Page 39 - Williams Foundation Air-Sea Integration Seminar

Shaping an Integrated Force in the Extended Battlespace

“Similarly, how do I ensure these aircraft, plus the Australian bespoke Wedgetail can work effectively with
the RAN LHD and Air Warfare Destroyer to achieve a Maritime support or strike mission?

“It’s a good problem to have to ensure that we get the maximum collective capability out of our individual
platforms in the Australian context, which means we’ve got to make them work with each other.

“Larger forces, like the US, may not have that same requirement, because they’ve got other assets that can do
various specialized missions.

“And we face a major challenge to ensure that our new air platforms work in an integrated manner with
evolving Navy and Army capabilities.

“We must shape solutions which support our Australian Concept of Operations.

Our force also obviously needs to be “integratable” and/or interoperable with the US and other allies, but
we won’t get there fully by simply buying US C2 and ISR systems.

“Not only do we need to make a particular platform or system work for Australia within our ADF capability
context, but we need to ensure that it’s truly interoperable in a coalition as well.

“This is a real challenge, because there are security issues, restrictions and requirements that exist that must be
overcome to realize true high-level interoperability.

“However, solving these problems is far better than trying to keep something that’s 30-year-old flying and
make it work with the new equipment coming on line.

“To solve these challenges, we are focused on prioritizing and integrating only the things that you ‘should’ to
make a more lethal and effective force.

“There is no need for all our capabilities to be fully connected to each other, there are levels of connectivity
that will suffice, especially initially. We must priorities and identify what we ‘should’ do, and to what level,
vice embark on a program of doing what we ‘can’ do.

“A component of the RAAF Project Jericho involves this kind of thinking and is looking at our Air, Maritime and
land capabilities, determining the art of the possible with respect to connectivity, and then suggesting levels
and priorities that should be pursued.

“This also includes components in the virtual and constructive areas such that we can also train more effectively
in the joint arena.

“Improving our training capacity by complementing live training with virtual and constructive is vital, especially
where availability of the scarce live resources necessary to generate a complex training scenario are limited,
and security restrictions could inhibit operating live at appropriate levels.”

Question: You have done a lot of worked to shape a fifth-generation enabled force, prior to the F-35
showing up.

How will the F-35 fit into that evolving effort?

Air Commodore Kitcher: “The F35 introduction’s is catalyst for significant change.

“Although the jets don’t arrive in Australia until the end of 2018, and IOC is not until the end of 2020, believe
me, we are right in the middle of introducing the F-35A into service.

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