Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates

[Todjaeger]

I agree with the above, add to that, the article states, due to the configuration, that the MC130J actually carries more palletised weapons than the C17 does. Long range missiles are cheap compared to fighter aircraft or bombers, and using transports, frees up the FGA and P8 fleet for other jobs.
the range of the C130s and c17s is around 3000 km and 4000 respectively, giving a huge reach. just having the palletised systems in place weather they are used or not, gives flexible contingency, at a relatively modest expense.

I could be mistaken, but from various sources I have come across (some of which I have linked to previously) a C-130 aircraft Rapid Dragon weapon pallet can have up to six JASSM-sized munitions, with up to two pallets fitting aboard. A C-17 Rapid Dragon weapon pallet can fit up to nine JASSM-sized munitions, and have as many as five such weapon pallets.

 

[StingrayOZ]

I don't see Australia prioritizing strikes against mainland China or its immediate territorial islands like Hainan Island.

I presume if there is a conflict with China, it would involve allies like the US and Japan, who have much better systems and locations for hitting mainland type targets.

I would doubt we would go it alone. I doubt we would be interested in striking mainland China. I doubt we could ever deliver enough damage to significantly affect their war fighting capability around mainland China. I don't think that will be the focus of our contribution. I don't even think B-52s based in Australia will be doing that mission either.

I think it much more likely we would save our bombs and missiles for high value targets that would be moving towards us, or remote fairly exposed bases, perhaps in the SCS or in SEA, outside of China proper.

AFAIK our inventor of cruise missiles, long range munitions is fairly shallow, even the US identifies its stocks as shallow. Our production rate, even at full rate will be small. Like 0.25 weapon a week. Maybe at emergency max attack war level with mega investment, 1 or 4 a week. Something like JASSM has a small jet engine, many advanced composite parts, many advanced sensors and chips. This is a million dollar missile for tens or hundred of million dollar high value dollar targets.

A C17 with 9x6= 54 missiles is firing nearly ~$80 million in munitions. That is F-35A level of cost. We might as well buy an F-35, pack it full of explosives and fly that onto the target. I am not sure that is going to be the best way of fighting China. This seems expensive and resource intensive.

We can probably make dumb bombs and glide bombs at a faster rate. Maybe something a bit more like a Maverick with a solid rocket motor, at the rates of dozens per week. Maybe something like JSOW or stormbreaker but with a solid rocket motor, or pulse jet motor or even a piston motor/ducted fan, that is much cheaper, able to be built in war time, could be built in much higher volumes much simpler but could usefully extend the range of the munition. But you are still talking about 100-200 km range. Not exactly complete stand off. But we could scale to make hundreds? per week?

This fits more in with our munition industry. We will have some experience making rocket motors, basically none with building tiny weenie highly advanced disposable microturbines for cruise missiles. We could certainly do that, but it just takes a lot of money and resources and time.,

If we really want to pummel something, then perhaps we should make a large bomber drone and suitable munitions for it.
Or we could look at solid rocket ballistic missiles with a range of 3000-4000 km. SK has some technology in this space.

 

[Todjaeger]

I don't see Australia prioritizing strikes against mainland China or its immediate territorial islands like Hainan Island.

I presume if there is a conflict with China, it would involve allies like the US and Japan, who have much better systems and locations for hitting mainland type targets.

I would doubt we would go it alone. I doubt we would be interested in striking mainland China. I doubt we could ever deliver enough damage to significantly affect their war fighting capability around mainland China. I don't think that will be the focus of our contribution. I don't even think B-52s based in Australia will be doing that mission either.

I think it much more likely we would save our bombs and missiles for high value targets that would be moving towards us, or remote fairly exposed bases, perhaps in the SCS or in SEA, outside of China proper.

AFAIK our inventor of cruise missiles, long range munitions is fairly shallow, even the US identifies its stocks as shallow. Our production rate, even at full rate will be small. Like 0.25 weapon a week. Maybe at emergency max attack war level with mega investment, 1 or 4 a week. Something like JASSM has a small jet engine, many advanced composite parts, many advanced sensors and chips. This is a million dollar missile for tens or hundred of million dollar high value dollar targets.

A C17 with 9x6= 54 missiles is firing nearly ~$80 million in munitions. That is F-35A level of cost. We might as well buy an F-35, pack it full of explosives and fly that onto the target. I am not sure that is going to be the best way of fighting China. This seems expensive and resource intensive.

We can probably make dumb bombs and glide bombs at a faster rate. Maybe something a bit more like a Maverick with a solid rocket motor, at the rates of dozens per week. Maybe something like JSOW or stormbreaker but with a solid rocket motor, or pulse jet motor or even a piston motor/ducted fan, that is much cheaper, able to be built in war time, could be built in much higher volumes much simpler but could usefully extend the range of the munition. But you are still talking about 100-200 km range. Not exactly complete stand off. But we could scale to make hundreds? per week?

This fits more in with our munition industry. We will have some experience making rocket motors, basically none with building tiny weenie highly advanced disposable microturbines for cruise missiles. We could certainly do that, but it just takes a lot of money and resources and time.,

If we really want to pummel something, then perhaps we should make a large bomber drone and suitable munitions for it.
Or we could look at solid rocket ballistic missiles with a range of 3000-4000 km. SK has some technology in this space.

TBH this seems to be a argument where one has missed seeing the forest because of all the trees. As I understand it, Rapid Dragon is intended to enable deployment of PGM's from existing cargo aircraft, C-130 and C-17 for right now, with the potential for development to enable additional types of aircraft beyond the 'normal' fighter, bomber and strike/attack aircraft. Also the current development has focused on longer-ranged standoff cruise missiles, but opportunities exist for additional types of ordnance to be added to what can be palletized and deployed.

Having a relatively low-cost system which enables additional platforms to be armed under certain circumstances and without requiring modification of existing in-service platforms seems like a sensible capability to look seriously at adding into the ADF capability set. Remember, defence ops now is not so much about what a platform can do, but what an overall system is capable of.

If Australia suddenly found itself needing to neutralize a hostile naval TF (PRC, Indian, Russian, N Korean, Brainanian, etc) somewhere in Indo-Pacific or Southern Ocean regions, particularly a TF which included one or more area air defence vessels and/or a CV with embarked AEW and fighters, then missile saturation would likely be required. At this point then Australia would need to look at what capability it had to get the number of missiles likely required to overwhelm likely defences for such a TF. With most RAAF aircraft being limited to ~4 appropriate weapons for such a mission vs. RAN vessels likely limited to 8 or 16, then a saturation attack would likely require coordination between multiple ADF platforms. Using half of the RAAF SHornet force would permit a 48-missile strike, whilst using four C-130J's with Rapid Dragon would have the same level of ordnance. Now consider the potential deterrence value in forcing potential adversaries to have to plan around Australia having even greater potential volumes of fire available in strike packages.

Yes, larger strikes would require more ordnance and larger/more expensive warstocks, but that is a reality that Australia needs to face. Firing penny-packet sized AShM or cruise missile strikes could very well proven both ineffective and wasteful, if the size of the strikes are such that hostile air defences can intercept and neutralize inbound munitions. OTOH expanding the ADF's strike capability so that hostile force planners would need to consider augmenting a TF's air defences by adding additional escort vessels, and/or altering transit routes to keep the TF further from airfields that RAAF aircraft might be operating from, is a capability worth considering. The same goes for any land-based assets or facilities which an adversary might need to consider defending vs. an Australian attack, if Australia's potential strike capability was able to be significantly expanded.

 

[swerve]

A C17 with 9x6= 54 missiles is firing nearly ~$80 million in munitions. That is F-35A level of cost. We might as well buy an F-35, pack it full of explosives and fly that onto the target.

The difference is 54 targets or one. Significant, I think.

 

[Stampede]

TBH this seems to be a argument where one has missed seeing the forest because of all the trees. As I understand it, Rapid Dragon is intended to enable deployment of PGM's from existing cargo aircraft, C-130 and C-17 for right now, with the potential for development to enable additional types of aircraft beyond the 'normal' fighter, bomber and strike/attack aircraft. Also the current development has focused on longer-ranged standoff cruise missiles, but opportunities exist for additional types of ordnance to be added to what can be palletized and deployed.

Having a relatively low-cost system which enables additional platforms to be armed under certain circumstances and without requiring modification of existing in-service platforms seems like a sensible capability to look seriously at adding into the ADF capability set. Remember, defence ops now is not so much about what a platform can do, but what an overall system is capable of.

If Australia suddenly found itself needing to neutralize a hostile naval TF (PRC, Indian, Russian, N Korean, Brainanian, etc) somewhere in Indo-Pacific or Southern Ocean regions, particularly a TF which included one or more area air defence vessels and/or a CV with embarked AEW and fighters, then missile saturation would likely be required. At this point then Australia would need to look at what capability it had to get the number of missiles likely required to overwhelm likely defences for such a TF. With most RAAF aircraft being limited to ~4 appropriate weapons for such a mission vs. RAN vessels likely limited to 8 or 16, then a saturation attack would likely require coordination between multiple ADF platforms. Using half of the RAAF SHornet force would permit a 48-missile strike, whilst using four C-130J's with Rapid Dragon would have the same level of ordnance. Now consider the potential deterrence value in forcing potential adversaries to have to plan around Australia having even greater potential volumes of fire available in strike packages.

Yes, larger strikes would require more ordnance and larger/more expensive warstocks, but that is a reality that Australia needs to face. Firing penny-packet sized AShM or cruise missile strikes could very well proven both ineffective and wasteful, if the size of the strikes are such that hostile air defences can intercept and neutralize inbound munitions. OTOH expanding the ADF's strike capability so that hostile force planners would need to consider augmenting a TF's air defences by adding additional escort vessels, and/or altering transit routes to keep the TF further from airfields that RAAF aircraft might be operating from, is a capability worth considering. The same goes for any land-based assets or facilities which an adversary might need to consider defending vs. an Australian attack, if Australia's potential strike capability was able to be significantly expanded.

One to consider for the ADF.
Probably interested if it could be used for JDAM loads.
Use as a bomb truck in roles where we have air dominance against small scale threats as well as what has being mentioned above.

Its an additional option on the table when needed.


Cheers S

 

[Volkodav]

If the proverbial hit the fan it would be more like Dunkirk than Desert Storm. You would use everything you had to hold back the attack and create breathing space to consolidate, recover and respond.

We wouldn't just be dropping palletised missiles out the back of transports, we would be lashing HIMARS and Strike Masters to the decks of anything big enough to get more missiles to sea.

With an army on our doorstep, say someone plops a division or two in the Solomon's etc. we would be press ganging people on the streets like we did in 1942.

There's peacetime, there's deterrence, there's diplomacy and then there's when the shooting starts. As a rule of thumb, the shooting starts when you fail to deter an aggressor, i.e. they think they will get away with it and win at minimal cost.

Look at how Chinese Communist Party has fought, look at their response to COVID, they don't give a flying proverbial about their own people. If they decide to take Taiwan and determine the only way to do it is to distract the US by attacking Australia, Japan, India and Korea they will.

They won't care that the majority of forces they send will be cut off, destroyed or captured, so long as they get Taiwan. They could literally stand up a marine or light infantry corps (as in multiple divisions) to send to the Solomon's, just to tie up Western forces. That force could strike throughout the region before it was contained or destroyed.

Every Australian killed would be individually named in our news reports, the the families of the Chinese troops killed may or may not get an email or letter.

 

[old faithful]

I could be mistaken, but from various sources I have come across (some of which I have linked to previously) a C-130 aircraft Rapid Dragon weapon pallet can have up to six JASSM-sized munitions, with up to two pallets fitting aboard. A C-17 Rapid Dragon weapon pallet can fit up to nine JASSM-sized munitions, and have as many as five such weapon pallets.

You are correct, my bad, C17, max 108 Missiles, C130, Max 90.
Pretty sure Australia couldn't load out to the max, but when we are, where we are, at the moment, with subs a way off, Frigates out of the water, a gap exsists.
This capability, could fulfiil as an interim gap filler until subs, and surface fleet come on line.
Or we can keep pretending that the arafuras can be war ships, add a few guns to the trawlers going around, and arm Qantas.....

 

[StingrayOZ]

I get it as a last ditch type of situation. And it is an interesting idea.

I guess my point is perhaps we should be looking into cheaper munitions that could perhaps be used more effectively from such a system. The advantage of a C17 is everything is inside and there is plenty of room. Maybe we could develop wing extension kits for glide munitions to significant enhance the range of such items perhaps doubling or more their range for the cost of a few dollars of carbon fibre and aluminium.

Most countries don't have the issue of distance like Australia has. No one in Europe really see the need for making glide munitions over 100km.

I am also hesitant to say dumping 100 JASSMER out of a C17 is exactly the same capability as 100 tomahawks/LRASM in VLS on multiple large ships, or 100 F-35 carrying JASSM. Yes, potentially the same number of targets hit, but very different concepts and chance of success.

The whole idea at this stage is deterrence. So you get that with tight capabilities. I am not sure the potential of dumping palettes of bombs out of a C17 does the deterrence thing to China.

 

[Stampede]

I get it as a last ditch type of situation. And it is an interesting idea.

I guess my point is perhaps we should be looking into cheaper munitions that could perhaps be used more effectively from such a system. The advantage of a C17 is everything is inside and there is plenty of room. Maybe we could develop wing extension kits for glide munitions to significant enhance the range of such items perhaps doubling or more their range for the cost of a few dollars of carbon fibre and aluminium.

Most countries don't have the issue of distance like Australia has. No one in Europe really see the need for making glide munitions over 100km.

I am also hesitant to say dumping 100 JASSMER out of a C17 is exactly the same capability as 100 tomahawks/LRASM in VLS on multiple large ships, or 100 F-35 carrying JASSM. Yes, potentially the same number of targets hit, but very different concepts and chance of success.

The whole idea at this stage is deterrence. So you get that with tight capabilities. I am not sure the potential of dumping palettes of bombs out of a C17 does the deterrence thing to China.

Re china it would still be a consideration for them.
Maybe not a deal breaker for their intent but a frustration to navigate non the less.
However realistically I'm thinking other smaller contingencys.


Cheers S

 

[Todjaeger]

One to consider for the ADF.
Probably interested if it could be used for JDAM loads.
Use as a bomb truck in roles where we have air dominance against small scale threats as well as what has being mentioned above.

Its an additional option on the table when needed.


Cheers S

The JDAM-ER is one of the other types of ordnance being worked on, as well as an air-launched decoy. That is worth noting since the JDAM-ER has a range of ~80 km IIRC. That would be insufficient vs. threats involving hostile air and/or long-ranged GBAD systems, but would add additional force planning options for the RAAF and ADF.

AND

I get it as a last ditch type of situation. And it is an interesting idea.

I guess my point is perhaps we should be looking into cheaper munitions that could perhaps be used more effectively from such a system. The advantage of a C17 is everything is inside and there is plenty of room. Maybe we could develop wing extension kits for glide munitions to significant enhance the range of such items perhaps doubling or more their range for the cost of a few dollars of carbon fibre and aluminium.

Most countries don't have the issue of distance like Australia has. No one in Europe really see the need for making glide munitions over 100km.

I am also hesitant to say dumping 100 JASSMER out of a C17 is exactly the same capability as 100 tomahawks/LRASM in VLS on multiple large ships, or 100 F-35 carrying JASSM. Yes, potentially the same number of targets hit, but very different concepts and chance of success.

The whole idea at this stage is deterrence. So you get that with tight capabilities. I am not sure the potential of dumping palettes of bombs out of a C17 does the deterrence thing to China.

Again, I would disagree on there being significant advantage in fielding dispensers for 'cheap' ordnance, or at least not until Australia and/or allies managed to obtain air dominance or even better air supremacy.

Consideration IMO should be given to why different nations have not been developing unpowered/glide bomb munitions with ranges in excess of 100 km. From my POV I suspect that such ordnance is thought to be of little real value. There are certainly plenty of powered PGM's which have and continue to be developed with ranges in excess of 100 km, so there is no question that there is value in being able to hit targets out beyond 100 km. I suspect that there are three primary issues involved why longer-ranged unpowered PGM's have not had significant development.

One of the first is the lag time between weapon release and impact on a target. Using a speed for the AGM-84 SLAM of 855 km/h, a (powered) SLAM targeting something 100 km away would take ~7 minutes reach the target. This is also assuming that the target cannot move beyond the effective range of the SLAM and that no hostile air defence capability detects and intercepts the inbound SLAM during that seven minute flight. I do not know, but I strongly suspect that an AGM-154 JSOW unpowered glide-bomb when released from high altitude (to permit a longer glide out to 70 n miles/130 km) would take much longer than just seven minutes to glide 100 km. That 'extra' time would provide hostile assets more time to respond by evading, intercepting, or possibly something else entirely.

The second issue is that in order for long-ranged, unpowered glides to be possible, this would force the ordnance release point to be at high altitude. This can provide hostile ISR assets additional opportunities to detect the ordnance launch as well as the launching aircraft. This both reduces the potential element of surprise to a strike, but also could provide potential opportunities to intercept the ordnance and/or releasing aircraft prior to ordnance release.

The third issue has to due with the likely design limitations for unpowered glide bombs. Again, I do not know, but I would suspect that the aerodynamic issues involved in getting as much potential lift for an unpowered glider, whilst also having a compact footprint (needed to fit into a bomb or cargo bay, weapon pallet, etc.) would also make it a bit more difficult to make effective use of LO materials and especially shaping. In effect, I would expect a glide bomb with a warhead of a given size to have a larger RCS than some of the LO powered standoff munitions with comparably sized warheads. A potential outcome of such a situation is that the glide bomb would likely be easier to detect at range (from both larger RCS and higher altitude flight profile) and having a slower/longer approach to target, hostile forces would have more time to respond before the glide bomb would reach the target.

As for comparing 100 JASSM launched from RAAF cargo aircraft using something like Rapid Dragon, or 100 TLAM fired from multiple RAN vessels, or 100 JASSM fired from RAAF fighters... The first two situations are not currently possible, whilst the third would (if the JASSM warstock was large enough) would require about a third of the entirety of the RAAF fighter force, assuming RAAF F-35's are configured for four JASSM external carriage. Again, I would suggest people consider the overall battle systems capability rather than focusing on a specific platform. From my POV, there is value in the RAAF being able to release ordnance, especially in support of swarm/saturation attacks, from additional platforms. In the event of a major conflict breaking out which Australia is involved or gets drawn into, having ways to make the most and best use of kit already in Australian service just makes sense, at least to me.

 

[Takao]

The difference is 54 targets or one. Significant, I think.

I disagree. That's one target, or at least one minor target.

I would argue that Syrian air defence is as patchy and known (especially with all the Western ISR platforms around) as one could hope for. Almost any modern nation will be tougher (see Ukraine and Russia's AD).

Despite that, the missile strikes against minor targets demonstrate it is not one missile per target. In 2017, a small attack against a minor airfield used 61 missiles (with 2 not reaching the target area). BDA doesn't show 59 hits, but does show multiple strikes against a hardened hangar that suggests any form of hardening beats a Tomahawk (interesting point about RAAF resilience). Really, that airfield was out of commission for barely hours. As another example, in 2018 the US, UK and France fired 105 cruise missiles against 3 targets that were (at least) damaged. That's a mix of sea and air launched weapons.

People significantly underestimate what we need to throw against a target, especially if it moves, is hardened or is spread out.

 

[Massive]

If Australia suddenly found itself needing to neutralize a hostile naval TF (PRC, Indian, Russian, N Korean, Brainanian, etc) somewhere in Indo-Pacific or Southern Ocean regions, particularly a TF which included one or more area air defence vessels and/or a CV with embarked AEW and fighters, then missile saturation would likely be required. At this point then Australia would need to look at what capability it had to get the number of missiles likely required to overwhelm likely defences for such a TF. With most RAAF aircraft being limited to ~4 appropriate weapons for such a mission vs. RAN vessels likely limited to 8 or 16, then a saturation attack would likely require coordination between multiple ADF platforms. Using half of the RAAF SHornet force would permit a 48-missile strike, whilst using four C-130J's with Rapid Dragon would have the same level of ordnance. Now consider the potential deterrence value in forcing potential adversaries to have to plan around Australia having even greater potential volumes of fire available in strike packages.

It would be interesting to understand current ADF doctrine wrt to the use of ASM's. If targeting a lone modern frigate, I would imagine that multiple missiles would be used, increasingly arriving from different directions etc. For an escort group with high value target, I would imagine this would multiply.

Suggests that a large stock of missiles is required.

Regards,

Massive

 

[Todjaeger]

I disagree. That's one target, or at least one minor target.

I would argue that Syrian air defence is as patchy and known (especially with all the Western ISR platforms around) as one could hope for. Almost any modern nation will be tougher (see Ukraine and Russia's AD).

Despite that, the missile strikes against minor targets demonstrate it is not one missile per target. In 2017, a small attack against a minor airfield used 61 missiles (with 2 not reaching the target area). BDA doesn't show 59 hits, but does show multiple strikes against a hardened hangar that suggests any form of hardening beats a Tomahawk (interesting point about RAAF resilience). Really, that airfield was out of commission for barely hours. As another example, in 2018 the US, UK and France fired 105 cruise missiles against 3 targets that were (at least) damaged. That's a mix of sea and air launched weapons.

People significantly underestimate what we need to throw against a target, especially if it moves, is hardened or is spread out.

Hence my interest in the RAAF potentially acquiring Rapid Dragon. Right now, AFAIK the largest volume of standoff munition fires the ADF could manage would be if the Hobart-class DDG's had all their VLS cells filled with TLAM. For a single vessel, that would be 48 missiles, which would also then require escort from other vessels to provide air defences beyond a CIWS. Even once the Hunter-class FFG's start entering service, there will not be a large number of missiles which could be released.

RAAF fighters could themselves manage ~4 of the larger and longer-ranged standoff missiles like JASSM, but expecting that the entirety of the RAAF fighter force could be directed together as a strike package is IMO very unrealistic. To do so, not only would all fighters need to be available, but then there would be no fighters available for other taskings.

If something were to occur where Australia had to conduct a sizeable strike, Australia would need both the ordnance in inventory, and sufficient numbers of launching platforms which can get to viable launch points. Right now lone hostile ships could likely be successfully engaged, but task forces would likely prove too difficult a nut to crack. Same goes if there was a need to neutralize a hostile installation like an airfield or naval base.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Despite that, the missile strikes against minor targets demonstrate it is not one missile per target. In 2017, a small attack against a minor airfield used 61 missiles (with 2 not reaching the target area). BDA doesn't show 59 hits, but does show multiple strikes against a hardened hangar that suggests any form of hardening beats a Tomahawk (interesting point about RAAF resilience). Really, that airfield was out of commission for barely hours. As another example, in 2018 the US, UK and France fired 105 cruise missiles against 3 targets that were (at least) damaged. That's a mix of sea and air launched weapons

Sounds like and argument for hardening bases. You don't even need to put objects into them, simply by being hardened they become valuable targets and make the enemy commit significant forces to remove/mission kill them. Ukraine showed it is very hard to even destroy bridges.

Long range missiles IMO are very very useful. However, I think the idea that we will be able to sit back and bomb them into to submission with them its very optimistic. They would I think be useful at SEAD.. Soften it up.. Pepper them to reduce some of their awareness and capability, just a little..

I also feel like stealth bombers and gravity weapons aren't exactly the solution either. I feel like there is a middle ground we are missing here, looking at the development in Ukraine conflict, the longer drones seem interesting. Often described as loitering munitions or suicide drone, I think that is the wrong idea. Its not a loitering munition, circling and waiting to strike when a target is identified. You know what you want to hit, you just want to hit it very far away very cheaply and near continiously. This isn't against individual tanks or a car, its to take out fuel dumps, airfields, bridges.

More like Long range power guided munition. It needs to be simple. Straight forward. Easy to produce. Cheap. Packing a punch. I am cynical of weapons like SPear3 with 5-7kg of explosive taking out high value targets. It also isn't like an RC plane with some light weight explosive. Its like a 1000lb weapon with reach of 300-500km.

I don't think speed of the munition is critical. You could make it so it ditches or closes its wings and falls at sonic velocities to target. Sure they would be able to be intercepted in the air. But if you have ~500 long range munitions in the air, that is a lot of intercepts. Again, if you have SEAD, then this comes in after that. In bulk.

Also most munitions are designed to be carried on the outside of the aircraft. 4th gen was all about that. But now, and going forward, that isn't the case. In 5th and 6th gen designs, large internal bays are possible. The munition doesn't have to be designed to be at sub sonic or super sonic speeds on an external wing station on a fighter jet.

The internal weapons bay in the F-35 is a bit of weird shape. You could make two big 2500lb weapon that fits in there. But takes up almost all the volume of the bay and is designed for a mid sub sonic release. But again, I don't think fight jets are the ideal mass bombing platform.

The V1 bomb did a lot more damage and was built in significantly more numbers than the V2. Even though the V1 was fairly straight forward to intercept even with 1940's tech. V1 was 850Kg warhead, 2000kg 8x5m 600kmph. 250-300km range.

So yeh, I don't see why we can't build thousands of 1000kg bombs, with wings and engines, that can fly ~500 km and glide for the last 80km and drop at 900kmph almost vertically for the final seconds. Cost of ~$20,000.. They don't need much, inertial guidance, GPS, maybe a camera but smart enough to understand images, make em passive like NSM.

Hit the target with cruise missiles. SEAD. Some high value C&C, radar, SAMs, a fuel dump etc.
Have 3-4 C17 loaded with ~80 of these. Fire more cruise missiles that will arrive at the same time as these. So ~240t lands on site.

Then reload.

Have factories pumping these out at 1000 a day.

 

[Bob53]

Sounds like and argument for hardening bases. You don't even need to put objects into them, simply by being hardened they become valuable targets and make the enemy commit significant forces to remove/mission kill them. Ukraine showed it is very hard to even destroy bridges.

Long range missiles IMO are very very useful. However, I think the idea that we will be able to sit back and bomb them into to submission with them its very optimistic. They would I think be useful at SEAD.. Soften it up.. Pepper them to reduce some of their awareness and capability, just a little..

I also feel like stealth bombers and gravity weapons aren't exactly the solution either. I feel like there is a middle ground we are missing here, looking at the development in Ukraine conflict, the longer drones seem interesting. Often described as loitering munitions or suicide drone, I think that is the wrong idea. Its not a loitering munition, circling and waiting to strike when a target is identified. You know what you want to hit, you just want to hit it very far away very cheaply and near continiously. This isn't against individual tanks or a car, its to take out fuel dumps, airfields, bridges.

More like Long range power guided munition. It needs to be simple. Straight forward. Easy to produce. Cheap. Packing a punch. I am cynical of weapons like SPear3 with 5-7kg of explosive taking out high value targets. It also isn't like an RC plane with some light weight explosive. Its like a 1000lb weapon with reach of 300-500km.

I don't think speed of the munition is critical. You could make it so it ditches or closes its wings and falls at sonic velocities to target. Sure they would be able to be intercepted in the air. But if you have ~500 long range munitions in the air, that is a lot of intercepts. Again, if you have SEAD, then this comes in after that. In bulk.

Also most munitions are designed to be carried on the outside of the aircraft. 4th gen was all about that. But now, and going forward, that isn't the case. In 5th and 6th gen designs, large internal bays are possible. The munition doesn't have to be designed to be at sub sonic or super sonic speeds on an external wing station on a fighter jet.

The internal weapons bay in the F-35 is a bit of weird shape. You could make two big 2500lb weapon that fits in there. But takes up almost all the volume of the bay and is designed for a mid sub sonic release. But again, I don't think fight jets are the ideal mass bombing platform.

The V1 bomb did a lot more damage and was built in significantly more numbers than the V2. Even though the V1 was fairly straight forward to intercept even with 1940's tech. V1 was 850Kg warhead, 2000kg 8x5m 600kmph. 250-300km range.

So yeh, I don't see why we can't build thousands of 1000kg bombs, with wings and engines, that can fly ~500 km and glide for the last 80km and drop at 900kmph almost vertically for the final seconds. Cost of ~$20,000.. They don't need much, inertial guidance, GPS, maybe a camera but smart enough to understand images, make em passive like NSM.

Hit the target with cruise missiles. SEAD. Some high value C&C, radar, SAMs, a fuel dump etc.
Have 3-4 C17 loaded with ~80 of these. Fire more cruise missiles that will arrive at the same time as these. So ~240t lands on site.

Then reload.

Have factories pumping these out at 1000 a day.

Your last paragraphs ,are it sound really simple…. Wouldn’t someone of done this by now is that was the case? Why bother with ground launched NSM for example if it’s this simple? We could buy a squadron of F15 or another of F35 dedicated to this task…… but I’m not sure it is this simple…

 

[StingrayOZ]

Your last paragraphs ,are it sound really simple…. Wouldn’t someone of done this by now is that was the case? Why bother with ground launched NSM for example if it’s this simple? We could buy a squadron of F15 or another of F35 dedicated to this task…… but I’m not sure it is this simple…

But see this is for a different type of conflict..

• When was the last time the US didn't have air dominance if not total air superiority?
• The US has B1 and B2 and previous F-111 as bomb trucks. Most wars you don't really have that many targets, so just flying regular sorties with these making precision hits would be fine.
• When you have air superiority, B-52 just carpet bombing is going to be cheaper and more effective. The B52 can now operate precision munitions, so plenty of capability there.

But a conflict with China is different. It isn't like China has one main air base. Or a few hundred tanks. Or maybe 100 aircraft and essentially no logistical spares etc.

The US has used about 1500 tomahawks in the last 30 years. So if you have a store of about 1000-2000 that would normally be "plenty". But in a conflict with China, the US could expend ~500 Tomahawks in a single day, and do minimal damage to China's war fighting capability. Even if every Tomahawk made a direct hit on what ever it was meant to hit.

However, I don't think Australia is going to be in the middle of this conflict. We won't be dropping 500-1000 JDAM bombs a day on China. We are too far away. Chinese forces will be focused on the main game, Taiwan. However, they won't like Australia and Australia will certainly be supporting its allies and the US in their fight. Australian airbases will be used. Australian bases will become potential targets. They will also try to deter others from coming in and joining.

China has a thousand of missiles that can operate from the 100-2000km range.
DF11 (600), CJ10 (500) DF16 (400) DF21 (250). They are much more limited in the long range stuff, so that would only be used for high profile targets, mostly US or Japan, stuff more critical to the battle. IMO.

China isn't Iraq or Afghanistan. Its more like the entire USA or the entire EU. This is not something that the US can coast in and being Beijing by Tuesday.

BTW someone totally did do this. Germany. The German V2 is the precursor to all ballistic missiles everywhere. The V1 was the origional flying bomb. Effectively the first short range cruise missile.

They moved away from this because V1's could be intercepted by spitfires, and most countries use cruise missiles on high value targets. So their costs, and capabilities spiraled where they are now $1-3m objects made in the US at the rate of 50-100 a year.

A V1 would be easy pickings for modern CIWS. You don't even need radar to spot them, as the pulse jet is so noisy. Also starting pulsejets reliably (saying being dropped out of an aircraft) is no mean feat. Pulsejets, while simple, aren't very fuel efficient or high performance.

 

[Bob53]

But see this is for a different type of conflict..

• When was the last time the US didn't have air dominance if not total air superiority?
• The US has B1 and B2 and previous F-111 as bomb trucks. Most wars you don't really have that many targets, so just flying regular sorties with these making precision hits would be fine.
• When you have air superiority, B-52 just carpet bombing is going to be cheaper and more effective. The B52 can now operate precision munitions, so plenty of capability there.

But a conflict with China is different. It isn't like China has one main air base. Or a few hundred tanks. Or maybe 100 aircraft and essentially no logistical spares etc.

The US has used about 1500 tomahawks in the last 30 years. So if you have a store of about 1000-2000 that would normally be "plenty". But in a conflict with China, the US could expend ~500 Tomahawks in a single day, and do minimal damage to China's war fighting capability. Even if every Tomahawk made a direct hit on what ever it was meant to hit.

However, I don't think Australia is going to be in the middle of this conflict. We won't be dropping 500-1000 JDAM bombs a day on China. We are too far away. Chinese forces will be focused on the main game, Taiwan. However, they won't like Australia and Australia will certainly be supporting its allies and the US in their fight. Australian airbases will be used. Australian bases will become potential targets. They will also try to deter others from coming in and joining.

China has a thousand of missiles that can operate from the 100-2000km range.
DF11 (600), CJ10 (500) DF16 (400) DF21 (250). They are much more limited in the long range stuff, so that would only be used for high profile targets, mostly US or Japan, stuff more critical to the battle. IMO.

China isn't Iraq or Afghanistan. Its more like the entire USA or the entire EU. This is not something that the US can coast in and being Beijing by Tuesday.

BTW someone totally did do this. Germany. The German V2 is the precursor to all ballistic missiles everywhere. The V1 was the origional flying bomb. Effectively the first short range cruise missile.

They moved away from this because V1's could be intercepted by spitfires, and most countries use cruise missiles on high value targets. So their costs, and capabilities spiraled where they are now $1-3m objects made in the US at the rate of 50-100 a year.

A V1 would be easy pickings for modern CIWS. You don't even need radar to spot them, as the pulse jet is so noisy. Also starting pulsejets reliably (saying being dropped out of an aircraft) is no mean feat. Pulsejets, while simple, aren't very fuel efficient or high performance.

I’m not arguing the need…nor your suggestion….just the logistics of doing cheap and accurate 1000kg missiles in volume in Australia. If it’s as simple as you suggest it’s a no brainer.

 

[StingrayOZ]

I’m not arguing the need…nor your suggestion….just the logistics of doing cheap and accurate 1000kg missiles in volume in Australia. If it’s as simple as you suggest it’s a no brainer.

In what way?

Australia actually has a fair amount of chemical manufacturing, our agricultural, and mining sectors are quite large.
Our explosives sector is, again, quite large due to mining. ~$4 billion a year. Its not exactly the same as military explosive capacity, but its connected.
QNP can manufacture over 220,000t of explosives a year for example CSBP makes 800,000t a year of nitrates. They are just one manufacturer.
Making a sustainable oil refinery capability would also be important for sovereign weapons manufacturing as well as fuel for the military. The petrol chemical sector is huge, and an oil refinery is a critical part of that.

In terms of sites that are tooled up to make thousands of large missiles. That is a different issue. Many dual use manufacturing sites have closed down since the 1990's. You need large manufacturing sites that can be repurposed. We should be funding these now. Large undercover buildings with power and climate controlled interiors, with nearby workforces and access to things like rail yards so bulk materials can be easily bought in and manufactured products can be carried out. We used to make a lot of aerospace parts here, C130 flaps, wings, composite panels, propellers etc. I don't know if they do anything much since they closed down Boeing at Bankstown. We certainly had skills in this area.

They did exist, some are in ruin, some are being redeveloped. Often a lot of these sites get redeveloped as logistics or tech hubs and the key things that make them valuable are paved over and destroyed.

Things like microchip manufacturing in Australia are also limited. We actually do a lot of precursor stuff here, but all the clever advanced stuff happens elsewhere.

But something basic like the chip needed for a glide bomb is 1990's stuff. We don't have to be able to do mass of 2nm node. Fabricating something the level of a 486 is probably going to meet the requirements of most industrial and embedded stuff. Yes, central computers in planes etc will need to be a lot more advanced, but hopefully, we aren't expending planes at a massive rate. The idea is to expend munitions made here, not planes made elsewhere (with some local content). 3 axis inertial guidance sensors and an IR camera was a Wii remote from ~2005. So it doesn't have to be cutting edge stuff, just stuff that works. But it all takes time to set up and have ready and the money needs to be spent now.

RAAF has a lot to work out regarding sovereignty and indigenous production and local infinite support for platforms and weapons. The RAN too. Simply assembling things from a Knock down kit isn't the same has having deep sovereign production capability.

 

[StingrayOZ]

ADF's $384m cost blowout on 'strategically important' airstrip upgrade

Three years ago, the budget to upgrade the airstrip on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands was $184 million. Now that cost has more than tripled.

www.abc.net.au

There is a cost blow out of the 150m runway extension on Cocos by ~$200m.
I guess its a reminder there are no easy solutions. I would guess extensions by more than 150m would become far more expensive. Referring back to discussions 3 pages ago about airfield extensions.

 

[swerve]

I think it's probably a rather difficult runway to extend. Others may be easier.