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

[hauritz]

This is from the Defence department.

https://www.airforce.gov.au/our-work/projects-and-programs/ghost-bat

One has to wonder why both government ( Defence ) and private enterprise are putting so much energy into this project.

This is not a flight of fantasy, but a real project to explore this realm.
No doubt clever people asking broad and challenging questions to conceptualise an unmanned platform to operate with fast air.
Now from paper concept to a working physical system in an amazing short period of time is an impressive achievement.

Next will be testing of the system and then operating it with manned aircraft.
Test, modify, explore, test again and again. Adjust.

This project is getting energy and commitment.

Will it work or not is for the future.
However I'd suggest enough people within this space have confidence that there is a future in this realm to persevere and explore this space.

Will Ghost bat be expensive and a challenge to maintain. No doubt it will.

But the project exists for a reason.
I suggest it has a big future.
Then again so do manned aircraft

Cheers S

While it will be nice if it did work as advertised, it still has value as a deterent. Frankly I am skeptical that AI will work as well as advertised, I am also skeptical about the value of lasers, hypersonic missiles, strategic bombers, missile defence systems and a range of other equipment currently being touted as ground breaking technology by their manufacturers.

If GhostBat works out you will have a massive capability that will end up costing less than an additional squadron of F-35s. If not, then just hope the Chinese don't find out we just spent a fortune on glorified model aeroplanes.

 

[Volkodav]

I was thinking of the factories that produced tanks like the t-34 and other artillery

To hit factories requires precision bombing, i.e. the massed day time raids the USAAF 8th Airforce undertook.

 

[Takao]

This is from the Defence department.

https://www.airforce.gov.au/our-work/projects-and-programs/ghost-bat

One has to wonder why both government ( Defence ) and private enterprise are putting so much energy into this project.

But the project exists for a reason.
I suggest it has a big future.
Then again so do manned aircraft

Cheers S

You misunderstand me; I'm a fan of uncrewed vehicles for many roles.

What I am critical of is those who think they are an easy replacement for crewed capabilities. Those that think a DJI drone carrying a RPG is the same as an MQ-28. Those that think drones are a cheats way to mass. Uncrewed platforms are going to be wonderful force multipliers, but they come at a cost.

One day someone is going to tell the story of how MQ-28 only exists because of two field grade Army officers. There isn't an avoidance of drones in Defence....

 

[south]

Noting the 20 year anniversary of the Iraq invasion was recently, it actually raised an astounding story that, honestly, begs real questions about the purchase of any long range strike assets.

Noting we couldn't begin to get half of that intelligence against any likely threat, how on earth will we target all this long range stuff? And note the civilian casualty count - can Australia stomach that? Command and control targets are legitimate military targets, but when you keep missing?

When it’s all said and done, targeting individuals is hard. Because they move, often frequently. They can be discrete and have a relatively small footprint..

Factories and military warehouses, POL storage, airfields, docks, and barracks, well.. they don’t move so much.

I assume you are including HIMARS and PRSM in the issues with targeting?

 

[Gooey]

I don't see Germany possessing strategic bombers in 1940 would have made any difference at all as their bases were in France etc. attacking across the Channel.

I was meaning more their mind set; a Joint tactical air force being tasked to undertake a single service strategic role which they had not planned or trained for mind set. Witness their mess of targeting during the battle. Although many of the bombers were also unsuitable for the Tommy bashing role eg. Stuka and He-111 and Do-17. A VLR bomber would have given them many more attack/payload options for BoB as well as the 1941 adventure further East.

Admittedly the RAF didn't have a VLR aeroplane either at that stage but it was the dirty Bosh who kicked the whole thing off (from 1914 if you like) and they had no problems targeting civilian centres in the Spanish Civil War which they repeated in Poland and the Low Lands. They too thought all you needed was tactical air to support armies; ultimately loosing air supremacy due to the Allied Bombing Campaign and eventually, after much Combined goodness, the war.

Re your Ghost Bat comments: absolutely, they are useful, expensive and complex and C2 dependent Air Combat enablers. I can't see them replacing humans, more supplementing them for ever more complex missions. Certainly not something the Army could manage ... boom, boom! I'd guess that they are going to be useful AA missile trucks, Non Kinetic Ops platforms (EW, comms etc), and HVAA (E-7, KC-30, ISR etc) escorts, but that's just a wild flight of fancy. My two observations are: they may possibly be something that Australia could manufacture homeplate which gives us some attrition resilience; and, that they are possibly easier to modify for flexability than say a F-35A.

 

[swerve]

Would though strategic bombers for Nazi Germany have allowed them to attack the Russian heavy armaments industries at the outset before they had time to move to the Urals have made a difference?

I doubt it. They'd have needed better targeting information than they had (Stalin's USSR didn't publish the locations of all its civilian factories, let alone arms factories), & quite a lot of bombers. How many tactical bombers & fighters would they have to give up?

 

[seaspear]

I doubt it. They'd have needed better targeting information than they had (Stalin's USSR didn't publish the locations of all its civilian factories, let alone arms factories), & quite a lot of bombers. How many tactical bombers & fighters would they have to give up?

The Germans and Soviets had conspired from the 1920,s on creating secret arms developments in Russia in contravention of the Versailles agreement this provided a boost to Russia in its military technology of the time which later of course backfired, so it could be expected they had god knowledge of where Soviet factories were before they were moved
Devil’s Bargain: Germany and Russia Before WWII (historynet.com)

 

[swerve]

The Germans and Soviets had conspired from the 1920,s on creating secret arms developments in Russia in contravention of the Versailles agreement this provided a boost to Russia in its military technology of the time which later of course backfired, so it could be expected they had god knowledge of where Soviet factories were before they were moved
Devil’s Bargain: Germany and Russia Before WWII (historynet.com)

They weren't given free rein to wander around the USSR. They went to specific sites. They knew about those places, but not most Soviet factories. Quite a lot of those operating when the Germans invaded weren't even built when German-Soviet cooperation ended, or were making civilian goods. And it was all over by 1933.

BTW, one very big tank factory was in Stalingrad - built with American help & machinery (paid for, of course), opened in 1930 to build both wheeled & tracked tractors, & adapted (as soon as the Americans had gone home) to also build tanks . . . Nizhny Tagil - 1936. Two in Leningrad 1932 & 1936 (moved to Tankograd 1941). Chelyabinsk (Tankograd) 1933, massively expanded 1941-2. Sverdlovsk 1933. The Germans had left or were leaving when that lot got started. And that's just tanks.

 

[John Fedup]

The Germans and Soviets had conspired from the 1920,s on creating secret arms developments in Russia in contravention of the Versailles agreement this provided a boost to Russia in its military technology of the time which later of course backfired, so it could be expected they had god knowledge of where Soviet factories were before they were moved
Devil’s Bargain: Germany and Russia Before WWII (historynet.com)

Interesting read, one has to wonder how things would have been different had Stalin not purged much of his German trained military leadership. Had this not occurred, would the German high command been more reluctant towards Hitler's eastern ambitions to the point of disposing of him?

 

[Takao]

When it’s all said and done, targeting individuals is hard. Because they move, often frequently. They can be discrete and have a relatively small footprint..

Ah yes, but that's where the past 20 years has pushed us. The fetish with SF raids, the whack a mole strategy - I've done more than one planning session where 'the answer' was hitting the REDFOR's senior people. I have no problems doing that on a tactical level - if you don't shoot at the T-80 with four antenna you are an idiot - but as a strategy it's infected us.

Factories and military warehouses, POL storage, airfields, docks, and barracks, well.. they don’t move so much.

True. But they bring in the second great 'do not ask' question - the weight of weapons fire needed to kill them. If a poorly defended airfield in Syria takes 70 cruise missiles to partially knock out for a while, what targets do we expect v hope to go after?

I assume you are including HIMARS and PRSM in the issues with targeting?

Yup. Well, maybe not HIMARS, but all long-range fires. It's not a service specific dig. I've long been against the Land Force having land-based anti-shipping missiles for targeting reasons. But anything beyond the tactical battlefield needs dedicated targeting, intelligence gathering and assessment. We probably have the latter, but the first two? I'm not convinced.

 

[Jason_DBF]

Ah yes, but that's where the past 20 years has pushed us. The fetish with SF raids, the whack a mole strategy - I've done more than one planning session where 'the answer' was hitting the REDFOR's senior people. I have no problems doing that on a tactical level - if you don't shoot at the T-80 with four antenna you are an idiot - but as a strategy it's infected us.



True. But they bring in the second great 'do not ask' question - the weight of weapons fire needed to kill them. If a poorly defended airfield in Syria takes 70 cruise missiles to partially knock out for a while, what targets do we expect v hope to go after?



Yup. Well, maybe not HIMARS, but all long-range fires. It's not a service specific dig. I've long been against the Land Force having land-based anti-shipping missiles for targeting reasons. But anything beyond the tactical battlefield needs dedicated targeting, intelligence gathering and assessment. We probably have the latter, but the first two? I'm not convinced.

The ADF operates as a joint force if the army has a land based anti ship missile available all targeting information will be provided to it.

 

[Volkodav]

The ADF operates as a joint force if the army has a land based anti ship missile available all targeting information will be provided to it.

Arguably ISR is often more critical than terminal effects. If you don't know where the target is, you can't strike, even if you have a complete overmatch in strike assets.

This is a gap we have progressively been filling for years now, we are getting better at, acquiring a greater variety of capabilities, and perfecting their use.

Also disrupting, preferably, breaking the opposition's kill chain should be out priority.

I too question the utility of the army having mobile anti ship missiles in the army orbat. With a small coastline , maybe but it just makes no sense IMO when you look at the size of the region.

Why are we mounting such weapons on trucks when we have two thirds of the ships we call combatants, armed with nothing more than a 25mm and a pair of 50cals?

 

[Redlands18]

Arguably ISR is often more critical than terminal effects. If you don't know where the target is, you can't strike, even if you have a complete overmatch in strike assets.

Also known as the Battle of Midway, a perfect example of this. History is replete with "inferior" forces defeating "superior" forces simply because better ISR put their forces in the right place at the right moment.

 

[seaspear]

In regards to missiles on trucks I'm not sure of any feasibilities conducted but if a unmanned remotely operated truck with missiles was sited somewhere strategic that it could attack or even wait to attack high value targets it may possibly do operations naval or air could not without risk, this article goes into more details how the U.S army is considering missile armed platforms for its forces
Army Eyes Unmanned Launcher Trucks Able To Fire Missiles Loaded With Swarming Munitions (thedrive.com)

 

[Vivendi]

You misunderstand me; I'm a fan of uncrewed vehicles for many roles.

What I am critical of is those who think they are an easy replacement for crewed capabilities. Those that think a DJI drone carrying a RPG is the same as an MQ-28. Those that think drones are a cheats way to mass. Uncrewed platforms are going to be wonderful force multipliers, but they come at a cost.

Yes they come at a cost. Nevertheless, the USAF is counting on "drones" (or loyal wingmen) generate mass. As a first order estimate, the initial plan aims at around 1,000 loyal wingmen to support 200 NGAD, and 300 F-35 (this together with the low production rates of F-35 even at lot-17 makes me wonder if the USAF is considering to cut F-35 procurement from 1,763 to a much lower number...).

"We're shooting for [a] CCA to be a fraction of the cost of an F-35," Kendall said at the roundtable without offering further granular details about expected costs. "One of my motivators... in initiating the CCA program was the affordability of the Air Force."

Kendall continued by saying that the Air Force would become "unaffordable" if it continued to only buy current generation aircraft like the F-35A and F-15EX, as well as future NGAD combat jets, and that CCAs will offer additional "affordable mass." He added that "if we ask for too much [of the CCAs] we're gonna get bogged down trying to get what we need" and that the drones didn't need to be "gold-plated" to provide important additional operational advantages.

200 NGAD Fighters, 1,000 Advanced Drones In USAF's Future Plans (thedrive.com)

It remains to be seen how this will work out of course -- it has happened before that projects have not developed according to plan, and delays and cost increases seem to always happen especially with these kind of projects. But for now, a massive amount of drones seems to be the official policy of the USAF.

 

[seaspear]

The U.S.A.F does not have the sole lead in drone warfare this article from Asia Pacific provides outlines on how
Chinas electronic warfare drones are deployed to counter opposing drones and can be used with attacking strategies even on 24 hour patrols
China unveils game-changing electronic warfare drones – Asia Times

 

[spoz]

The ADF operates as a joint force if the army has a land based anti ship missile available all targeting information will be provided to it.

Agreed, provided they are included in, and able to both interpret and contribute, to a common tactical picture. I have no desire to be involved in a blue on blue incident; and I have vivid memories of an Army manned watercraft wandering through a Naval live fire exercise because they did not appreciate it was taking place. There was fault on both sides, but that is irrelevant. It would not have occurred if they either had been under Navy OpCon or had assess to the required data.

 

[Bob53]

I read a 3 years ago that SDB2 Stormbreaker had been approved for sale to Australia.

Australia – GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb Increment II (SDB II) | Defense Security Cooperation Agency

www.dsca.mil

Pardon if previously discussed here but has this sale been completed? I couldn’t find any detail to say the order went ahead?

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/SiteCollectionDocuments/Reports/2010/August%202010/Day25/SDBII_factsheet_0810.pdf

Check Out These F-35s Dropping Full Loads Of Small Diameter Bombs During A Test Mission

It's one of the F-35's most versatile and critical weapons, and it's about to get a whole lot more capable.

www.thedrive.com

Impressive capability With integration on SHornet and F35.

 

[south]

Ah yes, but that's where the past 20 years has pushed us. The fetish with SF raids, the whack a mole strategy - I've done more than one planning session where 'the answer' was hitting the REDFOR's senior people. I have no problems doing that on a tactical level - if you don't shoot at the T-80 with four antenna you are an idiot - but as a strategy it's infected us.

Not sure what specifics you’re referring to, so hard to comment.

True. But they bring in the second great 'do not ask' question - the weight of weapons fire needed to kill them. If a poorly defended airfield in Syria takes 70 cruise missiles to partially knock out for a while, what targets do we expect v hope to go after?

No doubt; one of the reasons why I’d argue Tomahawk on Hobart isn’t… great… Need a few more VLS (although you could argue the point on the effectiveness of the strike on Shayrat). I am seeking clarification on if you’re suggesting that the doctine/employment model is wrong, e.g. would you suggest that Stick to CAS from the overhead? Or ‘Put a tank on the runway’?

Yup. Well, maybe not HIMARS, but all long-range fires. It's not a service specific dig. I've long been against the Land Force having land-based anti-shipping missiles for targeting reasons. But anything beyond the tactical battlefield needs dedicated targeting, intelligence gathering and assessment. We probably have the latter, but the first two? I'm not convinced.

No I fully understand. Just highlighting that some commentators seem to think that acquiring said platforms - without due consideration of where to point them will come from - solves all problems.

 

[seaspear]

I read a 3 years ago that SDB2 Stormbreaker had been approved for sale to Australia.

Australia – GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb Increment II (SDB II) | Defense Security Cooperation Agency

www.dsca.mil

Pardon if previously discussed here but has this sale been completed? I couldn’t find any detail to say the order went ahead?

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/SiteCollectionDocuments/Reports/2010/August%202010/Day25/SDBII_factsheet_0810.pdf

Check Out These F-35s Dropping Full Loads Of Small Diameter Bombs During A Test Mission

It's one of the F-35's most versatile and critical weapons, and it's about to get a whole lot more capable.

www.thedrive.com

Impressive capability With integration on SHornet and F35.

They are very capable but not new as per the article on Russia's deployment of such
russians Started to Actively Use Guided Air Bombs in Ukraine: Which Kinds Exist, What is the Threat and How to Counter | Defense Express (defence-ua.com)
Or we could go back to WW2 the Fritz X guided anti ship bomb