Page 18 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2020

18 NEWS REVIEW
NOVEMBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
RAN’S FIRST NEW OILER ARRIVES IN AUSTRALIA
THE RAN’s new Auxiliary Oiler Replenish- ment (AOR) ship, NUSHIP Supply, has arrived at HMAS Stirling, Garden Island in WA.
NUSHIP Supply will now undergo an Australian fit-out to fit specialised equip- ment that cannot be installed overseas for security reasons, such as the Close-In Weapons system, communications suite, Typhoon and Combat systems. A team of experienced Navantia and defence indus- try specialists will perform the fit-out.
“The arrival of NUSHIP Supply marks a significant milestone for both Australia and is demonstrates our commitment not only to the RAN but also to Australian In- dustry, which is so important to support these platforms over their expected design life and more,” Navantia Australia’s Chair- man Warren King said.
“The local development and management of the Navantia designs by Navantia Austra- lia, supported by the Stra- tegic Agreement Principles document signed with De- fence earlier this year, offers substantial opportunities for Australian industry,” Navantia Australia Managing Director, Alfonso García-Valdés said.
ABOVE: The RAN’s new Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment (AOR) ship, NUSHIP Supply, arriving at HMAS Stirling, Garden Island.
EOS TO FIELD DIRECTED ENERGY COUNTER-DRONE CAPABILITY
“Navantia Australia already has over 300 Australian companies as part of our local supply chain. The cross platform commons program we are developing will provide more long-term opportuni- ties for platform sustainment, innova- tion and upgrades and enable a robust Australian supply chain to be reliably available.”
A number of Australian and WA companies are involved in the both construction process and fit-out, including Taylor Bros, SAGE Au- tomation, Australian Maritime Technologies, Sofraco Engineering, Capability by Design, Communications Design & Management and Sypaq Systems. ASP Ship Management, Scaf-West and the Onsite Rental Group are performing vital support during the fit-out.
continuous wave lasers coupled to EOS adaptive optics.
“We are able to build these solutions to almost any scale relevant to the task being addressed, and the mechanical and fire control architectures for our direct fire remote weapon stations and our directed energy systems are built on the same tech- nologies and sub-systems.”
“The directed energy will kill a drone well beyond 1.5 km although range de- pends on the atmosphere and the level of elevation – the colder and the higher the better.
“If you’ve got the right power and laser capability, essentially you end up with a bottomless magazine. It’s more expensive than a ballistic option but it brings a sig- nificant additional capability.”
EOS is currently involved in contract negotiations with what Sanderson de- scribes as the world’s largest counter- drone program, but an outcome is un- likely until next year, the program has not been identified and the capabilities under discussion have not been disclosed. ■
ABOVE: A concept image of a counter-drone directed energy weapon.
JULIAN KERR I SYDNEY
CANBERRA-BASED EOS De- fence Systems will field a 26 kW laser directed energy (DE) counter-drone capa- bility in November, CEO Grant Sanderson has dis- closed to ADM.
“We’ve been doing a lot
of work in this area for
the past couple of years
and what we’re calling the counter-drone directed en-
ergy product is now under-
going materiel testing and
goes into the field in No-
vember,” Sanderson said. “Currently it’s containerised, but we intend to have it mounted in a mobile platform by 2022.”
The DE weapon system includes a beam director and a co-mounted optical target identification and track- ing system.
Developed and manufactured in-house, the 26 kW high energy laser (HEL) in its current format is capable of scaling to about 50 kW.
“We are a laser company,” said Sand- erson. “All of our laser technologies are high-power and high beam quality
LOCKHEED MARTIN VIA USNI