NCW: Getting the Growlers up to speed | ADM November 2012

Introducing the RAAF’s Growler electronic attack capability into service involves careful juggling on the part of Air Force to ensure the continuing viability of the air combat force.

This has become clear, not so much from Defence Minister Stephen Smith’s 23 August announcement that 12 of the RAAF’s 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets are to be converted to the EA-18G Growler configuration, but from Head of Air Force Geoff Brown’s subsequent disclosure to ADM that this will take place in two tranches separated by up to five years.

Conversion of the first six aircraft will begin in 2015 with Initial Operating Capability (IOC) anticipated around 2018.

Air Marshal Brown said the first F/A-18Fs would be converted in the US at Boeing’s St Louis facility. Discussion was still under way on cost structures for the six weeklong conversion process for future aircraft “although I suspect there’s no reason we shouldn’t do them back in Australia”.

The bridging air combat capability provided by the Super Hornets following the retirement of the F-111s in 2010 and IOC of the first 14-strong squadron of Joint Strike Fighters in late 2020 will be maintained at its current level by transferring Super Hornet training from Australia back to the US Navy. The location has yet to be finalised, but a strong possibility is Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, north of Seattle.

Ramping up from 2014, this will release for operational use the six airframes currently used in the training role.

According to AIRMSH L Brown, conversion of the second tranche of F/A-18Fs will take place in the early 2020s, but only after JSFs are available to replace them. It’s not clear whether he was referring to the 14 aircraft expected in Australia by 2020 or to an anticipated follow-on order for 58, on which the New Air Combat Capability project office will be making a submission to government in 2013-2014.

Should the 71 ageing F/A-18 A/B “classic” Hornet fighters be retired by 2020 as currently planned, without additional JSFs the RAAF’s air combat capability at that time would be limited to 18 Super Hornets, 14 JSFs and six Growlers.

The planned withdrawal from service date of the 12 remaining Super Hornets remains around 2025, but AIRMSHL Brown confirmed the 12 EA-18Gs would continue in service beyond that.

“Once they get converted they’ll remain as G models; the conversion isn’t that easy to do,” AIRMSHL Brown explained to ADM. “They do have some residual fighter capabilities, the cannon goes out and stays out but they are capable of carrying AMRAAM (AIM-120 medium range air-to-air missiles). Once you’ve got an electronic warfare platform I’m not sure that you’d want to use it for anything else.

“Growler will continue alongside JSF. It’s actually a force-level EW capability, it’s applicable not only to air combat operations, it’s also applicable to the rest of ADF joint operations.

“JSF does have an electronic attack capability but the Growler has a much wider spectrum and that will make a tremendous difference across the spectrum and range of conflict.”

Transition

The staged introduction to service will ensure the initial Growlers are ready to support the RAAF’s first JSFs against high level threats at the time of their arrival in Australia. They will also bolster the penetration and lethality of the F/A-18Fs, in addition to that of the classic Hornets through to their life-of-type.

“In the future there are three fundamental domains you want to play in; you want to have a cyber capability which I’d argue we’re developing within Defence and you want a kinetic capability which we have with JASSM (Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile); JSOW (Joint Standoff Weapon); and JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition),” commented AIRMSHL Brown.

“But I’d argue that into the future the other thing you need is to be able to do is to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum and that’s where this capability comes in, because it gives you a lot more options.”

Compared to the baseline Super Hornet, a fully-loaded EA-18G is 1,400 lbs heavier, has an additional 750 metres of cabling, 66 more antennas, and 1.5 million more lines of software code.

Provisions incorporated in the 12 Australian F/A-18Fs pre-wired on the Boeing production line include structural mounting provisions for electronic equipment, stowed wiring and cabling, and external mould line openings for antennas that are currently covered by blank-off plates.

In Growler configuration, identical, independent touchscreen displays give both the front-seat pilot and back seat Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO) access to all aircraft and mission information. New display formats correlate inputs from onboard sensors and off-board Link 16 inputs in a coherent picture.

Although the RAAF has purchased six back seat stick kits for its Super Hornets, AIRMSHL Brown confirmed the EWO in a Growler would not have access to flight controls.

Physical changes

The AIM-9X air-to-air missiles on each Super Hornet wingtip are replaced by antenna pods for the ALQ-218(v)2 wideband tactical jamming receiver, whose electronics are carried in the Growler’s nose gun bay in place of the M61A1 20mm Vulcan cannon.

A major function of the ALQ-218 is to precisely pinpoint and identify the location of enemy radar sites for more effective use of the AGM-88E High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM).

Launchers and command launch computers for both HARM and the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), an upgraded version of HARM which has just entered full production for the USN, are included in the estimated $1.5 billion cost of Growler conversion, but the cost of the missiles themselves is not. Each HARM costs about $275,000.

Active jamming of communications systems by the ALQ-227(v) 1 communications countermeasures makes use of the ALQ-99 tactical jamming systems. The single fuselage and two wing-mounted ALQ-99 pods house high radiated power jamming transmitters.

Each of the five metre-long canoeshaped pods is self-powered by a ram air turbine at the nose of the unit whose minipropeller spins in the slipstream to generate electricity.

The USN has confirmed to the RAAF the availability of refurbished, but scarce and ageing ALQ-99 jammer pods, which the USN anticipates replacing with the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) starting in 2020. “Our calculations are the next-gen jammer probably won’t come to fruition until sometime in the 2020s; I think it’s sometimes worthwhile being conservative on timeframes,” AIRMSHL Brown said.

The Growler is also fitted with an interference cancellation system (INCANS) that allows it to maintain secure ultra-high frequency voice communications during jamming operations, a capability unavailable on the USN EA-6B Prowlers that the EA-18G is replacing.

Growler is credited with increasing the efficiency of the ALQ-99s by ensuring the jamming is accurately pointed and aircraft that are being protected are aligned precisely on a line between the radar and the jammer.

The transmitters also focus the jamming power more effectively, particularly in digital radio frequency memory jamming where an incoming radar signal is altered to change the intended target’s speed, range, altitude and signatures, and sent back to the emitter

In addition to its potent air-to-air and air-to-ground search and targeting capability, the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) multi-mode radar equipping Growler and the Super Hornet is understood to also function both as a sensitive and directionally accurate receiver and as a high-power jammer within the limits of the X-band, where it operates.

Self protection

For self-protection in a surveillance-only configuration, EA-18Gs carry two AMRAAMs. For stand-off jamming and escort jamming missions the usual armament is two AMRAAMs plus two HARMS.

In a strike configuration the Growler is armed with two HARMS, and two AMRAAMs.

As part of their conversion, the Australian Growlers will also receive a wideband satellite communications link through which situational awareness will be transmitted to RAAF Super Hornets, Hornets and RAN ships via IBS.

While Growler represents an entirely new capability for the RAAF – one shared only with the USN – it’s not unfamiliar territory.

“In 2003 the guys worked extensively with Prowlers in Iraq and we’ve done a fair bit in high-end exercises like Red Flag and Cope Thunder; we’re not starting from a zero baseline knowledge,” AIRMSHL Brown told ADM.

“We’ll look at exchange positions with the USN and we’ll certainly be doing a lot of Growler aircrew training in the US.

“I’m not terribly concerned about command level; most of our senior officers have got a lot of experience in tasking and managing air power assets that Australia doesn’t necessarily own and that includes Growlers.”

As of early October, final US government contracts for the Growler conversion were yet to be finalised, but AIRMSHL Brown was not expecting any show-stoppers.

Similarly, notwithstanding the sensitive nature of Growler electronic equipment, he did not anticipate any issues with US International Traffic in Arms (ITARS) security regulations.

“We’ve done a lot of work with Super Hornet on these issues and we’ve probably proved to the US State Department and US Navy over the past two years that we’re pretty good at handling that sort of thing,” he commented.

Home territory familiarisation with the Growler capability received an early start with the first-ever deployment to Australia of three USN EA-18Gs.

The Growlers, from VA-132 Squadron currently based at Misawa in Japan, exercised with RAAF Super Hornets out of RAAF Amberley from 1-20 October on what a USN spokesperson described as joint training and “real-world proficiency in airborne electronic attack employment and integration”.