NZ’s new sub-killers
Search and rescue missions are tense for Squadron 5; silent. Crew members keep a close eye out the windows, looking for signs of movement, strange objects. Counter-piracy missions and anti-warfare training are louder. There’s constant chatter: is the ship a threat, whose is it, what’s it doing, what happens next?
And there’s no shortage of banter, says Squadron 5 executive officer Glen Donaldson.
Like his new boss, Defence Force chief Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Short, Donaldson started out as a navigator in the maritime surveillance aircraft, and he will defend the ageing P-3K Orions to the scrapyard.
When the planes came to New Zealand in the 1960s, they were supposed to last 30 years.
In the past seven years, Orion patrols have helped save 911 lives. They’ve been a part of operations cracking down on piracy and smuggling off the Horn of Africa, surveillance of a Vanuatu volcano, assessing damage from cyclones Winston and Gita in the Pacific, surveillance of critical infrastructure after the Kaiko¯ ura quake, and fisheries monitoring.
Maritime surveillance is a key part of the work of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). But the P-3s the country has been relying on to patrol its neighbourhood, and support its defence partners, have seen their best years. Servicing that used to take three weeks is taking up to three months, emergency alerts at the base are rising, and costs are soaring.
Defence Minister Ron Mark this week revealed that the Government will buy four Boeing P-8A Poseidons to replace the Defence Force’s fleet of P-3K Orions. The purchase, to cost New Zealand more than $2.3 billion, has been a long time coming.
The P-8s, known as submarine killers, mark a new era in defence procurement, with one expert calling this the most significant defence purchase in a generation.
Their purchase also marks a clear direction in terms of allies, and the potential global threats brewing across the globe.
But Donaldson says it will be sad to say goodbye to an old friend.
Why the P-8s?
The announcement of the new planes comes as the Government ramps up its rhetoric around the growing threat to the international rules-based order.
Earlier in the year Foreign Minister Winston Peters launched his Pacific reset in reaction to the growing influence of ‘‘nontraditional players’’ in the region.
Last week, Mark took the fingerpointing further when he namechecked China in his rebooted defence policy paper, raising concerns over that country’s growing economic and military power, and its actions in the Pacific, Antarctica, and the South China Sea.
The Government is clear it feels there’s a deterioration in the global order. It wants wholesale knowledge of what’s going on in the seas at the bottom of the world, while being able to defend its area of responsibility, and to be capable of fighting back alongside its allies.
It’s not clear how many submarines patrol the Pacific, or the Southern Ocean – that’s the point of submarines, Donaldson The Goverment is paying more than $2.3b for four new military aircraft. Why, and what is so special about them? Laura Walters examines the Boeing P-8A Poseidon purchase. says: they don’t want you to know they’re there.
A guess would be speculation, but China is ramping up activity in the South China Sea, and pouring resources into advancing undersea technology.
Short says the Government needs its military force to have a response option – even the threat of being able to carry weapons and fire is a response.
The Government wants broad capability – that’s search and rescue through to anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and anti-surface warfare. ‘‘Unless you buy that upfront, you never have that option,’’ he says.
Professor Robert Ayson, from Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, says this is the most important defence capability choice in a generation.
In 2016, after the release of the former government’s defence white paper, Ayson wrote that the maritime dimension ‘‘looms large’’ for New Zealand’s future decisions.
‘‘Underwater missions have for some time been an area of domestic political sensitivity, with concerns that an ASW capability may lock the NZDF into overseas combat missions that might not necessarily be in the national interest.
‘‘However, more than a decade and a half after the Clark government rejected a modernisation of the Orion’s ASW capabilities, the current proposal to do just that has raised barely a ripple,’’ Ayson wrote in 2016.
The political context in New Zealand is now more amenable to buying more advanced maritime capabilities, Ayson says.
The purchase also says who New Zealand wants as its allies. Australia, the US, and the UK all have the P-8s, along with India, Norway and South Korea.
What can the planes do?
If New Zealand needed to fire in anger, these planes have what it takes. Donaldson says the high-end combat capability also means the planes are well-equipped for search and rescue and fishing, or smuggling surveillance.
They have a combat management system, where all the different censors and stations operate together on a computer network with a database system.
A synthetic aperture radar system works over land and sea, detecting objects. The system can take a rough quality photograph, and can identify ships at 100 nautical miles. The radar can detect a small cross-section of metal, like a small dinghy, during a search and rescue mission, or a submarine mast.
And they have colour and thermal imaging, and can shoot high-definition video from tens of kilometres away.
Acoustic systems pick up noises underwater, made by ships or submarines, and send the data back to the planes, and the communications systems pass all the data to NZDF’s joint forces.
There are self-detection missile approach warning systems. And, of
There are selfdetection missile approach warning systems. And, of course, the plane carries weapons, including torpedoes.
course, the plane carries weapons, including torpedoes.
What will they actually do?
About a tenth of Squadron 5’s hours are now dedicated to search and rescue operations, while patrolling fisheries and customs in New Zealand waters and the South Pacific accounts for about a quarter to a third of its time.
The squad’s international output – like the joint counterpiracy work in the Middle East – accounts for about half of its flying hours, and about a third of the hours go into training.
That high-end capability training for things like ASW and anti-surface warfare keeps the NZDF personnel ready for any maritime surveillance operations they might need to carry out.
Donaldson says heightened activity in the South China Sea will continue, and New Zealand has an important part to play in maintaining the freedom of navigation and sealines in the highly contested area.
But it’s unclear exactly what capabilities, or bits of tech built into the P-8s that New Zealand will need to use regularly.
Former Green Party MP, and procurement critic, Keith Locke says New Zealand would be better to take a more ‘‘non-aligned’’ stance in relation to the standoff between the US and China, working with each power on the merits of the situation, and helping to mediate conflicts where necessary.
The alignment with the US comes at a literal cost, he says. The P-8s are ‘‘gigantically expensive’’.
‘‘New Zealand could have bought four hi-tech surveillance planes, without the anti-submarine capacity, at a fraction of the cost, and they would have been much more useful to New Zealand.’’
And Locke suspects the more the surveillance planes are geared towards combat, the less they will be available for monitoring fisheries.
Green Party defence spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman says the Government has spoken a lot about the rules-based order, but buying these planes isn’t walking the talk. ‘‘We need to move away from following the old world order of the US, UK, Australia . . .
‘‘Our practice of investing in the war industry is part of eroding the move towards non-proliferation of arms, of not relying on war and the use of force to solve disputes.
‘‘If we want a commitment to the rules-based system, we have to practise what we preach. And part of that is divesting from the war industry.’’
Regardless of what the Greens think, New Zealand has committed to buying the planes, and China is watching.
After the release of Mark’s defence policy paper, the superpower hit back, saying China had ‘‘lodged stern representations with New Zealand on the wrong remarks it has made’’.
‘‘We urge New Zealand to view the relevant issue in an objective way, correct its wrong words and deeds and contribute more to the mutual trust and co-operation’’ between the countries, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.
And after the announcement of the P-8 purchase, Beijing-based defence expert Li Jie, who is often quoted in pro-China state media, said the planes were ‘‘a big threat to China’s submarines’’.
He told the Global Times –a tabloid of the People’s Daily, one of the official newspapers of the Communist Party of China – that China needs to improve the stealth capability of its submarines as more Western countries, including New Zealand, upgrade their ASW capabilities.
How much will they cost?
To have the option of engaging in anti-sub warfare, NZ will pay a cool
$2.346b. The planes will be delivered and begin operations from 2023; the Orions will be scrapped by 2025. The capital cost of the P-8s will be spread out to the
2026 financial year.
Last year, when the US approved the sale, the four planes were costed at US$1.46b ($2.16b).
More than 50 per cent of the additional cost is due to moving Squadron 5 from Whenuapai in Auckland, to Ohakea in Manawatu¯ . The move requires the building of hangars and working accommodation, strengthening taxiways and support areas, as well as building a simulator house and infrastructure.
Short says the move is the right one, with Whenuapai’s runway not long enough to facilitate the takeoff of large planes, once weaponised.
Where does the money go?
Money for the actual purchase will go to the companies building, and fitting out, the planes. New Zealand needs to put in its order now, so it gets into the production line before Boeing stops taking orders.
The prime contractor will be The Boeing Company, with a couple of dozen smaller contractors in charge of delivering the internal communications, radar, and weapons systems, including BAE Systems, General Electric, Raytheon – the major US weapons and electronics contractor – and Northrop Grumman, one of the world’s largest arms traders.
Boeing’s website boasts its ability to deliver on-time, and onbudget. And when the last of the P-8s arrives at Ohakea, the P-3s will be off to be scrapped.
Though one may make it into the private collection of film director and military buff Peter Jackson, Short says. Maybe.