Defence Update – K89 Report

The big highly capable Boeing E-3A Sentry AWAC, although one was loaned by the US Air Force for K89, is not in contention on grounds of cost and what is seen as access capability for this region. But the Grumman E-2C Hawkeye, primarily used by the US Navy, is back in contention. The Hawkeye appeared out of the running in recent years because it was said not to have sufficient range for Australian conditions.

With the further encouraging development of the Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar test bed at Alice Springs, and the use of other sensors, official Australian Defence thinking has now swung towards AEW&C aircraft (perhaps by the mid 1990s) which are less capable and do not have the long endurance of the Boeing E-3A AWACS.

Sweden’s Ericsson, the Israelis and the US Grumman systems are not yet on any official short list, but they appear to be major contenders, possibly along with an AWE&C version of the Lockheed P-3 Orion. A former RAAF P-3B has already been converted to the airborne early warning and surveillance mode for the US Customs.

Kangaroo 89 also proved that there is a fairly urgent need to build a new ‘bare’ air base near Weipa to complete the umbrella of northern air bases stretching from Learmonth and Derby, WA to Tindal and Darwin, NT through to northern Queensland. Part of K89 was practicing defence of the Fleet in the eastern part of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The lesson from this was that the need to proceed with an air base at a site identified east of Weipa was reinforced.

US tanker refuelling of the F-18s and F-111s protecting the fleet and the presence of the sole USAF AWAC alone prevented the destruction of the Fleet in the exercise, according to the Air Commander Australia, Air Vice Marshal Ted Radford. It almost certainly has raised the question of how much of their own air defence RAN warships can themselves provide, particularly as the majority of our surface combatants don’t even have an effective close in weapons system (CIWS).

Kangaroo 89 was an exercise involving 23,000 Australian Defence Force defenders and several thousand ‘enemy’ Kamarians who mostly came from the Australian Army’s Special Air Service Regiment and commandos, and US forces. It was designed to test the adopted strategic doctrine that the most like security emergency would involve low level incursions in northern Australia.

K89 tested the strategy of Defence-in-Depth which involves three layers. The first involves intelligence and surveillance. The intelligence factor, which was not exercised in K89, involves knowing what armed forces there are in our region, where they are and what their readiness and capability implies they might be able to achieve in a hostile situation.

Surveillance, in the case of K89, took in the deep field out 500- 1,000km and involved the Jindalee detection system, maritime surveillance aircraft (P-3C Orions) and RAN warships. The second layer involves maritime interdiction by the Navy and Air Force to detect and deal with intruders in the sea-air gap. If intruders get through this net, they than have to face mobile Australian Army land forces – the third layer.

One of the key lessons from the recent exercise was that the protection of vital northern assets, particularly the airfields like Derby (Curtin) and Katherine (Tindal) is a difficult task and very manpower intensive. The introduction of more technical sensors to assist in this protective role will now be accelerated.

The Defence Minister, Mr Kim Beazley, and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Peter Gration, mentioned most of the aspects outlined in this article so far at media briefings in Canberra during September. General Gration also held a more detailed briefing for members of the Australian Defence Correspondents Association where some of the fine print was discussed in greater detail.

The Australian Defence Force’s ‘hotwash’ on K89 took place on September 8 and is being followed by close analysis of the senior ADF officers involved. A detailed report by the Chief of Staff, Joint Exercise and Plans, Brigadier Fred Pfitzner, will be ready by the end of the year. From there General Gration will take recommendations to the Chiefs of Staff Committee on a regular basis and corrective action on certain aspects will begin flowing almost immediately.

For example on the protection of high value assets such as northern airfields, General Gration said that there was a clear case for substituting high technology such as infra-red equipment, acoustic sensors and ground surveillance radars rather than having to find larger numbers of soldiers, whether Regular or Reserve units.

The exercise also revealed problems with communications, including unusual sunspot activity which made things difficult on the High Frequency (HF) nets. Telecom-hired satellite terminals proved effective and the acquisition of additional satellite equipment for the ADF will be brought forward.

Basically, even given the gaps identified or confirmed, the Kangaroo 89 Exercise, which only cost the Defence vote an extra $36 million on top of what normally would have been incurred, has been credited as a considerable success.

“Overall it has been a very great plus and well worth the effort,” Defence Minister Kim Beazley said. “It showed that we have very effective capabilites which have been developed in the Australian Defence Force in recent years,” he said.

Beazley praised the “very considerable professionalism and ingenuity of Australia’s servicemen and women, both Regulars and Reserves. They showed enthusiasm, dedication and competence. ”

He also acknowledged the assistance received from our American allies. “They provided a number of things which, while we are getting them into our inventory, are not here yet,” he said. “They gave us a valuable opportunity to familiarise ourselves with them, so that we now have a very clear understanding of what role they will provide in the defence of Australia,” Beazley said Gration said that K89 had been an enormous undertaking in itself, but it had gone “very well” and what was emerging was a uniquely Australian way of conducting Australia’s national defence. It was built on Australian ingenuity, initiative and flexibility, he explained and noted that the ADF personnel knew they had shaped up “pretty well” and had pride in themselves and their equipment.

From all of this some revised directions on certain ADF/ Defence Department objectives are under way. The construction of a ‘bare’ bones air base at Weipa (ie one not normally manned expect for a few caretakers) is expected to go ahead in concert with a further stage in the development of the new Tindal base. Tindal, which opened late last year, is able to handle the current squadron of Hornets, but is stretched if it has to handle say F-111 strike jets assigned to train in concert with the F-1Bs.

The Weipa base is almost certain to follow the Curtin (Derby) ‘coat-hanger’ concept of having a main runway and taxiways which can be used as runways in the event of damage to the main runway.

As to airfield protection by say a Reserve battalion (in a real hostile environment such as invasion or being subjected to harassing raids, a brigade of infantry would be the norm). It is worth noting that in K89 the ‘enemy’ is credited with breaching the Curtin airfield defences and destroying several Hornets on the ground.

On the communications side, while current ADF communications were able to control the extensive forces deployed, General Gration said that there were a lot of shortcomings. Because of the difficulties encountered with HF communications (while even allowing for the worst sunspot activity in eleven years in the area), there was a need for greater redundancy in the communication systems, the CDF said.

Hence the move to place more reliance on satellite communications, with Telecom the likely supplier. However the communications problems were exacerbated by the age of much of the current communications equipment. General Gration said that the fact that the Raven combat radios were soon to be taken up by the Army and that the presently ‘thin’ trunk communications were intended to be replaced by the Parakeet programme which now required more urgent movement, would make quite a difference.

He also said that the transfer of data proved a problem in K89 and needed to be improved. With automated command systems and surveillance systems having a requirement to transfer large amounts of data, optical fibre networks such as those available from Telecom could assist.

In this article we mentioned earlier what seems to be a new change in thinking on AEW&C. Grumman, Ericsson and the Israelis were mentioned plus Lockheed’s adapted P-3.

“Over the next few years we have to analyse what is coming up and try to project the capacity of these systems when they are developed,” General Gration explained. “We’ll be looking at the cost and picking the one that best meets our unique requirements,” he said. Gration said that there were better AEW&C systems coming along but warned that Australia could not keep holding off indefinitely or we would never get anything.

The Jindalee OTHR system near Alice Springs was used in K89 for the first time in a comprehensive exercise, even though it is not fully developed and is really an interim system. Nevertheless the results performed well. “It was particularly good in giving early warning and providing a trip-wire device,” the CDF said. “The exercise confirmed some of the system improvements that we know about, are under way, and in fact are necessary. ” As to the ground forces which would have to protect vital assets (under a new priority scheme to be devised) and ‘fight’ any invader that got through the sea-air gap, there will be fresh plans to improve efficiency in both the Regular and Reserve units. Just how much further the Reserves can be trained on top of their 30-40 days a year plus a 14-day camp, remains to be seen. General Gration said that K89 could not have been carried out without the Reservists (mainly Army). In a hostile situation they could easily fit in to logistic, transport duties and complement headquarters staffs. But for combat they would need additional training for up to six months.

Gration was not overly concerned about the ‘successes’ of the SAS and commandos in ‘photographing’ senior officers, ‘killing’ three junior commandersin their bunks one night, or successfully raiding the Derby airfield and a reservoir. “After all they are arguably the best professionals in the world,” he said. “They were pretty tough to keep off. ”

He sees the need for even greater mobility with light armoured vehicles and more fire power for the Army generally, but particularly when it comes to protecting the north and the vital assets. These are not only military installations but towns, stations, water supplies, power stations, communications, and the various bauxite, diamond and iron ore regions.

He forecast that when the 2nd Cavalry Regiment moves from Holsworthy on Sydney’s outskirts to the Darwin area in a few years, it was likely to have not only troops of APCs but Leopard tanks and elements from Army Aviation. “I think the character of 2 Cavalry Regiment is going to change after this exercise,” he said.

Death of Australian Aerospace Doyen

Mr Bruce Price, 52, who had a distinguished career in the Australian aviation and aerospace industries for the past quarter of a century, died in Sydney early in September. He was Chairman of Australia’s leading aerospace company, Hawker de Havilland and also Chairman of Hawker Pacific and some other companies within the Hawker Siddeley Group and, previous to 1986, was Managing Director of HOH from 1978.

In his distinguished career, he was the first Chairman of the tripartite Aerospace Industry Council and was also a Member of the Australian Manufacturing Council and its predecessor, the Machinery and Metal Engineering Council.

In 1985 Price personally negotiated the merger of Hawker de Havilland and the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation which created Australia’s largest aerospace company. Born and educated in Brisbane, with a Bachelor degree in Commerce, he joined HOH in 1965 and pursued a career in aviation which became his life-long interest.

He is survived by his wife Lyndie and three children, Stephen, Nicholas and Joanna.