Land Force: Behind the Scenes with Hawkei | ADM March 2012
Julian Kerr | Sydney
Given the prospect of a domestic contract likely be worth around $1.3 billion together with the credibility gained from Hawkei’s selection in its home market and the financial pressures being felt on international defence budgets, this is hardly surprising.
“First and foremost we need to secure the Australian market as our foundation customer,” Paul Harris, Business Development Manager for Hawkei, told ADM. “And once we’re confident that the product is sufficiently mature and the business opportunity in Australia remains sound, then we can take the necessary steps to transition from marketing the Hawkei capability abroad to actually selling.”
Hawkei was named on 12 December 2011 as the preferred vehicle for the MSA option to supply up to 1,300 Protected Mobility Vehicles – Light (PMV-L) to replace the army’s unprotected Landrover 4x4 and 6x6 Perenties. The option requires at least 50 per cent of a contending vehicle to be manufactured and supported in Australia.
The MSA component was introduced more than a year after Australia invested $40 million in the Technology Development phase of the US Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) Program. This is intended to replace various US Army and US Marine Corps vehicles including the High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV).
At the time the government said that the investment was to ensure it had a range of options available for the Land 121 Phase 4 requirement.
Disappointingly however, the US investment was not matched by any funding for Australian industry, sparking some effective lobbying. Government subsequently granted up to $9 million each to three of the 13 Australian-based companies who had bid for the MSA component – the kicker being that two prototypes had to be ready for test driving within six months.
Reliability, maintainability and ballistic testing by Army of right-hand drive variants of the three US JLTV contenders, produced by BAE Systems Navistar, Meritor and Northrop Grumman; General Dynamics AM General; and Lockheed Martin; began in October 2010 at Monegeetta in Victoria and concluded in April 2011.
Similar testing of the three MSA contenders got underway in February 2011 and was wrapped up four months later, with Thales providing one prototype each of the Hawkei two-door utility (payload 3,000kg+) and four-door, four crew Command configurations.
Decision made
The December announcement confirmed that Hawkei had beaten off competition from the Ocelot (built for the UK Light Protected Patrol Vehicle Foxhound program) offered by Force Protection Australasia, a subsidiary of Nevada-based Force Protection; and a platform proposed by General Dynamics Land Systems - Australia based on an evolution of the Eagle IV vehicle in-service in Europe.
(In a further twist to an already complex situation, General Dynamics announced in November last year that it was buying Force Protection for US$360 million)
Although Defence says it will continue to monitor JLTV progress, the US program now appears to have been relegated to insurance for unforeseen problems with Hawkei.
At this stage Defence has chosen not to make any further Australian investment in the forthcoming JLTV Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase. As a further back-up, Phase 4 also includes provision for the so-called Market Available Option, in effect a fully imported MOTS solution, though there has been little said about the viability or investigations into this option.
While the MSA option was initially viewed as a piece of political face-saving, delays, weight concerns, and ongoing changes in JLTV specifications to reduce per-unit cost, have all served to showcase Hawkei’s strengths as a platform designed from the outset to meet the Australian requirements. In developing Hawkei, Thales was able to draw on lessons learnt from its 12-15 tonne Bushmaster 4x4 Protected Mobility Vehicle, a total of 836 which have been delivered to or are on order for the ADF. Additionally, nearly 100 Bushmasters have been delivered to the Dutch army and 24 to the UK, and all three countries have deployed the vehicle to Afghanistan where its safety record has proven exemplary.
First principals
However, Thales decided against the option of a so-called “Baby Bushmaster”, instead starting afresh and drawing on the experience and mature technologies of international members of the Thales Group together with partner companies Israeli-based Plasan Sasa (hull design and armour), the PAC Group (production engineering), and Boeing Defence Australia (aerospace-derived integrated logistics support).
The speed of development for Hawkei was remarkable given the demanding weight/protection specifications and the known competition. Conceptual work began in 2008, the first formal design meeting took place in Bendigo in April 2009 and Thales submitted its MSA bid just five months later at the same time as the platform’s official launch.
Anecdotal evidence (and the vehicle’s selection) suggests Hawkei performed well over the test period, but non-disclosure agreements mean none of the contenders have been able to comment on their perception of the tests, or to confirm or deny reports that debriefs have yet to be provided by Defence.
However, Brigadier Greg Downing, Land Systems Vehicle Director at the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), told the February edition of Army News that the MSA component had in his view involved the most comprehensive developmental test program ever undertaken for an Australian Army project.
This is known to have included more than 40,000km of testing for the competing vehicles, together with numerous blast tests to verify the protection levels of the crew compartments.
“The prototype vehicles provided by the participants to date have allowed us to acquire vital information and refine requirements for Army’s capability needed”, he added.
According to December’s Ministerial statement, final Government approval of the project, subject to successful testing, can be expected in 2015 and production could potentially commence in Australia as early as 2016.
With current orders for Bushmaster expected to be completed before the end of 2013, the Commonwealth has agreed to explore the purchase of more of the type in order to retain critical skills at Bendigo while the design of Hawkei is finalised.
Any such purchases would be dependent on Thales “demonstrating an efficient, effective and innovative program to maintain core protected vehicle manufacturing skills at Bendigo and in successfully meeting technical performance, cost and schedule commitments in the development of the Hawkei vehicle”, the Ministerial statement said.
“Progress towards a suitable production-ready Hawkei will be measured through a series of milestones. Thales will need to successfully demonstrate the maturing design of the vehicle”.
Discussions between Thales, Plasan, Australian SMEs and subcontractors got underway last year to establish a local supply chain for the MSA option, and this is expected to include production in Australia of Hawkei’s high-tech armour.
Plasan, a leading provider of armour solutions in the international marketplace, describes Hawkei as the world leader in its class, presenting an optimised solution balancing weight, protection, cost and off-road capability. The protection fitout makes heavy use of Plasan technology including steel alloys, Aramid fibres for internal spall liners, and SMART (Super Multi-Hit Armour Technology) ceramic ‘beaded’ armour to provide optimal lightweight defence against high performance armour-piercing ammunition.
The basic Hawkei configuration provides the same level of protection as a Bushmaster, with blast protection integrated into the hull. Additional B-Kit armour can be added without specialised equipment in less than 30 minutes to significantly improve the vehicle’s ballistic protection and still allow transport by Chinook over a short distance.
Enhancements understood to have been proposed by Plasan for the pre-production Hawkei would further improve protectio.While production planning is obviously underway, this was not a subject on which either Thales Australia or the DMO were prepared to comment.
C4I fit
The vital C4I fit within Hawkei is facilitated by built-in Vehicle Electronic Architecture (VEA) which allows it to be mission-system ready. The VEA itself has evolved to become compliant with the UK-developed Generic Vehicle Architecture (GVA) open standard which is systems agnostic, facilitating integration of a broad range of differing systems over the life of the vehicle.
“The whole idea of Hawkei’s electronic architecture and GVA is that any crew member can have a single tablet PC in front of them and they will be able to cycle through the whole range of vehicle and electronic management system data as well as information from the remote weapon station and battle management system, no matter who made them,” Harris commented.
The vehicle will also be fitted with the latest SOTAS M3 Thales digital vehicle communication system. A generation ahead of the SOTAS IPSP system equipping Bushmaster and numerous other platforms, SOTAS M3, as with SOTAS IP, includes a significant amount of onboard processing capability.
This allows it to handle not only all onboard power and information management requirements, but also to act as a fully-integrated node on the network centric battlefield as well as providing plug and play interfaces for future sensors and a battle management system. To this, SOTAS M3 adds the ability to handle video.
“It’s all about bandwidth, so for example we can run local situational awareness low-light and thermal cameras around the vehicle, or operate a surveillance camera on a tripod remote from the vehicle as an observation post,” said Harris.
Such systems are heavy users of power, and Hawkei features an inline starter generator in place of an alternator and starter motor. This sits between the engine and the transmission and provides in excess of 55 kilowatts of exportable power – in the case of the utility configuration, sufficient to power specialised capabilities such as a modular radar or air defence pod.
In silent watch mode, the electric management system provides sufficient power from Hawkei’s batteries for onboard systems to operate for at least two hours without the engine being turned over.
“Because there are so many systems operating on the vehicle it’s got very sophisticated ways of optimising the electrical draw to extend battery life,” Harris commented.
Maintaining the seven-tonne weight restriction set by government and hence Hawkei’s transportability by Chinook makes Hawkei prospectively the only protected vehicle in the ADF inventory able to be heli-lifted into a high-threat environment, Harris explained to ADM as weight has been a major issue facing PMV-L programs worldwide.
“Having that capability will allow Army to provide protected mobility in a landing zone of their choosing where other avenues of entry such as ports and airfields have been effectively denied,” he commented.
“Anywhere in the Southwest Pacific, having Hawkei on the ground with B-Kit armour and a .50 calibre in the remote weapon station would be the local equivalent of having a tank.”
Thales is understandably optimistic about Hawkei’s future. But industry sources point out that development funding is not the same as a production contract, discussion on which seems likely to take place after Australia’s anticipated withdrawal from Afghanistan and the inevitable ensuing review of Army capability requirements.
“In silent watch mode, the electric management system provides sufficient power from Hawkei’s batteries for onboard systems to operate for at least two hours without the engine being turned over.”