Katherine Ziesing | Canberra
Plan Jericho will make its official debut at the Avalon Air Show this month. The plan in a nutshell is to introduce a new way of thinking to complement the raft of new technology that the RAAF has access to, predominantly in the form of F-35 and the vast array of payload data that warfighters will have ay their fingertips. As Liddell Hart wryly observed, the most difficult challenge is not persuading military leaders to embrace change. The hardest task is persuading them to let go of old ideas.
The plan is called Jericho for a couple of reasons. There’s the biblical reason, but more so, the appeal of the name was also the Allied Operation by 464 Squadron into France, where they knocked down the walls of the Gestapo prison for the French Resistance; breaking down walls was central to the success of Operation Jericho, according to AIRMSHL Brown. Breaking down the walls and stovepipes of Defence is central if the RAAF is going to realise the full capability of 5th generation capabilities.
AIRMSHL Brown best described what this truly integrated picture looks like in the following excerpt from his Williams Foundation speech.
“What I’d like to do is just briefly work through the value chain of the F-35. I’ll start in operations and I’ll work my way towards fundamental inputs to capability, and we’ll just have a bit of a look at some areas that we could change. I almost get a hoarse voice trying to explain to people why 5th generation capabilities are important in the F-35 and why speed and manoeuvrability don’t necessarily have the same impact that they previously had.
“So what is 5th generation? It’s low observability, it’s a low infrared signature, it’s low electronic emissions, it’s an AESA radar, it’s the data links associated with that, but the most important thing in my mind that the JSF brings is the fused picture – that situational awareness that it actually brings to the operator.
“Now, we say those words - situational awareness - a lot, but not many people actually define what it means. So when I talk to the team about it, I draw three diagrams, and it describes what has happened, what is happening and what might happen. And your level of situational awareness is a combination of all those things. If you look at the difference between an F-35 and a legacy platform, you don’t have to manipulate the sensors.
“You’ve got a fused picture on the display, you don’t have to have as much communications between the flights; the pilot’s fundamentally got a lot more brain space to actually look at the tactical situation and go forward,” AIRMSHL Brown concluded.
Why transform?
The main reasoning behind the need to have this mid term change are manifold but they can be quickly broken down as
- evolving threats
- increasing competition for global commons
- unprecedented access to data
- government needs rapid and agile military options
- introduction of 5th generation technology
The use of air and space ISR capabilities to dominate the electronic and cyber domains has conferred an extraordinary asymmetric advantage on land forces as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The increasingly data centric nature of ADF platforms coming online over the next decade mean that the ADF will have the challenge of taking enormous amounts of information and turning it into intelligence in a timely way and getting to the right decision makers. The plan will be centred around three broad themes that apply not just to RAAF but also Army and Navy as no one service works in isolation.
1. Harness the combat potential of a fully integrated force
Some hard thinking is being done on future air and space CONOPS in relation to the new technology landscape available to the ADF. Seeing the full realisation of a fully integrated force will mean using enhanced C2 through decision superiority, a renewed focus on ‘train as you fight’ and using more integrated simulation and experimentation.
2. Develop and innovative and empowered workforce
RAAF has done a lot of hard work on the culture and people side of the organisation but AIRMSHL Brown does not want to get complacent on this front. There will be a conscious push to foster innovative thinking, utilise contemporary trade structures, rely more on system of systems thinking while simplifying the organisational structure both vertically and horizontally.
3. Change the way we acquire and sustain capability
The long lead times between requirement definition and delivery of a new capability are well known. RAAF needs to examine the way it sustains its platforms, attends to the enabling side of its operations and find new ways to match the increasing pace of technology to how it acquires resources.
The vision behind Plan Jericho of a truly joint, agile, and adaptive organisation in the information age is not without challenges. The enunciation of the plan is but step one in the journey to making sure the RAAF maintains its edge in the region well into the future.