PODCAST: Offshore manufacturing, defence procurement and industrial resilience, with Philippe Odouard and David McLaughlin
How can Australia strengthen sovereign industrial capability while building a sustainable and globally competitive defence manufac...
Austal leads push to accelerate additive manufacturing across Australia’s maritime and defence industries
Austal has joined forces with Curtin University and the Additive Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre to develop a new framew...
It can be done: Germany cans Hunter equivalent, so can we at least inject urgency and teeth?
Overnight, the German military has announced the cancellation of its €18 billion ($29.6 billion) next-generation F126 class of s...
Australia joins largest international maritime exercise in Hawaii
Australian Defence Force personnel have touched down in Hawaii for Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 26, the largest internatio...

Billion-dollar LAND projects open for business

Land
|
By:
m a  abrams battle tank
M1A1 Abrams Battle Tank from the 1st Armoured Regiment. Image via Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Defence.

Work to provide the Army with an upgraded Main Battle Tank capability and a bridging and breaching capability is getting underway, with the combined projects worth up to $2.5 billion.

Work to provide the Army with an upgraded Main Battle Tank capability and a bridging and breaching capability is getting underway, with the combined projects worth up to $2.5 billion.

Defence's Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) is holding a consultation day for industry for the LAND 907 Phase 2 and LAND 8160 Phase 1 projects next month.

Under the LAND 907 Phase 1 project, Defence acquired 59 M1A1 Abrams Integrated Management (AIM) Situational Awareness (SA) Abrams tanks, 13 M88 Hercules Armoured Recovery Vehicles, and training and support systems including simulators, special tools, test equipment, spares and ammunition. 

 
 

The LAND 907 Phase 2 project, budgeted for $750 million to $1 billion, will look at providing the Australian Army with an upgraded Main Battle Tank (MBT) capability, with the M1A1 to be upgraded to a M1A2 variant and M88A2 to be upgraded to an M88A3 variant. 

Under the LAND 8160 Phase 1 project, Defence is seeking to acquire and armoured engineering system for the Army to provide and under armour obstacle breaching and bridging capability to support mounted forces. The capability will be based on a M1 tank chassis and may be delivered by three variants: an Armoured Breacher Vehicle, an Armoured Bridge Launcher and an Armoured Engineering Vehicle (AEV). 

The breacher vehicle's main role will be to mechanically and explosively breach minefields and clear obstacles, while the armour bridge launcher will be able to cross wet or dry gaps and allow for forward movement in the battlefield. An AEV typically features a large dozer blade or mine ploughs, a large calibre demolition cannon, augers, winches, excavator arms and cranes or lifting booms.

The project has been budgeted for $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

This industry day will be held at Level 1, CQ Functions Centre, 113-123 Queen St, Melbourne on Wednesday, 21 February 2018, with one-on-one sessions on the Wednesday and running until Friday, 23 February 2018. Registration for the events can be made through CASG.

 

Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?
Make Defence Connect a preferred news source on Google.
Click here to add Defence Connect as a preferred news source.

Tags: