BAE Chief Sees Ballistic Missiles as Biggest Defense Threat, in Air Power Review

Asian Aerospace 2000 -- Ballistic missiles are the most ominous of today's emerging threats, Sir Charles Masefield, BAE Systems group managing director and main board member, said at Monday's Millennium Air Power Conference. "We have to recognize the disturbing fact that there are more ballistic threat variants deployed than there are systems to counter them," he said. "Currently, only America's theater high-altitude air defense (THAAD) may one day enter final design and development."

Among other key points in his presentation, Sir Charles said that there lingered an instinctive belief that air platforms would be around for some time to come, and that the dynamic processes of their development, as within the UK's Future Offensive Air System (FOAS) studies, would continue, "because robots and information warfare may not live up to their potential."

"Current generation attack aircraft are likely to remain in service for many years, but their capabilities will improve through system upgrades, notably to avionics and weapons," said Sir Charles. "They may become longer-range, faster, and smaller, and probably able to deliver new kill mechanisms, such as non-nuclear electro-magnetic pulses."

"It is likely, but not certain, that manned aircraft will eventually be replaced by uninhabited combat air vehicles (UCAVs), although significant technology hurdles must be overcome before these could be operationally employed."

Elsewhere, "Over-the-horizon (OTH) surface-wave radar is now a feasible and practicable option for long-range air space and maritime surveillance," Sir Charles said. "Recent advances in antenna design and signal processing now facilitate reliable performance against aircraft and ships for both military and paramilitary operations, providing long-range detection and wide area coverage with a single active array sensor. It also offers an intrinsic anti-stealth function."

And, on airborne radars: "The evolutionary end-point envisaged today is the conformal 'smart skin' array. Supported by a powerful processor, these will effectively reject external noise, jamming, and clutter, and will select only targets of interest. Such systems may be operationally deployed within 20 to 25 years," said Sir Charles, "so we can assume that radar will remain the interceptor's primary on-board sensor."

By John Fricker