Australian Hornet Upgrades (HUG)

[gf0012-aust]

Australias Hornets are in the process of being upgraded, so I though I'd detail some of the main changes.

Raytheon APG73 Fire Control Radar – The first non-US aircraft equipped platforms with this Radar suite.

Software modified by Aust Defence Science and Tech Org, USN, Matra-BAe and Raytheon to fire European ASRAAM and AIM132. *the only Hornets railed to take non US missiles.

The aircraft is wired to fire all current US weaps certified for the F/A-18 C-D-E-F + European missiles.

The RAAF selected the AIM132A as it outperformed both the AIM9x and the Python 3

The AIM132a can pull 50g at release, has a range of 15k and will engage at 300m. It rated as faster and more agile under tests than the 9x

Missiles are cued to helmets, Off-boresight is +/- 90degrees

IR array has a resolution of 128x128 pixels

APG73 has improved range, greater memory but processes much more with a capability to present clearer ground imaging. The resolution is said to be comparable to systems available in the F15E and U2

Comms has been updating with greater anti-jamming, upgraded mission computers, upgrades to the RWR, additional multiplex data buses, GPS embedded into the INS

Systems have greater software upgradability

Jam resistant Link 16 data transfer system (enabling direct comms to the ANZAC class destroyers) So the Destroyers are able to act as a seaborne version of an AWACs)

Digital/tac moving map system

Full colour pit display

Pending:
Centre barrel replacement
EWSelfProt suite
Area stand-off weapon
Littoral Stand-off weapon.

All tacsims have evaluated that the AA11 Archer and AA12 Adder are not in the threat envelope.

These aircraft are decidedly not normal F/A-18A’s or B’s.

 

[mysterious]

I dont understand one thing. Why is Australia all of a sudden upgrading all of its forces? Is it planning to go to war with someone?? These past 2 months, all I've been hearing is Aussies doing this n doing that. Some body please tell me whatz going on here!! I mean, is it cuz Aussies badly need upgrades in all aspects of their forces or what?? :roll

 

[gf0012-aust]

I dont understand one thing. Why is Australia all of a sudden upgrading all of its forces? Is it planning to go to war with someone?? These past 2 months, all I've been hearing is Aussies doing this n doing that. Some body please tell me whatz going on here!! I mean, is it cuz Aussies badly need upgrades in all aspects of their forces or what?? :roll

Yes, our forces are at a point where we are going through major block obsolescence issues. That has been due to successive governments over the last 15-20 years delaying purchases at the time of requirement, rather than replacing immediately.

We are therefore in a position now where we have to replace or we end up in a similar position to Canada and/or New Zealand.

These programes have (in some cases) been in place for 10 years. Its not a sudden rush to arm ourselves.

 

[mysterious]

Thnx for the info. Now I get the picture. Hope Canada and New Zealand learn something from Australia and get to some shopping atleast.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Thnx for the info. Now I get the picture. Hope Canada and New Zealand learn something from Australia and get to some shopping atleast.

Canada has had a change of Government and it looks as though he is trying to turn their situation around, fundamentally it is too late for New Zealand. They have lost their fixed wing combat elements, and their surface combatants are significantly reduced to a point where in a war situation they would be next to useless to survive a high tempo theatre of operations.

They still have their SAS though - who I would rate as one of the better special forces in the world.

 

[Aussie Digger]

The Hornets will also be equipped with a new targeting pod to replace the current AN/AAS-38 Nite Hawk pod. I wonder if we'll opt for the ATFLIR pod the US navy is using on it's new FA-18 E/F Super Hornets or the Litening 11 Pod the USAF uses? Either way it'll be a further improvement for our Hornet fleet. We're also be acquiring JDAM's for our Hornets under the "bomb improvement program"...

 

[Aussie Digger]

It's never too late to turn around gf, but it would require a change in government in New Zealand, plus some significant capital expenditure, not to mention time, given that they'd basaically have to re-build their airforce from the ground up...

 

[Winter]

It's never too late to turn around gf, but it would require a change in government in New Zealand, plus some significant capital expenditure, not to mention time, given that they'd basaically have to re-build their airforce from the ground up...

I would do soon anyway...If I recall, the majority of airframes that they still operate are around 30-35 (?) years old...Including the ancient Skyhawk wing had it not been disbanded two or three years ago.

Must've been a Cold War spending hike.

 

[Aussie Digger]

You're not wrong Winter. New Zealand currently operates a fleet of 5 C-130 Hercules. I recall a little while back that New Zealand wanted to evacuate some of it's national's from the Solomon Islands I believe it was due to the tensions that were occurring there. Not 1 C-130 was available and New Zealand had to beg to Australia for help to get it's nationals out. Yet the NZ Defence Minister Mark BURTON insisted that there was no problems with the New Zealand Air force and that it met it met the requirements the Government placed upon it. Well apparently the NZ's government requirement is for it's "air force" (which ironically is not capable of projecting any actual 'force') to be grounded and completely unable to even fly and land in a normal manner. Air NZ would have done a better job than the RNZAF was capable of. This is wholly the fault of the NZ government and funds should be immediately directed to resurrecting the capability the RNZAF used to possess. The ability to protect it's own citizens is a fundamental responsibility of any government and the NZ government is clearly failing in that task...

 

[gf0012-aust]

It's never too late to turn around

True to a certain extent, but when you disband your combat wing, you lose:

assets
historical knowledge
capability knowledge
an inability to interact with other allies in a meaningful training fashion
a loss of military leadership
a loss of political leverage
a loss of regional influence.

Dollars don't necessarily bring that all back - even of you buy the toys tomorrow.

They are years away from regaining all of the above even if they found the budget to reacquire new kit.

 

[Winter]

It's never too late to turn around

True to a certain extent, but when you disband your combat wing, you lose:

assets
historical knowledge
capability knowledge
an inability to interact with other allies in a meaningful training fashion
a loss of military leadership
a loss of political leverage
a loss of regional influence.

Dollars don't necessarily bring that all back - even of you buy the toys tomorrow.

They are years away from regaining all of the above even if they found the budget to reacquire new kit.

Hmm...Didn't most of the disbanded Kiwi strike wing emigrate to the Aussie and British air forces? I vaguely remember a New Zealand media report on the issue chasing it up a while ago. IIRC (such a convenient acronym) it's last words were '...fighting someone else's war.'

:frosty

 

[gf0012-aust]

Hmm...Didn't most of the disbanded Kiwi strike wing emigrate to the Aussie and British air forces?

Well, we could certainly do with more, we've got a pilots shortage still. We were even offering fast tracked citizenship to Canadian Bug pilots as they were disaffected about the state of their own military.

So far I think we have UK, NZ, Canadians and then US pilots who are on exchange.

 

[umair]

Well Gary all I can say is that u guys have now got Super Hornets trapped in plain old Hornets!
soory for the hijack but can't keep myself from gloating, read my latest post in the PAF 2015 thread :smokingc:

 

[Red aRRow]

Sounds like a really capable platform.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Shamayel, we had to, last time we wargamed with Malaysia their aircraft showed how much we needed to upgrade the Hornets capability.

I guess Umair is right, in some respects they are now actually more capable than a Super Hornet.

It's a good thing that we get to play against Malaysias aircraft, Singapores F-16's, the USAF's F-15's and F-16D's and the USMC's FA/18 C's and D's.

It helps keeps pilots sharp.

It's also good that we have a government that is prepared to spend the money on defence, the prev party were pretty hopeless.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Gf, the impending retirement of the F-111 could help out with the pilot shortage problem, though I've seen Angus Marshall (Chief of Air Force) stating that our Hornet pilot numbers are at full strength at present mainly due to former Hornet drivers re-joining due to the down turn in the civil aviation market. As to Kiwi pilots, at best we probably got something like 8-10 pilots, given that they only had 14 operational skyhawks prior to the air combat force being disbanded and some did go to the UK. I'm not sure how we're travelling on maintenance personnel though. You are quite correct about the difficulty in rebuilding the force, but it's possible. I'm certain they retained their intellectual property in relation to fast jet operations including training programs, etc. If they were to rebuild the force it would an interesting exercise to observe. I wonder if they would remodel it perhaps on an existing model (say Australian for instance) to help get it up and running and have their initial personnel trained to the basic level for maintainence and pilot's etc in another country? That's the way I'd go about it. Get the pilots and maintainers trained up on basic training aircraft. Then move on to a lead-in fighter aircfraft and eventually a front line combat aircraft. The jump from the basic aircraft to the leadin fighter would be the biggest jump I should think. The operational procedures for the front line aircraft could be worked out with the LIF making the next jump relatively easy. This would also spread the acquisition costs out over a fairly lengthy time period making it that much more attractive to the politicians...

 

[Winter]

Gf, the impending retirement of the F-111 could help out with the pilot shortage problem, though I've seen Angus Marshall (Chief of Air Force) stating that our Hornet pilot numbers are at full strength at present mainly due to former Hornet drivers re-joining due to the down turn in the civil aviation market. As to Kiwi pilots, at best we probably got something like 8-10 pilots, given that they only had 14 operational skyhawks prior to the air combat force being disbanded and some did go to the UK. I'm not sure how we're travelling on maintenance personnel though. You are quite correct about the difficulty in rebuilding the force, but it's possible. I'm certain they retained their intellectual property in relation to fast jet operations including training programs, etc. If they were to rebuild the force it would an interesting exercise to observe. I wonder if they would remodel it perhaps on an existing model (say Australian for instance) to help get it up and running and have their initial personnel trained to the basic level for maintainence and pilot's etc in another country? That's the way I'd go about it. Get the pilots and maintainers trained up on basic training aircraft. Then move on to a lead-in fighter aircfraft and eventually a front line combat aircraft. The jump from the basic aircraft to the leadin fighter would be the biggest jump I should think. The operational procedures for the front line aircraft could be worked out with the LIF making the next jump relatively easy. This would also spread the acquisition costs out over a fairly lengthy time period making it that much more attractive to the politicians...

Well, I don't think the Kiwi air force is going anywhere fast...New Zealand's defence spending is around 0.8% of their GDP, and in Aussie dollars roughly translates to $350 million for the AF. Not a lot to go on...It would be awkward in the extreme to expensively resurrect the F-16 project, without huge changes...It would also take years to do so, with the Air Force's advanced jet training arm disbanded now as well, and even the F-16s under purchase have since been pressed into the US Navy.

Besides, I saw a few days ago they announced an Iroquois replacement program, which should just about cover procurement for the next blue moon or two. I'm betting on either a new Huey derivative (Bell 212, UH-1Y, etc) or the S-70.

That is why I doubt we'll see a change toward re-aquirement of capability indefinately and even if they wanted to, it would require all-sorts of things to happen, none of which are likely to occur anytime soon.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Possibly Winter, though I tend to think they might opt for something like the Augusta A109 Power or something similar. The Kiwi's are still a little sour on Americans at present...

 

[Winter]

Possibly Winter, though I tend to think they might opt for something like the Augusta A109 Power or something similar. The Kiwi's are still a little sour on Americans at present...

They have a strong history of American-based systems. Right now, the current air force inventory is almost exclusively American + the only purchase in recent years was a pair of Boeing 757 transports.

Hmm...Okay, the aircraft were acquired in better times i.e. Vietnam War and the Boeings are ex-Dutch... :roll

 

[gf0012-aust]

NZ's combat gear tends to be US. In specops their SAS tends to work with the UK, whereas we have a closer working relationship with DELTA, USMC and the Seal variants.

If i was to generalise, I'd argue that NZ is closer to the UK emotionally than Oz.