John Fedup
The Bunker Group
....just the bean counters (likely under pressure from pollies).
MARKMILES77
Well-Known Member
Confirmation the Australian Army has already received the Precision Strike Missile with a test firing as part of Talisman sabre 2025.
Defence Imagery: 20250725army8551856_A9447.jpg
images.defence.gov.au
MARKMILES77
Well-Known Member
Press Release accompanying the above:
I must say I am beginning to appreciate the current evolution of defence in Australia.
Instead of announcement after announcement, photo ops and back patting, followed by a cancellation or failed introduction, a photo and news story appears basically saying, oh yes, we've got those now.
Instead of announcement after announcement, photo ops and back patting, followed by a cancellation or failed introduction, a photo and news story appears basically saying, oh yes, we've got those now.
Talisman Sabre Twitter
‘The 14th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery has fired Australia’s first-ever Precision Strike Missile, a giant leap in land combat power. Increasing our effective range from 30km to more than 300km, this US co-developed missile redefines our reach.’
ABC report
‘The 14th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery has fired Australia’s first-ever Precision Strike Missile, a giant leap in land combat power. Increasing our effective range from 30km to more than 300km, this US co-developed missile redefines our reach.’
ABC report
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Great progress compared to projects over the last 5-10 years but ” delivery of the first PRSM” doesn’t sound like it’s a capability yet. Looks to the synic in me ( cant help it live in vic) like one was delivered ahead of time for test firing during talisman sabre.
Does anyone know how many we have actually ordered? from what I can gather we have an order in $100m US$ with PRSM missile cost approx US $2.5m per missile… so say 40 will be procured from the initial batch of 300 running out to late 2026…. So we have have them here in a limited volume with 40 … possibly 50 by mid to late 2026.
All that said..despite limited quantity it’s a massive increase in range over what we had only 12 months ago with M777 howitzers.
Lockheed gets contract to build early capability PrSM | InsideDefense.com
The Army has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build early capability versions of the Precision Strike Missile, the Defense Department announced Friday.
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Interesting the British Army has stated its plan yo Aquire 7000 one way attack drones. I would feel a bit better if the Australian army announced something about their plans For cheap attack drones. Most of what we are ordering seems to be incredibly expensive….. With Formula 1 blueprint, MGI Engineering says it’s revving up to scale drone production - Breaking Defense
I think one of the emerging problems with drones, is that defence systems are catching up very quickly. Simple drones are no longer surviving on the battlefield, so the easy low cost options are diminishing in value.
It kind of means that hardened, loitering, maneuverable and independed drones are becomming necessary. These are unfortunately the more expensive types, with the investment in EW protection, AI controllers, and large battery capacity. We have the additional impediment of needing long range as well.
We could very easily end up with thousands of obsolete and unusable drones with a poor procurement strategy here.
I would personally view that the better way forward is the heavy investment in R&D, prototyping and subcontractor upskilling, with the latent production facilities built to mass produce when necessary.
According to this:
file:///C:/Users/61408/Downloads/7.Questions%20on%20notice%205%20Aug%20-%20defence%20(1).pdf
AIR6502 and AIR6503 have not been cancelled, they have been consolidated into a single project under AIR6500. This will facilitate faster and more agile project management based on continually evolving technology updates and threat assessments.
While the Israelis make good defence missiles, I suspect they will be on the nose for a while.
The Arrow 4 and 5 are still in design stages, with from what I've read unlikely to reach field testing status within the next 2 years. The arrow 3 is however a good missile choice for the mid flight exo atmosphere component.
The Arrow family sits with the THAAD and SM3 systems, as an exo atmospheric mid flight interdiction cabable system. Hard to know which one Australia would opt for in the end.
I would think the next step is however a mid range rather than long range protection, so a likely Patriot, SM6 or Skyceptor/Stunner package that provides terminal phase balistic missile defence. We would need this regardless of a long range system.
Hopefully both the medium range and long range are covered in the next IIP due out next year.
I would have thought our easiest and simplest pathway is SM6 for the medium range, primarily as we already have it in our inventory (or at least on order) and it is a commissioned system on our ships (so we know how to use it). Combined with the Typhoon launcher it would be relatively easy to set up as a shore based protection system in a reasonable timeframe. This provides an immediate terminal phase balistic missile defence and the minimum we would need now.
I can't see us getting Patriot in under 10-15 years given the massive order backlog. Skyceptor is a cheaper but much less capable missile, perhaps not the level of protection we need for high value assets like bases and ports.
If we go SM6, then it perhaps makes better sense to go with the SM3 for the long range rather than Arrow or THAAD. It's a well supported very capable missile with a lot of ongoing investment in upgrades.
Lolcake
Active Member
I would hope we have the option of discussing the capabilities with the Israelis re the arrow systems. Arrow 4 and 5 are supposed to counter maneoverable hypersonic which is a huge emerging threat.
Came across this post on another forum:
*Cracks knuckles.*
> Although the PAC-3 MSE has proven itself effective against threats it does have some rather significant drawbacks when compared to the SM-6. For starters the Patriot in its current configuration is still a one direction radar and launcher system in which the radar points in a specific direction and does not have 360 degree coverage and missiles are launched in a specific direction instead of vertically.
While it is true that Patriot is a sectored-only system, it is little known that Aegis BMD is also limited to sectored search. For BMD, the crew has to assign a search fence where the system is constantly searching a specific volume of airspace for missile threats. This was a major limitation for pre-Baseline 9 ships, which could only provide missile defense *or* air defense capabilities, a deficiency which drove the deployment of several quick reaction refits to ships deployed in key regions—for example the Rota DDGs which were fitted with SeaRAM to give them some measure of self defense capability while performing the BMD mission. Baseline 9 and SPY-1D(V), which has two transmitters which allow two faces to be energized simultaneously, can perform simultaneous air and missile defense, but can only perform a BMD search in one sector.
SPY-6 and Baseline 10 will alleviate this, but even then a Flight III will not be able to perform a 360⁰ BMD search. There isn't enough power on the ship to do that, nor is it terribly needed. The thing about ballistic missiles is that they come from a limited number of directions, therefore having the ability to search in only 90⁰ or 120⁰ from a single system isn't too bad, especially not when you can have multiple systems pointed in different directions as needed.
Keep in mind these aren't specific limitations to Patriot or Aegis, basically any BMD system can only perform a BMD search in a single sector. Even systems like SAMP/T, SA-12/23, or SA-21 have to train their radar in a single direction and stare. It's a simple physics problem, these systems are trying to acquire and track low signature objects at often extreme ranges and high velocities. That requires power and time, which means the radar cannot easily reorient.
Current and near-future capabilities can mitigate this problem somewhat. LEO tracking systems like HBTSS can in theory allow a missile defense system to perform a quick reaction search outside of their search fence. This is mostly in relation to boost glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles, which do share quite a bit in common with ballistic threats, but also throw in their own wrinkles. Actually exploiting this kind of capability isn't something the Baseline 9 and older ships will be able to really do, it requires the much more capable computer plant of Baseline 10.
>Additionally the PAC-3 MSE appears to have a range of 75 miles although this could be an understatement for public consumption while the SM-6 has a claimed range of around 200 miles which again could be understated for public consumption.
The PAC-3 missile family is optimized for ballistic missile defense, specifically within the constraints of the Patriot system. The initial PAC-3 design was intended to provide the maximum possible defended footprint with the range of the MPQ-65 radar. This dictated a very high acceleration, low drag, low lift design to reach the intercept point as close to the limited search fence of the Patriot system as possible. MSE however was designed for a different system, MEADS, which was to have a much longer ranged UHF surveillance radar that would allow it to acquire threats further out. MSE, with its larger diameter, dual pulse motor, significantly expands the defended footprint and lethality of the weapon against certain threats. But the Army doesn't have MEADS, that program died a decade ago, so Patriot units are armed with a new interceptor that actually outranges their own sensor against critical threats. This was one of the driving requirements for LTAMDS, which is powerful enough to both exploit the full capability of MSE, but also provide additional range for a newer, longer ranged Future Interceptor that is yet to be acquired.
SM-6, however is optimized for air defense. It is substantially slower, both in terms of terminal velocity and acceleration. As a result, the BMD footprint of SM-6 and MSE (when MSE is able to make use of a more capable sensor, such as the TPY-2) is very similar. The long range claims for SM-6 are about engaging slow, non-maneuverable targets, but as target complexity increases its range decreases rapidly. This is really just a symptom of SM-6 being an improved version of a 1960s missile design; we can replace the motor, the warhead, the electronics, and the seeker, but at a conceptual level SM-6 is ultimately just an extremely improved RIM-2C. Whereas MSE is a design leveraging design philosophies several decades newer.
The TLDR here is that while MSE has less range in absolute terms, it loses range more slowly as threat complexity increases—to the point where they are very close. Meanwhile MSE has substantially greater lethality against most targets and reentry vehicles in particular thanks to both its hit to kill approach and much more advanced seeker.
>The US Army is beginning to field its new Ghost Eye family of radars for its Patriots systems as well as other air defense systems they will now have 360 degree radar coverage for their missile defense batteries.
Actually Patriot isn't being integrated with LTAMDS, the Army is skipping that and integrating the radar with IBCS immediately. Patriot is a legacy system (albeit a well sustained one) that will be sunset over the next decade or so as its sensors and C2 system is replaced. All that will remain will be the interceptors and their launchers.
Raytheon however is internally funding LTAMDS-Patriot integration for export, we will see if they hook any customers or if everyone goes to IBCS.
>Additionally the US Army will be fielding the SM-6 as a quasi short range ballistic missile in its new Typhon system that also includes the BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile for land attack and anti surface ship warfare.
It isn't actually a ballistic missile, SM-6 surface to surface mode employs a dramatically different flight profile and relies on its substantial strakes to glide toward the target before initiating a near-vertical dive towards the target. It actually took this profile, and the guidance software for it, from the abortive RGM-165 LASM, which was one reason it wasn't that hard to develop.
>With all of that said why does the US Army not begin to transition to using the SM-6 Missile for air defense purposes as well. The PAC-3 MSE costs 3.7 million dollars per missile while the SM-6 costs 3.9 million dollars per missile meaning that cost difference is most likely not a huge factor between the two of them.
Well, the Army doesn't have a gigantic need for the long-range capability of SM-6, which is one reason why the Mid Range Capability program is currently only buying launchers for a single battery within the Strategic Fires Battalion of each MDTF. But honestly the program is more about buying the *launcher* rather than the missile, because eventually the Army will have to look at long range hypersonic defeat with GPI or a similar capability, for which they will need a launcher compatible with Mk 41 canisters.
>Could magazine depth be an issue where a single Patriot launcher can field 16 PAC-3 MSE missiles while it would probably only be able to house 4 SM-6 missiles on a single launcher?
The tradeoff is twelve MSEs per M903 launcher versus *zero* SM-6 on said launcher, since the missile well exceeds the M903's limitations on AUR size. But in reality it is a magazine depth intertwined with a lethality problem. Any Army SAM needs to be carried on a semi truck trailer or smaller launch station. There is a practical limit to how many launch stations, six to eight per battery. So compare a MRC battery to a Patriot battery, each, in this example, having eight launchers. The former has thirty-two interceptors, the latter ninety six!
But that represents more than a simple threefold increase in magazine depth, because now you have to factor in interceptor capability. In terms of single shot pK, MSE is simply a superior weapon than SM-6 against complex targets. And similar to the range conversation, as target complexity goes up, MSE loses pK slower than SM-6. So the MRC battery with one third the interceptors...actually has fewer than one third the number of stowed kills against stressing targets. Dramatically fewer, in more extreme cases! And the MRC launchers have a larger logistical footprint than the Patriot launchers as well.
Came across this post on another forum:
*Cracks knuckles.*
> Although the PAC-3 MSE has proven itself effective against threats it does have some rather significant drawbacks when compared to the SM-6. For starters the Patriot in its current configuration is still a one direction radar and launcher system in which the radar points in a specific direction and does not have 360 degree coverage and missiles are launched in a specific direction instead of vertically.
While it is true that Patriot is a sectored-only system, it is little known that Aegis BMD is also limited to sectored search. For BMD, the crew has to assign a search fence where the system is constantly searching a specific volume of airspace for missile threats. This was a major limitation for pre-Baseline 9 ships, which could only provide missile defense *or* air defense capabilities, a deficiency which drove the deployment of several quick reaction refits to ships deployed in key regions—for example the Rota DDGs which were fitted with SeaRAM to give them some measure of self defense capability while performing the BMD mission. Baseline 9 and SPY-1D(V), which has two transmitters which allow two faces to be energized simultaneously, can perform simultaneous air and missile defense, but can only perform a BMD search in one sector.
SPY-6 and Baseline 10 will alleviate this, but even then a Flight III will not be able to perform a 360⁰ BMD search. There isn't enough power on the ship to do that, nor is it terribly needed. The thing about ballistic missiles is that they come from a limited number of directions, therefore having the ability to search in only 90⁰ or 120⁰ from a single system isn't too bad, especially not when you can have multiple systems pointed in different directions as needed.
Keep in mind these aren't specific limitations to Patriot or Aegis, basically any BMD system can only perform a BMD search in a single sector. Even systems like SAMP/T, SA-12/23, or SA-21 have to train their radar in a single direction and stare. It's a simple physics problem, these systems are trying to acquire and track low signature objects at often extreme ranges and high velocities. That requires power and time, which means the radar cannot easily reorient.
Current and near-future capabilities can mitigate this problem somewhat. LEO tracking systems like HBTSS can in theory allow a missile defense system to perform a quick reaction search outside of their search fence. This is mostly in relation to boost glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles, which do share quite a bit in common with ballistic threats, but also throw in their own wrinkles. Actually exploiting this kind of capability isn't something the Baseline 9 and older ships will be able to really do, it requires the much more capable computer plant of Baseline 10.
>Additionally the PAC-3 MSE appears to have a range of 75 miles although this could be an understatement for public consumption while the SM-6 has a claimed range of around 200 miles which again could be understated for public consumption.
The PAC-3 missile family is optimized for ballistic missile defense, specifically within the constraints of the Patriot system. The initial PAC-3 design was intended to provide the maximum possible defended footprint with the range of the MPQ-65 radar. This dictated a very high acceleration, low drag, low lift design to reach the intercept point as close to the limited search fence of the Patriot system as possible. MSE however was designed for a different system, MEADS, which was to have a much longer ranged UHF surveillance radar that would allow it to acquire threats further out. MSE, with its larger diameter, dual pulse motor, significantly expands the defended footprint and lethality of the weapon against certain threats. But the Army doesn't have MEADS, that program died a decade ago, so Patriot units are armed with a new interceptor that actually outranges their own sensor against critical threats. This was one of the driving requirements for LTAMDS, which is powerful enough to both exploit the full capability of MSE, but also provide additional range for a newer, longer ranged Future Interceptor that is yet to be acquired.
SM-6, however is optimized for air defense. It is substantially slower, both in terms of terminal velocity and acceleration. As a result, the BMD footprint of SM-6 and MSE (when MSE is able to make use of a more capable sensor, such as the TPY-2) is very similar. The long range claims for SM-6 are about engaging slow, non-maneuverable targets, but as target complexity increases its range decreases rapidly. This is really just a symptom of SM-6 being an improved version of a 1960s missile design; we can replace the motor, the warhead, the electronics, and the seeker, but at a conceptual level SM-6 is ultimately just an extremely improved RIM-2C. Whereas MSE is a design leveraging design philosophies several decades newer.
The TLDR here is that while MSE has less range in absolute terms, it loses range more slowly as threat complexity increases—to the point where they are very close. Meanwhile MSE has substantially greater lethality against most targets and reentry vehicles in particular thanks to both its hit to kill approach and much more advanced seeker.
>The US Army is beginning to field its new Ghost Eye family of radars for its Patriots systems as well as other air defense systems they will now have 360 degree radar coverage for their missile defense batteries.
Actually Patriot isn't being integrated with LTAMDS, the Army is skipping that and integrating the radar with IBCS immediately. Patriot is a legacy system (albeit a well sustained one) that will be sunset over the next decade or so as its sensors and C2 system is replaced. All that will remain will be the interceptors and their launchers.
Raytheon however is internally funding LTAMDS-Patriot integration for export, we will see if they hook any customers or if everyone goes to IBCS.
>Additionally the US Army will be fielding the SM-6 as a quasi short range ballistic missile in its new Typhon system that also includes the BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile for land attack and anti surface ship warfare.
It isn't actually a ballistic missile, SM-6 surface to surface mode employs a dramatically different flight profile and relies on its substantial strakes to glide toward the target before initiating a near-vertical dive towards the target. It actually took this profile, and the guidance software for it, from the abortive RGM-165 LASM, which was one reason it wasn't that hard to develop.
>With all of that said why does the US Army not begin to transition to using the SM-6 Missile for air defense purposes as well. The PAC-3 MSE costs 3.7 million dollars per missile while the SM-6 costs 3.9 million dollars per missile meaning that cost difference is most likely not a huge factor between the two of them.
Well, the Army doesn't have a gigantic need for the long-range capability of SM-6, which is one reason why the Mid Range Capability program is currently only buying launchers for a single battery within the Strategic Fires Battalion of each MDTF. But honestly the program is more about buying the *launcher* rather than the missile, because eventually the Army will have to look at long range hypersonic defeat with GPI or a similar capability, for which they will need a launcher compatible with Mk 41 canisters.
>Could magazine depth be an issue where a single Patriot launcher can field 16 PAC-3 MSE missiles while it would probably only be able to house 4 SM-6 missiles on a single launcher?
The tradeoff is twelve MSEs per M903 launcher versus *zero* SM-6 on said launcher, since the missile well exceeds the M903's limitations on AUR size. But in reality it is a magazine depth intertwined with a lethality problem. Any Army SAM needs to be carried on a semi truck trailer or smaller launch station. There is a practical limit to how many launch stations, six to eight per battery. So compare a MRC battery to a Patriot battery, each, in this example, having eight launchers. The former has thirty-two interceptors, the latter ninety six!
But that represents more than a simple threefold increase in magazine depth, because now you have to factor in interceptor capability. In terms of single shot pK, MSE is simply a superior weapon than SM-6 against complex targets. And similar to the range conversation, as target complexity goes up, MSE loses pK slower than SM-6. So the MRC battery with one third the interceptors...actually has fewer than one third the number of stowed kills against stressing targets. Dramatically fewer, in more extreme cases! And the MRC launchers have a larger logistical footprint than the Patriot launchers as well.
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Thanks, very interesting comparison. My take is both SM6 amd MSE can function as medium range interceptors, however they have different strengths and weaknesses. It perhaps comes down to which supply chain you can readily access.
The big point above is the impact of the connected radar. We have gone with the CEA OPS and TAC radars for our HIMARS and NASAMS batteries, and presumably these will be paired with future medium and long range missile acquisitions. The larger OPS one looks to be in the same playing field as the RTX Ghost Eye, but I've never seen the stats comparison.
Cash. Lack thereof..,
Takao
The Bunker Group
Not in this case. 6502 has two major problems that are quite challenging, and all the 'but we need MR SAM now!" audience ignores: workforce and availability.
At the moment the demand for the technical types needed to run a MR SAM capability is massive across defence and the wider workforce. STEM-y types, those capable of technical tasking and battle management, are currently being used for: submarines, anything autonomous, targeting, cyber, space, and frigates. Then there is the up-step in technicality: self-propelled guns, digital IFVs and CRVs, MC-55 and OPVs. Beyond this there are the IT needs of the nation, the mines, shipbuilding - again, a whole bunch of areas. Getting these people are hard enough, and there are other priorities to slot them in to.
As for availability, just look at the open source reporting about the usage rates of SAMs v production following Red Sea and defence of Israel options. It is THAAD, not a MR SAM, but shooting up to 150 in a month when you buy/build 12 a year is not sustainable. Raytheon has issues with production, including down-stream suppliers, struggling to match a demand that has seen more missiles fired in 18 months than arguably since 1945. These were all before the anti-Iran operations that saw the IDF stretched - meaning that their supply chains aren't available and they will take US-made missiles that were going elsewhere. The harsh reality is that Western-compatible missiles are scarce as hens teeth - and if you didn't place orders in 2014-2018-ish then you won't have them for the next 8 - 10 years. Remember too, we are adding more VLS to the fleet - they have to be filled as well, placing more demands on the limited ADF inventory.
With workforce and effectors having low feasibility of delivery, delivering just kit now would not be sensible.
Now there is an option. We could reject the complete dumbness that is Strikemaster and instead buy a Mk 70-esque system that provides a long range strike capability as well. At least there are more munitions that can be used, it's a capability that'll be multi-role and when we finally get our orders through, it can be expanded easier. But that requires ditching silly ideas and then breaking the AFHQ culture of who 'owns' air defence.
Of course, we probably should, at some point, discuss what we need to defend. Because a MR SAM battery is awesome if you are Israel or the UK; but pretty token if you are Australia. Going to need a lot of batteries. Lowy has a neat map that shows it's nothing to do with Darwin or the north - the sites that actually need defending are now all over the continent. Those workforce and effector numbers looking even less feasible now. At that's before we uncrowbar ourselves from the extraordinarily narrow and significantly out of date view that northern Australia is the priority for air defence...
