There appears to have been a big turnout at Land Forces 2021 despite the on-going lockdown in Victoria, a scheduling clash with Senate estimates, and protests both outside and inside the venue.
A slew of announcements were made on Tuesday and Wednesday, including news that Austal will bid for the program to replace Army's LCM-8 landing craft and LARC-V amphibious resupply fleets under Land 8710 Phase 1, as covered by Deputy Editor Nigel Pittaway below. Navantia and Rheinmetall also announced that they will be partnering on a separate bid for the same program (also covered in this issue of Defence Week).
Both Hanwha and Rheinmetall also took the opportunity to announce a range of partnerships on their bids for Land 400 Phase 3, including with Cook Defence (Rheinmetall) and Elphinstone (Hanwha), and Rheinmetall announced that it has delivered the first 25 Boxer combat reconnaissance vehicles to the Army.
There was also news on Land 125 Phase 4 (the integrated soldier system project) as both Babcock and Team SABRE announced they had been down-selected. An official announcement from the Commonwealth is pending.
Attendees heard from Commissioner Greg Leach of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and Major General Andrew Hocking, Head of the just-formed National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA), at the Civil Defence conference, and will today see Chief of Army Rick Burr walking the halls.
Readers are welcome to drop by the ADM stand (4U13) to say hi and pick up a free copy of this month's print magazine.