Page 29 - Williams Foundation Air-Sea Integration Seminar

Shaping an Integrated Force in the Extended Battlespace

Group Captain Hombsch drew upon his own P-3 experience to highlight the transition. He noted that he had
just returned from RIMPAC 2016, where the Aussie P-3 made its last appearance.
The P-3 has made significant contributions to Australian security, but would fly to the point of interest based
on intelligence provided to it and the pick up the tracks on a platform or set of assets of interest.
With the P-8 and Triton, it was a whole new game as the planes operated in the battlespace from take off
and were working from the outset with a variety of SRG and ADF assets to shape a maritime domain
awareness strike capability which would become pervasive in the extended battlespace.
Indeed, one of the more interesting parts of the briefing was the discussion on strike, because classic ISR is
separated from strike in terms of understanding its role, largely understood in terms of specialized platforms
informing specialized strike platforms of targeting options.
With the new ISR platforms, not only did they carry strike options, but the strike platforms like F-35 were also
ISR platforms, which meant that a significant rethink of how to operate these platforms in an integrated
manner was required.

FIGURE 13 SLIDE FROM GROUP CAPTAIN HOMBSCH PRESENTATION AT THE SEMINAR

Group Captain Hombsch underscored that Link 16 was now present on all key SRG platforms, which meant
that they could operate as a connected force.
Clearly, it was important not to just rely on a single network, and indeed he focused on the way ahead in
shaping network redundancy and training the operators ways to operate in a multi-domain network
environment, including a dark one.
Training was a key theme in which the shift from operating singular platforms supporting singular tasks to
multi-tasking missions required new skill sets and new approaches to training. He underscored that the focus
was increasingly upon training operators to work in a world of integrated force TTPs.

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