The Australian Army is seeking to acquire the Lockheed Martin M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) under a US$385 million deal.
The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced overnight that Australia had been granted Congressional approval of the system.
Covered under the approval are 20 M142 HIMARS, 30 M30A2 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS), 30 Alternative Warhead (AW) pods with Insensitive Munitions Propulsion Systems (IMPS), 30 M31A2 GMLRS Unitary (GMLRS-U) High Explosive Pods with IMPS, 30 XN403 Extend Range GMLRS AW pods, 30 EM404 ER GMLRS Unitary Pods ad 10 M57 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS).
HIMARS has been demonstrated to the Army during recent Talisman Sabre exercises and it is worth noting that the launcher is capable of firing the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). Last August, Australia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the US Department of Defense for the development of the PrSM weapon.
The ADF is seeking to acquire a new, long-range, rocket artillery system by the mid-2020s, as initially proposed in the 2016 White Paper and confirmed by the 2020 Defence Strategic Update (DSU 2020) and Force Structure Plan (FSP 2020). The initial work on the acquisition of such a capability is a $0.6 to 0.9 billion Long-Range Fires program is being undertaken under Land 8113 Phase 1.