Page 10 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2021

10 NEWS REVIEW INDUSTRY UPDATE
JULY-AUGUST 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
TANK UPGRADE TRUNDLES ONWARDS
EWEN LEVICK | MELBOURNE
IN late April, the US State Department ap- proved the sale to Australia of 160 M1A1 tank hulls from stock.
Those frames will be used to produce the ADF’s next tank fleet: around 75 M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams main battle tanks, plus 29 M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicles, 18 Joint Assault Bridges, six M88A2 Her- cules Combat Recovery Vehicles, and 122 AGT1500 gas turbine engines.
Whilst the exact balance of vehicle types will be approved by the National Se- curity Council (NSC) at Gate 2 approval, this represents a major upgrade to Austra- lia’s heavy armour capability. It is being managed under Land 907 Phase 2 (the tank upgrade) and Land 8160 Phase 1 (the combat engineering vehicles).
“Land 8160 is re-introducing a range of capabilities that originally existed un- der the Leopard fleet but wasn’t followed on when we introduced Abrams,” Colonel Paul Graham, Director Land Combat Ve- hicle Program at Army HQ, said to ADM. “The combat engineering vehicles are all based on the M1 chassis. The programs were originally run separately but the deci- sion was made to bring them together given that commonality.”
After Army’s combat engineering vehi- cle capability was removed following the retirement of the Leopard fleet, soldiers risk-managed those tasks in a coalition setting; but according to Brigadier Jer- emy King, Director General Platforms at Army HQ, the operational justification for
re-introducing the capability was clear. “It’s been a relatively easy argument for the combat engineering vehicles,” BRIG King said. “People have in their mind a concerning image of a soldier prodding for IEDs. We’ve learnt the lesson that a ma- ture armoured capability can do that more effectively without putting soldiers at risk.” The vehicles will be ‘Australianised’ with C4I equipment and will not use de- pleted uranium (DU) armour for security and environmental reasons, but will oth- erwise be ‘closely aligned’ to the US stan- dard to capitalise on scales of economy for spare parts. DU armour offers immense density (uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element on Earth), but Army says it has found an ‘alternative solution’ with the US that ‘still provides the most
protected tank in the region.’
“We will do what we can to avoid vary-
ing from the baseline and becoming an or- phan fleet,” COL Graham said.
“Of course configurations currently in use by the US Army will be available quicker and Australianisation may need time to complete any engineering work involved,” Ian Cook, managing director of Abrams platform support prime contractor General Dynamic Land Systems Australia (GDLS-A) confirmed to ADM.
Will Army’s recent decision to scrap the Elbit battle management system impact the acquisition timeline?
“The Chief of Army made the decision recently and we will work through, project by project and platform by platform, what that means and we’re in the process of do- ing that,” BRIG King said.
LEFT: An Australian Army M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank from 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland Mounted Infantry) fires its main armament.
Whilst the FMS largely precludes lo- cal involvement in the acquisition half of the programs, Army is hoping to involve Australian industry in sustaining the new fleet and undertook industry engagement activities to scope out local capabilities in late 2020.
“We already have a reliance on local industry, in particular TAE in Brisbane, who do a large amount of maintenance on the turbine engine for the current fleet,” COL Graham said. “We expect that will increase with the introduction of the new capability and we expect to see other local firms of similar sophistication get involved, particularly on the vehicles under 8160.”
“There’ll be opportunities for support in operator-level maintenance, but we’re also looking for that in-country deeper level component maintenance,” BRIG King said.
Cook confirmed this with ADM: “Aus- tralian suppliers can offer a range of sus- tainment support including professional services and system and sub-system main- tenance and overhaul capabilities.”
For industry, the key date to keep in mind is Gate 2 approval in October.
“We’re planning for an August presenta- tion at the investment committee and an October presentation at NSC,” COL Gra- ham said.
“Once we’ve gone through that October date, we’ll have some clarity and can start engaging with industry,” BRIG King said. “As we rollout that project for acquisition we’ll engage with industry on what we flagged in those engagement sessions in 2020, in terms of what we’d like to pursue and to give industry an opportunity to re- fine their proposals.”
GDLS-A is also planning to re-engage with industry post-Gate 2.
“Following Second Pass approval where the sustainment strategy will be endorsed, GDLS-A will conduct more specific Indus- try Engagement over a longer period,” Cook said. “It is expected that by this time, spe- cific work packages will be offered for in- terested suppliers to tender against allowing value for money assessments to be made.”
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