Page 72 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2021

70 LAND FORCES SPH
JUNE 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
BELOW: Both the SPH and ammunition vehicle will be produced in Geelong.
“TO ADDRESS THE AFOREMENTIONED ARTILLERY CAPABILITY
GAP SINCE THE CANCELLATION OF LAND 17/1C, THE DEFENCE SPOKESPERSON SAID THAT OPPORTUNITIES FOR APPROVAL OF A PROTECTED MOBILE FIRES CAPABILITY WERE INVESTIGATED THROUGH THE FORCE STRUCTURE PLAN PROCESS.”
by the Gillard Labor Government, as a part of a cost-cutting exercise. Instead, Defence purchased 19 additional M777A2s and they subsequently joined 35 earlier examples, the first of which entered service in Australia in 2010.
Under the original program, Defence was considering two contenders: the PzH (Panzerhaubitze) 2000 system, de- veloped by KMW and Rheinmetall; and an earlier iteration of the AS9 which was then marketed as the ‘Aussie Thun- der’ by a partnership comprising South Korea’s Samsung
Defense (today Hanwha Defense) and Raytheon Australia. In the years since 2012 the strategic climate in which Australia finds itself has changed significantly and con- tinues to rapidly do so today. The 2020 Defence Strategic Review notes that the 2016 White Paper had assumed a 10-year strategic warning of any large-scale conventional attack, but that it is no longer an appropriate basis for en- suring security, stating a high-intensity conflict in the re-
gion is more likely than it was even five years ago.
To address the aforementioned artillery capability gap since the cancellation of Land 17/1C, the Defence spokes- person said that opportunities for approval of a Protected Mobile Fires Capability were investigated through the
Force Structure Plan process.
“On May 14, 2019, the Government announced that De-
fence will acquire a new self-propelled artillery system to be built and maintained in Geelong and acquired under an accelerated approval process, with work to be commence in Geelong in 2022-2023,” the spokesperson explained.
HANWHA DEFENSE AUSTRALIA