Land Warfare 2011: Unsung Valir protects Digger logisticians | ADM October 2011

Gregor Ferguson | Sydney

A tiny Melbourne-based SME has been designing and building armoured cabs for ADF trucks in Iraq and Afghanistan for over six years, while the DMO is still trying to make up its mind which Military Off The Shelf (MOTS) truck family the ADF should buy.

Valir Pty Ltd, based in Deer Park, north-west of Melbourne, received its first order to build armoured truck cabs for the Army Special Forces in 2005, according to managing director Colin Pratt. This was for two Mercedes-Benz Unimog-based Long Range Supply Vehicles which required both crew protection and the addition of a crane.

Before these had even been delivered, however, the company was asked by the Army to build more armoured cabs for its Unimogs, and then later its heavy Mack truck, fleets. Valir has built 60 armoured cabs in all, says Pratt, 25 of them for the Mack, and after initial testing these were delivered straight to Iraq.

Since that time the armoured cabs have provided first-class protection for Australian troops, he told ADM proudly. Not a single soldier has been injured while travelling in one of them; furthermore, the armoured cabs have incurred absolutely no warranty claims, he added. The only repair work needed has been routine replacement of parts, particularly the armoured glass transparencies which have sustained scratches and damage from rocks, small arms fire and IEDs.

While the SF community triggered Valir’s initial design effort, it was the Howard Government’s decision to deploy the Al-Mutthana Task Force to southern Iraq in 2005 that forced the realisation that Defence had no protected logistics trucks with which to support field operations.

Army placed a rush order with Valir to fit armoured cabs to more Unimogs for rapid shipment to Iraq as a short-term interim solution. The order was filled after a round-the-clock effort and soldiers serving in Iraq had blast and ballistically protected supply vehicles more than equal to the task, says Pratt.

The exact levels of protection afforded by Valir’s armoured cab haven’t been disclosed, as is Defence’s custom, and Valir hasn’t released details of the design and construction technique. However, Pratt confirmed it is a self-contained structure which replaces the existing vehicle cab, providing all-round protection, and especially under-body protection against land mines and IEDs.

Some of the principles on which the design is based were developed originally in South Africa, which has a long history of producing mine-protected vehicles, and the under-belly design is shaped to deflect blast rather than stop it dead, says Pratt. Some of the original members of the Valir design team had helped develop the blast-proof underbelly design for Thales’s now-iconic Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle.

When developing the SF Long Range Supply Vehicle the company blast-tested prototype designs at the ADF’s Graytown test facility in Victoria. Before the trials (and even after them) the company’s domain knowledge and expertise was challenged on a number of occasions by Defence scientists and engineers, says Pratt. But the Valir armoured cab surprised Defence by being virtually indestructible.

It was also easily and quickly serviced from existing resources, and very driver-friendly. Rather than being a short-lived interim solution it came to be realised that, with not one warranty issue in the whole fleet despite the very rough conditions encountered in the Middle East, here was a very capable, low cost asset.

“With underbody blast capability higher than any Army fighting vehicle and the upper cab and windows ballistically proof against the AK47 rounds used by the insurgents drivers came to value the Valir vehicles highly, and they were utilised to full capacity,” Pratt told ADM.

When the Unimog-based armoured cabs proved successful Army placed another rush order for 25 protected cabs for the Mack trucks used by Army sappers in Afghanistan. Along with this came a small order for more Unimog conversions for deployment to Afghanistan.

The Unimogs and Macks use identical armour shells, Pratt says, with only the vehicle controls and instruments being different (anecdotally, users report the armoured cab for the Mack is more user-friendly than the original). This has obvious advantages: the design and testing effort is reduced, as is the residual risk from having different designs – configuration control and quality assurance, especially of critical components, are simplified while enhancements and improvements can be applied to all variants simultaneously.

As an aside, Pratt told ADM that one of the original armoured-cab Unimogs was re-deployed direct from Iraq to Afghanistan without needing to be returned to Australia for repair or servicing. However, Valir does undertake repairs and refurbishment, and boasts a rapid turnaround  which, he emphasised, underlines the importance of IP ownership and deep design knowledge in the sustainment phase of a program of this type.

With the lengthy delays in delivery of the medium/ heavy trucks sought under Project Land 121 Ph.3 – Overlander, the Army’s tiny fleet of Valir protected vehicles has become the saviour of Australian logisticians need in the field, believes Pratt. And Valir could continue to bridge the gap until the eventual delivery of new protected trucks in several years time, he says.

Valir operates on a very low cost base due to the intermittent nature of Australian Army orders for its products: its current turnover is around $4-5 million a year, says Pratt. At present it employs eight staff involved in cab design and manufacture, and their current workload will keep them busy until the end of this year. Defence is contemplating an option to acquire a further nine armoured cabs for its Unimogs, but even this will only keep the team going until March next year.

The company has also developed what it calls the Bushrat – a truck armoured to the same levels of protection as the cab. So far there has been no interest from Defence, says Pratt, in spite of the operational need for protected logistics vehicles that drives Project Land 121 Ph.3 and which will see the delivery – eventually - of a large number of armoured trucks and cabs manufactured overseas.

The DMO is trying to select an internationally owned competitor who is offering a vehicle that may well be no better for the task than the Valir product, at a price significantly higher than the Valir vehicle which is in the field today, Pratt points out.

Despite the fact its vehicles have been in frontline service since 2006 and have protected Australian troops from death and injury, Pratt told ADM he’s disappointed that Valir hasn’t received more support from the users and operators. He suspects that senior defence decision-makers are barely even aware of the company’s existence.”  

Subject: Land