F3 to get AMRAAM C-5 and ASRAAM FOC 2.

[Jackonicko]

On Wednesday, 22 December 2004, BAE Systems announced that it had

“been awarded a £25m contract to modify the Tornado F3 to integrate the latest standards of AMRAAM and ASRAAM missiles. Under the contract, BAE Systems' Customer Solutions & Support business will enhance the defence capability of the aircraft whilst delivering £14m savings.”

The DLO issued a more detailed media release, saying:

“The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has awarded BAE Systems a contract worth some £25 million to support its fleet of Tornado F3 aircraft. The innovative contract signed on 10 December is an example of MOD's Smart Acquisition, replacing traditional business processes. This has been achieved whilst implementing lean engineering processes on Capability development both in the sustainment programme and throughout the support chain.

The contract will deliver a number of upgrades and sustainment services as a single package in support of the Tornado F3 and is a result of the partnering approach developed between the Defence Logistics Organisation's Tornado Integrated Project Team (IPT) and prime-contractor BAE Systems. Under the contract, known as the F3 Sustainment Programme (FSP), the aircraft will be modified to integrate the latest standards of air defence missiles, the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile 120C-5 and Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile FOC2 onto the Tornado F3. Included in the package are a number of radar and on-board computer software changes that significantly enhance the targeting of missiles through improved processing and aircraft display systems. In addition, the F3's Suppression of Enemy Air Defence capabilities have been enhanced and retained post Op TELIC for trials and development purposes.

In announcing the award of the contract, the Integrated Project Team Leader for Tornado, Air Commodore Nigel Bairsto said:
‘This package underpins the Tornado F3 as one of the most potent combat fighter aircraft in the world today by maintaining its lethal Air Defence Capability. The contract provides a benchmark service to the Royal Air Force, delivering cost savings in excess of £14 million through the use of rapid prototyping, a Combined Trials Team and Lean engineering. Furthermore, the teaming arrangements exploit the best skills of our industrial partners and encourages continuous improvement through incentivisation and value-for-money.’

Under the contract, BAE Systems will take responsibility for the management of a number of vendors, the integration of assets and ensuring the embodiment of the FSP capability at Tornado F3 operating bases in the UK. BAE Systems is the prime contractor, with the service delivered in partnership with QinetiQ, AMS, BAE Systems (Avionics), Raytheon, and MBDA and will sustain jobs across the UK.”


All well and good, but a few questions.

Does this mean that the F3 will finally have a full, robust AMRAAM capability, with the mid-course guidance offered by the weapon?

Why has it taken so long to get AMRAAM to the point at which it’s the weapon of choice on the Tornado F3? Despite integrating AIM-120 in the CSP/COV/ADV 2000, and then improving the capability under AOP/CEP, it seemed as though whenever F3s deployed on ops, they deployed with SkyFlash (wasn’t it ‘Flash on Telic?), and that QRA aircraft inevitably seemed to carry the old weapon. When the Telegraph ran its scare story in June 2002, “A spokesman for the MoD said: "The Amraam missile is not part of the RAF's inventory at the moment." TL Thou said on 25 June that “AMRAAM is not "currently" fitted to F3s on operations,” and I remember another Pruner saying ‘we haven’t had that for some time’ about AMRAAM.

At the time of CSP it was said that the decision was taken that it would be ok to launch AMRAAMs on an inertial track, without the two mid-course updates which give the aircraft much of its deadly accuracy, allowing the missile to alter course before its onboard active seeker took over. Senior MoD sources decided that the required datalink was unaffordable, that simulations showed that "you are better off not using mid course guidance with AMRAAM" and that enemy aircraft could be picked off using ASRAAM as they made "evasive manoeuvres against the F3's initial AMRAAM shots". The planned AMRAAM optimisation programme was therefore cancelled, but was later resurrected. It didn’t seem sufficient to get AMRAAM back into frontline use, though?

Does this mean that F3 will have a digital ASRAAM, at last?

Does this mean that 11 Squadron didn’t lose its SEAD capability when the UOR ‘ran out’?

[raytofclimb]

BEADWINDOW

This is not the place to ask questions like that. I suggest to reply would not be appropriate!

[Jackonicko]

That would be a good call if I was asking about parametrics, tactics, or detailed capability.

As it is, it seems a disproportionate response.

[SirToppamHat]

I was going to ask a question, but I guess I'll just wait until 1 Jan 05 and send an email to my Stn Cdr!

[rivetjoint]

I'm not in RAF but I'd much rather the bad guys had to find out that kind of information for themselves, not have it given on a plate.

[Neil Porter]

How many F3 Sqns are there now????

And when are the F3's supposed to be retired by (as in all of them & replaced by Eurofighter??).. ... i would have thought it might be worth retaining a few Sqns of F3's beyond the projected retirement date of ? being as they are rated highly....

[Maple 01]

SirToppam,

You've been a very naughty chap - Jacko might very well follow your lead and ask a few dificult questions and then where would we be?

Happy Christmas, hope you're enjoying working in ambient light

[SirToppamHat]

Mostly! Check your PMs.

STH

[whowhenwhy]

As far as the details of the F3 update program is concerned, much of it has been discussed at length in great details in the mil aviation press, particularly the SEAD role. As Jacko says if he was talking about tech minutae then that would be different.

As far as keeping the jet going is concerned, the idea of keeping it with a view to a dedicated UK SEAD asset has a lot of merit. Especially when by all accounts it's suppose to be quite promising!

Merry Christmas:ok:

[Navaleye]

Not only was the mid course guidance work cancelled then restarted, also the proposed purchase of AMRAAMs for the F3 fleet was cancelled then re-purchased. I recall seeing a comment saying that the F3 fleet would share Shar's inventory. It looks like that also never happened.

Well, we should look on the brightside, we have fewer a/c, but they are more capable and give us a capability that other countries have had for 10 years.

It doesn't say when its going to happen. If BWoS are running it they will still be lugging Skyflash for a while yet. When is the F3's OSD?

[Jackonicko]

I don’t want to know any detail about AMRAAM’s current operational capability beyond the most basic (does it have mid course guidance or not?). I want to know nothing at all about parametrics nor about tactics.

The MoD announced that AMRAAM was operational with 43 and 111 in June 2004, and stated that “The F3/AMRAAM combination was tested operationally for the first time during exercises in Canada in May and June 2004.”

What went before that is history.

The limitations of the weapon as carried today should not be discussed in detail – they could obviously be of use to an enemy. I’m not asking anyone to do that. But the limitations of the weapon in times gone by are of no military significance today, and the only reason for not discussing these would be to protect politicians, procurement officials and people in industry from embarrassment when their mistakes are made public. Affording them such protection is neither in the best interests of the taxpayer nor the frontline.

Taxpayers like me have spent millions on the weapon (whose integration was justified on the basis of its advertised capabilities) and on a succession of upgrades, all done the expensive way, and all presented as being intended to give these capabilities, and if our money has been squandered then we should know that, who’s to blame and why. That’s one of the disadvantages of a democracy.

What we do know is that we have paid for a £125m or £140m Capability Sustainment Programme (CSP), announced on 5 March 1996, and which specifically included “Integration of ASRAAM and AMRAAM air-to-air missiles.” Certainly the then-Director of Air Operations told the Commons Defence Committee “that the CSP will give the F3 the capability to fire advance short range and medium range air to air missiles.”

Though AMRAAM was lauded for its ‘fire and forget’ abilities, and “capable of simultaneous engagements of multiple targets” it’s clear that this integration was, at best, austere, with some suggesting that it was launched at an ‘inertial’ fix, where the active seeker took over, and with others suggesting that there was “no proper databus connection between the weapons system and the missile even before launch.” This was said to “limit AMRAAM to blind launches, forcing the missile to go active as soon as it was launched.”

It was claimed that the programme remained on schedule and that the upgrade of the first 24 aircraft was successfully completed by the end of 1998, and that these then entered service at Leuchars, albeit without a meaningful enough AMRAAM integration for the new missile to replace SkyFlash.

In 2002 the MoD announced that the F3 force would receive a further upgrade (the £30 m AOP, signed on 8 June 2001) to allow the AMRAAM to receive “two mid-course updates after launch to refresh target information prior to its own seeker taking over.” If it did provide such a capability, surely that’s worth shouting about, though why it took until June 2004 to deploy the weapon is interesting (when AOP ISD was stated to have been the end of October 2002 by Lewis Moonie in the house), and why a further £25 m FSP is now necessary is an equally compelling question.

It’s also interesting that the much vaunted “introduction of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air-Missile” in 2004 would seem to indicate that the weapon was never actually operational on Tornado before that, and was only available for emergency/contingency use. That begs the question as to whether the CSP and AOP represented value for money.

F3’s OSD is still set at 2009, according the the Government.

[Navaleye]

It's already out of date.

AMRAAM info (http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-120.html)Deliveries of the AIM-120C-5 began in July 2000. The current production version of AMRAAM is the AIM-120C-6, which features an updated TDD (Target Detection Device). The AIM-120C-7 (P3I Phase 3), development of which has begun in 1998, incorporates improved ECCM with jamming detection, an upgraded seeker, and longer range. The latter feature was specifically requested by the U.S. Navy to get a (somewhat) suitable replacement for the AIM-54 Phoenix very-long range missile, which was then planned to be retired together with the F-14D Tomcat around 2007 (actual official retirement was already in Spetember 2004). The AIM-120C-7 was successfully tested against combat-realistic targets in August and September 2003, and IOC was then planned for 2004

There's no indication as to how long these upgrades are due to take. Given the need to save money, would it not have been prudent to allocate the soon to be redundant FAA's 120B inventory to the RAF and purchase the more capable D model for the F3 and Typhoon when it becomes available. I don't think the F-35 is ever going to be cleared for Meteor, so there is a need for a state of the art medium range weapon moving forward.

Additional:

Looking at the missile shelf life published in Hansard, ASRAAM has a planned life of only 10 years. AMRAAM, 25. Presumably the mid 70's technology Skyflash has the same, so it is life expired. The earlier two upgrades didn't deliver the results, so we'll spend another £25m and take another pop at it.