The new Gulf War is settling down for the hard slog. And Australian innovation is making this possible.
The United States and Israel have struck up to 10,000 targets in the first two weeks of their assault on Iran. Iran has replied with hundreds of missiles and thousands of drones of its own.
It’s now a hi-tech war of attrition.
Will Iran run out of precision-guided weapons before the US and its allies do?
Who can build replacements faster?
It’s a close-run thing.
The US and Israel began their attack on February 28. By March 9, just one of their allies – the United Arab Emirates – had been targeted by 253 ballistic missiles, eight cruise missiles and 1440 drones.
The UAE says 90 per cent of these were shot down.
But not without a price.
Each interceptor warhead costs tens of millions of dollars and takes up to two years to build. And indications are that at least some of the sophisticated radars needed to guide them have been damaged.
“Imagery emerging from the UAE, which is known to operate two THAAD batteries, shows visible structural damage and scorched equipment at locations previously associated with radar installations,” reports Hudson Institute defence strategy analyst Can Kasapoğlu.
That’s a gap Australia’s E-7A Wedgetail airborne warning and command (AWACS) aircraft will begin to fill this weekend. And it’s uniquely suited to locating and tracking the small drones that Iran is increasingly relying on for its counter-attacks.
These are launched from numerous well-hidden sites spread across Iran’s 1.65 million square kilometres. And the US is running low on the cruise missiles and interceptors needed to take them out.
“In terms of hardware being used, frankly, I’m scared of finding out just how many Tomahawks or JASMs and other long-range strike weapons that we’ve expended,” says Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defence Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
“I expect it will be a significant number.”
Expensive cruise missiles are attractive because their extended flight range keeps both their launchers and their human operators safe. The further the better.
Now, an Australian-invented wing kit that can be attached to old-fashioned bombs means US and Israeli strike aircraft can lob them into targets more than 65km away. At a fraction of the cost of a drone or cruise missile.
Fire and fury. On wings
“I will say I breathed a sigh of relief when there were two words uttered by General Kane, and those two words were munitions transition,” Karako told the West Point Academy podcast.
“We’re transitioning from having to use those long-range standoff capabilities to now being able to operate with stand-in weapons, so gravity bombs, JDAMs and SDB (small diameter bombs) as well. That’s great news, because we’ve got a lot of them.”
Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) are a modular set of sensors, navigation systems and guidance vanes that can be attached to traditional free-fall bombs.
Such bombs are cheap and relatively easy to build.
As are the kits that turn them into precision weapons.
Australia’s Defence Science and Technology (DST) organisation began developing a similar system in the 1970s. But the project was abandoned as part of an early 1990s cost-cutting exercise.
It was then realised that the DST version offered something the US didn’t have: glide wings. So that part of the project was revived.
The end result is the JDAM-ER (Joint Direct Attack Munition – Extended Range). Each $40,000 kit allows aircraft ground crews to customise a bomb with GPS, inertial navigation, or laser-guidance nose cones, along with tail guidance and glide-wing kits.
The modular wings unfold in flight to carry a 110kg bomb over about 75km, depending on the altitude at which it is dropped. They also allow the bomb to follow moving objects and strike with an accuracy of about 5m.
That 75km represents a significant margin of safety for a modern combat aircraft.
In World War II, hundreds of high-flying aircraft would each drop dozens of bombs in the hope of a handful landing on a factory.
By the time of the Vietnam War, the average target needed 300 bombs to ensure it was destroyed.
Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait was the first to feature significant guided weapon use. But these proved limited by weather, dust and availability.
Now, one strike aircraft carrying less than a handful of JDAM-ERs can largely be relied upon to complete the job.
Instead of a handful of $2.5 million Tomahawk cruise missiles.
“Expert writings suggest that even the first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury cost Washington $3.7 billion,” says Kasapoğlu.
“High-end standoff weapons carry substantial unit costs, while JDAM kits provide a far cheaper precision-strike option that can be used once enemy air defences have been sufficiently suppressed.”
The DST, Boeing and Australian business are developing a new version of the wing kit (P-JDAM) that would add propulsion to a standard bomb. These are expected to have a range of about 550km.
The all-seeing eye
Secrecy surrounds the damage done to allied systems and facilities by Iran’s attacks. But there seems little doubt that radar installations have been hit.
Specialist Patriot and THAAD interceptor missiles are needed to destroy ballistic missiles plunging down from the edge of space. These need an equally specialist radar to provide pinpoint-accuracy firing solutions.
“Although technically transportable, it is difficult to conceal,” says Kasapolglu.
“Moreover, an operating radar emits signals that an adversary’s electronic sensors can detect and geolocate.”
Against drones, it’s a matter of math.
Million-dollar missiles designed to shoot down cruise missiles and aircraft take far longer to build than an Iranian Shahed drone. So nations running short on missiles – such as the UAE – are desperately seeking alternatives.
“When we’re talking about Shahed, we’re really talking about cruise missiles (with) 900 to 2000 kilometres range, ostensibly,” explains Krako.
“That’s some serious legs.”
Ukraine has responded to the call. Despite US President Donald Trump having cut off weapons sales to the embattled democracy, President Volodymyr Zelensky is sending teams of experts with homegrown drone interceptors.
And Australia’s Wedgetail will ensure such innovations are used to their full potential.
The E-7A is a militarised version of the Boeing 737-700 airliner.
The most obvious difference is the prominent fin atop the fuselage that houses a Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA).
This can point sensors and radars over a 360-degree radius to scan for threats. And that data is then combined aboard for the crew to relay to friendly forces.
What makes the Wedgetail different from the 60-year-old E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft used by the United States is its ability to “fixate” its various sensors on a target. The E-3’s radar dome rotates once every 10 seconds – creating a “blind spot” in which a 700km/h drone or missile can change course or hide behind an obstruction.
The Wedgetail’s new MESA sensor is also much better at distinguishing smaller, slower and low-flying targets. And that means earlier, more accurate warnings of approaching threats.
Drones and cruise missiles can hide from a ground-based Patriot or THAAD radar by using the curvature of the Earth. The Wedgetail flies at about 10km altitude. From there, it can see down over some 370km before the Earth’s curvature gets in the way.
But multimillion-dollar specialist interceptors and radars will always be needed to take down ballistic missiles.
“As it turns out, some of these intercept missions are pretty dang hard, and for those you do need the higher-end stuff,” says Krako.
“And it would be quite painful, for instance, if Israel had taken 500 ballistic missile hits … I think in some respects we are. We’ve really taken that benefit for granted.”
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer
