Marcus Hellyer is an idiot (apologies to all the other idiots out there).
Here is his latest example of being an idiot:
The government delivered a barrage of missile announcements over the past couple of days. It’s not easy to distinguish what’s new from a semi-announcement of something that’s already been announced or is an existing part ...
www.aspistrategist.org.au
Why is he an idiot? Read these two paragraphs from the article (read them a couple of times):
“Acquisition of the NSM raises some interesting issues. Integrating the NSM onto the F-35A has always been part of the capability program since it’s the only long-range anti-ship missile that will fit inside the F-35A’s payload bay. Arguably, it was delays to the integration of the F-35 and NSM (clearly the international Joint Strike Fighter consortium that sets the work program doesn’t regard a maritime strike weapon to be as high a priority as we do) that led to the government’s July 2020
announcement of a Plan B for maritime strike, which is to integrate the long-range anti-ship missile (LRASM) onto the Super Hornet.
“But this announcement says the NSM is being acquired for the navy’s major surface combatants, not for the F-35A. Certainly NSMs are a major improvement over the Harpoon missiles currently in navy service, particularly in terms of range and stealth. But the NSM don’t have the range of the significantly larger LRASM, so it would be interesting to hear why Defence opted for NSMs over LRASMs, although it’s always possible that LRASMs could still be acquired.”
Now before I explain why he is an idiot, he also wrote this in the article too:
“I’ll attempt to unpack three recent announcements, though I have to admit it’s a little hard to do, even for someone who follows this stuff full-time.”
So, he says “even for someone who follows this stuff full-time”, well for someone who follows “this stuff” full time, he really doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.
Integrating NSM to F-35A? What?? Seriously?
Clearly after all these many years Marcus doesn’t know the difference between NSM and JSM, clearly not.
They are NOT the same missile, NSM is a surfaced launched missile, it is box launched from either a ship or from land.
On the other hand JSM (which is a later and further evolution of NSM), is designed to be air launched from the internal weapons bay of either F-35A or F-35C (the weapons bay in F-35B is too small), it can also be potentially carried externally on all three F-35 models (has also been externally test fitted to Super Hornet).
This is not just a ‘typo’, not a simple mistake calling JSM the NSM. Multiple times he refers to NSM and F-35A together, no mention of JSM, it’s not a simple mistake.
He also goes on to ‘claim’ that there are delays in NSM (read JSM) integration onto F-35A is not a ‘high’ priority, what??
My understanding is that Norway and Japan have ordered JSM, Finland plans to, and of course there is still the potential for the RAAF.
Delays are related to Block 4, not that NSM (read JSM) is not a priority for the nations that have it on order.
He also clearly is confused regarding the claim the ADF acquired NSM over LRASM, again what??
The old ship based Harpoon is being replaced by NSM, but air launched Harpoon on Super Hornet (and probably Poseidon) is being replaced by LRASM, and potentially in the future on F-35A.
Anyway.....
Rant almost over, I’ve got a generic contact email address for ASPI, does anyone here have a direct email for Marcus? (I want to email him directly).
One last parting shot, before linking articles from ASPI here on DT, have a good read and think, it could be another idiot post.
Cheers,
PS, here is a NSM and JSM spec sheet: