Page 194 - Australian Defence Magazine September 2018

FROM THE SOURCE
LTGEN RICK BURR
“Through a lot of hard work, a strong collaborative effort with our industry partners, we now have a very capable armed reconnaissance helicopter.”
Continued from page 198
ADM: How would you rate the Tiger Fleet at the moment, the armed recon- naissance helicopter? Is it providing the capability you’re after?
BURR: I have great confidence in the Tiger and the operators including the flight crews. Supporting commanders share that confidence.
alised, we now have a very capable armed reconnaissance helicopter.
It’s a critical enabler to the Land Force, of course, but also the Joint Force.
ADM: How do you see the future of that platform coming together?
BURR: We will continue to work with it to make sure that the required rate of effort is achieved, as well as continue to develop
new concepts of employ- ment in its primary role while integrating with other capabilities being fielded into Army in- cluding our fleet of un- manned aerial systems.
Under the current Defence White Paper 2016 guidance we are looking to replace it in the future but that is further down the track.
We’re continuing to optimise what we can from this capability as part of the Joint Force; it is a critical capabil- ity and essential to fully realising the ADF’s joint force.
ADM: Is that replacement set in stone; is another upgrade program on the cards?
BURR: Obviously there is an ongoing technical obsolescence and assurance mechanism to make sure that we can maintain the Tiger at the required level of capability and safety and connectivity.
We are just commencing the Capability Life Cycle Process, supported by the Smart Buyer Process, to examine the options available to maintain a relevant armed re- connaissance capability in alignment with the position outlined in the White Paper.
ADM: Moving on to Army’s signature program at the moment, Land 400 Phases 2 and 3, how will that change your force structure and operational concepts? Is the Combined Arms FightingSystemstillwhatyou’reaim- ing towards?
BURR: We’re very pleased that gov- ernment approved Land 400 Phase 2. That’s obviously great news and we will have an outstanding capability with the Boxer. We now have about two years to look at introducing that into service.
Taking a step back, Plan Beersheba has really allowed the Army to stabilise its force structure, its approach to force gen- eration and where capability needs to re- side across the Army for its optimum func- tion and performance.
Tiger is a contemporary platform that is being used on operations by other na- tions including France and Germany. It obviously has had some history and that’s been well gone over.
But through a lot of hard work, a strong collaborative effort with our in- dustry partners who share our commit- ment to this capability being fully re-
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