How Australia’s strategic review is changing Army acquisition plans

MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian Army will now receive less Redback infantry fighting vehicles than planned as the government redirects funding for that effort toward long-range strike systems and littoral maneuver craft.

The government’s recent Defence Strategic Review recommended the Army pivot from a “balanced” structure of equally equipped combined arms brigades to a “focused” force able to meet the changing threat in the Asia-Pacific region. The document places an emphasis on long-range strike and littoral maneuver capabilities while retaining the combined arms philosophy.

“The current Australian Defence Force (ADF) force structure is based on a ‘balanced’ force model that reflects a bygone era. It does not adequately address our new strategic environment,” the report stated. “The ADF needs a much more focused force that can respond to the risks we face. It should be informed by net assessment and able to effect a strategy of denial.”

This refocus includes an enhanced long-range strike capability for multiple domains of warfare; a fully enabled and integrated amphibious combined arms land system; and a mobile, joint expeditionary theater logistics system with the ability to supply a force beyond Australia’s shores for an extended period of time.

“This conceptual approach to force structure planning will lead to a force designed to address the nation’s most significant military risks,” the report read. “The capabilities required to address identified threats will also provide latent capability to deal with lower-level contingencies and crises.”

Change of plans

The Defence Strategic Review specifically recommended the accelerated acquisition of additional M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems as well as local manufacturing of weapons to ensure stocks are maintained.

For the Australian Army, this has meant a significant reduction in the number of AS21 Redback infantry fighting vehicles it had planned to acquire.

The service originally sought 450 Redback vehicles from Hanwha Defense Australia, a local branch of the South Korean company Hanwha, under the government’s multibillion-dollar Land 400 Phase 3 program, but the defense review recommended a reduction to 129 units to reflect the new force structure concept.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles announced the accelerated purchase of HIMARS on Aug. 19, highlighting the change in focus. The country is already investing AU$1.6 billion (U.S. $1 billion) in a second tranche of HIMARS launchers and weapons, which takes the number on order to 42 units.

An earlier tranche announced in January committed Australia to 20 HIMARS weapons, with deliveries beginning in the first quarter of 2025 and wrapping up by the end of 2026.

The Defence Strategic Review also axed a planned second regiment of Hanwha Defense Australia-made AS9 Huntsman 155mm self-propelled howitzers as well as AS10 armored ammunition resupply vehicles. That acquisition was part of Phase 2 of the government’s Land 8116 program focused on protected mobile fires.

“We’re currently working through how we will rebalance the Army’s contribution to the integrated force. That system [AS9 and AS10] will still deliver a world-class capability; there will just be less of it,” said Lt. Gen. Simon Stuart, chief of the Army. “I’m focused on the implementation of the direction that we’ve been given, and we’ll continue to deliver the capability that is required by the integrated force within the resource envelope that we have.”

Under Phase 1 of the Land 8116 project, the Army is still set to receive 30 AS9 howitzers and 10 AS10 ammo resupply vehicles beginning in 2025.

Land 400 Phase 3 is a multiyear program that assessed the AS21 and the Germany company Rheinmetall’s KF41 Lynx, with the former declared the contract winner on July 27.

“We will be beginning delivery of these vehicles in early 2027, with the final vehicles to be delivered in late 2028,” Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said. “This is bringing it forward by a number of years.”

That timeline coincides with “the delivery of more landing craft and a very significant investment in long-range strike, both the HIMARS rocket system and land-based maritime strike. So that the Australian Army’s longest-range weapon will go from roughly 40 kilometers to 300 kilometers, then over 500 kilometers,” Conroy added. (That’s about 25 miles to 186 miles, then more than 311 miles.)

Conroy was referring to the initial acquisition of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Army Tactical Missile Systems and, eventually, the U.S. Army’s Precision Strike Missile for HIMARS. Australia jointed the U.S. Army’s Precision Strike Missile development program in August 2021.

The Australian Army’s longest-range weapon is the M777 towed howitzer, Gen. Angus Campbell, chief of the Defence Force, said in May during a Senate estimates hearing, during which lawmakers scrutinize how the government is spending taxpayers’ money.

Coastal defense

Australia is also looking to acquire a long-range maritime strike and coastal artillery system under Project Land 4100 Phase 2.

In response, Kongsberg Defence Australia and Thales Australia have partnered to offer a system based on the utility variant of the Bushmaster protected mobility vehicle, together with Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile.

The Australian Army has fielded the Bushmaster for several years now, and the Royal Australian Navy selected the Naval Strike Missile as its deck-launched Harpoon replacement.

The Kongsberg-Thales pitch, dubbed StrikeMaster, is similar to the American Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, which uses the Naval Strike Missile with an unmanned variant of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle dubbed Rogue Fires. However, the StrikeMaster will be a crewed system.

Kongsberg is a Norwegian company, and Thales is based in France.

For its part, the American firm Lockheed Martin is proposing a variant of the M142 HIMARS launcher, integrated with a ground-launched version of the AGM-158C long-range, anti-ship missile. The Australian Army already purchased the former, and the Royal Australian Air Force has ordered the air-launched version of the latter.

Domestic focus

However, underpinning these long-range strike enhancements is a requirement to establish a sovereign supply of weapons — an acknowledgment that global supply chains are inevitably disrupted during a conflict.

In response, the government has committed AU$2.5 billion over the course of four years for the Defence Department’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise, or GWEO.

“The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of having not just war stocks, but a domestic missile manufacturing industry,” Marles said April 30

GWEO will initially focus on the domestic manufacture of 155mm ammunition, but is also looking to manufacture guided missiles in Australia under the Guided Weapons Production Capability plan.

Speaking at the Senate estimate hearing in May, the head of GWEO, Air Marshal Leon Phillips, said an Australian team recently visited the United States to meet with missile manufacturers and federal lawmakers.

“GMLRS [the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System] is a credible option that we are looking to accelerate, and I expect we’ll return to [the Australian] government before quarter two of 2024 with options to make a start on that, to meet what we believe is a credible timeline for a level of missile production in this country in 2025,” Phillips said.

When asked by senators if plans were set for eventually manufacturing the U.S. Army’s Precision Strike Missile, Phillips replied: “Not at this stage. I think GMLRS is a logical start point, and then we might work our way up in terms of our industrial base, our certification, our competencies, and our releasability and ITAR issues with the U.S. government.”

ITAR, or International Traffic in Arms Regulations, is a U.S. government regime that controls the export of defense equipment and other sensitive technology.

Landing craft

The Defence Strategic Review also recommends the government accelerate its multiphase landing craft program Land 8710.

Phase 1 of the program is in an open-tender stage, which should lead to the purchase of medium littoral maneuver vessels to replace the Army’s LCM-8 landing craft, as well as the acquisition of an amphibious vehicle to replace the Vietnam-era LARC vehicles.

Phase 2 is for the acquisition of heavy landing craft to replace the Balikpapan-class vessels retired more than a decade ago.

Phase 3 will seek a fast assault craft.

“We are investing in the capabilities our Defence Force needs to hold our adversaries at risk further from our shores, and keep Australians safe in the complex and uncertain world in which we live today,” Marles said Aug. 21.