter Hunter

Australia’s recent experience in confronting a range of unprecedented strategic challenges, from the catastrophic summer bushfires to the COVID19 pandemic, has raised questions about the validity of some of our long-sustained paradigms regarding national security. From our over-dependence on fragile global supply chains, to the role of our military in deterring China’s statecraft, these multi-dimensional challenges demand a tough-minded re-think about Australia’s security partnerships.

While the challenges Australia confronts on the Pacific side of the Indo-Pacific – from the maritime disputes of the South China Sea, to China’s growing influence in Australia’s near neighbourhood – have been extensively analysed, the strategic consequences of the competition playing out in the Indian Ocean generally do not receive the same level of attention.

But the Indian Ocean region (IOR) has become a cockpit of geostrategic rivalry. With a multiplicity of actors vying for access and influence, and with crucial maritime trade routes at stake, Australia’s alignment with regional security partners including India, Japan and the US will be crucial to responding to these challenges.

What are the contours of this competition? Unsurprisingly, the major driver of change here is China. On the one hand, Beijing’s increasing influence in the region is natural extension of its growing military and economic weight – rising powers traditionally expand their military operations to match their interests abroad – and China’s dependence on the maritime trade routes passing through the IOR mark the region a logical nexus for Chinese interest. But on the other, China’s palpable intention of rewriting the regional order to suit its own interests, and its use of coercive statecraft to achieve those ends, are increasingly drawing the attention of other regional powers.

China’s interest in projecting power into the IOR, whether by expanding its options for military basing or by more frequent deployments of its naval forces (especially its submarines), is particularly troubling to India, Japan, Australia and the US, who share concerns about the threat to sea lines of communication, and regional stability.

And although the Chinese government – for now – is pursuing its maritime basing interests through ‘dual use’ leases on commercial port facilities in locations including Sri Lanka, Djibouti and Pakistan, few regional players are under any illusions regarding the likely militarisation of such facilities. As one Chinese scholar has argued, “Setting up overseas military bases is not an idea we have to shun: on the contrary, it is our right.”

This is particularly significant in light of the proliferation of submarine capabilities in the region, with Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia all joining the ranks of those already operating submarines, including Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and, of course, the US. Should China secure a deep-water port facility in the IOR to extend the reach of its submarine operations, then a crowded underwater environment in the IOR can only become riskier. And while the increasing prevalence of conventional submarines will affect the security of maritime trade passing through, it is the spread of nuclear armed submarines that is complicating the region’s strategic risk calculus.

India, for its part, sees China’s maritime power projection into the Indian Ocean, and its access to bases in Pakistan, as a growing threat to its own security. And although India’s shared border with China (and, of course, the long-running tensions with Pakistan) complicate Delhi’s views regarding its external partnerships, India is nevertheless looking to broaden and enrich its security cooperation with the US, Japan, and Australia to counterbalance these challenges.

Similarly, Japan has begun to play a more proactive role in the IOR, concerned by China’s actions. For more than a decade China has sought to intimidate Japan through increasingly frequent incursions into its airspace, and by challenging Japan’s sovereignty over the Senkaku islands. Moreover, as Satoru Nagao has suggested, “China’s expansion raises concerns that Japan’s sea lines of communication will be vulnerable to attack from Chinese submarines.”

Although Australia doesn’t face the same immediacy of military incursion as Japan and India, the prevalence of China’s political warfare activities against Australia, and the threat to our economy from any compromise to our maritime trade routes, underscore Australia’s interest in working more closely with regional security partners.

And while the US retains a strong interest in the region, and for now maintains military superiority above any other regional power, it is also evident that major shifts are underway. This is shown in the Trump administration’s expectation that its regional security partners will do more to pull their own weight, with or without US assistance, and in the extent to which US technological military superiority will persist.

That said, it is clearly in the region’s interest to have the continuing stabilising effect that a US presence brings, as evidenced by Australia and Japan’s continuing commitments to their respective alliances with the US.

THE POWER OF 4
So, notwithstanding some differences in perspective and capability between Australia, India, Japan and the US, their shared strategic interest in bolstering the rules and norms of the regional order underscore a renewed interest in the quadrilateral security dialogue, commonly referred to as the ‘Quad’. China’s efforts to rewrite the regional order have driven home the need for closer cooperation among the Quad partners on economic imperatives, diplomatic messaging, military cooperation, and standard setting.

All four have a shared interest in deterring the use of coercive, forceful measures in the political, economic, and legal affairs of the region, and in preventing any regional state from becoming dominant. And with their economic wellbeing contingent on the continued free movement of maritime trade through the IOR, the Quad members have a vested interest in ensuring the region’s sea-lines-of-communication remain free from interference. As Lavina Lee has argued, “from a strategic perspective, the primary value of the Quad is to signal to Beijing that the four states share the intent to counter and thereby deter future Chinese actions to further change the status quo”.

And, as we’ve seen in the South China Sea, China’s coercive statecraft is not limited to the military sphere. Rather, its extensive program of state-sanctioned influence involves the coordinated deployment of all the elements of its national power to ‘win without fighting’.

Moreover, all of this is happening despite the Quad partners’ acquisition of advanced networked warfighting platforms. This suggests that the possession of these highly-capable systems is a necessary, but not sufficient, response to China’s holistic approach to wielding influence. Indeed, as Mike Scrafton has argued, Australia can’t materially alter the course of these events – or even mitigate their consequences – just by increasing military spending.

This raises the question of how Australia’s instruments of national power, including its air and space power, should be employed in the Indian Ocean region to counter these problems and, more positively, to create opportunities to enhance Australia’s interests. As former US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates recently argued, “as essential as it is to build and maintain a strong military, it is just as – or more – important to know when and how to use it”.

In the IOR, this points to the benefits that will arise from cooperation in non-traditional aspects of military operations. While traditionally the military focus has been on combat power and the delivery of force, the contemporary proliferation of alternative vectors for influence, including in the information and economic domains, has lent a new urgency to considering more holistic models. NATO has suggested that, “even lethality, the ultimate penalty of physical force, is giving way to abstractions of perception management and behavioural control, a fact which suggests that strategic success, not tactical victory, is the more coveted end-state”.

So, where previously our armed forces have focused on force projection as a key requirement, the time has come to weave defence’s capabilities into whole-of-government options for ‘influence projection’. Rather than narrowly focusing on dominating the battlespace with forward-deployed force elements, air and space power can broaden its value by complementing whole-of-government efforts to out-position rival powers in economic, diplomatic, and informational influence campaigns. As China has aptly demonstrated, coercion does not necessarily involve the application of physical violence; influence comes in many forms and can apply to peacetime and wartime situations, as well as those between.

A fundamental dimension of Australia’s ability to do all this will be the extent to which its tools of statecraft have the necessary access, presence, and persistence to wield influence in the Indo-Pacific.  This underwrites the potential strategic benefit to be gained from a reinvigorated Quad. Closer cooperation between India, Japan, Australia, and the US offers rich potential for enhancing each of those partners’ influence in the region.

MARITIME DOMAIN AWARENESS – A STRATEGIC INFLUENCER
For our military forces to contribute to the Quad’s ability to enhance maritime security in the IOR, information sharing among the partners takes on a strategic quality. As former US Navy Admiral James Stavridis observed, “shining a light through intelligence and information sharing can deny an adversary the ambiguity he seeks. This can be done by linking international partners to observe and record activities”.

It makes sense for Australia to explore options for unclassified information sharing with its Quad partners. Considering the significant expansion of submarine threats in the region, this is where the issue of maritime domain awareness becomes particularly important. As Christian Bueger and Anthony Bergin have argued, “maritime security-related issues represent some of the most valuable security areas for cooperation. A key to addressing these challenges regionally and nationally is maritime domain awareness”.

The intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities available through air and space power provide significant opportunities for such cooperation. Information sharing could involve the exchange of data in areas such as commercial shipping traffic, climate, meteorological and oceanographic data. This could have significant benefits in building shared perceptions and understanding of the flow of seaborne traffic in areas of joint strategic interest. As confidence among Quad partners grows, it could contribute to higher-end capabilities such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW).

Moreover, such information sharing among Quad partners can expose China’s cyber, electronic warfare, propaganda, and psychological warfare campaigns. By contributing to information sharing options among the Quad partners, Australian air power can bolster regional resilience against these coercive methods.

Thinking about aerospace cooperation within the Quad needs to go beyond traditional platform-centric models. By taking an incremental approach which builds confidence through information sharing on maritime domain awareness, the partners can, over time, develop new concepts of cooperation in influence operations that specifically target China’s coercive tactics that fall below the military threshold.

Trump Administration officially rejects China’s island claims
The United States has for the first time formally rejected China’s claims to the South China Sea, with a statement released by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on July 14 calling Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea “completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.”

It added that the US is aligning with the 2016 decision made by an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention following a legal case brought against China by the Philippines. The finding rejected China’s territorial or maritime claims to islands and features in the South China Sea that are also claimed in part by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines Taiwan, and Vietnam.

As if to underscore Secretary Pompeo’s point, the US Navy destroyer USS Ralph Johnson conducted a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in waters near the disputed Spratly Islands on the day the statement was released.

Japan releases defence white paper
Japan has released its annual defence white paper, with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the regional security and international order being a central theme.

The document warned that a prolonged global pandemic, “may exert various impacts on countries’ military capability”. It added that operations conducted by military vessels and aircraft primarily from China, and to a lesser degree, Russia in the waters and airspace surrounding Japan have continued in recent months despite the pandemic.

The White Paper also touched on Japan’s intention to acquire the Lockheed-Martin F-35B Lightning II, noting that its Short Take-Off Vertical Landing (STOVL) capability will improve the operational flexibility of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) by expanding the number of runways throughout Japan and offshore island from which the service can generate air power.

Japan receives its first MV-22 Ospreys
Bell Boeing has delivered the first MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft to the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) on July 10. The aircraft flew to Camp Kisarazu south of Tokyo, from the sprawling port and airbase at Iwakuni near Hiroshima where they were assembled and test flown after arriving by ship on May 10.

The JGSDF is the first operator of the V-22 outside of the US military. Japan has signed contracts for five MV-22s from a published requirement of 17 aircraft, although permanent basing for the tilt-rotors is still uncertain due to opposition from local residents’ groups over safety concerns.

Indonesian naval vessel sinks
An Indonesian Navy ship has sunk off the eastern coast of Indonesia’s main island of Java on July 15.

According to the country’s official news agency, the KRI Teluk Jakarta sank in 90 metres of water after it lost watertight integrity in heavy seas while on a logistics run to eastern Indonesia. Nearby vessels rescued all 55 personnel that were on board the stricken ship.

The KRI Teluk Jakarta is a former East German Frosch class Landing Ship Tank transferred to Indonesia in the 1990s, one of 39 former East German ships it acquired in 1993 following German reunification.

By Max Blenkin

As old strategic certainties become increasingly less certain, and our part of the world becomes more contested, Australia faces some problems which can only be confronted with serious science.

Take space for example. The ADF and the Australian community rely on space-delivered capability, from communications and surveillance to TV broadcasts and Google maps. Yet that means overwhelming reliance on other people’s satellites which, at crunch time, may be degraded or simply unavailable.

Australia is acquiring new submarines and anti-submarine warships, but our vast ocean surrounds still provide a haven for other people’s submarines which, in time of conflict, could halt fuel imports and exports of everything we sell.

And there’s more: while the COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a small taste of what may lie ahead, the ADF has never had to operate in a contested chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) threat environment.

To enable future ADF operations in these domains, the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group has come up with eight of what it calls STaR (Science, Technology and Research) Shots, a term inspired by the technological challenge in putting humans on the moon half a century ago.

The new DST Strategy – entitled More, together: Defence Science and Technology Strategy 2030 – was released in May. It intends to concentrate strategic research on a smaller number of specific and challenging problems, up there with the scale and impact of the world-leading Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN).

Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro told ADBR this is a significant shift that DST cannot achieve on its own.

“The problems Australia needs science and technology for in defence are much bigger than DST alone can solve,” she said. “I am not going to be able to grow my workforce anywhere near enough. To do it we need to harness the capabilities of Australian industry and Australian universities.

“We need to much more effectively communicate the challenges and much more effectively partner,” she added. “Partly it’s also about getting better at transitioning things out of DST – not holding on to things just because they were invented here but actually seeing our success as them being ‘used’ and advanced by others.”

Professor Monro says this is a big cultural shift that will take a decade.

DST is Australia’s second biggest publicly funded engineering and scientific research institution after the CSIRO. DST has about 2,100 personnel with an annual budget around $600 million against CSIRO’s 5,000 personnel and $1.6 billion. DST does its work at eight locations, with the main sites Edinburgh Parks in Adelaide and Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne.

Australia has a rich history of defence science dating back before World War I when the Inspector of Explosives was called to troubleshoot production of .303 ammunition. Along the way, Australian defence scientists developed aircraft for WW2, participated in nuclear tests, and launched Australia’s first satellite.

One of the most recognised achievement remains the aircraft black box, or flight data recorder, developed by defence scientist Dr David Warren in the 1950s. Descendants of his technology are now aboard commercial and military aircraft around the world.

But much of what DST does isn’t about developing all new defence capability. It’s about meeting particular technical challenges, such as developing anechoic tiles for the Collins submarines, or getting the best out of existing platforms and systems – fatigue testing of aircraft to determine lifespan for example.

It’s also about responding to emerging issues at short notice. DST is now front and centre of Australia’s response to COVID-19, conducting trials on virus survivability and working with universities on pandemic modelling. Notably DST, in collaboration with Adelaide company Axiom Precision Manufacturing, performed the rapid development, prototyping and production of face shields for Australian medical personnel.

That was possible because DST and Axiom engineering teams knew each other and could ramp up quickly, Professor Monro said. Axiom has previously produced components of Collins submarines and electronics for improvised explosive device (IED) countermeasures devices supplied to the Afghan National Security Forces.

Professor Monro says the new strategy designates a set of desired, priority capability outcomes not currently possible with existing technology and for which new science and technology are needed.

“These are things that have come through deep reflection on the strategic environment but also a lot of conversation with capability managers about what they see coming down the pipe and what they are going to need in the future,” she said. “This will engage universities and industry, ranging from the large primes to SMEs, a rich source of innovation.

“My very clear view, which has come through a lot of thinking and listening and learning, is that we are spread a bit thin … and that we need to have greater scale and focus on things only we (DST) can do.”

She added that Australia has a “fantastic R&D sector, majority-based in universities, unlike other five-eyes countries where R&D is more commonly based in industry.”

Professor Monro sees an expanding role for small innovators, SMEs and entrepreneurs in addressing the emerging challenges. She said DST’s role was to generate and translate knowledge for impact in the ADF and for Australia’s benefit.

Some of that comes from DST researchers working directly with the ADF, “but much of it is delivered through industry,” she said. “We have strategic alliances with all the big defence primes and have very clear areas of focus with them. A lot of our support inside Defence from our innovation program goes to SMEs, and that’s something I am looking to grow.”

Professor Monro said she saw significantly more innovation potential from those SMEs, though some were under pressure at the moment. “We can do more. I am really keen to bring SMEs closer to our activity.

“That is an important thing about this new strategy,” she added. “We are developing industry pathways for the transition from the start in each of the STaR Shots. We are inviting companies big and small to join the conversation and help us develop the implementation plans.”

DST isn’t approaching its STaR Shots with any particular solution in mind. Professor Monro said she wanted this to be technology-agnostic, not considering a particular challenge and assuming it can only be solved by one type of technology.

“By articulating the problems we are trying to solve and not pre-judging what technologies will solve them, we actually open up the aperture a lot more to people with good ideas, or suggesting unexpected things, or allowing us to exploit converging technologies to create new technologies,” she said.

This isn’t just a new strategy for DST group. It’s the Defence Science and Technology strategy for the whole of Defence, with the Chief Defence Scientist taking an additional role of Capability Manager for Innovation, Science and Technology across Defence.

STaR Shot number one – the one at the top of the list, not necessarily the highest priority – aims to provide “resilient global communications, position navigation and timing (PNT) and Earth observation capabilities direct to ADF users, enabled by a low earth orbit (LEO) SmartSat constellation”.

Without space-delivered communications, navigation, surveillance, and positioning, the ADF would be at a significant disadvantage. “Our heavy dependence on space capability allows us to punch well above our weight, but it’s also a potential weakness,” wrote Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Dr Malcolm Davis.

“If we lose access to space, our military won’t be able to undertake modern information operations. Our reliance on space could be an Achilles’ heel in a conflict, and our adversaries could try to exploit that vulnerability.”

The problem is that almost all this capability is delivered through other people’s space assets. Military communications come mostly through the US WGS satellite constellation of which Australia is a partner, and through a hosted payload on the Optus C-1 satellite which was launched in 2003 and is now well past its expected life.

SATCOM works really well, delivering reliable high-bandwidth comms to meet the insatiable defence appetite for data. But in time of crisis, this could quickly become congested, degraded, or unavailable. The ADF does have a communications alternative through an HF system which will soon undergo an upgrade through the JP9101 EDHFCS project.

But positioning and navigation comes by way of the US GPS satellite constellation, again super reliable but also likely to be a prime target at the outbreak of any future conflict. It’s not for nothing that others have developed their own sovereign satellite navigation capabilities – China with Beidou, Russia’s Glonast, and the European Galileo systems.

Surveillance – like navigation and positioning – is as much a civilian issue as it is for the military. GPS delivers vital civil services, from navigation to agriculture and mining. For civil and military surveillance, Australia relies on multiple providers, none of which we could really call our own. This isn’t always to our advantage – for example other people could see imagery of our crop yields before we do, and there were no satellites available for dedicated monitoring of the recent 2019/2020 bushfires.

So what to do? Australia needs its own satellites along with a launch capability. Neither is far beyond reach, tied in with the national civil space renaissance marked by formation of the Australian Space Agency in 2018.

Two commercial launch sites are in development: the Equatorial Launch Australia facility in the Northern Territory, and Southern Launch in South Australia. However, at crunch time, launches can be just as easily conducted from an Outback paddock.

DST is a core partner in the new SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), launched last year to unite research organisations, universities, primes, and SMEs in the development of new satellite capabilities. With a government contribution of $55 million, SmartSat has total research funding of $250 million.

Professor Monro said this was an exemplar of what DST is trying to do. “We have taken a defence problem, we have taken some defence money, and we have been able to align agendas and resources and leverage investment from industry and from government and from universities to the same end. That’s exciting.”

Professor Monro said developing a sovereign satellite and launch capability was well aligned with the national resilience agenda. “This technology step to moving to a constellation of what can be self-healing, reconfigurable multi-purpose small satellites, is something that breaks down some of the hurdles that have kept Australia out of space,” she said.

“It is a much lower cost point and you can adapt it as you go. It’s also a leap ahead in terms of capability. The intent is to have the user on the ground to be able to get information directly from the cloud without having to go through ground stations.”

Defence has already taken significant steps. In May, it signed an agreement with Queensland company Gilmour Space Technologies to develop rocket technology to launch small satellites. The Office of National Intelligence has also issued a request for tender for a provider of research and engineering services for development, test, launch and operation of a prototype smart satellite.

Also, in May DST announced its first collaborative venture through the SmartSat CRC to research integration of laser-based optical and radio frequency communications technologies in a single SATCOM user terminal. Known as the Compact Hybrid Optical-RF User Segment – or CHORUS – this venture aims to address congestion in the RF spectrum by developing a capability for secure laser communication to and from satellites.

The STaR Shot for remote undersea surveillance says the challenge is to develop above and below water sensors, information processing, communication, and data fusion systems to provide remote surveillance of undersea environments over Australia’s area of maritime responsibility.

The obvious answer is autonomous vessels. Professor Monro said she often had to restrain her enthusiastic and capable scientists because they jumped to a solution.

“It’s easy to think what we need are autonomous vessels of this or that kind. I am sure autonomous vehicles will play a critical role in any solution,” she said. “But there might be some clever things we can do with other forms of sensing technology with other forms of information technology that might still give us a solution on how do we surveil to protect Australia’s interests.

“It’s a good problem,” she added. “Again I am always just forcing this discipline to not assuming it is going to be this or that technology. Paint the problem.”

Professor Monro notes that autonomous capabilities feature in a number of the STaR Shots, with the intent of keeping humans out of harm’s way and maximising the ability of a small defence force to operate over a vast area.

Constellations of small military satellites and a capability to spot submarines far out in the Indian or Southern Ocean might seem just a little far-fetched, even in this era of strategic uncertainty. However, Professor Monro says all of these STaR Shots came together when it was decided that the focus really needed to be prevailing in a contested environment.

“Once you take that central concept, which is very powerful in the current strategic context, it’s … no longer about discrete named operations. This is about that grey zone of increased global uncertainty. We need to be able to protect Australia’s interests.”

Professor Monro came to DST in March last year – the first female to hold this position – succeeding Dr Alex Zelinsky. Her appointment followed a distinguished career in academia, researching opto-electronics in Australia and the UK. She attributes her interest in science to an inspirational high school teacher, and that has translated into a passion for STEM and lifting the national level of STEM literacy.

This isn’t just about getting more students into research labs. “I want us to have a society where more of our decision makers can look at evidence and make evidence-based decisions and understand and interpret data,” she said. “I find it quite terrifying how poor we are culturally in that regard and that it is acceptable in many social contexts for people to say they are no good at maths. I have never heard anyone say they couldn’t read and feel proud of that. There is some weird societal thing there.

“We can change it, but we have to start young. We have to somehow blast out of the water the idea that science is hard and maths is hard, because it does us a real harm.”