Page 36 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb-Mar 2023

36 DEFENCE BUSINESS AEGIS
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
AEGIS NOTCHES UP FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE
The Royal Australian Navy notched up five years of operations with the Lockheed Martin Aegis combat system on 23 September 2022.
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
ON that day five years before, the first of the Navy’s three Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyers, HMAS Hobart, was commissioned into service during a ceremony at Fleet Base East in Sydney Harbour.
The ensuing half-decade has been a learning curve for the RAN as it comes to grips with not only the capabilities of the much-vaunted Aegis system itself, but also the utility
the region such as the US Navy, the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF), and the Republic of Korea Navy (RoKN).
In terms of learning to become an “Aegis Navy” such as the USN, JMSDF and RoKN, Catterson says the RAN’s strong partnership with the US Navy has been fundamen- tal to the journey so far.
“As far as learning and leveraging from the JMSDF and RoKN in terms of operating Aegis, Aegis opened the door to conversations that we hadn't previously had before. Pre- viously we've had some really good bilateral exercises, but they've been focused on working together as a country and the higher-level strategic bilateral relationships,” he explains.
“When you turn up with an Aegis destroyer, it becomes about the warfighting outcomes and interoperability. It's a common language across navies and, by becoming an Aegis Navy, we suddenly have so much more in common with countries we don’t necessarily share a maritime heritage – with countries that weren't derived from Royal Navy’s operations and functions.
“But suddenly, we speak a common language. And we know, broadly, what those capabilities and limitations are; we know how to employ each other's ships to best effect within that region. So, those important exercises became so much more important in terms of the function, because we could progress outcomes that we hadn't necessarily been able to do previously and to continue to build those strong relationships within the region.”
AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITIES
Being an Aegis navy in the Indo-Pacific may present op- portunities for local industry to expand its capabilities too, says Lockheed Martin Australia’s Integrated Warfare Sys- tems and Sensors Line of Business Lead Rob Milligan.
Milligan says that Lockheed Martin Australia has built a cadre of around 120 engineers, project managers, ITAR control managers and commercial managers that are avail-
ABOVE RIGHT: HMAS Brisbane returns to Fleet Base East, Sydney
provided by the Hobart-class’ Lockheed Martin AN/SPY- 1D 360-degree electronically scanned radar.
WORKING UP AN AEGIS CAPABILITY
Liam Catterson, Rotary and Mission Systems Business De- velopment Manager – Maritime for Lockheed Martin Aus- tralia, was a Maritime Warfare Officer during his previous career in the RAN and also one of the commissioning crew in HMAS Hobart.
“Aegis is more than a combat system, it’s actually a fight- ing philosophy and it’s a way of posturing the fleet; and the depth of fire associated with it has in many ways brought the RAN into the 21st century,” he says.
“It forced us in a positive way to make changes to how we did mission planning, about how we employ capabilities and how we thought about task group defence. And that shift in fighting philosophy has been driving the interop- erability between the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Australian Navy, as well as some of our allies within
LOCKHEED MARTIN AUSTRALIA
LEFT: Lockheed Martin Australia’s Aegis team