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

[Abraham Gubler]

I dont think that its going make that much of a difference. For starters the Sing G550 and E2 would likely have a detection range somewhere in the region of 200NM or thereabouts. Sit them up above Singapore or slightly forward ready to retrograde if required.

Still out of range of Butterworth and unable to establish a track. Any RSAF AEW wanting to peak at the bases in the north would have to stay out over the straits or South China Sea and be vulnerable to being cut off from Singapore by a fighter launched from southern Malaya.

There is enough leeway for Butterworth based aircraft to dogleg around the field of regard of Singapore local AEW to come in from all points. Even up from the Java Sea with IFR over Borneo. So they are going to have to split their efforts to intercept all these incoming packages, most of which can of course be decoys and turn around after the RSAF interceptors are far enough away from the real action.

Secondly this would likely be supplemented with visual observers either in butterworth or more likely just sitting on Penang Island. Its not like you can hide a strike package taking off from Butterworth.

Sure but launch warning isn't as big a deal as tracking the packages. You've got to assume everyone will have launch warning. Even for isolated bases commercial imagery sats can provide it. But ground based radar on the Malaya peninsula can track fighters taking off from Singapore even if they stay real low. The only way they can get any room from being watched is to go out into the south China Sea where we will probably have naval assets anyway. Also its much easier for a RAAF/RMAF AEW to stay close enough to Singapore to watch everything. They just do so orbiting over KL.

 

[hairyman]

I dont understand all of this "At War with Singapore" business. I always considered Singapore to be friendlier to Australia than Malaysia. Am I wrong?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I dont understand all of this "At War with Singapore" business. I always considered Singapore to be friendlier to Australia than Malaysia. Am I wrong?

I’ve struggled to find anyway of responding to this post that doesn’t say: “you’re a total freakin idiot”.

A few of use are having a conversation and you have come in at the end of it and scratched your head complaining you don’t understand. How friggin hard is it to simply press the button to go back one or two pages to see how this conversation started and why we are having it?

Not only is this incredibly stupid of you its also very rude.

 

[ADMk2]

I dont understand all of this "At War with Singapore" business. I always considered Singapore to be friendlier to Australia than Malaysia. Am I wrong?

It's a hypothetical discussion that has evolved from looking at individual air force structures within South east Asia.

No-one is seriously suggesting Australian and Malaysia WOULD go to war with Singapore or anyone else in the near future for that matter.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Would Australia be able to use Butterworth against one of the 5 powers? Or even against the wishes of Malaysia or one of the other 5? Does Australia and the UK have definative usage rights to butterworth?

The commander of the IADS side has always been an Australian?

 

[jack412]

The 5p would probably be online, but my guess is that the other powers would defend the attackee against the aggression of the attackor, if by chance a coup in australia put a despot in power that was attacking others, the 5p would kick in and the 4 would then attack australia

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

There is little doubt that Singapore's procurement systems are far more efficient than Australia's but whose isn't? Also the SAF is very much focused on defending their island state.

In the extremely unlikely event that the RAAF was tasked with taking down their defences, presumably in an alliance with Malaysia and based from there we would have to adopt an attrition based approach. Defending our bases in the northern end of the Malaya Peninsula and launching night by night strikes to degrade their air defences.

With the RSAF having all their Singapore based aircraft and the RAAF deploying everything but the bare bones of force generation this would mean:

10 F-15E, 40 F-16D, 20 F-16C, 40 F-5S/T

vs

20 F/A-18F, 50 F/A-18A

Plus the RMAF who couldn’t really be relied upon for much other than strike decoys, bulking out DCAP and retrograde attrition of RSAF air to air warshots.

With Wedgetail and the significant geographic disadvantage the RSAF faces I think the RAAF could protect Butterworth and degrade the RSAF bases over time. It would take a couple of weeks before we could contest air superiority over Singapore. The RAAF strike missions would be very much decoy heavy and using stand off munitions and air to air ambushes. But the geographic advantage would give a significant initiative advantage to the RAAF/RMAF. Singapore could launch very few sorties without the ops centre at Butterworth knowing about it and even with G550 AEW strike missions with supporting decoys could be positioned against Singapore resulting in multiple vector commitments.

The RSAF has developed a force structure capable of countering their geographic disadvantage against Malaysia and Indonesia even assuming they were near peers in professional competency. But add in another 60-70 high end strike fighters and supporting assets from the RAAF and it would be too much for them. Of course all this is ridiculous, as there is no real political situation which would see Australia against Singapore.

How would we go about degrading their IADS? Concentrate on airfields and RSAF supporting infrastructure in an attritional campaign? Does the ADF even have the ISTAR capability to effectively identify critical C4I installations? One would have to assume fighting an attritional campaign with the heart of the threat IADS intact would mean incurring significant losses, even if the loss ratio was in the RAAF's favor. What level of loss would be deemed unacceptable?

 

[STURM]

Does Australia and the UK have definative usage rights to butterworth?

No they don't. Any use of Butterworth by any foreign forces for combat ops would require the approval of the Malaysian government.

The commander of the IADS side has always been an Australian?

Yes as even before the British withdrawal East of Suez, Australia had assumed the role of being Malaysia and Singapore's main defence partner. It was Australia that forked out the funds to develop Butterworth, including the runway un the 1950's, and the only one to deploy assets there after the British withdrawal. The current deputy commander of the IADS, who's post is rotational, is Singaporean. The command and control system at Butterworth was upgraded a few years ago with a Linux based system, Rockwell Australia.

http://www.airforce.gov.au/units/324css.aspx

 

[south]

asdfas

 

[ADMk2]

asdfas

Pardon? Wouldn't mind expanding on this a bit by any chance would you?

Regards,

Ad

 

[gf0012-aust]

Pardon? Wouldn't mind expanding on this a bit by any chance would you?

Regards,

Ad

I think he means ADFADS

 

[ADMk2]

I think he means ADFADS

ADF Air Defence System? I'm not quite catching on even if it means this, how it's relevant exactly to the current discussion, but even one liners are frowned upon aren't they? One worders...

 

[Volkodav]

I think he means ADFADS

Dyslexia really sucks when you communicate in acronyms. Then again there are so many acronyms in defence that have multiple meanings, depending on context, that shuffling the letters probably has little impact on the audiences overall understanding.

 

[gf0012-aust]

ADF Air Defence System? I'm not quite catching on even if it means this, how it's relevant exactly to the current discussion, but even one liners are frowned upon aren't they? One worders...

I think he was being super cryptic, but if its ADFADS it's the wrong answer...

 

[jeffb]

I think he was being super cryptic, but if its ADFADS it's the wrong answer...

I think its more likely he was just rolling his face across his keyboard.

 

[south]

It means that I type something in response but decided to withdraw it.

Essentially I would consider a 250NM Fighter Engagement Zone (Achieved by sitting a AEW 50NM north of Singapore with a nominal 200NM detection range against a fighter) to be sufficient. Gives you 250NM to detect/disrupt/destroy any non JASSM/JSOW fighter. J-SOW you will have a slightly lessor range. JASSM is obviously the ace in the back pocket and going to be extremely difficult to stop from being fired by any offensive fighter.

If the RAAF were to try and backdoor by A2A refuelling over borneo and hooking around from the east and it was considered a realistic option the Sings could easily site a Formidable to the E/SE as a picket ship.

There was more, but that was the crux of it...

I cant believe you couldnt pick that up from ASDFAS???

 

[swerve]

50 nautical miles north of Singapore is over Malaysia. Unless & until all risks from the ground had been removed, that would be a rather risky place to put an AEW aircraft.

A Formidable as a picket ship is all very well, but it'd have to be prepared to fight to remain in place. Sitting still & broadcasting its position is, again, rather risky. It might suddenly get a torpedo up the jacksie.

 

[south]

Tell me what ground threat that Malaysia has in their inventory that is going to reach up and touch someone at 25000ft or more?

Yep understand your second part, but I guess that they would have that risk anywhere unless they were tied up at the dock....

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Tell me what ground threat that Malaysia has in their inventory that is going to reach up and touch someone at 25000ft or more?

Doesn't matter. If the RSAF is going to orbit an AEW 50 NM north of Singapore, either over Kalung or out in the Straits or South China Sea you would just ambush it with fighters. Just pull the wings off a fighter or four (good use for those MiG-29s) and truck them south under canvas at night. Stick the wings on in a hangar at some airfield or a warehouse beside a cleared highway. Start them up, open the doors and in five minutes they will be between the AEW orbit and Singapore and about to splash some multi million dollar Gulfstream. Loitering deep over someone's home turf when it isn't empty desert has some serious challenges.

 

[south]

If they were at a war footing I doubt they would sit it there without a couple of escorts, whether they be sitting at alert on the end of a runway or airborne.. Even if a fighter launched within 100NM it is going to have a long chase down to try to get there and launch a rocket prior to the escorts stopping it.

The only runway suitable (long enough) for fighters that you could realistically mount such an ambush from is the Senai Intl airport at Johor. All the other fighter suitable strips are to the north far enough to enable an AEW to retrograde (i.e KL/Kuantan/Malacca etc)

Given Johor Bahru is just over the border I doubt it would still be operational... maybe it would, I dunno. Would seem to be a bit of an oversight not to shut that runway down though, and even so anything taking off out of there is probably looking at an Inbound IHawk