Go for Growler

Announcing the conversion with Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare, Mr Smith said the electronic warfare package would cost around $1. 5bn and the capability would enter service in 2018.

The project will convert all 12 of the RAAF’s pre-wired Super Hornets to the electronic warfare variant, while acquiring enough AN/ALQ-99 EW pods to equip at least six EA-18G platforms at any one time.

Used in stand-off or escort modes, the Growler will be a force multiplier, allowing Australia to punch above its weight by disrupting and denying the electronic spectrum – everything from individual mobile

phone calls to air defence radars. As air power think tank The Williams Foundation has highlighted: “The Growler will give the ADF a unique standing and an unmatchable capability in our region for at least a decade. ” In commending Ministers Smith and Clare on the decision, the think tank said in a statement: “Electronic warfare has been absolutely fundamental to the West’s remarkably successful air campaigns in the Middle East and Central Asia over the past two decades. The Growler represents a firstmission of the first-day of any campaign capability. ” Minister Smith himself made the point that, “in acquiring this capability, Australia will be the only country in the world, other than the United States, operating Growler aircraft”. Not coincidentally, Australia is also the only other operator of the aircraft platform the Growler is based on, the Super Hornet.

But while the Williams Foundation has lauded the decision, the Growler acquisition has not been without its critics, sparking criticism from a range of commentators who have argued that by service entry in 2018 the RAAF will

be receiving a soon-to-be-outdated system in the ALQ-99 pods, when the US Navy’s Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) is slated for a 2020 introduction.

Further, they argue, the NGJ is widely reported to be intended to be compatible with the F-35 platform, as well as the Super Hornet, and so it would make more sense to wait.

The ALQ-99 pods are, by wide reports, unreliable, prone to failure and stretched too thinly across the USN force.

Growler’s first operational test was in Operation Odyssey Dawn over Libya which exposed issues with the system’s operation. In response, the USN decided to move forward the vendor selection for NGJ by two years to 2013.

“When the ALQ-99 debuted in 1971, digital datalinks, cell phones, no frequency-hopping radios, monopulse radars and improvised explosive devices did not exist. Today, those innovations dominate the threat environment, and explain why the Navy no longer thinks it can get by with additional upgrades to a system designed in the age of vacuum tubes,” The Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson wrote on the AOL Defense website.

“Among other things, the existing jammer cannot cover all the frequencies that need to be addressed, cannot radiate sufficient power to jam remote emitters, cannot negate a sufficient number of simultaneous threats even in the bands where it is effective, and cannot operate with the spectral precision required to avoid degrading friendly communications. ” NGJ will undoubtedly be an improvement on the ALQ-99 – currently the only device capable of detecting, intercepting, identifying, and jamming radio frequency signals – but only after it arrives. If history is any guide, NGJ will be delivered late, meaning a final operating capability closer to the mid-2020s. Moving the vendor selection forward could just as easily be interpreted as an indicator of the high risk associated with the project.

Further, there is as yet no indication that the US Congress will even allow the sale of NGJ, even to partner nations such as Australia. While unlikely, NGJ could go the way of the F-22 and be banned from export sales entirely.

Whether outdated or not come 2018, the Growler is a proven, effective capability.