Australia to buy Lockheed missiles for fighter jets

CANBERRA - Australia announced on Tuesday it will buy long-range missiles from Lockheed Martin Corp. for its strike aircraft, but dropped plans to arm its maritime surveillance planes with the missiles.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said the contract, worth between A$350 million ($397.42 million) to A$450 million, is part of a A$28.8 billion plan to upgrade the country's defence capability by 2010.

He said the government would buy an undisclosed number of the Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missiles, a stealth missile which can hit targets 400 km away, for its fleet of 71 F/A-18 Hornets.

Lockheed Martin won the contract beating out Europe's Taurus Systems GmbH, which makes the KEPD 350 missile, and Boeing Co.'s SLAM-ER missile.

Nelson said the extra reach of the new missiles, due to enter service by December 2009, did not represent any change to Australia's strategic defence outlook.

"The acquisition of long-range missiles does not represent a change in Australia's defence posture and capability planning," he said in a statement.

Nelson said the missiles could be fitted to new aircraft, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being developed by the United States, Britain and seven other international partners to replace a range of US and foreign fighter jets.

Australia has commited A$300m to the joint strike fighter programme with a view to buying more than 100 of the planes to replace its F/A-18s and ageing F-111 by about 2015.

Nelson said the government decided not to fit the new missiles to its fleet of 19 AP-3C Orions, used primarily for anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance, to save costs.

- REUTERS