Australia 'sharpening its teeth' to be ready for China.

Well Defence better sharpen something real fast like maybe a few Politician's pencil dikks for a start because nothing in Australia is going to stop a Chinese Long Range Bomber from coming in at treetop level East to West off international waters to dump a fuggen nuke on Canberra! There is nothing in Australia that will counter it FULL STOP! All we can hope for is that it's not a big sitting week for Parliament when it happens!! 

China is already here. Bit late for this stuff.

If nothing else, we are pulling our head out of the sand ( or other dark areas ) and having a good look around our region.
As long as we keep preparing, and like quoted at the end "If you want Peace, Prepare for War". (7.25)

Just wondering. What are the response options to low level aerial attack or stand-off strikes?
Do we not have to have aircraft above looking down at the intruders below and directing weapons at them? Meaning ... we need a lot of planes to patrol the skies over our norther, western and eastern maritime areas?

Or can we effectively track via satellite and arrange interception from the ground using long range SAM's or scrambling of AD equipped f18's ? Are our f18's upto the task against say, Su34's or similar?

I assume long range radar can't see very low flying aircraft due to clutter effects?

It'd be nice of the ADF spent some time letting us know that they have actual hardware and systems actually ready to actually be used tomorrow, if need be, instead of spewing out so many media releases talking about 'future capability'.

That's like me launching into a pub-fight saying "Watch out! I'm going to learn karate in 2025 and get some knuckle dusters in 2027 and kick your ass!"

This might help, spinifex. Only wiki info but better than nothing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Royal_Australian_Air_Force_aircraft

AEW&C are the ones that are important. They have big radars on top of the fuselage and scan hundreds of cubic miles of airspace. If they spot something they warn the combat aircraft who then intercept. Early warning is a huge advantage. Its what won the Battle of Britain.
The Hornets are good planes. It isn't really a matter of "Is this plane better than that plane?" More "He who launches his missiles, which have better range than his enemy's missiles, first wins." But that is pretty simplistic.
Also the Hawks, listed as trainers, are very capable combat planes but, I believe, only have a short range.

I don't think we have any long range SAMs. AFAIK the Army is responsible for ground-to-air missiles but I would think they would use all of those to protect air and naval bases.

A good option would be a heap of long endurance drones with long range air-to-air missiles. Leave them up there circling for a day or two, then rotate another one through while the first one is refuelled. Maybe in the 'future'.

Our big advantage, as another poster said recently, is distance. We get a lot of warning of incoming planes (except for Darwin). Sub-launched missiles are a different kettle of fish. They can come from anywhere.

Also we are a part of the Commonwealth. If someone attacks us they get the Poms and Kiwis for sure and potentially the Canadians, Malaysians, Fijians, etc, gunning for them too. Yeah, we don't have much hardware, but Aussies are fighters and we have tough friends too.

Warfare is a fascinating subject (unless you are physically involved!). The difficulty of air attack could basically be described as "juggling jagged shards of glass blindfolded while hopping on one foot on top of a basketball". Naval and land warfare are just as hard. When you combine all three it makes you realise just what a spectacular achievement the Normandy invasion, or any of the WW2 landings, were!
Start a new thread if you want and ask questions. There might be some air-weenie forum members. If they are willing to put their ice-creams down they might answer some questions! (Harmless inter-service rivalry).

milspec

Maybe in our lifetime we will see which of our opinions was closest to reality and or actual events, the Chinese are capable of anything, they are very unpredictable!    

1. So we have six of those.  Any idea how many are combat ready at any given time?  Just how vulnerable are they to being located and shot down?  Then, say, one of these early warning systems sees a fleet of 100+ combat planes (including enemy EW platforms) ripping in from a forward base on PNG to smack bases like Amberley... what happens next?  

2. Which is where it gets worrying.  I'm pretty sure that in every war since Vietnam SAMs combined with good radar operated by the 'small side' have downed more planes than other weapons?  We will be the 'small side' in any regional conflict as far as I can see ... if the US leaves us hanging. (Which I very highly doubt).

3. Far as I'm aware UK has never come to the assistance of a commonwealth member.  It's been the other way around.  I'd think Japan is more likely to provide useful help than any other commonwealth member.  Maybe India would pile on too.  They both have ultra poor relations with China.

spinifex 

It's pretty much the gist of what I'm saying, however you convey in more effective fashion than any of my crap!  Plenty of our northern island "neighbors" are now "owned" by the CCP! Who is to say that one of these does not become a Forward Operating / Admin Base for the Chinese to launch an attack of the type I previously describe? 

I'm not a military specialist. I can only comment on what I've read, learnt or seen. If anything I say is wrong please correct me, forum members.

Geerally during sustained combat operations about 1/3 of any system can be used in an active role. So maybe 2 of the Wedgetails could be airborne all the time. This is generous, it is probably more like 1 and a half. This is not including losses.
Thye are very vulnerable. They are a civilian airliner with a big radar on top. But they don't get used where they can be shot down easily and if they spot enemy planes the turn around and put the throttles to the wall. I suspect listening to actual combat comms between the AEW&C plane and the interceptors would show a degree of stress in their voices; "Please hurry, Hornets" or similar! But they do have advanced defensive systems and if things go hot may have air to air missiles attached as a last ditch effort.
A general plan to stop a bombing run on Amberley would be to assemble all of our combat aircraft that are within striking range and attack. They would fly to within range of the longest range missiles they have, lock on the bombers, launch all the missiles, then get the hell out of there.
The enemy planes then have to cope with the air defence SAMs around the base.
And typically we would reattack with all available combat planes as the enemy flies out, again targeting the bombers.

Long range SAMs are expensive. How much tax do you want to pay? They are nice but the money would probably be better spent on alternatives. More early warning, more planes or armed drones of some sort. Dunno. How long is a piece of string?
The ability to shoot down cruise missiles would be very handy. I don't know if our current SAM systems can do that.

Malaysia, Oman, might be more. Commonwealth countries don't get attacked very often because countries don't want the Brits coming after them. Although most won't admit it the Brits are highly respected around the world. Try to find a Commonwealth or former Commonwealth country that doesn't have a high standard of living. Pretty rare.
Frostbite was complaining about British NCOs recently. True, the Brit system doesn't suit Aussies, but it is a bloody effective system for them. As a general rule, if you pick a fight, don't do it with someone who has over 1000 years of recorded combat history!
If the Chinese were the attackers then yeah, Japan and India could be problems for them. Don't forget Russia. So we won't be alone even if we aren't 'friends'. To be honest we were more of a threat when we had the F-111s. They were a very nasty piece of hardware .We can still bite but not as far away.

There isn't any hard or fast rule. You never fight the war you expect, you never have enough of what you need, and you need things you never thought of.
Basically numbers, equipment, logistics all help but it is usually the side that f@cks it up the least that wins.


WTF is this? Was it on 60 Minutes or something? I see it all the time.

The enemy can land as many troops as they like on our shores. Unless they can GUARANTEE a constant supply of ships to resupply them then the enemy we don't kill will become POWs. You can't support an overwater invasion with planes. Too many stores are needed. It just doesn't work. It is why we have subs.
All we would have to do is bomb Darwin harbour or demolish it until it is unusable and we win.

And like frostbite says, How the hell do you hide all of that. With 100 planes in PNG, what is pidgin for "Crapload of foreigners and planes up there making noise. They told me to bugger off." Sprung.