AUKUS Integrating Stingray Lightweight Torpedo into Their P-8A Poseidon MPA

27 Oktober 2024

RAF P-8A Poseidon with Stingray lightweight torpedo (photo: RAF)

Defense Official Statement on AUKUS Pillar 2 and Exercise Maritime Big Play

Through AUKUS, we are working across the full spectrum of capability development, generating requirements, co-developing new systems, deepening industrial based collaboration and ultimately delivering advanced capabilities to our forces. AUKUS Pillar 1 focuses these co-development efforts on delivering an advanced nuclear power submarine capability through the optimal pathway.

Pillar 2 focuses on the development and delivery of emerging technology. AUKUS Pillar 2 is designed to harness the combined industrial and innovation bases of the tri-lateral partners to ensure that our forces are equipped with cutting edge interoperable military capabilities and prepared to face down aggression in whatever form it may take.

In Pillar 2, we're building a more capable combined joint force for the future, working across the full spectrum of capability development and we're already delivering. This year, we're advancing our undersea warfare capabilities by expanding our ability to launch and recover uncrewed underwater systems from torpedo tubes on current classes of British and US submarines, that will increase the range and capability of our undersea forces.

RAAF P-8A loads Mk 54 lighweight torpedo (photo: Aus DOD)

We're integrating the Stingray lightweight torpedo into the P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, which will support our forces in being more interchangeable while providing resilience to munitions stockpiles across AUKUS nations. At the same time, we're also implementing a fundamental shift to more closely integrate our systems and break down barriers to collaboration at every stage and in every part of our systems.

We've welcomed collaboration with the International Joint Requirements Oversight Council or I-JROC, a critical collaborative forum to identify and validate joint and combined requirements. The I-JROC will ensure that we have prioritized combined and joint solutions from the very start and that the capabilities we develop under Pillar 2 address some of the most pressing challenges our forces face.

A cornerstone of AUKUS Pillar 2 remains the opportunity to leverage the best of our defense industrial bases in combined innovation communities. This year we executed the first office innovation challenge focused on electronic warfare. We announced the winners last month and our teams are working to develop a robust two-year plan to increase the collaboration between and among our innovation centers of excellence.

A US Navy P-8A drops a standard Mk 54 lightweight torpedo (photo: US Navy)

By the end of the year, we'll have convened meetings with the Advanced Capabilities Industry Forum in each country. Engagements provide an opportunity for representatives across government and industry to exchange ideas and deepen industrial based collaboration.

This week we're here in Jervis Bay to observe the Maritime Big Play, which is an important demonstration of AUKUS in action. The Maritime Big Play is a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises aimed at enhancing capability development, improving interoperability and increasing the sophistication and scale of autonomous systems in the maritime domain. These experiments address the need to expand the reach, capability and capacity of our forces in the maritime environment through the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

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