Air Weapons: Oz Dumps ASRAM For Sidewinder

Archives

June 6, 2014: Australia has ordered 350 AIM-9X Block 2 Sidewinder air-to-air heat seeking missiles (plus lots of training, maintenance and ancillary gear) for about $1.1 million each. Australia has until now used the ASRAAM, which entered service in 2002. Mainly developed by Britain ASRAM is an 88 kg (194 pound) missile with a range of 18 kilometers and a high capability heat seeker sensor system. AIM-9X Block 2 is considered more advanced and the F-35 and F-18 were designed to use it.

The AIM-9X Block 2 is the latest version of the Sidewinder, a missile that has come a long way since it first appeared in the 1950s. In the last 25 years these short-range heat-seeking missiles have accounted for some 90 percent of losses in air-to-air combat. Sidewinder still dominates the market, despite a lot of competition from the likes of IRIS-T, ASRAAM, Magic, Python, Molinya, and several Chinese clones of foreign designs.

Australia is in the midst of upgrading its air force. The purchase of another 58 F-35 fighters was recently approved. This will give Australia 72 F-35s, enough to equip three squadrons. These, in addition to 24 F-18F fighters and twelve EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft will be the primary Australian air combat force in the future. This is a modification of the original plan drawn up over a decade ago.

All this was part of an evolving Australian strategy to eventually obtain American F-35s. It worked like this. In 2009, after over four years of deliberation, Australia decided to begin buying U.S. F-35 fighter-bombers. The first 14 were ordered, at a cost of over $100 million each. The price includes a lot of training and maintenance infrastructure. The plan was to replace the existing force of F-111 bombers and F-18B fighters with F-35s. The worn out 1960s era F-111s were finally retired in late 2010, after 37 years of service.

Then in 2007 Australia had been told that the F-35s would not arrive until 2018. That meant an interim aircraft would be needed. Meanwhile, Indonesia was buying Russian Su-30 fighters. In response, Australia bought 24 American F-18F fighters, for about $100 million each (including spare parts, training and such). Australia already operates 72 of the older, and smaller, F-18B and these will be retired by the end of the decade. While the two versions of the F-18 have a lot in common (about 25 percent commonality in parts), the F-18F is a new, and larger, design that is based on the original F-18. The F-18Fs provide Australia with a high performance fighter-bomber that could cope with the Su-30. The F-18Fs will last into the 2020s, especially since it was decided to convert six of them into F-18Gs. So Australia will end up with 72 F-35s, 18 F-18Fs and six EA-18Gs.

 

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close