Page 36 - Australian Defence Magazine February 2022

36 GUIDED WEAPONS
FEBRUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
STRIKING WITH PRECISION
Foreshadowed in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update (DSU) and Force Structure Plan (FSP), the ADF’s precision weapons capability has received a major boost in the past 12 months, especially in the wake of the AUKUS announcement in September.
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
SINCE January 2021, the government has announced the acquisition of naval missiles, air defence missiles, air- launched long-range precision strike weapons, a land-based long range strike missile, an agreement with the US to de- velop an air-launched hypersonic weapon and the establish- ment of a sovereign missile manufacturing enterprise.
The DSU and FSP documents highlight growing concern over the long-range precision strike capabilities of poten- tial regional adversaries and acknowledge the ADF’s mod- est size places it at a numerical disadvantage. Accordingly, the need to counter emerging weapons exhibiting increased range, speed, precision and lethality calls for more potent capabilities, able to hold an adversary’s forces and infra- structure at risk at much greater distances from Australia.
“The 2020 DSU and FSP outlined the need for Defence to act with greater independence in an increasingly con- tested strategic environment, including the addition of ad-
ditional long-range strike capabilities,” a Defence spokes- person told ADM recently.
Although most of the attention following the AUKUS announcement focussed on nuclear-powered submarines, buried in the detail were some insights into what the ADF can also expect to receive in coming years. This included news that the sovereign missile enterprise will be acceler- ated and Senior Correspondent Julian Kerr analyses this initiative in-depth on page 40 of this issue.
AIR-LAUNCHED WEAPONS
In February 2020, the US State Department approved an FMS sale to Australia of up to 200 Lockheed Martin AGM- 158C, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASMs) at a cost of up to US$990 million (A$1.36 billion at the time of writing).
LRASM is armed with a penetrator and blast fragmentation warhead and employs precision routing and guidance, a multi-
LOCKHEED MARTIN