hell yeah...
Posted on 12/31/2006 6:45:08 PM PST by Arjun
Flying into trouble
Australia is risking its credibility in the region if it pursues its plan to buy 24 Super Hornet aircraft, writes Carlo Kopp.
LAST week's disclosure of negotiations to procure 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets as interim replacements for Australia's existing F-111 fleet is the latest instalment in the sorry saga of the RAAF's decline as a credible regional air force.
Until last week, senior Defence figures repeatedly denied that Super Hornets were being sought as gap fillers to overcome continuing difficulties with the long running F/A-18A Hornet Upgrade Program, increasing delays with the Joint Strike Fighter, and Defence's campaign for premature retirement of the F-111 fleet.
The Super Hornet is the US Navy's follow-on fighter to the "Classic Hornet", currently flown by four RAAF squadrons. While slightly larger than Australia's Hornets, the Super Hornet's agility, supersonic speed and acceleration performance, critical in air combat, are no better than the earlier model, due to a Congressional mandate during development. With unique engines, radar, airframe and electronic warfare systems, the Super Hornet shares little real commonality with its predecessor, driving up support costs. All it offers is a better radar, improved avionics and 36 per cent more internal fuel, at a price tag estimated at $2.5 billion.
The bad news is that the Super Hornet is not competitive against the latest Russian Sukhoi Su-30MK fighters, operated or being acquired by China, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, and it is also not competitive against the Boeing F-15 models being acquired by Singapore, South Korea, and flown by Japan.
The larger Sukhois are faster, much more agile, and have greater range and firepower than the Super Hornet. The Russians are now testing an advanced supersonic cruise engine in the Sukhoi fighter, which will effectively double the combat speed of the Russian fighters, putting them well out of reach of the lacklustre Super Hornet.
The Super Hornet is not a credible air combat fighter in this region, and no upgrade can ever make it so.
The stated intention to use the Super Hornet as an interim replacement for Australia's F-111s is no less incredible.
Capable of carrying about half the F-111's payload of smart bombs to about two-thirds the distance achievable by the F-111, in raw firepower terms the Super Hornet delivers around one-third the punch of the F-111.
To match the range and persistence of the F-111, the Super Hornet must be supported by aerial refuelling tanker aircraft in numbers that Defence has no intention of ever acquiring. In real terms, replacing F-111s with Super Hornets reduces strike capability three-fold.
Claims by Defence that the F-111s will become dangerous to fly after 2010 are absurd, given the advanced testing used to verify structural integrity of the fleet. Defence has repeatedly inflated the cost of operating and upgrading the F-111 in evidence to Parliament, and made factually incorrect claims on a wide range of technical issues, while publicly admitting "we don't know what we don't know". In short, the Defence leadership has no credibility whatsoever in justifying the early retirement of the F-111s. Even a fraction of the budget required to buy the Super Hornet would equip the F-111s with new engines, new wings and new avionics, allowing them to remain in use decades longer.
Compared to the mediocre Joint Strike Fighter that Defence intends as the ultimate replacement for both the F/A-18A and F-111 fleets, the Super Hornet has inferior stealth and avionics. Neither of these aircraft were designed to be credible in air combat against the latest Russian Sukhois.
Nor were they designed to defeat the advanced Russian S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, largely superior to the US Patriot, and now appearing in this region.
In strategic terms, Defence is re-equipping the RAAF with a fleet of aircraft that will be little more than a bad joke in the region — and doing so despite better alternatives, such as the superlative F-22A, and despite repeated advice to the contrary.
Defence runs a real risk that as further difficulties emerge with the Joint Strike Fighter, and its cost continues to creep up, a future government will bale out, and with Super Hornets already in service, opt to buy more to replace the legacy Hornets. This further reduces capability against the non-credible Joint Strike Fighter plan. A far better strategy for the future of the RAAF is to scrap current planning, and start again.
The F-22A Raptor suffers none of the limitations of either the Joint Strike Fighter or Super Hornet, and is in production and operational in the US.
If Australia is to have any strategic credibility in the region, it cannot pursue the path sought by the Defence leadership.
Dr Carlo Kopp is a defence analyst and research fellow in regional military strategy at the Monash Asia Institute. He has flown the Super Hornet.
I'm all for Aussie Raptors.
Better choice by far. It will still be dominant in 50 years.
fyi
The author doesn't seem spends a lot of time complaining about losing the bomb load of the F-111 and then says Australia should by the Raptor. Not a very good argument.
One thing the author doesn't address is the cost difference between the platforms.
The F-22 costs $300M+ per plane and doesn't carry large bombs. It should have a great capability for attacking SAM systems with small diameter bombs, but that is it.
The Super Hornet costs $50M per aircraft in the current production block, which includes an AESA radar, and can shoot and drop almost every weapon in the U.S. inventory except the 5,000lb penetrator.
As far as the F-111 goes, I flew F-14s and saw the maintenance effort in the latter years go through the roof as we tried to keep old airplanes flying. If the RAAF doesn't want to keep flying the F-111, I can't blame them. I wouldn't be surprised if the manhours:flighthour ratio is over 75:1 by now.
hell yeah...
"One thing the author doesn't address is the cost difference between the platforms."
I kinda took it that the author wanted them to buy Russian planes or anything but American.
Dr Carlo Kopp isn't all that well regarded by Defence. For the last couple of years he has been trying to get our air force to buy F-22 and re-engine the F-111 with same engines in F-22 (earning a bundle of money for his company in the bargain).
While I'm all for having a mix of F-35/F-22, the costs of F-22 are a real killer.
The guy shows his ignorance of the subject matter. The F-22 is not presently available for export.
Nice argument for saving money followed by arguments of how the SuperHornet can't compare to the new Sukhois and how the threat of advanced SAM threats. A question I would like to ask the doctor is if the SuperHornet is endangered by Sukhois and Russian SAMs, how well will the F-111 do? The answer is not very well.
"While I'm all for having a mix of F-35/F-22, the costs of F-22 are a real killer."
Back during the Bosnia fiasco I remember seeing target video of a smart weapon hitting a truck. My first thought was they spent a $100,000 to destroy a $1000 truck. Unless the truck is carrying something super critical you havta wonder who really won that engagement. Sure we blew the heck outta the truck but look at the resources expended.
What I know of the Raptor, it is overpriced for its capabilities.
The F/A-18E/F has significant stealth, and with that F/A capability, is a bargain: It can switch from defensive air cover to offensive air to ground (or air to sea).
With what little I know of Aussie pilots and training, they will be able to do very well against Indonesian pilots flying anything. In Iraq the Diggers punched pretty well above their weight. That is due to their motivation and training methods. I guess the raw material is pretty good too.
A highly skilled professional volunteer force is a secret weapon that Austrialia's competitors cannot copy, and cannot beat.
If money was no object, the Raptor would be a great buy. Alas, the Aussie taxpayer pays plenty.
The USA has offered the F-22 to Japan, and we'd certainly offer it to Anglosphere nations that were interested.
The F-111 represents a strike capability that the USAF/USN no longer has, but thanks to air refueling, no longer NEEDS quite so badly, even in the long-distance Pacific region.
Kopp underestimates the importance that other factors (including that radar) play in aerial combat. For example, the MiG-15 and MiG-15bis outperformed the F-86A and -F in every significant performance measure.
The Su-27 and MiG-29 outperform there US equivalents on paper, too, but everywhere they've tangled with the (1970s design) F-15 and -16 and -18 the pilots of the Russian stuff have been the ones landing without their airplanes.
But his article is a bit schizophrenic -- he's bagging on the F-18E/F as not as good a bomber as the F-111 (it isn't, although JDAMs etc make the F-111 capability obsolescent), not as good a fighter as the F-22 (it isn't, and it may give up some points to the Rafale or Eurofighter Typhoon, which are nearly as expensive as the F-22), and requires some new maintenance tools and spares compared to the extant F-18Cs (I think they're C's) in OZ service.
All his points are true, but no one aircraft does all those things. It's like buying a new car and complaining it's not as fast as a corvette, isn't hybrid powered, and won't carry a 4x8 sheet of plywood. In other words, unless you have a credible recommendation, it's just whining.
d.o.l
Criminal Number 18F
Another question, if the Super Hornet has these deficiencies for the Aussies, why not the same ones for the U.S.? I heard from insiders(marine jockeys) that the SH was a boondoggle forced down the Navy's throat. It is not fast, cannot carry a decent bomb load, cannot fly far, and does not have air to air superiority like the F-14 had.
If this is the case then we have let our Navy pilots down by not providing them with the best we could.
That's all changed thanks to JDAM. All-up cost of a JDAM is about the price of a generic truck (1/3 of what Uncle pays for a truck or HMMWV).
If we didn't waste money on HUD and Education Department boondoggles we could darken the sky with the things.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Export of the F-22 is currently banned by Congressional Law. It would have to be repealed. The Japanese are the ones inquiring about the F-22 - we certainly haven't offered it to them in a formal sense, since it's currently illegal to do so.
I know the house approved lifting the ban on foreign sales; has the ban now been repealed? Last I recall the Senate favored keeping it in place, but I could have missed a backroom deal over it. Have any useful links? I couldn't find anything with a quick Google or FR search.
Was there any truth to the rumor that Australia was looking into acquiring some of our decommissioned B-1s?
The ban still stands but it's a sheet of paper. If a trustworthy ally wants the planes (Japan, or OZ; UK is stuck with the Eurofighter) Congress will see the light (the light is named unit cost reduction, or overrun prevention).
Some of these guys are actively anti=defense, but none of them wants his fingerprints on a law that leaves Americans out of work -- and US pilots flying second-string stuff. The essence of politics is to be craven and grasping.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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