Page 26 - Australian Defence Magazine Oct 2020

26 SUPPLY CHAIN LAND 400
OCTOBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
ogy base to Australia and achieve self-reliance in certain technologies and a long term local armoured vehicles R&D capability.
“Some of the companies we want to bring to Australia are global experts in their fields and have not before established support or manufacturing bases in Australia.”
The Hanwha bid also looks to complement the company’s self-propelled howitzer (SPH) build under Land 8116 Phase 1 Protected Mobile Fires. In the 2019 federal election campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison committed to building and maintain 30 SPH in Geelong, which is where Hanwha intends to manufacture the Redbacks if it is suc- cessful in Land 400 Phase 3.
“HDA will be looking to maximise efficiencies across both projects where they will result in a ‘best for project’ outcome in both Land 400 Phase 3 and Land 8116,” the spokesperson said. “In terms of fabrication and manufac- turing, there are many capable Australian companies that could supply into both programs.
“WITH REDBACK HULLS NOW IN AUSTRALIA ALL OF THE INTEGRATION WORK TO GET THEM READY WILL BE DONE IN AUSTRALIA AND IN COORDINATION WITH OUR PARTNER, EOS.”
“Importantly, we would seek to maximise the efficiencies here by co-location and utilisation of the same facilities.”
Whilst there are clear differences in the two vehicles, HDA says that local supply chains for both vehicles will plug into global fleets of existing SPH and Redbacks, should the latter be successful overseas.
“We want both supply chains to be a part of our global supply chain for the existing K9-K10 SPH international fleets and the prospective Redback fleets if we are success- ful in a range of global competitions,” the spokesperson said. “Both supply chains will be about the creation of self- reliance, positioning them to develop and refine future sys- tems for both fleets and creating sustainable supply chains based on collaboration and the creation of mutual benefits between Korea and Australia.”
The company cites operational advantages for the ADF as the reason behind its effort to build Australian Industry Capability into its bid.
“Modern combat systems depend more than ever, on a substantial base of support that must be able to repair, sustain and adapt these systems very quickly to emerging
ABOVE: Both contenders now have vehicles in country for the RMA.
threats,” the Hanwha spokesperson said. “We cannot rely on people overseas to do this for us.”
In addition, the company believes that Australian and Korean industries have complementary strengths: Austra- lia produces the required volumes at competitive prices, whereas Korean operations can be harder to scale down to cost-competitive levels.
“Australia is exceptionally good at making highly techni- cal but low volume goods at very competitive prices. Korea does high tech, high volume very well but scaling back to lower production runs and still maintaining cost effective- ness can sometimes be a challenge,” the spokesperson said.
Ultimately, Hanwha says it wants to create a long-term na- tional capability that is not commercially reliant on the ADF. “We want to create a sustainable industrial base that is not reliant on ADF programs alone to become viable for the
long term,” the spokesperson said.
TEAM LYNX
Meanwhile, Australian companies are continuing to steadi- ly acquire the necessary qualifications to participate in Rheinmetall’s offer of the Lynx KF41, which builds on the presence that the German company has established in Aus- tralia through the Boxer 8x8 Combat Reconnaissance Vehi- cles under construction for Land 400 Phase 2 and through earlier programs, such as Land 121 Phase 3B and 5B.
“Rheinmetall has built a trusted industrial network since establishing permanent Australian operations under the Land 121 Phase 3B program,” Rheinmetall Defence Aus- tralia Managing Director Gary Stewart told ADM.
Over the last four years, the company says it has awarded work to ‘hundreds’ of local companies, including Hilton Manufacturing, Holmwood Highgate and TRT. Others have plugged into Rheinmetall’s global supply chain, such as Cablex, Milspec and Tectonica, or linked into Tier One suppliers in Europe; Precision Metal Group, for example, is providing blast attenuating seats for installation on Ger- man Boxer vehicles.
Major components of the Australian vehicles include a Liebherr engine, Renk transmission and Supashock run- ning gear, which the company says allows the vehicle to perform alongside the Australian M1A1 Abrams tank. It is built with a modular approach to improve adaptability and reduce costs.
“The Lynx modular vehicle platform provides stan- dardised interfaces and a kit-based building block ap- proach,” Stewart said to ADM. “This opens up the oppor- tunity to easily adapt, change, upgrade or reconfigure the platform in any imaginable way. All variants are based on a common drive system using the kit-based building block system approach.”
The modular approach extends to subsystems, including a digital backbone with a Generic Vehicle Architecture for new mission systems, a modular survivability system, and interchangeable role kits.
“A customer can completely reassign role kits across their fleets to meet specific threats without changing their fleet size or altering their maintenance schedules,” Stewart said. “Role kits are – wherever possible – derived and aligned
RHEINMETALL