Australian Navy spends $1.3b on new US-made Seahawk choppers, dumps MRH-90 Taipan fleet
Australia will acquire $1.3 billion worth of submarine-hunting helicopters from America in the latest military acquisition off the back of the AUKUS security pact.
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The Royal Australian Navy will acquire 12 US-made Seahawk helicopters in a $1.3 billion deal that will finally see its much-maligned fleet of the European made MRH-90 Taipan dumped.
Just three weeks after Australia tore up its contract for French submarines in favour of US nuclear ones, the US State Department has now approved the sale of 12 additional Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk submarine-hunting helicopters for the Royal Australian Navy.
The RAN already operates a fleet of 24 MH-60Rs based at HMAS Albatross in Nowra NSW with Taipan’s operating in a utility role and due to be phased out.
The latest acquisition was expected but the timing of the announcement overnight is poor given the controversy over of abolition of the French subs contract that coincided with the announcement of a trilateral security pact between Australia, the US and UK.
The Sikorsky will boost the RAN’s ability to track and destroy enemy submarines and was being viewed as critical for our continued armed forces push for interoperability with US forces in the Indo Pacific region.
The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the latest deal, noting Australia was one of the US’s most important allies in the western Pacific Ocean and the choppers would be used by the RAN as “a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defence”.
“It is vital to the US national interest to assist our ally in developing and maintaining a strong and ready self-defence capability.”
The helicopters would come with multi-mode radars and targeting systems, 12 GAU-61 digital rocket launchers, airborne low frequency sonars, and missile launchers.
“This proposed sale will improve Australia’s capability to perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare missions along with the ability to perform secondary missions including vertical replenishment, search and rescue, and communications relay,” the agency added.
“The proposed sale of this equipment will not alter the basic military balance in the region.”
The helicopters arrival are likely to be years away, possibly not before 2025.
The Tapain has suffered numerous operational issues and design faults since it landed in Australia in 2006 and despite spirited defence of the choppers capabilities by Australian Defence Force chiefs over the years, it had been repeatedly grounded because of issues.
In October last year a parliamentary Senate estimates committee heard the doors of the Airbus-made helicopters were too narrow to allow its guns to fire while troops were descending and would require “operational workarounds” ahead of further remedial adjustments.
That workaround required a second supporting helicopter to perform suppressive fire while the first helicopter deploys rappelling troops.
It was also grounded after a tail rotor fault and the RAN reported issues with its cable hooks.
At the time, ADF chief General Angus Campbell said nothing was perfect but the MRH-90 fleet, was “extraordinarily advanced”.
“The MRH 90 is an extraordinarily advanced helicopter and it does do things that no other helicopter on the planet can do,” he said.
The ADF and Federal Government has yet to comment about the latest acquisition.
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Originally published as Australian Navy spends $1.3b on new US-made Seahawk choppers, dumps MRH-90 Taipan fleet
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