Issue 299: Electronic Attack

That strategic effect the Growler brings is completely different – the Growler isn’t a bomber like the F-111 isn’t an EA jammer – but both brought or will bring capabilities that are unique to the region that serve as significant deterrents.

With the F-111 that effect was being able to carry a lot of bombs a long way, offering Australia the ability to take out strategic targets at great range from Australia. With the Growler its abilities are much more subtle than droping bombs. But the Growler will be a key enabler in allowing the RAAF to continue to deliver weapons in contested airspace, through its ability to escort strike packages and jam and degrade the effectiveness of an opponent’s air defence system.

So the Growler will be a true force multiplier that will be hugely complementary to the F-35’s stealth characteristics, making the F-35 even harder to detect and track.

But unlike the F-111, the Growler arguably has a much greater spread of capabilities that will make it useful across the full spectrum of operations, not just in a hot war, given its ability to not just jam air defence and fighter radars, but radios and mobile phone signals as well. That could see it employed in everything from protecting visiting heads of state (such as overflying a visiting US President’s car convoy to block the mobile phone network and radio transmissions to stop the activation of remotely controlled bombs), to supporting operations by the Navy’s forthcoming LHD amphibious ships in missions like covering the extraction of Australian nationals from a failed-state Pacific Island.

While it is true that the Growler’s ALQ-99 jamming pods are nearing the end of their useful lives, for 99 per cent of the operations Australia finds itself in the Growler will be more than up to the task.

Plus, as Australia will be following the US Navy’s Growler development roadmap, some time next decade Australia will be in the position to acquire and fit the Growler with the Next Gen Jammer once it has been developed and entered service.

And in the meantime, Australia will have a full spectrum electronic attack capability that not even the mighty US Air Force has in its own inventory, let alone anyone else in South- East Asia.

So it is easy to see how the Growler can be justified.

But it is very interesting to note the Growler was funded at a time when the government is pulling money out of Defence, and a time when deliberations on the timings and size of the F-35 acquisition are at a critical point.

The push for Growler was conceived within Air Force at a time when the Defence budget was under nothing like the pressure it is today. So the $1. 5 billion question is how does the Growler decision affect government’s deliberations on the F-35? Air Force’s very strong preference is still for a force of 100 F-35s supported by the 12 Growlers. The danger is that the Defence budget over the next few years won’t be able to support that, and that Air Force may instead have to make do with a smaller number of F-35s supported by the Growlers. More than that, now that the Super Hornet airframe looks to be staying in RAAF service beyond the 2020s (rather than the bridging capability the F/A‑18Fs were originally ordered as), it makes the acquisition of further Super Hornets an even more attractive proposition. That might mean an ultimate RAAF fast jet order of battle of 40-50 F-35s, 24 Super Hornets and 12 Growlers.

All those deliberations, plus how the life of type of the existing classic Hornet fleet drives their replacement, are underway at the moment.

Air Force’s concern will be, has the tail wagged the dog with the Growler acquisition driving the rest of the RAAF fighter strategy?

Welcome And Thanks

With this issue we welcome Julian Green as the new editor of Australian Aviation, and farewell our designer Nic Eccles.

A great bloke, Nic was almost single-handedly responsible for the AA iPad app and took the magazine’s layouts to new heights. Thanks Nic, and good luck in your new role.

Julian, meanwhile, a freelance contributor to the magazine back in the 1990s, joins AA after a career in airline and airport management. So he brings with him a wealth of experience in, and enthusiasm for, the industry. He is primed to play a key role not only in writing and editing the magazine, but in helping to craft our longer-term strategy across print and digital mediums.