Page 51 - Williams Foundation Future of Electronic Warfare Seminar

A New Approach and Attitude to Electronic Warfare in Australia

And of course, all of the test jigs and all of the capability to manage those few items also benefit from the
modularity.

So you end up with a whole different way of manufacturing, testing, integrating, and delivering high
capability at low cost.

Editor’s Note: Ensuring that one can get the kind of cross-learning, cross-training and cross-development
necessary for software upgradeable air, ground and sea systems to work with one another to deliver
distributed electronic warfare payloads in the integrated battlespace requires several other challenges to
be met.

The first is sorting out how to train cross platform, but here pairing of platforms provides an important
tool set to get a handle on such developments.
The second is ensuring that the TTPs being developed cross-platform inform development efforts so that
integration is built in.

The third is configuring a security system within which such combat learning can be empowered.

The next pieces address these issues and the challenges to shaping an effective way ahead.

The Way Ahead for the RAAF in the Joint Forces Space and the Coming of
the F-35: The Perspective of Air Commodore Kitcher

2016-09-04

Prior to the Williams Foundation seminar on air-sea integration, I had a chance to sit down with Air
Commodore Kitcher and to discuss the way ahead for the RAAF in the joint combat space.

He was then the Director General of Capability Planning in the RAAF. He has recently been appointed
Commander Air Combat Group.

Air Commodore Kitcher provided an understanding of how the RAAF was integrating its new platforms into
the force, and how opening the aperture from the outset on joint capability was affecting that roll out as well.
Question: It is often noted in the USAF that 80% of the platforms which will make up the 2025 force are
already here.

What is the RAAF’s perspective?

Air Commodore Kitcher: "It is somewhat different from the USAF. And our challenge is also somewhat
different. By 2025 our oldest platform will be a C130J, which remains the most modern C130 available.
"In 2025, we're not going to be operating a platform in the air combat space that's 20 years old. In Australia,
we don't have to integrate an F35 with an F16, or an F35 with the classic Hornet.

"We will be operating some of the latest and most capable platforms across the air lift, control of the air,
strike and ISR roles and our challenge is to get best combat value out of an integrated Australian and
coalition force using these cutting edge capabilities.

"We'll retire classic Hornet, and introduce the F35-A which is much more than a replacement for the Classic.
Our other air combat asset are our Super Hornets, which are only 5 years old, and both will be supported
(amongst many other things) by Growlers, which will arrive in Australia next year.

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