• Land 400 will see the replacement of a range of vehicle types.
    Land 400 will see the replacement of a range of vehicle types.
  • The Thales hawkei finally saw a contract signed in 2015. Credit: Thales Australia
    The Thales hawkei finally saw a contract signed in 2015. Credit: Thales Australia
  • Australian Army soldiers from 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, conduct direct fire support weapons drills and tactics during the 7th Brigade open day in Chermside, Brisbane, on 12 September 2015. Credit: Defence
    Australian Army soldiers from 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, conduct direct fire support weapons drills and tactics during the 7th Brigade open day in Chermside, Brisbane, on 12 September 2015. Credit: Defence
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Although overshadowed by the commentary and rhetoric in response to major naval shipbuilding projects, the Land sector is now moving into the spotlight.

Nigel Pittaway | Melbourne

The headline program of course is Land 400 Phase 2, which will acquire a Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle to replace the Army’s weary ASLAVs. At around $10 billion for the overall program, which will also include Infantry Fighting and Manoeuvre Support Vehicles, Land 400 is a big-ticket project and one which will doubtlessly generate opinion and comment for months, if not years, to come. An RfI for Phase 3 was also released as this edition of ADM was in production.

However, Land 400 isn’t the only Land program to achieve a significant milestone in the past year.

Although some major Land programs – notably 121 Phase 3B, the acquisition of around 2,700 medium and heavy vehicles – have continued throughout the past year seemingly without major announcement or milestone, some programs which have been in the public spotlight include:

  • Land 19 Phase 7A: At the end of June 2015, then-Defence Minister Kevin Andrews announced that the ADF’s Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System (C-RAM) Sense and Warn Capability had been given combined First and Second Pass approval.

Saab System Australia is the preferred tenderer, with a capability based around the three Saab Giraffe AMB radars previously acquired for protecting Australian bases in Afghanistan.

The Commonwealth will provide around $325 million to sustain the capability for future operations and according to Andrews the importance of force protection to deployed personnel had prioritised funding ahead of the White Paper.

  • Land 40 Phase 2: NIOA was awarded contracts in July for the delivery of next generation General Dynamics Mk.47 40mm (‘Striker 40’) Automatic Light Weight Grenade Launchers, fitted with a Lightweight Video Sight (LVS2) system, for deliveries beginning in 2016.
  • Land 121 Phase 4: Arguably the biggest (and longest awaited) announcement of the year in the Land sector came in early October when Thales Australia’s Hawkei was selected in a $1.3 billion deal to fulfil the ADF’s Protected Mobility Vehicle – Light requirement.

The home-grown Hawkei had been championed by at least one previous Defence Minister (and by just about everyone in the specialist media), but the wheels of process turn slowly and the announcement was the culmination of years of hard work by Thales and its partners.

The Thales hawkei finally saw a contract signed in 2015. Credit: Thales Australia

The Thales Hawkei finally saw a contract signed in 2015. Credit: Thales Australia

Eleven hundred Hawkeis and over 1,000 trailers will be acquired, with the vehicles to be built at Thales’ Bendigo facility.

Hawkei will incorporate a next-generation communications management system developed in Australia by Thales.

Pilot vehicle production will begin in 2016 and deliveries will start from late 2017, ahead of full-rate production in 2018.

  • Land 155: General Dynamics European Land Systems signed a $39 million contract in November 2015 for the production and delivery of its Improved Ribbon Bridge, under the project for enhanced gap crossing equipment.

Australia will join Germany, Sweden and the US as users of the IRB and the contract covers the delivery of the bridge bays, logistics and training. The program was also a pilot program for the division, using a managing contractor framework for procurement. The model will be rolled out to other programs as appropriate, according to Defence.

  • Land 200: Several elements of the ‘Land 200’ Battle Management System (BMS) combine, which broadly encompasses elements of Land 75, Land 125 and Land 2072, achieved milestones during the year.

Final Operational Capability of Tranche One of the combine, which represents the re-equipment of 7 Brigade, together with an RAAF SECFOR squadron and some logistics and support units with a digital mounted and dismounted BMS, was declared at the end of March.

  • Phase 3B of Land 125 rolled out a new generation of body armour, helmets, load carriage equipment, eye and hearing protection and packs to the Army’s 1 Brigade in August. The equipment is the first tranche of 21,000 sets of Soldier Combat Ensemble to be delivered over the next three years.

The ADF’s new Thales Australia Austeyr EF88 rifle, being acquired by Land 125 Phase 3C, gained Second Pass approval in July. The enhanced weapon replaces the F88 which has been in service since 1988.

  • Land 400: The $10 billion Land 400 is the largest Land program in Australia’s history and First Pass approval for the first tranche, Phase 2, which will acquire 222 CRVs was announced in February 2015.

Tenders closed in early September and a shortlist of two (or possibly three) contenders is expected to be announced by the end of March next year.

Known contenders are: BAE Systems Australia, teamed with Patria and supported by Saab (AMV35); General Dynamics Land Systems Australia, together with Thales Australia (platform undisclosed); Rheinmetall Defence, with Northrop Grumman, Supacat Australia and supported by Tectonics (Boxer); and ‘Team Sentinel’, comprising Elbit Land Systems Australia and Singapore Technologies (Sentinel, based on ST Kinetics’ Terrex).

  • Land 2072 Phase 2B (formerly JP2072/2B) Second Pass approval was announced in June with the preferred tender being Boeing Defence Australia (BDA), together with partners GH Varley and Harris Communications Australia.

Variously valued at $665 and $900 million, the contract will see BDA develop and deliver a modern digital communications system to support deployment of operational headquarters, providing digital wideband voice, data and video services over both wired and wireless infrastructure. IOC is expected in 2017 and FOC will follow in 2020.

Looking Into The Crystal Ball – The Year Ahead

Without the benefit of the new White Paper and associated capability plan, it is difficult to gauge which projects will be next to see significant traction.

Australian Army soldiers from 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, conduct direct fire support weapons drills and tactics during the 7th Brigade open day in Chermside, Brisbane, on 12 September 2015. Credit: Defence

Australian Army soldiers from 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, conduct direct fire support weapons drills and tactics during the 7th Brigade open day in Chermside, Brisbane, on 12 September 2015. Credit: Defence

Ongoing programs, such as those under the Land 200 umbrella, will continue to roll out capability to Army and the wider ADF and those in the 2012 version of the DCP which may gain momentum includes Land 121 Phase 5B, the acquisition of unprotected medium and heavy vehicles to facilitate tactical training. Around 1110 trucks and a number of modules and trailers are to be acquired, possible via extension or modification to existing contracts.

One project highly likely to be given the formal green light is Land 19 Phase 7B, which will replace Army’s existing Saab RBS 70 Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) system with a modern ground based force protection system, which is inclusive of Ground Based Air and Missile Defence and Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar (C-RAM) capabilities.

However it is Land 400 Phase 2 which will be in the spotlight in the immediate future, with down-select of the two or three shortlisted contenders to occur at the end of March and followed by an evaluation process which will see three vehicles from each competitor brought to Australia for testing, including the testing of one to destruction.

Although somewhat further into the future, Phase 3 will replace the 400-odd M114AS4 APCs and industry is already carefully watching how the CRV phase will play out as it prepares for this next major round.

COMMENT

As the Army’s largest acquisition program, Land 400 is arguably set to be scrutinised, analysed and debated more than any Land project to date.
Defence has said that Phase 2 has set the benchmark for engagement with industry, but it would appear that opinion is divided into two camps – those who found it difficult to reconcile information found in the Key Requirements Matrix and Operational Concepts Document (both of which formed part of the comprehensive tender documentation), and those who thought the requirements could have been written around their proposal.
With regard to the future vehicle’s attributes, it is understood that Defence has prioritised protection as the most important consideration, followed in descending order by mobility and C4ISR and sustainment.
When announcing combined First and Second Pass for Land 19/7A (C-RAM), then-Defence Minister Kevin Andrews said, “Force protection of personnel is of the highest priority, particularly given the increasingly complex operating environments.”
Earlier in the year, when announcing First Pass and the RFT for Land 400 Phase 2, Andrews said, “The government is committed to replacing and enhancing the Army’s fleet of vehicles and other land force capabilities to best protect our soldiers.”
So, on the strength of those comments it would appear that the vehicle with the highest level of protection for its occupants should win, all other things being equal. However, as we have seen with the naval shipbuilding projects, there is a further dimension at play here, and that is the political one.
Because Land 400 is such a large project which will run for decades, it has already attracted its fair share of lobbyists. With the impending demise of Australia’s motor vehicle industry in the next couple of years for example, the Victorian regional centre of Geelong is competing with South Australia to be the ‘centre of excellence’ for the project.
The business case to build vehicles in Australia has been made more difficult by the separation of the CRV from the IFV and mobility support vehicles phases however, and this may or may not become a differentiator from a political perspective.
Of course cost is another factor with the potential to influence the governments’ prioritisation of key attributes and it will be very interesting to observe how this program, arguably the most important Land project ever, will play out over the next 12 months and beyond.

 

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