7 January 2008
The
Australian minister for defence, Joel Fitzgibbon,
is about to commission a review of the Royal Australian
Air Force’s future air combat capability options.
The scope and schedule for the review haven’t
been finalised as yet, but Rumour Control understands
every aspect of the RAAF’s future air combat
capabilities and plans will come under scrutiny.
Under Project Air 6000 Defence
plans to spend some AUD$12-15 billion replacing its
current fleet of 21
F-111C strike aircraft, 71 F/A-18A/B Hornets with up
to 100 F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters. Defence
will also spend a furtherAUD$ 5 billion or so replacing
its sole remaining Boeing 707 tanker with five Airbus
KC-30B multi-role tanker/transports, and acquiring
six Boeing Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning & Control
(AEW&C) aircraft and a new ground-based air defence
command and control system.
The F-111s will be retired around
2010 and to prevent a ‘capability gap’ emerging before the
F-35 become operational, the former defence minister,
Dr Brendan Nelson, unexpectedly announced late in 2006
the RAAF would acquire 24 F/A-18F Super Hornet Block
2 fighters under a US Foreign Military Sales (FMS)
agreement. These so-called ‘bridging fighters’ will
enter service in 2010 at an additional cost of some
AUD$6 billion – though this is the anticipated
whole of capability cost over the projected 10-year
life of type: it includes 24 aircraft at US$56 million
each; Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) such as
the EWSP suite; 10 years’ platform support; all
of the new weapons to be used by the aircraft; and
training.
The air power review will examine all of these plans
and likely will be completed by mid-year so that it
can inform the new Defence White Paper which will be
published late this year or in early-2009.
The uncertainties for defence planners
are significant: what will be the outcome of the
Federal government’s
2nd Pass examination of Air 6000 – New Air Combat
Capability (NACC), currently planned for October this
year? Will the government continue with the purchase
of the Super Hornets under Project Air 5349? And will
the review recommend significant changes to some of
the ADF’s enabling air power capabilities, such
as the purchase of the KC-30B tankers and Wedgetail
AEW&C aircraft?
At the time of writing the schedule
and terms of reference for the review haven’t been set, and nor has
anybody been commissioned, either internally or externally,
to carry it out. The official line from Fitzgibbon
office is unenlightening: “The Government has
undertaken to conduct a thorough review of the Air
Combat Capability options available to Australia. The
mechanics of this review are being currently being
considered; however the review will commence as soon
as practicably possible.”
The fixed point in Defence’s calendar at present
is the new White Paper – the major air power
issues must be resolved thoroughly before it can be
completed. Therefore, given the timeline for preparation
of the White Paper, the Review should give the Government
enough data, and enough confidence in that data, for
Air 6000 to undergo 2nd Pass scrutiny, as scheduled,
in about October 2008. That would also be the appropriate
time for endorsement or cancellation of the Super Hornet
program, if this is one of the terms of reference of
the Review.
Australia is already a partner in the JSF System Development
and Demonstration (SDD) phase and in late-2006 signed
the JSF Production, Sustainment and Follow-on Development
(PFSD) memorandum of understanding. However, Defence
and Government scheduled the 2nd Pass Approval milestone,
and any subsequent orders, to late-2008, giving it
time to gather sufficient information to assess realistically
the costs and risks associated with the F-35A.
Notwithstanding a vocal campaign
by air power lobby groups to cancel the F-35A and
Super Hornet acquisitions
and acquire instead aircraft such as the F-22A Raptor
and F-15E Strike Eagle, and extend the lives of the
F-111s, analysts believe it’s unlikely Australia
will back out of the JSF program. It’s less certain,
however, whether or not the Rudd government will continue
with the Super Hornet purchase.
In an interview in September 2008
with Australian Defence Magazine Fitzgibbon said, “I can’t
envisage a circumstance where we wouldn’t remain … committed
to the JSF. Having said, that we have a responsibility
to ensure we’re getting value for money and that
the final product is capable of meeting the government’s
and the country’s requirements.”
However, Fitzgibbon has been a
vocal critic of the Super Hornet purchase because
of both its cost and
Defence’s failure to follow its own Kinnaird
process in identifying a capability requirement and
then selecting a suitable aircraft to match it.
The Howard government has been
criticised heavily, not least by the Air Power Australia
lobby group and
its supporters, for its decision to acquire the JSF
and Super Hornet. Critics contend the F-35A and Super
Hornet lack the payload, range, performance, stealth
and agility required to be either good fighters or
good strike aircraft. Air Power Australia advocateds
instead acquiring the F-22A Raptor to counter the high-performance
Russian-designed Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30 fighter-bombers
which are proliferating within the region, and extending
the lives of the RAAF’s long-range F-111 strike
aircraft to preserve what its states is a vital strategic
deterrent.
The Review must start with the
fundamentals, including realistic threat assessments
and examination of critical
enablers such as AEW&C, air to air refueling and
the ADF’s air defence command and control system.
Whichever aircraft (or combination of aircraft) is
eventually chosen to replace the RAAF’s F-111s
and F/A-18A/B Hornets, its combat effect will be a
function of more than just its platform and weapon
sperformance attributes. Sensor performance and data
integration, stealth and networking of sensors, platforms
and weapons will have a significant effect on combat
outcomes, as will training and doctrine.
At a practical level, depending on the availability
of combat-capable aircraft, either new or upgraded,
the Government may still feel the RAAF needs some sort
of interim air combat capability to seal off a potential
capability gap.
Even if the Review endorses the
F-35A as the RAAF’s
single-type long term replacement for its F-111s and
Hornets, it must also examine the risks and consequences
of possible delays to the JSF program: the greater
the risk that JSF deliveries to the RAAF will be delayed
beyond 2013/14, the greater the risk of the JSF’s
Block III avionics and mission system encountering
delays and systems integration problems, the greater
the need for a ‘bridging fighter’.
The head of Project Air 5349, Group
Captain Steve Roberton, points out the Super Hornet
is a highly capable ‘bridging
aircraft’: it was chosen for this role because
it was the most capable fighter available to Australia
in the shortest timeframe and with the least disruption
to the RAAF. In the medium term the service remains
committed to the JSF as its single combat aircraft
type - and despite some media speculation to the contrary
the RAAF has no intention of acquiring further Super
Hornets or F/A-18G ‘Growler’ electronic
warfare variants.
In the air-air role, Roberton says
he is “absolutely
confident” that the Super Hornet Block II will
more than match the Su-30 family beyond the middle
of the next decade, thanks to its Raytheon APG-79 Active
Electronically Scanned Antenna (AESA) radar, networking
capabilities, high levels of sensor and data integration
and a significant investment in Low Observable (LO)
technology. Meanwhile, he points out, the US Navy and
Boeing are working on spiral developments to maintain
the Super Hornet’s combat edge well beyond that
time.
According to Boeing’s Vice President Bob Gower
the current Super Hornet Block II design is based on
threat analyses beyond 2024, and the US Navy is confident
it can overcome known threats through about 2020. He
asserts that in terms of pure warfighting capability
the Super Hornet Block II will be superior to the F-35
family until the latter’s Block III avionics
and mission system become available, some time in the
next decade.
Whatever the outcome of the Review, Fitzgibbon wants
to settle the air power debate conclusively so that
his department has a secure base from which to prepare
the new Defence White Paper, believes defence analyst
Professor Ross Babbage of the Kokoda Foundation.
He would be surprised if the F-35A
decision is overturned, though he acknowledges the
Super Hornet purchase could
be endangered. And he doesn’t believe defence
will acquire, or even try to acquire, the F-22A.
Babbage doesn’t believe the F-22A makes any
sense at all for Australia in terms of its capability
and price. The F-22A’s technology is in many
areas quite old, he says, and it is designed for a
narrower set of roles than the F-35A.
Given the choice, Babbage would
prefer to invest Air 6000 dollars in F-35s, tankers
and AEW&C aircraft
as they provide a more flexible capability.
The F-22A is not currently available for export and
both the US Government and Congress would need to grant
permission to sell the aircraft to even the most trusted
foreign customer. Australia did include the F-22A in
its initial Air 6000 studies around 2000, but since
then has not asked for export clearance for the aircraft.
That said, the US-Australia relationship
is such that there’s reason to suspect the
F-22A could be available to Australia, if the government
were insistent
enough. But securing US government approval to buy
the F-22A could be a lengthy process subject to many
political uncertainties in the USA. Also, it would
almost certainly require significant (and undoubtedly
expensive) re-engineering of the aircraft to protect
sensitive US stealth and other technologies, adding
considerably to its price and probably delaying service
entry, giving rise once again to questions over a bridging
fighter.
According to Andrew Davies of the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the
Review must determine
whether the sorts of tasks the RAAF will be required
to carry out actually justifies the cost of acquiring
the F-22A, and/or extending the life of the F-111: “The
first thing you need to do is decide what range of
missions we need to carry out successfully. Once you’ve
done that you can decide whether you’re in the
market for top end specialised capabilities [like the
F-22A] or for a well-performing multi-role aircraft
[like the F-35A]. We don’t have the resources
to be able to do everything, so we need to decide what’s
most important.”
© Rumour Control 2008 ENDS
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