Grenade Launchers five years behind schedule

The Light Weight Automatic Grenade Launcher (LWAGL) should have already been providing a much-needed capability for our forces in Afghanistan.

Instead, it has now been added to the Government’s projects of concern list.

Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel, Stuart Robert, said the Government’s lack of action on LAND 40 Phase 2, the project to acquire grenade launchers for the Australian Army, was reprehensible given our operations in Afghanistan over the past decade.

‘I am at a complete loss to explain why the Government has only now woken up to the fact that this project is in real trouble given public reports of serious problems date back at least two to three years,’ Robert said.

‘It is on the public record that early in 2011 the Government cancelled contract negotiations with the tenderer, even though the project had already been running for some three and a half years.’

‘Yet here we are, some five years on from the project’s start date and not a single grenade launcher has been delivered to our forces to use on the ground in Afghanistan.’

‘This is an absolute disgrace and the Government has some serious questions to answer, particularly as it is on the record acknowledging that the project was supposed to address the current direct fire support deficiencies that exist in the Army.’

Robert said the acquisition of the grenade launchers should not have been a problem given both of the weapons considered by the Government are already in service with other nations in Afghanistan.

‘It just goes to show that this Government is asleep at the wheel when it comes to Defence. Each of the grenade launchers under consideration is currently either in use with US Special Forces, or the Canadian or New Zealand armies in Afghanistan,’ Robert said.

‘This was not a complex developmental project, it was an off the shelf military purchase, yet five years on and we have nothing to show for it except the Government’s acknowledgement that this is a project of concern.’

‘What is of real concern to me is the fact that our front line military forces have gone without this capability since at least early 2010, when it was supposed to be introduced into service.’

‘This monumental stuff-up again proves this Government simply doesn’t get Defence. It doesn’t understand that the decisions it fails to make, the budget that it has cut and the interest that it has lost has a real impact on our forces on the ground.’