Oh, the joys of a commodity currency in a commodities super cycle. When you combine a nasty recession, a dilapidated US dollar, and the usual summer sales, a day’s shopping in San Francisco got me some very nice goods at ridiculously low Australian dollar prices. And the Australian government might just get similarly lucky on its biggest ever defence purchase.
Labor has decided to continue with the purchase of the interim “Super Hornet” to allow the early retirement of our elderly F-111 fighters - the one that Brendan Nelson announced to considerable controversy last year. A review into the replacement of the F-18 Hornet continues, with the question of whether the Joint Strike Fighter, the preferred long-term option for the RAAF, would be available in a timely manner, at an affordable price, and have sufficient capabilities. Well, courtesy of the strength of the Australian dollar, the head of the military procurement department, the Defence Materials Organization, says we’ll get the things at an affordable price.
“I would be surprised that we would be paying more than about 75 million Aussie US dollars a copy for the aircraft, measured in 2008 US dollars,” he told a parliamentary committee…Dr Gumley said there was much confusion about the likely JSF price and it all depended on what variant of the aircraft Australia actually purchased in what year and at what foreign exchange rate.
I’m trying to dig up the relevant committee transcript, but a search of Hansard hasn’t turned it up yet. However, there’s several things to note about this. Firstly, the $75 million number shouldn’t be directly compared to the $250 million per aircraft of the Super Hornet deal. I strongly suspect the number quoted is a “fly-away” cost, whereas the Super Hornet number is the full program cost. But, even taking that into account, the relativities in the numbers are rather strange. I’d love to know what exchange rate was assumed for the Super Hornet purchase, and what hedging, if any, has been undertaken.
The second thing to keep in mind is that while the JSF benefits from the changes in the currency, so do the alternatives, particularly the American options. More Super Hornets, or the alternative super-plane, the F-22 Raptor, have similarly become much cheaper. The current affordability of the JSF is almost entirely an issue of the currency movement. If the Australian dollar was to go back to 60 US cents - which seems unlikely now, but, heck, who predicted the current levels - the price would go back up to the “high” estimates quoted in The Age article of 120 million AUD.
Assuming our luck with a high Australian dollar holds, this raises another interesting question for the government. What’s it going to do with the saved money? Will it be spent on more war toys - like the idea of buying a few jump-jet versions of the JSF to fly off the Navy’s new helicopter carrier ships? Will it cover shortfalls elsewhere in the defence budget, such as to cover the inevitable cost blowouts in indigenous defence purchases like the Air Warfare Destroyers? Or to cover the salary increases that probably be required to attract and maintain personnel in a job market that will likely tighten further over the next decade ? Or will the government use the opportunity to redirect some money out of defence?
“Or will the government use the opportunity to redirect some money out of defence?”
I will go with that!
It would be nice to think that we had stunning schools, hospitals, aged care facilties and public transport.
In short, a compassionate society worth defending rather than an expensive ‘boy- toy’ junkyard.
joe2: but if you want to make that case, it pays to get an understanding of what the war toys are for, and why some people think we might need them. That’s why I try to cover these issues, despite the fact that a lot of people find them very uninteresting.
Robert, I am quite skeptical of the ability of the ADF - or indeed, most militaries - to plan for future operational needs effectively. One issue is that, even in its intended role of strike and air superiority, the JSF appears to be a second-best option compared to the F-22 (as I’m sure you’re aware, the Air Power Australia website covers the deficiencies of the JSF in some detail.)
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A slightly broader question, which cuts at ccross-purposes to the “air superiority at all costs” approach of the APA group, is whether we need a new fighter plane at all. Low-intensity warfare of the Afghanistan variety would require mainly cargo planes and robust ground attack aircraft like the A-10.
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Finally, should the RAAF continue to be highly funded to its current extent? Infantry and special forces are likely to be far more important and useful assets in future operations in our region.
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In summary, no, we don’t need the JSF, even if the strength of the Aussie dollar means we are getting a “bargain.”
Robert, I have done my best to follow the latest high-tech wizardry that we supposedly need, but continue to be struck by the madness of it all. Nelson seemed to have an open budget on defence while our basics were let to run down.
20 Billion is easily found for paranoid, ferarri style aeroplanes etc, while the rest of us end up with second class services.
“Only” $75 Million a pop? Geez, what a bargain.
I bet they’ll chuck-in a set of steak knives for free with each plane too.
I don’t understand why people keep mentioning the F-22 Raptor as an option.
The Raptor is an interceptor, its only for air-to-air dogfighting. It wont do what we need it to do, we need a multi-role fighter, thats why the RAAF wants the JSF.
And that is ignoring the fact it is illegal for the USA to sell the Raptor to other countries due to a pull passed during the X-22 project’s early days.
*bill not pull, obviously.
Sorry to nitpick, but IMHO it’s a bit misleading to describe the F-111 as a fighter. Their main ob is to blow up stuff on the surface, not stuff in the air. So bomber or perhaps strike fighter.
Brett: I know. As I understand it, they were purchased for, essentially, doing a re-run of Dam Busters but over Jakarta. But it’s generally considered impolite to say so…
Stephen Lloyd: not entirely true. One of the roles the F-22 is taking over is that of the F-117: that is, dropping one or two JDAMs on a heavily defended target. There is also the new Small Diameter Bomb, of which the F-22 can apparently carry eight internally. And it can carry weapons externally if you don’t mind losing stealth.
However, integration of a whole bunch of things that Australia would want, notably the JASSM cruise missile and an anti-shipping missile, haven’t been done and aren’t likely to be done by the USA.
But we already have a non-stealthy aircraft that can carry both of those things: the Super Hornets. Brand new, in fact. So there is the theoretical possibility of a mixed fleet of F-22s and Super Hornets, with the F-22\s gradually upgraded to carry more weapons over time.
If you think that plausible opposition air forces are likely to get aircraft that outmatch (or are even a plausible match) for the JSF over the next 30 years - not likely in the next decade, but not out of the question for 2020 and beyond, that kind of mixed fleet might be more capable than an all-JSF one.
It just bothers me that, the weaknesses of Russian-equipped air forces are things that seem to me to be fixable over time; the weaknesses of a JSF-equipped air force are much harder because they’re inherent in the airframe.
Cargo planes, yes; and Australia bought some.
But the A-10 is meant for fighting high intensity battles against hard machinery — tanks, APCs etc. In Afghanistan the work horse for low intensity fighting is the B52. Modern precision bombing means it can strike anything that a soldier points to with a very small margin of error. The size of the B52 means it can circle a battlefield for hours, strike dozens of targets with a few seconds of notice, and remain out of the range of shoulder-launched anti air.
So funnily enough, the big bomber has come into its own … for something almost completely unlike its original mission.
Basically correct, with the nuclear strike option left open as well, or course, if we had to go down that path (which fortunately we did not).
True, but really done as a species of stunt to help get funding from the US Congress. F-22 is a ‘pure’ air superiority acft and is designed for beyond-visual-range work. Within-visual-range combat is now suicidal, as WVR missiles can turn well in excess of 50G now, they simply cannot be evaded. It is also arguable that F-22 is data-compatible in the way F-18/F-35 are.
Correct. We’d simply be a lot better off asking to lease 8 or so B-1B
Very unlikely as terribly expensive. And why bother? If we go for a small number of F-22, keep them in the pure air superiority role for which they were designed. That gives truly appalling force complications for any potential opponent. Yes, you’d have a F-22 F-35/F-18 mix, and that brings costs, but it would be a really nasty combination to oppose.
Aye, and here is the rub most people do not understand. The USN has decided that its future carrier air group will be an F-35/F-18 mix. So they have developed full data compatability between these machines, they can use each other’s sensors and do some other very interesting stuff as well. So a radar-silent F-35 can engage a target using weapons on the F-18 and vice versa, all while sharing a completely common air picture. Nobody else, and I mean nobody, is anywhere near this yet. This is why when the ALP went gunning for the F-18, they so quickly changed their tune. The synergies of that tactical mix are most remarkable and best of all, the USN is going to pay for it (already has), so we get the synergies for nowt along with an ironclad development path for the next 30-40 years.
This is also the reason teh Singaporeans are making noises like ‘erm, we want to buy about 100 F-35 as well, guys…’
True, Robert, but NOT TRUE about the sensor architecture. And that is where the advantage is. You can upgrade the latest Su-27 series to be better acft. Hell, it is already a much better acft than F-35 in many ways, but if it is fighting a networked and fully distributed sensor array, so what? It is going to die, it cannot survive in that environment.
This was the big lesson of the battle of the Bekaa, where the IAF, using a very primitive version of this, achieved (IIRC) a 50:0 kill ratio inside the Syrian radar and SAM coverage. Theoretically, that was impossible, but the Israeli’s decoupled the Syrian sensor net. While theirs remained intact….
MarkL
Canberra
The F-22 is one of the most expensive aircraft built, at $200 million a unit, second only to the B-2 Spirit, which is $2.2 Billion a unit (originally ~$700 Million/unit but they cancelled a lot of orders after the cold war ended.)
We just can’t afford it. It’s very expensive, and its multi-role capability is almost non-existent, its an air superiority fighter, built to replace the F15 which all versions besides the F-15E were “not a pound for air to ground”. The bang for our buck just isn’t there.
If you want multi-role, you’re better off with F-16 Falcon’s or waiting for the F-35 Lightning, we took the second option, and it’s the right one.
F-16 vs. F-15.Ok. so witch plane is better.The F-16 is more maneauverable,but the F-15 is faster,caries a better weapons load,and is the primary USAF fighter. Ok. lets match them up.The F-15 has more points,but to me maneauverability count for all of the F-15s points so acording to Me,it is a draw