In addition to the country's 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets ordered as a "stop-gap" measure to bridge between the retirement of the much beloved F-111 and the introduction of the F-35A, a dozen EA-18G Growlers were also ordered by Canberra. The RAAF is the first export customer of the EA-18G, and the inclusion of the type into the force's order of battle represents a massive leap in capability for Australia and for its allies in the region.

The Royal Australian Air Force is going from an air arm whose electronic warfare capability has largely been made up of off-the-shelf defensive jamming pods to one with some of the most potent and cutting-edge aerial jamming and electronic attack capabilities in the world.

Procuring the Growler also opens up new tactical possibilities for the RAAF and makes their existing fleet of Hornets and Super Hornets far more survivable over a modern battlefield than they would be without such a potent organic jamming and electronic attack capability. Australia could expand its Growler force even further as the F-35A comes online without having to procure any more airframes, as the last 12 of the service's F/A-18Fs were built with the wiring needed for conversion to Growler configuration already installed. As such, these aircraft can be "back-fitted" to the latest EA-18G configuration if the RAAF choses to do so in the future.

rAAF EA-18G Growler components.

The RAAF is also partnering with the USN on the next generation jamming pod program that is currently well underway. The announcement that the RAAF will spend $192M to be part of the development program was made by Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne at this year's Avalon Air Show in February. The so called Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) will replace both types of long-serving ALQ-99 pods that the Growler, and its predecessor the EA-6B Prowler, tote around today. The NGJ ditches the directional emitters and uses active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology to drastically increase the flexibility, range, focus and power output that a jamming pod can provide. New tricks, such as the ability to deploy cyber attacks on air defense and command and control nodes, highly-precise enemy transmitter frying electronic strikes, and even the potential to use the pods for advanced communications capabilities as well as acting as independent radars and signals intelligence collection arrays may be possible with this new system. More plainly stated, adding these new pods to the Growler doesn’t just give the aircraft more jamming capacity and strength, it also gives the Growler new roles which can be evolved over time.

USN/Raytheon The NGJ pod seen rendered on the Growler and the real thing aboard Raytheon's test airframe.