6 RAAF Supers to Growlers (Fewer F-35s?)

Conan said: "...We are also funded for NGJ and AARGM..." Cool. It is an unusual Defence funding arrangement in Oz - often forgotten.

Goon needs to 'get some pork on his fork' - you know it makes sense... (Sam Keckovich)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wt5bTCKIks

Australia Day 2012- (HD) Barbie Girl Video (FT Justice Crew and Sam Kekovich)

Nice, yep the mid-band jammers need replacement first for EA-18G so that's what we're funded for.

As for AARGM, RAAF is planning on developing it's full operational capability with that weapon, however given it's developmental issues (and the fact that we already have multiple developmental weapons programs with JASSM, JSOW-C1 and JDAM-ER at present as well as issues with AMRAAM-C7) we're going to let AARGM mature a bit before buying it.

IOC for the Growler therefore will occur with a small inventory of HARM-B to introduce RAAF to ARM capability, develop TTP's etc and maintain a limited operational capability until AARGM is ready for service and RAAF is ready for AARGM...

Conan, the 100 F-35 number for Australia was on the MOU as the estimated number of F-35s that will be bought, which they signed.

The Participants’ estimated procurement quantities in Annex A (Estimated JSF Air Vehicle Procurement Quantities) will be used in production planning. Actual procurement of JSF Air Vehicles by the Participants will be subject to the Participants’ national laws and regulations and the outcome of the Participants’ national procurement decision-making processes. Each Participant’s actual procurement quantities of JSF Air Vehicles and propulsion systems will be established in Participant Procurement Requests (PPRs), which will be submitted by that Participant through the procedures described in Section VI (Contracting Provisions).

http://www.jsf.mil/downloads/documents/ ... 4_2010.PDF

Air defence against what or who??
The Hobbits?

Conan, the 100 F-35 number for Australia was on the MOU as the estimated number of F-35s that will be bought, which they signed.

Precisely - "estimated" that number was for planning purposes only. Our requirement was never for any specific number of aircraft, but rather for 4x operational strike fighter squadrons, 1x full operational conversion unit, 1x "short" operational conversion unit as well as maintenance, attrition and test and development aircraft. Hence the nominal "up to 100x" aircraft description for the F-35A's, when you consider our squadron and OCU sizes.

This was then specifically broken down into 72x confirmed aircraft to replace the F/A-18A/B Hornets within 3 Squadron, 75 Squadron, 77 Squadron, 2 Operational Conversion Unit and AOSG (Aerospace Operational Support Group - our Operation Test and Evaluation organisation) and the remaining "up to 28x" aircraft to give us the "100x" figure, which was to replace the 21x F/RF-111 aircraft within 1 and 6 Squadrons, our strategic strike capability if you will.

The final number purchased was always and remains to this day, flexible. It was and is to be determined based on the operational role of the aircraft, with the need for 1 and 6 squadrons to maintain their own "Operation Conversion Unit" the deciding factor in exactly how many aircraft are to be purchased.

With Super Hornets, that "short" OCU, has to be maintained because Hornet drivers can't go straight to the Super Hornet, they need a bit of conversion training first. 6x Super Hornet airframes currently provide that capability within RAAF, with 18x aircraft allocated to the "operational" squadron - 1 Sqn.

If F-35A is chosen, that "short" OCU role becomes debatable, thus the number was included as a possibility, in case RAAF was able to argue that it needed a specific strike/recon OCU.

The plan therefore remains that the initial 72x are to replace our Hornets in the air defence and strike roles. The final "28x" are to replace our F-111 and now Super Hornets in the air defence, strike and reconnaissance roles, with primary focus on strike and reconnaissance.

Air defence against what or who??
The Hobbits?

The same threat that Belgium faces. External actors, with a capability to do so, may wish to do us harm at some point...

As a point of interest in the last 12 years, RAAF fighter aircraft have undertaken 4 major operational deployments, with a 5th coming up for the G20 forum in Brisbane in 2014. They've also been placed on standby for deployment on operations over East Timor in 1999 and Afghanistan multiple times between 2003 and 2012, though not deployed due to final Government decision. They have in addition provided operational support to US Presidential visits and a few "other" special visitors...

The fighter operations we have conducted have been:

Air defence operations - Diego Garcia - 2002.

Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting - Queensland 2002.

Operation Falconer - Iraq - 2003.

Operation Deluge - APEC forum - Sydney - 2007.

Air defence against what or who??
The Hobbits?

Mr. Obama's friends, I figure
Flankers...

My question is who is Australia's major threat in defending it's territory.

Outside of China which has 1 operational carrier & 2 operational planes on board which I don't consider a threat for quite a while until they get a fully loaded carrier.

As others have mentioned, Australia does not detail specific threats such as China.

I would argue that the purpose of the RAAF is, as part of the ADF, to provide the Australian Government with a military option to defend its interests.  The most obvious part of this is undoubtedly the defence of the immediate Australian Airspace and littorals.  This however not the end of the Australian interests.  I believe we also have a distinct interest in also supporting like-minded governments/societies around the world.  Often this is via the UN or our alliances.  We also have an interest in defending those aspects that have an indirect impact upon the Australian economy or way of life.  Examples of this may include, defending trading interests (so if a radical, extreme vegan regime took over one of our key customers for sheep or cattle exports, we may have an arguable justification to take military action to remove that regime).  Similarly, if there was a foreign non-government group that declared cricket to be satan’s game and thus all cricket players/supporters needed to be eradicated, we may similarly wish to prevent such a group from operating anywhere in the world.

Interestingly, this argument could be adapted for other F-35 partner nations, which makes many of the arguments that the F-35 is not sufficient for defending the sovereign airspace of country X (e.g. Canada), quite amusing.

Very relevant points, gtx ^^. Indeed, Australian recapitalization policy (as an example) is not (should not be) about signaling out or implying any ONE specific threat country... that would not be responsible, would be rather provocative (as would be if some other country signaled out Australia in particular) and would be an actual detriment to capacity for future contingencies anyway, if singly focused on any one such rigid strategy.

Rather, replacing RAAF's retiring Tactical force structure is scheduled to fulfill a normal set of requirements which would include maintaining past level capability/deterrence and balance of modernized, next-gen capabilities. In relative terms, it's a natural policy to maintain a modern, effective, Reliable, flexible capability and deterrence as part of Australia's modern historical position. At least until the diplomats can finally sort things out, once and for all, and the world can disarm collectively and proceed to deal with the true global threats facing us as a world people in the imminent future.

That said, as a precedent, one can certainly look back to WWII where by the end of the World's crisis, Australia had ordered (including license built) 500 +/- P-51 Mustang multi-role fighters as her contribution to air power requirements.

Since then, Australia has notched up in global relevance as world economic contributor and example of modern social leader. As such, there's perfect legitimacy in continuing Australia's historic role in contributing capacity for world wide security, balance and stability as a significant and modern world community member.

With respect to procuring actual modern day Tactical fighter jets of today and tomorrow, there's unfortunately not the same luxury had of course during the 1940s or 1950s, when an Air Force suddenly found itself with a requirement during time of national emergency and could just order a couple hundred of the dang fighters and have them delivered the next year, on demand. It just doesn't work that way. Unfortunately, one has to have the entire infrastructure and force structure set up for long-term plan, trained and ready, in the event of any unforeseen future contingency facing down (or contributing to an effort facing down) an actual significant hypothetical threat (needing to be verified by govt decision), or any significant national emergency which would hopefully never hit Australia, or greater world, blindsided again.

Ahh Peter Goon, such comedy gold. I verily suspect that not many SU 35 will be flying back home if they encountered a formation of Growlers and Super Hornets flown by competent pilots (eg RAAF) with good appropriate tactics and effective teamwork. Reminds me of the awe surrounding the MIG 25 during the cold war...potentially a dangerous advesary but hardly invincible.

Ahh Peter Goon, such comedy gold. I verily suspect that not many SU 35 will be flying back home if they encountered a formation of Growlers and Super Hornets flown by competent pilots (eg RAAF) with good appropriate tactics and effective teamwork. Reminds me of the awe surrounding the MIG 25 during the cold war...potentially a dangerous advesary but hardly invincible.

The MiG-25 has only one "confirmed" kill against a US built fighters, compared to how many US built fighters have downed MiG-25s?

The Su-27 has seen very little combat. The F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 have significant combat experience A/G and at least one MiG-25 shot down for each of them.

I can envision an opponent like China eventually downing one of our top F-35's / F-22's at some point, but they would have to use very bad tactics that would ensure them to potentially have tons of friendly fire on their side and many losses of their own forces through war of attrition to even down 1 of our F-35's / F-22's.

Our AIM-120D AMRAAM has a range of >180 km
The AIM-54 Phoenix had a range of 190 km.

Those are awfully close figures.

We could potentially just take out their air wing long before they ever get close to us.

The only way they'd be able to down even 1x F-22 / F-35 is if they keep sending wave after wave of pilots in cheap Russian clone Mig's / Su's and just fire at the first radar lock that looks like an American jet.

Eventually they'll get lucky after loosing so many planes / pilots.

That's the only tactic I can think of for China to even knock out 1x F-35 / F-22 using the resources they have.

If China has one resource that other militaries don't have, it's a very large supply of older generation aircraft and probably a large supply of badly trained and inexperienced pilots to go along with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ac ... y_aircraft

Giving China a best case scenario of every aircraft quantity that is listed is in flying condition with a pilot behind it.

China's Airforce has
- 1632 Combat Aircraft
- 30 critical support Aircraft
- Unknown # of UAV's

China's Navy has
- 288 Combat Aircraft

China's Army has
- 272 Combat Choppers

That's alot of targets for the US to down. We'd probably need to mass produce more missiles since we probably don't have enough in stock to reliably take out every one of their Combat / Significant support aircraft should we ever get into an Airwar with China.


That's my PoV.


In the end, the F-22 / F-35 is the tool we need to prevent losses on our side and rack up losses on the enemy side should we ever get into an air war.

From my PoV, China is the biggest threat when it comes to Air Power.

No other country in the world has the military might to challenge the US / NATO.

China is also the country that I think is the most likely to start the next World War.

All they have to do is get arrogant once they get a few full carrier fleets, then plan & execute the invasion of Taiwan.

Taiwan's military might is pretty bad from my knowledge.

They are a easy target for China should they ever get fool hardy.

And that will be the day when WW3 starts.

I can envision an opponent like China eventually downing one of our top F-35's / F-22's at some point, but they would have to use very bad tactics that would ensure them to potentially have tons of friendly fire on their side and many losses of their own forces through war of attrition to even down 1 of our F-35's / F-22's.

Our AIM-120D AMRAAM has a range of >180 km
The AIM-54 Phoenix had a range of 190 km.

Those are awfully close figures.

We could potentially just take out their air wing long before they ever get close to us.

The only way they'd be able to down even 1x F-22 / F-35 is if they keep sending wave after wave of pilots in cheap Russian clone Mig's / Su's and just fire at the first radar lock that looks like an American jet.

Eventually they'll get lucky after loosing so many planes / pilots.

That's the only tactic I can think of for China to even knock out 1x F-35 / F-22 using the resources they have.

If China has one resource that other militaries don't have, it's a very large supply of older generation aircraft and probably a large supply of badly trained and inexperienced pilots to go along with them.

Large supply of inexperienced pilots and older jets doesn't work. A F-22 has at least 6 missiles in A/A configuration.

Not necessarily, the Chinese don't have MiG-25s and the J-11 (aka Su-27) is not in huge supply. The F-22 can supercruise quite well, which means compared to even the Su-27 or Su-35 class fighter, hostile jets would run out of gas pretty quickly at supersonic speeds.

Of course, the J-20 could be a threat to 4.5th gen fighters, but against a F-35 or F-22, especially when flying together (EODAS on the F-35, APG-77 radar on the F-22), the J-20 would have a tough time.

Who said anything about sending in only single digit at a time.

I'm talking about 100+ planes at once just to down 1-4 F-22's or F-35's

Do what China does best, Zerg rush.

Who said anything about sending in only single digit at a time.

I'm talking about 100+ planes at once just to down 1-4 F-22's or F-35's

Do what China does best, Zerg rush.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=9KpjgHYj ... KpjgHYjcA4

Have you seen this series of videos? I think they capture what the unclassified, prevailing wisdom is re how the F-22s and F-35s may fare in future combat scenarios. I don't propose that these are to be taken as gospel or,written in stone but they do seem to reflect what is available in the public domain.

Note that these videos,were created years ago and assume future scenarios. Also allow for some,creative license eg. there are no,B-1R missile,mules but their roles could,easily be filled by legacy jets each loaded,with a dozen or more,AMRAAM-Ds which could be cued to targets by F-22s or F-35s. As an aside, Raptors have been put to the fire over the years in Red Flag on how to,fight and defeat swarming tactics by numerically superior adversaries. The results have been lopsided in it's favor.

At the very least, good entertainment value.

Air defence against what or who??
The Hobbits?

The Hobbits are going to attack?, then you must call on your wizards for your defense!