Promotional art for GCAP from electronics firm ELT. (Courtesy ELT)
RIAT 2023 — The UK Ministry of Defence’s Director of Future Combat Air sees “unique opportunities” for future partnerships on the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) program — but indicated that doesn’t have to mean adding more nations to the core membership of the UK, Italy and Japan.
Richard Berthon made clear to the Global Air Chiefs Conference in London on July 12 that GCAP would, for the time being, remain in the hands of current member nations. But when asked whether the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) strategic alliance, which is currently focused on providing a next-generation and nuclear-powered submarine capability to participating nations, could impact GCAP, Berthon indicated there may be opportunity there.
“I think there’s an interesting future in which you can see combat air and GCAP developing. I think AUKUS is a fantastic foundation, obviously focused in a different domain to what we are focused on today, but the nations are considering opportunities for broadening the partnership.”
Given that the US has its own development efforts underway, that would seem to be a hint that the MoD views Australia as some kind of potential partner down the line — which, given both AUKUS and the presence of Japan, another pacific nation, on the program, would make a certain amount of sense.
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But in lieu of adding new full-time partners, Berthon said that some sort of agreement could be found to work more closely with other sixth-generation air combat efforts, including the US-led Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) and French/German/Spanish SCAF effort.
The three GCAP member nations continue to stress the importance of “interoperability and integration” efforts with the US and across the Euro-Atlantic through NATO, Berthon said, noting “We start with a set of core partners in GCAP to build momentum but there are certainly opportunities for wider partnering.”
On the relationship with NGAD and SCAF Berthon replied, “I think it’s a richness of our collective response that we are able to develop what might appear on the surface to be competitive solutions, whether that’s F-35, NGAD, the Franco German cooperation, or our program.
“I’m broadly familiar with the approach that NGAD is taking from what [US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall] and others have said in public. And it’s clearly a hugely exciting program. I think what those of us across the group of nations investing in combat air capabilities need to do, is to have a deeper conversation so that we can really maximize elements of complementarity and differentiation and introduce that level of uncertainty into our adversaries’ minds.”
Berthon also described how, since the joint declaration to develop GCAP was signed in December 2022, military requirements teams from the respective countries have been brought together to discuss the future of the project, with engineers working together on solutions.
“I think, despite the differences between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific, there is significant alignment in threat. This technology proliferation sits across the Euro-Atlantic and the Pacific, which is relevant to us all. There are challenges and opportunities in the way that we design a future combat air system. There are close alignments in the threat that we’re facing in terms of proliferated, complex, integrated air defence systems.
“So the sort of tactical threats and the sort of ranges and distances in the Indo-Pacific are different. But it’s been interesting as we put the three parties together, to look at just how complimentary those military capability requirements are. We think there isn’t a lot of ground between them,” he continued.
During his comments, Berthon did not shy away from the risks associated with what he termed a “challenging and ambitious timeline” for the development of the GCAP airframe. The jet is targeting an in-service date of 2035, five years before its SCAF rival.
“This is unbelievably pacey for those who know what they’re talking about,” he warned. But, coming back to the point about how the different jets programs could learn from each other, Berthon noted “The United States, with all of its wealth of resources and investments, is really pushing the timescales of how quickly we can introduce new capabilities.
“The 2035 date for the UK is driven by our existing capabilities and understanding the threat environment and when we think we need to start introducing new capabilities. We have learned some lessons from taking previous capabilities out of service and bringing in next generations, and I think one of the lessons from that is that it’s better if you don’t try and do it really quickly.
“We’re trying to make sure that there’s quite a long period in which you are able to introduce incremental uplifts in capability and bring new generations of capability in. And that’s an important lesson, I think.
“In the meantime, we are investing in upgrading existing Typhoons as an inter-generational investment and also our broader combat air system before 2035,” he added before suggesting “adjuncts” or autonomous collaborative platforms (ACPs) could be in service before then.
