Gearing up for growler

Then, “If you look at naval operations, the ability to ID where an electronic source is and range it and then jam it or kinetically attack it is a tremendous advantage for a naval taskforce as well, let alone when you come to air operations, if you’ve got some sort of surface-to-air threat, the ability to shut it down, because they’re worried they’re about to ‘wear’ a missile kinetically.

“If you go back to the Iraqi operations, their really rather large surface to air network was largely ineffective because they wouldn’t turn on their radars because they knew that they could ‘wear’ a HARM missile any minute when they were transmitting. So just that threat of the thing being there changes the other guy’s operation quite significantly and it reduces the risk right across the board.”

“The bottom line is it reduces risk for air, land and sea operations. Before, our only option was to kinetically take things out, whereas now we can non-kinetically take them out for a period of time.”

August’s decision that 12 RAAF F/A-18F Super Hornets would be converted to Growlers, at a cost of around $1.5 billion, stood out not just for the new capabilities in the ‘non-kinetic’ electronic warfare domain, but for the fact that a high profile, expensive new capability could be funded at a time of new austerity for Australia’s defence budget.

But, explained CAF in a recent interview on the subject with Australian Aviation, “sometimes you’ve got to a have a look at capabilities that actually give you strategic weight and I think it’s one of those capabilities that does that.”

That capability will begin to enter RAAF service from 2015, with an initial operating capability (IOC) based around six jets planned to be declared in 2018. Full operational capability, with all 12 jets, won’t be until a decade from now, in the 2021-22 timeframe.

“Ultimately we want to end up with 12 aircraft capable of being Growlers in the end with an all-JSF fleet, that’s the current aspiration,” CAF explains.

To get there: “What we’re going to do is move training on the Super Hornet back to the US Navy so that we can [take the initial] six training jets offline and convert them to the Growler configuration. Then, as we move through the JSF transition in the 2020s, we’ll convert the last six to Growlers.”

The big question around the Growler acquisition is how does the decision impact plans to acquire the F-35 JSF, given the Super Hornet airframe will now be in RAAF service much longer than the original ‘bridging’ fighter capability intention, and when the RAAF aimed to end up with an all-JSF fast jet fleet.

“The argument [for a one-type fast jet fleet] was that we could reduce our overheads, which is quite correct, but we’ve run two fleets for quite a while in terms of a strike capability and a fighter capability,” CAF points out.

“I think there’s a series of judgments to be made as to where the F-35 program sits at the moment and, you know, our risk profile that we wear through to say, 2020,” AMSHL Brown says. “But I’d much rather run risk with a new aeroplane [F-35] than run risk with an old aeroplane [classic Hornet], so I’m still very much a go for JSF in the timeframe that we’ve got at the moment.”

And to some extent the Growler is a force multiplier that will increase the effectiveness of the RAAF’s current classic and Super Hornets, which may be a consideration in the F-35 timing and numbers debate.

“It fundamentally makes the classic and the Super Hornet more capable in the strike role, it doesn’t probably do a lot for the air defence role, so it depends which role you’re looking at as to where it really makes a difference.”

While Defence Minister Stephen Smith and the government continues its current deliberations around F-35 numbers and timings, the RAAF is moving ahead with planning for the Growler capability, which will be operated by Amberley-based 6 Squadron. Getting the capability established will see the RAAF draw on its close links to the US Navy.

“Because we’ll have a small fleet we’ll be dependent on that USN relationship, and that’s not such a bad place to be, because they’ve got a long-established program. Electronic attack is a very new thing for us and we’ve got a great relationship with the US Navy and we’ll continue that through time. And I think they actually see it as a plus for them in the Pacific that there’s another capability sitting down here, as well.”

And even though electronic attack will be new to the RAAF, CAF is confident his service will quickly get up to speed with its new non-kinetic options.

“I’m hopeful, again, with a lot of support from the USN, that we’ll probably only take one or two years to get in that space,” said CAF, who pointed to the recent deployment of three USN Growlers to Amberley to work with RAAF Super Hornets as part of the process of exposing the air force to the capability. And, “We’ve certainly worked with Prowlers before. In 2003 whenever we went somewhere in Iraq there was always a Prowler kept there.”

And the RAAF has also commonly worked with US Growlers and Prowlers on major exercises like the Red Flag series.

The RAAF will follow the US Navy in upgrading the Growler as any changes in capability flow down the pipeline, including the Next Generation Jammer to replace the Growler’s current ALQ-99 jammer pods.

“It will be a similar philosophy to what we’re doing with the Super Hornet which is very much a USN problem all the way through, so we’ll be the fast follower as they change the jet.”

CAF also confirmed that the RAAF is acquiring a mobile electronic warfare range as part of Growler acquisition, but only a training capability for the AGM-88 HARM missile, not warstocks of the weapon.

“We’ve got a HARM training capability with it, but we are looking for newer missiles further down the track.”

In conclusion, says CAF, Growler is a “big strategic change for the ADF. I’m not sure everybody will realise that until we have it in service and start operating it.”