Page 88 - Australian Defence Mag Sep 2020

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need to operate at lighter scales and get into more difficult places. It’s also very good for forward operating bases and, again, it provides a broader utility.
The SPH provides another set of capabilities. It will have a greater range. It will obviously be able to protect its occupants in mid to high intensity warfare. It will have a greater effect in terms of the ability to both suppress and destroy a target and, of course, can be reloaded under armour to protect our people. Obviously the M777 crew is exposed, not only kinetic threats but biological or chemical threats as well.
The plan is to operate both guns into the future, in con- junction with other key components of our artillery system. One is the digital C2 system and the other is the ammuni- tion. You can’t really change the laws of physics in terms of the gun, but where I expect the real developments in future are in the ammunition.
Then there’s also a place holder for long range fires in the FSP. Again, there’s this layered effect from tactical through operational fires.
“WHAT THE FSP HAS ANNOUNCED IN TERMS OF ARMY OPERATED WATERCRAFT IS AN EXTENSION TO THE DEPTH AND THE UTILITY OF THAT AMPHIBIOUS SYSTEM.”
ADM: There was also some confusion in some parts of industry as to where Land 19 and Air 6500 crossover in terms of Integrated Air Missile Defence (IAMD). Has that been clarified?
STUART: I think it’s pretty clear. They’re all part of the same system, that layered effect. Land 19 is the inner layer and 6500 is the mid-layer and then there’s a broader joint and coalition IAMD layer around the rest of it. It’s very clear and these pro- grams work together very, very closely because of the digital ar- chitecture needed to work across the joint force. We’re absolute- ly plugged in with 6500 and all of the concepts, the doctrine, the digital C2, and the architecture are a common endeavour.
ADM: How are you lining up all those timelines? Land 200 Phase 3 has been pushed back by a year or two as of July, I’m guessing due to COVID delays, but how are you get- ting all of these programs to fit together?
STUART: It’s something that consumes a lot of our time and effort and, frankly, we’ve got more work to do there. But it’s cer- tainly at the front of everyone’s minds and we’re always looking for ways to harmonise the programs. One very practical way is
ABOVE: The M777 still has a bright future in ADF service.
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the introduction of the capability program architecture as the next evolution of the FPR and the CLC (Capability Life Cycle). CLC reform is alive and well and we continue to iterate, and the capability program architecture will see us move to a program approach to make sure that we do exactly that; we’re able to sequence things in a way where there are in- terdependencies, that they are complementary rather than
working at cross-purposes.
In terms of the specifics of Land 200 there are three key
projects there. We’ve been operating with Tranche 1, which digitised about a third of the Army. We’re still working with our partners in industry and CASG on Tranche 2 and we think there’s still a lot of learning and capability to be achieved there. At end state we’ll see brigade headquarters, Joint Task Force headquarters and about 400 platforms fitted. Land 200 Phase 3 has been delayed. The opportunity in that is we think that’s going to give Australian industry more of an opportunity to provide some offerings and a larger slice of the pie.
ADM: How has Army been agile in how it deals with CO- VID restrictions and partnering with industry? How has Army in Motion and Accelerated Warfare progressed in this environment?
STUART: I think that general description of the environment in Accelerated Warfare has been validated conclusively in the last 12 months. That’s important because it was that description of the environment that that led to how Army contributes to Defence strategy, and serves as design prin- ciples for Army in Motion.
ADM: It was very high level. It was tough getting some clarity around how it was going to be delivered. You’ve got all these wonderful ideas, how are you actually get- ting them into service?
STUART: Exactly right. Part of it is through the hard science of capability development, but it’s also in areas of training transformation, in workforce, in recruiting, in leveraging demography around the country.
It’s about having a real focus on how we work with indus- try and with academia to get the best outcome for everyone. We’re serious about this, and there’s a whole range of ef- forts going on in. We just ran the 7th Army Innovation Day virtually and the team did a fantastic job.
For me, the strength of it was in the quality of the submis- sions and the thinking behind them. They were absolutely on target in terms of our requirements and, importantly, they were cognisant of the environment. This year it was a combat service support theme and was looking at a range of solutions, including digital inventory management, personnel and inven- tory tracking And they were all pitched within the context of where we’re going with enterprise resource planning (ERP).
I think that augers really well and it’s an important indi- cator to me that we’re on the same page. We’re articulating our requirements to industry better and the feedback loop is there. Later in the year we’ll seek to run the Land Environ- ment Working Group in the same kind of format. We really want to do that and we think that’s important after the FSP and to update industry partners on where we are, what we’re thinking and what the future potentially looks like. ■
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