Land Warfare: Artillery overhaul under way | ADM Nov 2010
This year’s Land Warfare Conference (LWC) promises to throw some light on a number of defence projects designed to deliver new or upgraded Army capabilities.
Gregor Ferguson | Sydney
One of these is Land 17 which will replace the Army’s current stock of L119 105mm and M198 155mm towed guns with a new generation of towed and Self-Propelled (SP) guns along with precision guided munitions and enhanced battle management systems for fire support, at a total cost of around $1.5 billion.
Phase 1A will acquire the M777A2 towed lightweight 155mm howitzer under a US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) arrangement.
The gun is manufactured by BAE Systems in the US and at the time of writing ADM understood the first of 35 guns ordered under this phase had already arrived in country, though neither the contractor or Defence had announced this.
With the LWC coming up rapidly, it’s clear some sort of major announcement is in the offing.
This phase will provide the Army with four towed howitzer batteries and guns for the School of Artillery and a rotation/spares/maintenance pool.
The guns will equip 8/12 Medium Regiment in Darwin, 4 Field Regiment in Townsville and 1 Field Regiment in Brisbane; the latter units are equipped with the L119 Hamel 205mm Light Gun.
Current project approval for Land 17 Phase 1A is approximately $337 million, according to a Defence source.
Under this phase Defence has also ordered a family of what it terms ‘near-precision guided munitions’ based on BAE Systems’ Precision Guidance Kit (PGK) with a course-corrected fuze.
This has small steerable fins in a new nose-mounted fuze section and uses GPS guidance to provide delivery accuracy similar to that of the JDAM GPS-guided bomb.
Finally, Phase 1A will deliver the networked Battle Management System – Fires, which includes the Raytheon Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) and associated communications bearers.
Phase 1B will address the requirement for a Digital terminal Control System (DTCS) for Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC), or Forward Observation Officers, as they were formerly known.
Defence has accelerated this phase and received approval and some $30 million-worth of funding approved in mid-year to acquire the first tranche.
The remainder of Phase 1B is still subject to 2nd Pass approval which is slated for the current financial year.
SP guns – which? And when?
The big unknown at present is Phase 1C, the SP howitzer program.
This phase will see Army acquire two batteries of 155mm SP guns, with extra howitzers for the School of Artillery at Puckapunyal and a rotation/spares/maintenance pool.
As for the status of the tender process and likely delivery schedule Defence wasn’t forthcoming: “The self propelled gun component of Land 17 is currently under tender conditions,” a Defence spokesperson said.
“With that in mind, it is inappropriate to provide further detail.”
The two contenders, Raytheon Australia which is teamed with Samsung Techwin and KMW which is teamed with BAE Systems Australia, were similarly reticent.
Both declined to comment on the status of the project when approached by ADM.
The RFT for this phase of Project Land 17 closed two and a half years ago in April 2008; in the end the only contenders for the SP gun component were KMW, offering its PZH2000 under the aegis of the Dutch ministry of defence, and Raytheon which had teamed with Samsung Techwin to offer the K-9 gun and K-10 replenishment vehicle which the latter had developed for the Korean and more recently the Turkish armies.
Raytheon managing director Michael Ward emphasised to ADM last month that it is not offering the K-9, but a significantly evolved gun, the AS9, which incorporates important enhancements.
These include AFATDS compatibility, increased protection, blast-resistant seating and over-pressure system for the crew compartment, provision for a Remote Weapon Station (RWS) and the addition of an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) to operate the vehicle’s electronics, fire control system and air conditioning while stationary for extended periods.
The PZH2000 is also a known quantity having served the Dutch Army in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan Province and supported Australian troops in action on several occasions.
The Dutch ministry of defence and KMW had offered a force of 18 brand-new guns at a very competitive price as the Dutch had over-ordered and didn’t need the full complement of howitzers and sought to pass them on to a another customer.
Although the PZH2000 is very highly regarded by Australian gunners Defence rejected this offer at the time and elected to hold a competitive tender for Phase 1C instead.
Last year’s DCP pushed the 2nd Pass milestone out to the right, to a broad window between 201/11 and 2012/13, with an in-service date of 2015-17.
It’s not clear why this delay has been introduced; there has been speculation that some of the capital facilities funding for Phase 1C may have been ‘borrowed’ to fund the recently acquired Counter Rocket and Mortar (C-RAM) radar system in Afghanistan.
Whether true or not the extended delays raises problems for both the contenders and the DMO.
ADM understands that the DMO asked in January this year for a three-year extension of the tender and price validity as part of an ongoing Offer Definition and Refinement Process (ODRP).
It’s hard to see how any company could safely offer guarantees of the kind sought, especially as technology evolves and design enhancements are incorporated in the design – and particularly as the original tender response is now some 30 months old.
A full three-year delay could see a five year gap between tender response and source selection.
Tom Muir has previously reported in ADM that KMW and BAE Systems declined to offer any such guarantee; however, it’s understood they haven’t withdrawn their tender.
Raytheon have said nothing.
Nothing else is known about the current status of Phase 1C, but it’s possible the Land Warfare Conference will provide some illumination.
It’s also possible that defence may decide it doesn’t really need an SP gun after all and exercise its option to buy some or all of the balance of the M777A2s approved under the FMS case for Phase 1A.
This would give the Army a fleet of up to 57 towed guns of a single type which would simplify training and logistics as well as the systems integration required to create an effective sensor-shooter network.
In the current Strategic Reform Program environment, with money likely to remain tight for some time, this could end up being a very comfortable default position for Defence.