Page 56 - Australian Defence Magazine February 2022

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DEFENCE BUSINESS VIEW FROM CANBERRA
FEBRUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
VIEW FROM CANBERRA
Had Australia needed to deploy F-111s, one weapon gave the Pigs a useful standoff capability – the Israeli-designed Popeye air to ground missile.
A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT | CANBERRA
THIS was a 1360 kg precision strike missile with range around 80 km with a 340 kg blast fragmentation or 360 kg penetrating warhead.
While the RAAF never fired one in anger, they did fire a few test shots, which worked as advertised.
With the early retirement of the F-111 fleet in 2010, the RAAF had no use for the 100 warshots and 30 test missiles in inventory. Defence managed to offload two plus some test kit to South Korea, then disposed of the rest by “explosive demolition” – that is, it blew them all up, most likely on the Woomera test range in 2014.
As expensive procurements go, this isn’t up there with Sea- sprite ($1 billion plus) but it’s a contender, with total costs well over $500 million.
AGM-142 is somewhat redeemed because it actually worked and would have been available for operations in the relatively brief window between successful integration and withdrawal of the F-111s.
Cabinet papers for 2001 – released by National Archives at the start of this year – add more to this little-known story. Popeye was developed by Rafael in the 1980s for the Israeli military and worked well enough to interest the US, which
needed a stand-off PGM to equip its B-52s.
Initial US inventory was supplied from Israel with subse-
quent production, including those for Australia, produced in the US by a Lockheed Martin and Rafael joint venture.
As designed, the F-111 could deliver lots of iron bombs low and fast but in the new era of better SAM defences, that wasn’t good enough, so Australia embarked on up- grade programs to improve capabilities, digitising the orig-
inal 1960s analogue avionics and adding PGM capability. So, integrating AGM-142 can’t have been that difficult, could it? In a cabinet submission in October 2001, then-De- fence Minister Peter Reith acknowledged this was one of the most complex integration projects Defence had undertaken, but a budget of $130.54 million should cover it, with IOC (two aircraft) planned for 2004 and FOC of all 21 F-111Cs
in 2006.
The project was originally approved in 1994, with AGM-
142 chosen over the shorter-range Rockwell AGM-130. FMS orders for missiles were placed in 1996 and 1998.
So, the RAAF had a full inventory of AGM-142s long be- fore they had an actual launch capability.
According to F-111 historian Mark Lax the project ran per- ilously close to cancellation, presumably due to the complex integration task. But work it eventually did and IOC was de- clared in April 2006 and FOC a year later.
However, there are better weapons available these days. When Australia acquired Super Hornets, it also acquired the Raytheon AGM-154 JSOW, which can do everything AGM-142 can do but at longer range and is also compatible with F-35.
Extending the range further, the RAAF also acquired the Lockheed Martin JASSM, but truly long-range strike capa- bility - out to around 1000 km - will come with the JASSM- ER (extended range), announced late last year. ■
ABOVE: The large AGM-142 used INS for mid-course guidance with terminal guidance by way of an EO/ IR seeker and datalink back to the launch aircraft.
NIGEL PITTAWAY