E-2D Hawkeye: The Navy’s New AWACS

Northrop Grumman’s E-2C Hawkeye is a carrier-capable “mini-AWACS” aircraft, designed to give long-range warning of incoming aerial threats. Secondary roles include strike command and control, land and maritime surveillance, search and rescue, communications relay, and even civil air traffic control during emergencies. E-2C Hawkeyes began replacing previous Hawkeye versions in 1973. They fly from USN and French carriers, from land bases in the militaries of Egypt, Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan; and in a drug interdiction role for the US Naval Reserve. Over 200 Hawkeyes have been produced.

The $17.5 billion E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program aims to build 75 new aircraft with significant radar, engine, and electronics upgrades in order to deal with a world of stealthier cruise missiles, saturation attacks, and a growing need for ground surveillance as well as aerial scans. It looks a lot like the last generation E-2C Hawkeye 2000 upgrade on the outside – but inside, and even outside to some extent, it’s a whole new aircraft.

THAAD: Reach Out and Touch Ballistic Missiles

THAAD: In flight

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is a long-range, land-based theater defense weapon that acts as the upper tier of a basic 2-tiered defense against ballistic missiles. It’s designed to intercept missiles during late mid-course or final stage flight, flying at high altitudes within and even outside the atmosphere. This allows it to provide broad area coverage against threats to critical assets such as population centers and industrial resources as well as military forces, hence its previous “theater (of operations) high altitude area defense” designation.

This capability makes THAAD different from a Patriot PAC-3 or the future MEADS system, which are point defense options with limited range that are designed to hit a missile or warhead just before impact. The SM-3 Standard missile is a far better comparison, and land-based SM-3 programs will make it a direct THAAD competitor. So far, both programs remain underway.

AN/TPY-2: America’s Portable Missile Defense Radar

AN/TPY-2

The THAAD Ground-Based Radar (GBR), now known as the AN/TPY-2, is an X-Band, phased array, solid-state, long-range air defense radar. It was developed and built by Raytheon at its Andover, MA Integrated Air Defense Facility, as the main radar for the US Army’s THAAD late midcourse ballistic missile defense system.

For THAAD, targeting information from the TPY-2 is uploaded to the missile immediately before launch, and continuously updated in flight via datalinks. The TPY-2 is always deployed with THAAD, but it can also be used independently as part of any ABM (anti ballistic missile) infrastructure. That flexibility, and ease of deployment, is carving out an expanding role for the TPY-2/ “FBX” that reaches beyond THAAD. If a recent NRC report is adopted, that role will expand again to include national-scale ballistic missile defense. Hence this separate article to cover its ongoing development.

France’s Rafale Fighters: Au Courant In Time?

Dassault Rafale
(click for cutaway view)

Will Dassault’s fighter become a fashionably late fighter platform that builds on its parent company’s past successes – or just “the late Rafale”? It all began as a 1985 break-away from the multinational consortium that went on to create EADS’ Eurofighter. The French needed a lighter aircraft that was suitable for carrier use, and were reportedly unwilling to cede design authority over the project. As is so often true of French defense procurement policy, the choice came down to one of paying additional costs for full independence and exact needs, or losing key industrial capabilities by partnering or buying abroad. France has generally opted for expensive but independent defense choices, and the Rafale was no exception.

Those costs, and associated delays triggered by the end of the Cold War and reduced funding, proved to be very costly indeed. Unlike previous French fighters, which relied on exports to lower their costs and keep production lines humming, the Rafale has yet to secure a single export contract – in part because initial versions were hampered by impaired capabilities in key roles. The Rafale may, at last, be ready to be what its vendors say: a true omnirole aircraft, ready for prime time on the global export stage. The question is whether that will come in time. Rivals like EADS’ Eurofighter, Russia’s Su-27/30 family, and the American “teen series” of F-15/16/18 variants are all well established. Meanwhile, Saab’s versatile and cheaper JAS-39 Gripen remains a stubborn foe in key export competitions, and the multinational F-35 juggernaut is bearing down on it.

France’s PA2/CVF Carrier Project: Stalled in the Water

PA2 Concept, June 2006

Throughout most of the Cold War period, France maintained two aircraft carriers. That changed when the FNS Foch, the last Clemenceau Class carrier, was retired in November 2000 (it will now serve the Brazilian Navy as the Sao Paolo). As Strategis notes, France has lacked the capacity to ensure long-distance air coverage during the FNS Charles de Gaulle’s maintenance cycles or during other periods when the carrier is not available for active duty (approximately 35% of the time). In 2015, the ship will be taken out of service for an extensive maintenance overhaul. Despite a slippage in initial construction dates from 2005 to 2007-2008, the French still hope to take delivery by 2014 so the new ship can be operational by the time their sole operational aircraft carrier goes off line for repairs.

That was the original idea, anyway. Recent developments once again cast doubt on the PA2′s future. The time for a decision was postponed to 2011, but in 2013, DCNS is still waiting. In fact, their taking their case to the export market.

Rapid Fire April 29, 2013: With New Defense Whitepaper, France Dodges Necessary Tradeoffs

• The French government released a much-delayed White Paper [PDF, in French] to refresh France’s defense outlook. What happened since the previous Livre Blanc published in 2008? The global financial crisis and the accelerated degradation of public finances in many Euro countries. Chocked with deficits running all the way back to 1974, France will pursue further defense personnel and armament reductions, without touching its core nuclear deterrence or aspirations to be heard worldwide. The building of a second aircraft carrier is shelved for good, and recent rumors of cutting Rafale purchases to 225 over the life of the program are confirmed by a description of what French forces should look like by 2025. Helicopters, transport aircraft and tanks will also see reduced quantities, while special forces are the rare recipient of additional resources.