Australia’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence concept may be emerging in the outback. Aegis ashore but with a Sovereign Capability twist! ⬇️
The 2023 Defence Strategic Review highlighted Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) as an urgent priority for the ADF and we’ve been regularly calling for greater urgency on delivering IAMD capability via these means. So the news that Australia is testing an evolved Aegis ashore concept as part of Exercise Tasman Strike 2026 is welcome news:
“Last month, the ADF successfully employed a prototype ground-based active missile defence system to engage an airborne target with a Standard Missile-2, at the Woomera test range in South Australia during Exercise Taipan Strike 26. The missile firing integrated an Australian radar that communicated with a United States weapon control system and missile launcher, to shoot down a cruise missile target with an Australian missile.”
CEA Technologies provided the radar – a true sovereign capability. The interceptor was Raytheon’s SM-2 missile, which is widely in use across Western navies including our own. The launcher was a Derringer trailer-mounted Expeditionary Launch System and Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Combat System integrated the sensor and shooter data. While there are similarities to the Aegis Ashore system utilised by Poland and Romania this Aussie Aegis Ashore concept has the added advantage of both the sensor and shooter platforms being mobile.
Of course if Australia isn’t manufacturing the SM-2 and Derringer missile launch platform onshore we can’t deliver a shooter with surety in this IAMD loop. We will just remain in the long queues for US made consumables of combat as a customer, not adding to the arsenal of freedom. As the excellent recent CSIS report ‘Rebuilding the US missile inventory‘ reveals, the free world is heavily reliant on artisan assembly lines making small batches:
“The United States has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the Iran war, but the depleted inventories have created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict. The time needed to rebuild those inventories has thus become a major concern. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that it will take ‘months and years . . . depending on the weapon system’ to replenish U.S. inventories.”
Nonetheless, an Aussie Aegis Ashore concept is a step in the right direction and a timely talking point after the Chinese ballistic missile test touched down in vicinity of the Pacific Islands this week. More of this, faster!
📷 via the Department of Defence