{"id":34627,"date":"2017-10-05T11:02:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T00:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=34627"},"modified":"2017-10-05T11:19:01","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T00:19:01","slug":"future-frigates-wont-provide-a-national-missile-shield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/future-frigates-wont-provide-a-national-missile-shield\/","title":{"rendered":"Future frigates won\u2019t provide a national missile shield"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve been asked a lot in the past couple of days about the significance of the \u2018missile defence\u2019 aspect of Prime Minister Turnbull\u2019s announcement<\/a> about the combat system for the future frigates. That\u2019s not surprising, given some of the things the PM said:<\/p>\n

This decision will maximise the Future Frigate\u2019s air warfare capabilities, enabling those ships to engage threat missiles at long range. A number of states, notably of course, North Korea, are developing missiles with advanced range and speed. We must have the capability to meet and defeat them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Each of the first two sentences in that quote is correct in isolation. But juxtaposed like that, they potentially give a misleading impression that the future frigates will be capable of dealing with threats to Australia from ballistic missiles launched from North Korea. Mr Turnbull also told the press<\/a> that the nation\u2019s naval capability is \u2018stronger than ever at every level and in every field, whether it is defending Australia from regional or global threats, from threats from rogue states like North Korea\u2019.<\/p>\n

Before I explain why that isn\u2019t quite the case\u2014at least for now\u2014I should say that the decision that was announced seems to be a very good one. As James Mugg and I wrote last week<\/a>, there are good reasons to build on the success of both the US Navy\u2019s Aegis combat system and the combination of the locally designed and built CEAFAR radar and Saab 9LV combat system. How they\u2019ll all come together as a single system of systems in the future frigates remains to be determined.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll also note that we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of the fact that this week\u2019s decision is only part of the story for the frigates. In government policy documents, they have been described as \u2018optimised for anti-submarine warfare\u2019 (ASW). The air defence systems of this week\u2019s announcements have nothing to do with ASW, and we won\u2019t know what the ASW capabilities will be until the hull and the ASW sensors are chosen sometime next year. For now, the state of play could be summarised as \u2018jack up ship, fit air defence systems\u2019.<\/p>\n

What we do know is that the air defence combat management system will include both Aegis (presumably the new baseline 9 or some future derivative) and 9LV, and that the radar will be a more capable evolution of the smaller CEAFAR system now on the Anzac-class frigates. Aegis brings with it a capability against short- to medium-range ballistic missiles<\/a>, and the new CEAFAR radar will exploit a wider range of frequencies that will give it the ability to detect airborne threats of all kinds, including ballistic missiles inside or outside the earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s no doubt that Australia\u2019s capability for ballistic missile defence (BMD) will improve markedly when these ships are delivered. (And, for that matter, when the Hobart-class air warfare destroyers are upgraded sometime next decade.) But it\u2019s worth understanding what we will and won\u2019t have. As Rod Lyon and I have written before<\/a>, BMD is<\/p>\n

workable against short-range missiles, launched in small numbers, and endowed with simple countermeasures. Once any of those three variables change, BMD becomes significantly more challenging. If all three change\u2014and the defensive system is confronted by long-range missiles, launched in large numbers, with sophisticated countermeasures\u2014BMD will surely fail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first and foremost role of any ship-borne air defence system is to protect the ship and those around it, so that the navy can pursue its other tasks. As well as cruise missiles, ballistic missiles are part of the threat spectrum, but they are of a shorter-range type\u2014the term of art is \u2018theatre ballistic missiles<\/a>\u2019\u2014not intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with the range required to target Australia from North Korea. To provide theatre defence, the US Navy employs SM-2 and SM-6 missiles for in-atmosphere interception and the larger SM-3 for exo-atmospheric shots.<\/p>\n

Targeting incoming ICBMs is formidably difficult because of their very high re-entry speeds. It\u2019s not impossible, and the US has successfully intercepted one<\/a>, but it didn\u2019t do it with the type of missile found on its warships. The ground-based interceptor missile<\/a> weighs over 20 tonnes and is 16 metres long. Surface vessels can\u2019t deploy such weapons. In comparison, the SM-3, the largest weapon in the SM family, weighs 1.5 tonnes and is 6.55 metres long.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that surface vessels can\u2019t play a role in national BMD, but probably not as \u2018goalkeepers\u2019 parked off the Australian coast waiting for an incoming missile to knock down\u2014which they\u2019ll probably fail to do. There are claims that ships armed with SM-3 missiles could provide continental defence<\/a>, but they seem to be optimistic (see the comment below that article), and the ground-based interceptor will always have better performance in that role.<\/p>\n

A possible (though untested) approach might be to deploy them off the coast of a launch site (for example, in the Sea of Japan or the Yellow Sea in the case of North Korea) and engage missiles in the boost phase immediately after launch. That sort of operation would probably have to be done in coalition with the American and Japanese navies.<\/p>\n

The take-home message is that Australia is heading down the road of acquiring a formidable ability to protect its fleet at sea from a range of credible air threats, as well as the ability to work with partners to tackle long-range missiles at their source. But don\u2019t throw away those bomb-shelter plans just yet\u2014we aren\u2019t going to have a national defence system anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been asked a lot in the past couple of days about the significance of the \u2018missile defence\u2019 aspect of Prime Minister Turnbull\u2019s announcement about the combat system for the future frigates. That\u2019s not surprising, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":34630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1647,1429,1202,86],"class_list":["post-34627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-ballistic-missile","tag-future-frigate","tag-missile-defence","tag-north-korea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFuture frigates won\u2019t provide a national missile shield | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/future-frigates-wont-provide-a-national-missile-shield\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Future frigates won\u2019t provide a national missile shield | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve been asked a lot in the past couple of days about the significance of the \u2018missile defence\u2019 aspect of Prime Minister Turnbull\u2019s announcement about the combat system for the future frigates. 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