Land: Why Hawkei will win the day | ADM October 2013

There’s a very good chance that the multi-million dollar contract for the Australian designed and locally manufactured Hawkei tactical vehicle, proposed by Thales Australia for Land 121’s Protected Mobility Vehicle Light (PMV-L) project, is a given.

But whether that contract runs to the full complement of 1,300 vehicles, trailers and variants remains to be seen, in view of Defence’s current tightened fiscal reality.

As ADM readers may be aware, the PMV-L procurement was based on three acquisition options, the US JLTV program, the Manufactured and Supported in Australia (MSA) option and the Market Available option.

The MSA option saw the Thales Hawkei win over the GDLSA Eagle IV, and Force Protection Ocelot, but how these three performed during trialling at Monegeetta, and how these trials compared with the earlier trials of the JLTV AU prototypes, we may never know due to non-disclosure clauses in their contracts.

In respect of the Market Available option Defence has said it would develop solicitation documentation for a ‘current-generation market available’ PMV-L capability. Of interest here is the decision by the JLTV program to seek Off-the-Shelf solutions. A request for information (RFI) was released by the JLTV Program Office seeking vehicle system information and other supporting information from industry in an effort to identify and conduct analysis on vehicles with capabilities similar to the JLTV.

One would assume that Australian participation in the EMD phase would ensure access to the information gleaned from the RFI responses which could be highly relevant to our own Market Available option. Or perhaps we already have that information and more, including offerings from world suppliers!

So which of these acquisition threads will eventually lead to the preferred solution for the PMV-L program? It would appear that Defence’s interest in the JLTV program may have waned, but not sufficiently to discard this as a bargaining chip against the Hawkei MSA option, despite it basking under considerable Defence development investment and support. ADM suspects that the Market Available option, which might have included a number of overseas MOTS contenders, is also shaping up more as bargaining chip rather than a valid option.

The JLTV program

Australian participation in the JLTV’s first Technology Development phase, which commenced in January 2009, finally resulted in the delivery of three right hand operation (RHO) prototypes from each of the three JLTV contenders (GTV, Lockheed Martin and BAE Sytems) which underwent reliability, maintainability and ballistic testing by the Army at Monegeetta, Victoria. The tests were part of the JLTV program and not specific to Australia per se. The tests culminated with user evaluations in early 2011. Australia’s participation cost $40 million, which included the cost and trialling of the AU prototypes.

The next major JLTV milestone, the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) Phase, focused on program risk, supportability, producibility, and affordability. Australia did not participate in this phase but nevertheless maintained an observer’s interest in the detail and outcome of the program including vehicle cost.

In January 2012 Requests for Proposal (RFP) were released for the EMD phase. The period of performance for EMD contracts was 27 months, with the overall EMD phase scheduled to last 33 months. Vendors would be required to provide 22 JLTV prototypes for testing 12 months after contract award. The target cost for the base vehicle was $US250,000 excluding add-on armour and other kits.

In August 2012 three companies were awarded EMD contracts worth some $US185 million. They were: AM General, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Oshkosh Corporation. The goal at the end of the EMD Phase is for the down selection to a single vendor and move into Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) by 2015. Current plans then call for three years of LRIP, followed by five years of full rate production resulting in incremental delivery of the JLTV.

However experts suggest if the US Marines defer until the late 2020s, the per vehicle cost for the Army’s JLTVs—which it hopes to begin procuring in 2015—would increase and possibly endanger the overall program.

Foreign participation in JLTV program

According to the Congressional Reporting Service (CRS) no Foreign Military Sales are currently planned for JLTV, despite previous program participation from Australia and interest from Canada, UK and Israel. When the JLTV Joint Program Office (JPO) was asked to clarify foreign participation in the JLTV program, the following response was provided:

“International cooperation in acquisition programs can substantially improve US operations, and the JLTV program is no different. This important work increases military effectiveness by improving interoperability and partnership with our allies, reducing overall acquisition costs, and strengthening key relationships.

“Australia did participate in the Technology Demonstration phase of the JLTV program, but no international partners are currently and actively participating in the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase. International participation or purchase remains possible and an area JPO JLTV would pursue as appropriate with interested allies and partners.”

The CRS added that Congress might wish to examine why these countries are no longer interested in the JLTV program, as foreign participation in these types of programs not only increases interoperability but can also benefit these programs from a cost perspective.

Interestingly US industry had been advised that Australia desired to negotiate and execute Australian Industry Capability (AIC) and Global Supply Chain (GSC) deeds with successful EMD candidates interested in sales to this country. If Australia had invested in the EMD phases we might have seen Australian variants produced. That is right hand operation (RHO) variants in both four passenger Combat Tactical Vehicle (CTV) and two-passenger Combat Support Vehicle (CSV) mission variants.

JLTV vs MSA?

While it would have been interesting to compare one of the JLTV EMD phase prototypes, such as the Lockheed Martin JLTV which had previously undergone testing by the Australian Army at Monegeetta, under its previous incarnation as a TD phase AU prototype, with the locally manufactured and developed Hawkei, we have to accept that comparing their specifications, in the absence of test and trial information, is worthless.

Nevertheless there are similarities. Both vehicles weigh around seven tonnes, have similar range (500 km), and speed (120 + km/hr) and both boast very high levels of crew protection.

Hawkei development

In December 2011 it was announced that Thales Australia’s Hawkei had been selected as the preferred vehicle for development and testing under the MSA option. In June 2012, it was further announced that some $38 million had been allocated by Defence for further development and testing of the Hawkei. Under an agreement reached between Thales and Defence, Thales was contracted to supply six prototype Hawkei vehicles for further testing and evaluation. These comprised two Command, two Utility, and two Reconnaissance variants.

The first Hawkei prototype and trailer were delivered by December 2012, deliveries continued and by May this year, the project achieved a significant milestone with the delivery of the last two of the six Hawkei vehicles to the Monegeetta Proving Ground in Victoria for testing by the Defence Materiel Organisation’s Land Engineering Agency. All vehicle delivery milestones have been met on schedule. The majority of the test and evaluation process, now being undertaken, includes survivability testing, communications system integration testing, electro-magnetic interference/compatibility testing, reliability growth trials and user assessments.

Vehicles already delivered have so far completed more than half of the planned 100,000km of testing scheduled for the evaluation period. Subject to successful testing of the vehicles, final approval of the project is expected around 2015, as detailed in the 2012 Defence Capability Plan.

Thales Australia has invested $30 million in Hawkei, and Australian industry has also put significant effort into the development of the vehicles, and the company has thanked the supply chain for helping meet this important milestone. Interestingly, no doubt confident of a PMV-L contract award for Hawkei, the company is working on extending and growing the vehicle’s supply chain, possibly with exports in mind for these and other potential variants.

With the falling Australian dollar and a declining vehicle manufacturing industry, an approach to Victorian industry for a major role in the manufacture of the Hawkei protected vehicle, including production of the fabricated sub-frame, vehicle components and assemblies, appears to be a timely and eminently sensible approach.

It is understood that Thales is segmenting the Hawkei supply chain work into around 30 major work packages, and is looking for suppliers who can work in close partnership with the company in order to meet very specific quality, cost and technical requirements. See box below for more on this.

Will Hawkei win the day?

In view of Thales Australia’s excellent performance under the MSA contract, the innovative design of the Hawkei vehicle, that promises very high levels of crew protection and performance, as well as optimisation to meet diverse mission needs such as troop movement, command and control, electronic warfare, liaison, surveillance and reconnaissance, suggests to us that Hawkei is indeed a JLTV beater.

More than that, Hawkei has provenance. The company’s team of designers, engineers, communications specialists and so on, have produced over 800 Bushmaster PMVs delivered to the ADF, the Netherlands and the UK. Among their other capabilities, these vehicles are renowned for their safety and crew protection – features that Hawkei development has built on.

That the Bushmaster, offered by Oshkosh for manufacture in the US, was removed from the MRAP competition, seems a good reason too why Hawkei should be selected for the Australian PMV-L requirement. Perhaps it should also be proposed for the JLTV off-the shelf option – wouldn’t that be delightfully ironic?