Page 69 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2021
P. 69

                  JUNE 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
LAND FORCES SPH 67
FAST forward two years and the re-elected Morrison gov- ernment is currently evaluating a proposal from Hanwha Defense Australia, under a sole-source tender mechanism, for a locally-built variant of its successful 155mm, 52 cali- bre K9 Thunder SPH, to enter service in the mid-2020s.
To be known locally as the AS9 Huntsman, after the common Australian spider, the capability is actually a weapons system, comprising the AS9 SPH and AS10 ar- moured ammunition resupply vehicle (AARV). The Com- monwealth is seeking to acquire 30 AS9s and 15 AS10s under the Land 8116 Phase 1 (Protected Mobile Fires) program and in July 2020 it announced further plans to acquire additional units later in the decade, sufficient to ultimately equip two regiments.
Whether the original announcement, which came as a surprise to many observers, was made on political grounds – Morrison also pledged to build them in Geelong, parts of which were then in a marginally-held Coalition seat – re- mains to be seen, but a Protected Mobile Fires capability represented by the SPH has long been sought by Army and will fill a missing piece in its ‘Army in Motion’ and ‘Accel- erated Warfare’ principles.
Once the contract is finalised Hanwha intends to de- velop a facility in the Geelong area to produce the Hunts- man and also, if successful, the AS21 Redback infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), which is a competitor for Army’s Land 400 Phase 3 program. While the two programs are independent of one another, there are obvious synergies in terms of Australian Industry Content (AIC) and Hanwha has already engaged with more than 600 local companies, across both programs, as it seeks to build a supply chain that will be centred upon the Greater Geelong area.
WHY DOES ARMY NEED A PROTECTED MOBILE FIRES CAPABILITY?
Although Army has sought to acquire a self-propelled howitzer in the past and actively pursued a program to do so a decade ago, the 2016 Defence White Paper or as- sociated Integrated Investment Program (IIP) made no mention of a requirement for such a capability. Indeed, artillery was discussed only in general terms in the docu- ments, and then in terms of a future rocket artillery pro- gram. Hence the announcement by the Prime Minister in May 2019, coming as it did in the dying days of an election campaign which many expected the Coalition to lose, took some analysts by surprise.
Therefore, any study of the Land 8116 program must logically begin with a question; Why does Army need a Protected Mobile Fires capability in the shape of a self- propelled howitzer?
The answer is at least partially provided within the 2020 Defence Strategic Review and associated Force Structure Plan, which note both the increasing shift in the balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific region, with more na- tions acquiring modern, lethal weapons systems, and the realisation that Australia may no longer be able to choose how, where or when it fights the next war.
In the second edition of Army’s ‘Contribution to De- fence Strategy’, published in October 2020, Chief of Army Lieutenant General Rick Burr notes Australia’s chang- ing strategic circumstances and points out that Defence strategy will continue to change in years to come. LTGEN Burr also makes the point that the ‘Army in Motion’ strat- egy is intended to prepare land power in response to these changes and assure the Joint Force’s ability to control land, which he describes, “a fundamental of sovereignty and human security.”
More specifically, a Defence spokesperson told ADM that a tracked mobility, protection and firepower capabil-
LEFT: Huntsman will form an important part of the combined arms fi hting system.
    





















































































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