Page 38 - Australian Defence Magazine February 2022

38 GUIDED WEAPONS
FEBRUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
The Block II variant of the ESSM weapon adds an ad- vanced dual-mode seeker and will enhance Navy’s short- range air defence capabilities. The missile will initially be integrated with the Anzac-class frigates and replace stocks of ESSM Block I weapons.
The Prime Minister’s AUKUS press release mentioned the future acquisition of Raytheon BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) for the Navy’s Hobart-class destroyers, but there has been no formal announcement to date. According to Defence, the addition of the weapon is not “directly tied” to the Destroyer Capability Enhance- ment program due to begin in 2024.
At the same time as the Sea 1300 weapons were an- nounced back in January 2021, Minister Reynolds an- nounced the acquisition of a land strike missile with a range of 1,500 km, but provided no further details. The Tomahawk in its latest (Block V) configuration is reportedly capable of striking targets at ranges of up to 1,600 km and is therefore also likely to form part of Sea 1300.
LAND-BASED STRIKE WEAPONS
In April 2021, Australia signed a Memorandum of Under- standing with the US Office of the Deputy Assistant Secre- tary of the Army for Defense
Exports and Co-operation
fence systems to be engaged and also increase lethality and range. The US Army is seeking to field the baseline PrSM capability by the end of 2023.
The 2016 White Paper forecast acquisition of a long- range rocket artillery system for the ADF in the middle of this decade and this requirement was subsequently reaf- firmed in the DSU 2020 and FSP 2020 documents.
PrSM can be launched from Lockheed Martin’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which US forces have deployed to Australia for Talisman Sabre exercises, but in August Defence said no acquisition deci- sions had been made.
“Entering the PrSM co-development MoU does not oblige Australia to purchase the capability, or constitute a deci- sion to acquire HIMARS,” a Defence spokesperson said.
HYPERSONIC WEAPONS
DST Group has been involved in the development of hyper- sonic weapons for several years and from 2007 participated in the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimen- tation (HIFiRE) program in collaboration with the University of Queensland, US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), BAE Systems Australia and Boeing Phantom Works.
(DASA) to partner in devel- opment of the latter’s Preci- sion Guided Strike Missile (PrGSM) program and this was formally announced by the current Defence Minister Peter Dutton in August.
“FUTURE GOVERNMENT DECISIONS REGARDING INVESTMENT IN NAVY’S STANDARD MISSILE INVENTORY WILL BE DELIBERATELY STAGED TO LEVERAGE UPGRADES TO THE AEGIS COMBAT SYSTEM AND ASSOCIATED AUSTRALIAN INTERFACE FROM THE MID-2020S”
HIFiRE was designed to provide an understanding of technology required to con- duct sustained hypersonic flight and was succeeded in December 2020 by the South- ern Cross Integrated Flight Re- search Experiment (SCIFiRE) program, to be undertaken in partnership with the US.
The US Army requires a
surface strike weapon with a
range of between 70 and ‘over 400’ km and, under the re- cent agreement, Australia will contribute $70 million to the US$907 million PrSM program to increase lethality, range and target engagement of the baseline weapon.
Increment 1 will allow the engagement of a variety of tar- gets at ranges ‘beyond 400 km’, but focusses on imprecisely located areas and point targets. Increment 2 – covered under the MoU – will further boost capability by adding an enhanced seeker, enabling surface vessels and air de-
Defence said SCIFiRE will develop and test a prototype air-launched hypersonic cruise missile by leveraging previous work conducted with the US into advanced materials, rocket motors, scramjets and sen- sors. The aim is to develop a propulsion-launched, scram- jet-powered, weapon capable of travelling at speeds up to Mach 5, with service entry in the late 2020s or early 2030s. The SCFiRE agreement was signed during AUSMIN discussions in Washington in July 2020 and announced by then-Defence Minister Reynolds on 1 December. The de- velopment and manufacture of hypersonic weapons, together with Precision Guided Munitions and Integrated Air and Missile Defence systems, forms one of the addition- al sovereign industrial capability priorities announced by Minister for Defence Indus-
try Melissa Price on 26 August.
“The capabilities covered by these new
priorities are essential to maintaining the Australian Defence Force’s combat edge,” Minister Price said. ■
LEFT: The Precision Strike Missile is designed to be launched from an M142 HIMARS unit.
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