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Comment: The new generation of RAAF air defence
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How and why the RAAF will soon welcome MRAD capabilities for the first time in 50 years.
For the first time in 50 years, the RAAF is acquiring a medium-range ground-based air defence (MRAD) capability to support counter-air operations and protect air bases, command and control nodes, and other critical infrastructure. Although ground-based air defence (GBAD) has been the sole responsibility of Army, the paucity of GBAD assets means that the RAAF cannot necessarily rely on the Army to support their missions in parallel with meeting its own.
The RAAF requires a capability that can operate in a stand-alone configuration and address the diverse spectrum of air-delivered threats. Since this will likely replace a combat air patrol, the RAAF requires an MRAD capability. Short and medium-range GBAD systems are optimised to defeat air-breathing targets (ABT) that includes fixed and rotary wing aircraft, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), while long-range systems are generally optimised towards ballistic missile threats.
Cruise missiles, the adversary’s weapon of choice, are affordable and available to a wide range of state and non-state actors and can be deployed from a variety of air, land, surface and sub-surface platforms. These are often used in the preliminary stages of hostilities; in open conflict; and often launched from distances well beyond the range of GBAD systems, as seen in Ukraine which has seen many coordinated cruise missile salvos strike on strategic assets and critical infrastructure.
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Of the ABT threats, cruise missiles are the most challenging as these are difficult to detect due to their small radar cross sections and ability to fly at very low altitudes using terrain mapping, earth curvature, and avoidance techniques to reduce the engagement opportunity for defensive systems. A significant number of cruise missiles can be launched in a highly coordinated strike using different avenues of approach for a simultaneous time-on-target and overwhelm a GBAD system’s ability to respond.
A stand-alone MRAD capability must be able to detect low-flying targets from all directions, provide rapid firing solutions using automated threat evaluation weapon assignment decision support, and have a large number of firing channels with active and passive missiles for simultaneous engagement of targets.
When looking at the range of air-delivered threats, focus is usually on the challenging and dangerous such as ballistic missiles. However, these are less prevalent, more expensive, tightly held, and less likely to be used outside of open conflict.
If a target can be defeated by cheap, long range cruise missiles, that would be the preferred option over strategic high-end missiles. There is little point then in prioritising investment in a GBAD solution to defeat the most unlikely but dangerous threat if it has limited capability against the most likely, prolific, and affordable threat. Defence against cruise missiles and other ABT threats should be the driving requirement for the future MRAD capability.
NASAMS is optimised to deal with cruise missiles and the ABT threat. The United States government is committing NASAMS to Ukraine to counter the Russian threat. A NASAMS solution, common with Army, but with the addition of AMRAAM-Extended Range to complement AMRAAM and AIM-9X Block 2 missiles provides a highly capable, survivable, affordable, available, and locally manufactured MRAD solution for the RAAF.
NASAMS also brings the Australian CEA Technologies AESA radar capability for rapid 360-degree detection, and the ability to perform up to 96 concurrent engagements. The NASAMS system is designed for growth with an open architecture and the range of NASAMS can even be further extended, if required, to allow for growth to counter longer-term emerging threats and missions through the addition of longer-range CEA sensors and effectors.
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