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In 2002 Ray Griggs, then captain of the frigate HMAS Arunta<\/em>, took his ship to the Persian Gulf to help enforce UN sanctions against Iraq. The Anzac-class frigate was equipped with eight air defence missiles and a dated conventional radar system.<\/p>\n Arunta<\/em> is back in the Middle East now with 32 missiles, a front line helicopter and phased array radar system developed in Australia\u2014one of the world\u2019s best. \u2018It\u2019s a fantastic radar, amazing!\u2019 says Griggs, now vice chief of the ADF. \u2018The frigate\u2019s got Harpoon and a whole lot of other things we did not have then.\u2019<\/p>\n The dramatic increase in the potency of Australia\u2019s frigates, and in their ability to defend themselves, after a highly effective upgrade illustrates the growing maturity of the ADF and its ability to do much more with existing platforms while preparing to take on billions of dollars\u2019 worth of new equipment, Vice Admiral Griggs tells The Strategist<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2018You can see the progression there,\u2019 says Griggs. \u2018We\u2019ve been an ADF on operations since East Timor in 1999. We rolled out of East Timor pretty much straight into Afghanistan and then into Iraq, and then back into Afghanistan and now back to Iraq along with a continuous naval contribution since 1990.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Along the way we\u2019ve fundamentally learned the lessons of the \u201cfitted for but not with\u201d era and the ADF is significantly more capable, in relative terms, that it was 15 years ago.\u2019<\/p>\n The vice chief is the Defence organisation\u2019s \u2018senior joint champion\u2019, a role given many more teeth, or greater bite, after the First Principles Review\u2019s strong focus on integration and interoperability of the Army, Navy and the RAAF and all of their personnel and equipment. The review nominated the vice chief as the officer running the project that\u2019s intended to make the ADF a more effectively \u2018joint\u2019 force. Previously it lacked an organisationally strong champion, says Griggs.<\/p>\n Such capabilities include ensuring the benefits of the \u2018fifth generation\u2019 Air Force are harnessed across the whole ADF with \u2018enablers\u2019 such as extensive networking to allow personnel and their equipment to communicate rapidly and in great detail. Such projects, crucial as they are, lack the obvious scale of major developments and they have sometimes languished as a consequence.<\/p>\n \u2018As we move into the era of fifth generation capabilities such as the Growler [electronic warfare aircraft], the P8 [Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft] and the Joint Strike Fighter, their integration across the ADF is crucial,\u2019 says Griggs. \u2018Fifth generation is not about an aircraft but a whole system.\u2019<\/p>\n Apart from the obvious benefit of improving the coordination on operations of units from the \u00a0Army, Navy and RAAF, \u2018jointness\u2019 is also crucial because the cost to the taxpayer of duplicating capabilities across the three services isn\u2019t sustainable, Griggs says.<\/p>\n Griggs also feels that the commonly used term, \u2018joint\u2019, underplays the role of Defence civilians. While those in the armed services deliver \u2018kinetic\u2019 effects, the input of those in defence intelligence, for instance, is just as crucial, he says. \u2018I prefer the term \u201cintegrated\u201d because that\u2019s what we are trying to achieve. We\u2019re not trying to do things jointly, we\u2019re trying to achieve an integrated effect and the big shift, to fifth generation, brings a truly networked approach to how we go about our business.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve talked for 10 or 15 years about network centric warfare,\u2019 says Griggs. \u2018Now we have capabilities that completely rely on the network working as an integrated whole.\u2019 That makes the joint force much more effective. \u2018There\u2019s very little we do that\u2019s single service orientated.\u2019<\/p>\n And using fifth-generation technology to gather intelligence on operations, and in preparing for ADF operations, demands a significant amount of information be fed to it so that it can do its job effectively. \u2018So the whole notion of intelligence mission data drives a team effort to produce and use the data and to disseminate it.\u2019<\/p>\n In the Middle East, the RAAF\u2019s Air Task Group is directed by Australian troops when it carries out strikes in support of Iraq forces on the ground. \u2018You can\u2019t have a radio network for the army and another for the air force,\u2019 says Griggs. \u2018It\u2019s got to be integrated, all linked together.\u2019<\/p>\n Griggs says the ADF is engaged in two major integration challenges. One is to ensure it has horizontal integration across the force so the different parts of it can talk to each other and work together. \u2018In a defence of Australia scenario that\u2019s absolutely crucial because that\u2019s how we would fight\u2014as an ADF. But 98 percent of the time we operate in coalitions so, while it\u2019s important to have horizontal integration, it\u2019s also important to have it in a vertical sense in the coalition.<\/p>\n It\u2019s absolutely crucial that the RAAF\u2019s Air Task Group in the Middle East is completely locked in to the coalition command and control structure, says Griggs. \u2018And it\u2019s important that our frigate in the Middle East is locked in to the (US) Fifth Fleet structures and that it\u2019s interoperable with other nation\u2019s ships.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Effective integration is a massive force multiplier.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2002 Ray Griggs, then captain of the frigate HMAS Arunta, took his ship to the Persian Gulf to help enforce UN sanctions against Iraq. The Anzac-class frigate was equipped with eight air defence missiles …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":32153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,782,304],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n