Air Power: Are we on the right target for JP66? | ADM February 2012

Tom Muir | Canberra

As befits a project intimately concerned with this country’s anti-air and anti-missile weapon systems little has been revealed so far about its progress, nevertheless the selection of prime contractor for the JP66 Aerial Defence Target System (ADTS) now appears likely this year, assuming the DCP’s initial operating capability by FY 2012–13 holds true.

With information sought from industry back in March 2009, as a preliminary to the release of a tender for the aerial defence target system (ADTS) six months later, Defence should have had ample time to assess tender responses and develop the second pass acquisition business case, bearing in mind that the government had already approved the project’s broader capability options in granting first pass. The current contract expired in June 2011. There may also be staffing issues involved such as bringing a newly appointed project director with responsibility for the acquisition of those elements of the ADTS allocated to Aerospace Systems Division, up to speed in readiness for second pass approval.

The ADTS requirement

Under Joint Project 66 Phase 1 Defence is seeking a future air defence target system capability that will exercise current and future ADF air defence weapons against a wide range of air threats that include tactical UAVs, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, attack helicopters, tactical fighter aircraft; and what Defence terms generic, non-manoeuvring aircraft.

A prime contractor will supply the ADTS capability as a service rather than an ownership model. This is expected to include target launch, flights of physical targets capable of emulating specified air threats, their recovery and their control systems. This will be required a number of times a year, at various range locations within Australia.

Due to the diverse range of ADF end-user requirements, it is anticipated that the target assets used may comprise various types of unmanned targets or drones as well as use of manned aircraft, with or without towed targets.

The acquisition cost has been estimated by Defence at up to $300 million over the presumed 10-year life of the project. Our view is that this would be quite unachievable in light of the very high cost of targets required to emulate threats posed by the new generation of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and the like.

Much of the training requirement focuses on the ability to detect, track and engage incoming targets with the likelihood that in the future, radar and other detection systems, will need to contend with multiple targets and possibly swarms. But if the ADTS capability is aimed at exercising and testing the ADF’s current and near future weapons systems, one might question the value of this capability in light of those very high-order threats that have only recently emerged for which the ADF would have limited, if any, ability to counter, SEA4000 notwithstanding.

These include supersonic cruise missiles and long range, high-speed highly manoeuvreable anti-ship missiles. The former includes the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile (seen here) developed jointly by India and Russia and being introduced into service in all three of India’s armed forces. The latter refers to the Russian 3M54 Klub anti-submarine and anti-ship missile the export version of which is believed to be in service with navies in Algeria, China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Iran, and Vietnam.

Weighing two tonnes, and fired from a 21-inch torpedo tube on a Kilo class sub, the 3M-54E has a 440-pound warhead and range of 300km. For the majority of its trajectory it flies at high subsonic speed, then its altitude drops to 10-15 metres ASL and the missile heads towards the target on its cruise sector under inertial guidance. With the homing head now active, the end sector of the missile's flight proceeds only five metres above the water surface. At 60 km from its target the third, solid-fuel stage separates from the missile, accelerates to supersonic speed, said to be up to 3,000 km/h, which means that it covers that last 15 kilometers in less than 20 seconds. This makes it difficult for current anti-missile weapons to take it down.

And if this wasn’t enough there are reports of the Chinese modified Dong Feng 21 anti-ship ballistic missile, travelling at Mach 10, can strike carriers and other large vessels at a range of 2,000 km in less than 12 minutes. The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing China with the capability of destroying a US supercarrier in one strike.

The US approach

Concerned over its inability to counter such threats, in 2009 the US Navy initiated its high-speed anti-ship missile simulator, based on the GQM-163A Coyote SSST (Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target), a 31-foot long, 800 kg missile with a combination of solid fuel rocket and ramjet propulsion.

Rail-launched from Navy test and training ranges, the highly maneuverable Coyote achieves cruise speeds of over Mach 2.5, with a range of approximately 50 nautical miles at altitudes of less than 20 feet above the sea surface. The Coyote is meant to give US warships a realistic simulation of an attack by similar Russian cruise missiles (like the Klub.) By June 2011 the US Navy had ordered close to 90 Coyote targets at around half a million dollars each.

Coyote came about in response to more countries arming themselves with high-speed anti-ship missiles. In particular, there is fear that the Russian 3M-54 anti-ship missiles are unstoppable. To what extent the ability to emulate the Klub will have on the development of an effective counter by the USN remains to be seen.

Another USN supersonic target program, the Multi-Stage Supersonic Target (MSST), under development by Alliant Techsystems, has again been designed to address the USN’s emergent requirement for a cost-effective aerial target system to simulate a multistage anti-ship cruise missile known as Threat D. That simulation includes a capability for evasive manoeuvres in the terminal stage. Do we need to add that Threat D is Russia’s 3M-54E Klub missile?

So while the US Navy is properly concerned about defending itself against attack by such highly sophisticated weapons as the Klub, are we to assume that those very threats now proliferating within our broader region will not be used against us in the event of hostilities? And how would we counter such attacks with Aegis and SM-2/3 seemingly the limit of our naval anti-missile capabilities?

ADTS will doubtless provide excellent training in the use of the ADF’s weapons systems and their sensors which will help ensure that they continue as an effective deterrent to those of a mind to engage this country in conventional, low level hostilities. But it will do little to protect us from this new breed of anti-ship missiles if we don’t have the defensive systems to counter them.

So what means are available to counter missiles that rely on very high terminal speeds and thus minimal warning of their approach for effective reaction? Perhaps the answer lies in directed energy weapons integrated with air defence systems for both shipboard and land based operations. For shipboard operation laser D/E weapons could be combined with current close-in-weapons (CIWS) for maximum effect against ASCMs and ASBMs and on their own for affordable hardkill against less expensive targets such as small boats, UAVs, etc.

In November 2011 Rheinmetall shot down a low-altitude unmanned UAV with a 10kW laser, as part of a live fire demonstration by the Group. Laser weapon demonstrators with different performance characteristics were separately featured in a C-RAM context to counter the threat from incoming rockets, artillery and mortar rounds and in an air-defence scenario with the UAV serving as the target.

It was reported that Rheinmetall also demonstrated the use of a 1kW laser weapon that “proved highly effective in destroying IEDs as well as neutralising unexploded ordnance from a safe distance.”

A US Congressional Report, Navy Shipboard Lasers for Surface, Air, and Missile Defense by Ronald O’Rourke, published in early 2011, says that Department of Defense development work on high-energy military lasers, which has been underway for decades, has reached the point where lasers capable of countering certain surface and air targets at ranges of about a mile could be made ready for installation on Navy surface ships over the next few years.

The report adds that more powerful shipboard lasers, which could become ready for installation in subsequent years, could provide surface ships with an ability to counter a wider range of surface and air targets at ranges of up to about 10 miles (16 km). These more powerful lasers might, among other things, provide USN surface ships with a terminal-defense capability against certain ballistic missiles, including the anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that China is believed to be developing.

The report goes on to say that compared to existing ship self-defence systems, such as missiles and guns, lasers could provide Navy surface ships with a more cost effective means of countering certain surface, air, and ballistic missile targets. Ships equipped with a combination of lasers and existing self-defence systems might be able to defend themselves more effectively against a range of such targets.

Laser advantages and disadvantages

According to the CRS report the potential advantages of shipboard lasers include very low marginal cost per shot (eg less than $1 for fuel used to generate electric power) compared to $800,000 for each RAM missile, $1.4 million (ESSM) and several million dollars per shot for SM air interceptor missiles. Thus a laser provides an alternative to using an expensive interceptor missile to achieve a hard kill against a much less expensive target, such as an unsophisticated unmanned air vehicle (UAV) or small boats.

Other potential advantages include virtually unlimited magazine capacity in contrast to the finite supply of interceptor missiles, fast engagement times since light from a laser beam can reach a target almost instantly (eliminating the need to calculate an intercept course, as there is with interceptor missiles) and lasers can follow and maintain their beam on radically maneuvering air targets (such as certain ASCMs) that might stress the maneuvering capabilities of Navy interceptor missiles.

Potential limitations of shipboard lasers for countering surface, air, and ballistic missile targets include line of sight. Since laser light tends to fly through the atmosphere on an essentially straight path, shipboard lasers would be limited to line-of-sight engagements. Substances in the atmosphere—particularly water vapour, but also other things in the air, such as dust, smoke, and other air pollution—absorb and scatter light from a shipboard laser, and atmospheric turbulence can defocus a laser beam. These effects can reduce the effective range of a laser.

Since a laser can attack only one target at a time it requires several seconds to disable it, and several more seconds to be redirected to the next target. Thus a laser can disable only so many targets within a given period of time. This limitation can be mitigated by installing more than one laser on the ship, similar to how the Navy installs multiple CIWS systems on certain ships.

Laser power levels

A laser’s ability to disable a target depends in large part on the power and beam quality of its light beam. Thus lasers with a power level of about 10 kW might be able to counter some UAVs at short range while those with a power level of about 100 kW would have a greater ability for countering UAVs and small boats, as well as some capability for countering rockets, artillery, and mortars. It appears that shipboard lasers of this power could be introduced into service in five years or so.

However lasers with power levels in the hundreds of kilowatts, which could also counter manned aircraft and some missiles, could conceivably be available for ships to be built under current shipbuilding programs such as the RAN’s AWD and the LHD programs.

Lasers with power levels in the megawatts, capable of countering targets including supersonic ASCMs and ballistic missiles at ranges of up to about 10 nautical miles, could be available in time for vessels emerging from future shipbuilding programs such as the Future Frigate. It has been suggested that lasers with power levels above 300 kW could provide a ship with an area defence capability.

The USN is currently working on integrating its 33kW laser demonstrator with the Phalanx CIWS and perhaps Raytheon has already offered this as a future ‘add-on’ to the RAN. Boeing and BAE Systems have teamed to develop the Mk 38 Mod 2 Tactical Laser System which combines a high energy laser with the Mk38 Machine Gun System. And no doubt we will hear more of shipboard laser weapon developments from Northrop Grumman, involved in the Maritime Laser Demonstration Systems.

But the more significant future developments will come from work on the Free Electron Laser (FEL) with power levels measured in megawatts. Boeing, with its own significant background in military laser developments, has won a USN contract worth up to US$163 million to develop the Free Electron Laser (FEL) with the ultimate goal of creating a compact, megawatt-class FEL that could be used on board vessels to defend attacks from what the Navy describes as “high-maneuverability cruise missiles and asymmetric threats”.

Conclusion

While much work lies ahead in the development of effective counters to anti-ship missiles, which arrive with little warning due to their flight modes and very high terminal speeds, it may be that very high powered lasers combined with advances in kinetic and other forms of CIWS, may be the answer.

But while Aegis and SM-3 may be capable of downing ballistic missiles, where maritime hostilities are concerned, it behooves us to keep our heads down until we have effective counters to ASCMs and ASBMs.

Acknowledgement
Much of the information on the potential for shipboard lasers has been drawn from the Congressional Research Service Report: Navy Shipboard Lasers for Surface, Air, and Missile Defense by Ronald O'Rourke, January 21, 2011.