Land 400 has begun in earnest with the release of the RFT earlier this year. Bids are due in the box in June. That gives defence industry about two more months from when you receive this edition of ADM to decide how they’re going to go about the program.
As you can see from the series of articles in this edition, the field is wide and open at this stage. Even if teams haven’t formally announced their teaming arrangements (at the prime end of the market at least), the lie of the land is taking shape. Whichever teams decide to bid in earnest will have to have deep pockets. Most industry sources point towards a bid budget of between $10 and $20 million just to enter the Land 400 fray. With a $10 billion program at stake, the bid percentage is within range but the raw figures are still daunting.
The program office has been quite good over the past few years in their communications about how they are approaching the behemoth that is Land 400. Well, as much information as they can, given the stage they are up to currently. It’s the next stage that has industry scratching their collective heads.
The RFT is so wide to the point that some wonder which capabilities and vehicle elements will be prioritised over others. Where to focus? The myriad of documents attached to the complex program ASDEFCON templates are not for the faint hearted. Wading through them, one can learn that the timeline is tight. Only companies that have a vehicle fielded with another customer are eligible for the MOTS element, let alone the MOTS Plus offering. Should they be successful in the next stage of the competition, they have to provide three or four vehicles for testing next year. This means heading to an existing customer and asking very nicely ‘can we borrow some of your IFVs for a few months to fang around Australia?’
I can imagine the conversation along these lines happening in the very near future if they haven’t already.
‘How long exactly do you want the vehicles for?’ asks Army brass from nation A.
‘Not sure exactly,’ highly optimistic defence industry member admits.
‘Blast testing?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Can we have access to the test data for our own program?’
‘Not sure.’
‘What does the testing program actually look like?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Anything you are sure of?’
‘It would be really good to have those vehicles washed really well before they get here. Bio-security is very tight when it comes to soil and biomass etc. And we would really like to win this project.’
At this stage of the game, the focus is on capability. This segment of Land 400 is about replacing the ASLAV. But the focus will eventually change to a trade off matrix between politics and capability. Some politically aware bright spark will point out that this vehicle has excellent protection characteristics and will be built in a Geelong/Adelaide/Bendigo/as yet unknown marginal seat. It is at this point that things will get really complicated.
The program office will face the inescapable trade off between what works best for Army and the warfighter and what works best for the people that will sign off on the dollars. With such a high value program in every sense of the word, the inevitable political angle will emerge early I suspect. Australian Industry Content (AIC) may play a part in the program office’s decision-making process but it will play a much more important role in the National Security Committee of cabinet when the time comes.
By the time a decision is to be announced as to a down-select to three teams, Australia will be very much in election mode. The $10 billion headline price tag is up there with submarines in terms of value and the vehicle industry in Australia would really like some good news. They don’t care what shape it comes in, what colour it is, or whether they get to paint a kangaroo on the side; dollars are dollars.
While I would like to think that all will go swimmingly for Land 400, I am realistically expecting some bumps along the way. And bumps do make for a more interesting ride.