Australia to Upgrade Adelaide-Class Ships, Eyes UAV Fleet

Sea Power, Sep 2004

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) will upgrade four of its Adelaide-class frigates under a $402.5 million program, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill announced July 15. The units to be upgraded are the HMAS Darwin, Melbourne, New Castle and Sydney, with completion scheduled for early 2009. Funding for the program will mainly derive from the savings associated with the decommissioning of two units from the class in 2006.

The improvements are expected to take place in Australia at the Garden Reach facility with the ships' Mk 13 launchers being modified for the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) as well as modifications to the Mk 92 fire-control systems.

The introduction of the SM-2 into the RAN will significantly improve the range of the sea service's area air defenses and can be considered the prelude to the Air Warfare Destroyer Program, for which the SM-2 will form the basis of the area air defense network. The Air Warfare Destroyer program is expected to begin by 2007.

In another move, Hill announced that a request for proposal (RfP) for a fleet of tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) worth $73 million to $110 million would be issued by the end of July. The responses are due in November with an award currently scheduled for May 2005.

Preliminary information calls for a fleet of UAVs capable of launching in a variety of ways, including conventional wheeled takeoff and landing, catapult launch and parachute landing, and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), as well as rotary wing configurations.

Although the Australian Army would operate the systems, the capability would include unmanned maritime patrol and surveillance from shore facilities as well as leaving open the possibility for the RAN's surface combatants to be equipped with the VTOL or rotary wing UAVs.

BY AMI INTERNATIONAL INC.