Land Warfare: Overlander - more than just trucks | ADM Nov 2010
Land 121 Project Overlander has had a bumpy ride over the last few years, with more bumps on the horizon.
Phase 2 is just about done, Phase 3 still has its issues and Phase 4 is a fight between the US-led Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and a local equivalent.
Katherine Ziesing | Canberra
But let’s start at the very beginning and work our way through the problems and successes of the $6 billion-plus project.
For the first time, ADM was able to speak, in the same room, to all three parties involved in the project.
Army as the customer, Capability Development Group (CDG) as the requirements organisation and the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) as the contracting and procurement authority spoke to ADM about the ups and downs of the long-running project.
As ADM went to print, Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare released the Projects of Concern list where Ph 3 of Overlander was mentioned.
Land 121 Overlander Phase 2A (Year of Decision 2001/2002) addresses capability shortfalls within the current field vehicle and trailer fleet that are a result of significant occupational health and safety issues.
Phase 2A was thought of as an ‘umbrella project’ for six separate sub-projects.
The status of the remaining three sub-projects is as follows:
• Mack In-Cabin Noise Reduction – noise reduction kits (cabin insulation and air-conditioning kits) have been delivered and work is almost complete.
The project is scheduled to close in 2011.
• Unimog and Mack Gun Tractor Personnel/Cargo Modules – a contract to modify the Mack Tractor fleet with twist-locks was signed on 22 December 2006.
The twist-lock modification program commenced in May 2007 and was completed by the end of 2008.
All Modules have been delivered to the Commonwealth and have been rolled out to respective Army Units.
Further work is underway to address safety issues and completion of all safety enhancement work is planned for December 2010.
• Land Rover Safety Improvements – a contract with SEAL Solutions Pty Ltd for Phase 1A of this project, for design validation and testing, was signed on 7 November 2005 and was completed in April 2008.
A Request for Tender for Phase 2A, the “Regional Force Surveillance Vehicle” installation phase, was released on January 15 2008.
Tenders were evaluated and contract signature occurred in September 2008.
The vehicle modifications have been completed.
Defence is recommending that safety modifications to the Land Rover “Fitted for Radio” variant be removed from the project scope due to the absence of a technical solution.
This issue is being managed via changes to vehicle operation.
The project is due to close this year.
Phase 3
“We would say that Phase 3 is nearing the end of a long and tortuous road,” Colonel Steven Saddington director general of land development told ADM.
“We (Army, CDG and DMO) have had to work together pretty closely to resolve these issues and the restructure that the various players have gone through reflect this I think.”
With the unexpected second pass approval of Land 121 Overlander Phase 3 by government as a whole, Phases 3A and 3B ceased to exist as independent phases.
Phase 3 seeks to commence the replacement of the current fleet of ADF field vehicles and trailers with future vehicles and trailers.
This phase is managed under three separate capabilities:
• Light/Lightweight Capability,
• Medium/Heavy Capability, and
• Trailer Capability.
The Light/Lightweight Capability contract was signed with Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific on 29 October 2008.
Nine prototype vehicles arrived in Australia in January 2010.
Acceptance verification and validation testing of these vehicles took place during the period February to June 2010.
Full production of the 1,200 G Wagon vehicles to replace the about a third of the current Land Rover fleet was scheduled to commence October 2010, as this is not a one for one replacement program.
The project is scheduled to achieve the first delivery to units in mid 2011 and an IOC in 2013.
“A large part of the success of this element of Phase 3 would have to be the recent user trials,” Michelle Kelly, acting director-general, land vehicle systems, DMO, told ADM.
“From a DMO perspective, this has been extremely useful in terms of feedback and early acceptance from the user.”
The user trials were mainly about mobility and getting feedback from the people on the ground who would be using the capability, said COL Saddington.
There were small issues that they were able to bring to the attention of DMO, such as the location of weapon racks and general layout issues, rather than technical issues, that affected general usability of the vehicle.
“It’s been very important for users to see the capability early on rather than in the Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) where production has usually already commenced and it’s a lot harder to introduce any changes, if at all,” Lieutenant Colonel Alistair Dickie, deputy director mobility in land development branch in CDG, told ADM.
The G Wagons are also to become C4I (command, control, computers, communications and intelligence) nodes in the networked Army.
The C4I suite, including the battle management system (BMS) being acquired by Elbit Systems under Land 200, is also being integrated into the vehicle.
This has meant some minor engineering changes to meet the technical requirements set forth under Land 200.
The project offices have worked together over the last 12 months to make sure that they are on the same page.
Medium/Heavy Capability
This element is intended to replace the current Unimog, Mack and S-liner fleets.
Phase 3 has seen more than its fair share of bumps, the most notable of which has been seen in the medium/heavy capability element that was radically overhauled in 2007 and released in 2008.
BAE Systems was the preferred tenderer in 2007, when Defence embarked on an offer definition type activity.
“At this point, it became clear that the vehicle that was being offered was not matching the technical structure that was provided,” Kelly explained.
“And in addition to that, we have learnt some lessons from overseas operations.
“There were multiple reasons that led at the refresh at the end of the day.”
A tender refreshment process was initiated in December 2008 in response to “technical and probity risks in the initial tender submission activity”.
Defence once again went out to the original five players that responded to the RFT.
Interestingly, BAE Systems is no longer even in the running, with Thales Australia, MAN Military and Mercedes-Benz now left as the final three.
The Defence panel also admits that up to this point, the relative costs of each of the three down-selected contenders has not been an issue as the process has called for an examination of the technical requirements rather than dollars.
Stage 1 (compliance evaluation and testing phase) of the new process was completed and the Defence Minister announced the down-selection decision on 18 February 2010.
Stage 2 of the process began with the release of the draft Amended RFT on 31 March 2010.
Feedback from tenderers was incorporated into the final RFT, which was released on 19 May 2010, and responses were received in late August 2010.
Evaluation of these responses is at about the half-way point, Kelly confirmed, with a further down-select expected late this year with either single or parallel negotiations in 2011.
Second pass is slated for late next year along with contract signature planned with the selected tenderer in 2011 as well.
When the point was raised that the trucks being evaluated now are essentially the same as those examined in the beginning, albeit with better protection, there was much indignation around the table.
Issues of probity, accountability and truth in tendering information all come to the fore.
“It may have cost us [time and money] but we feel it was the right decision to make and we’d do it again to give government the best options we can,” LTCOL Dickie said.
Army expects to see vehicles on the ground in 2014 but this presents its own challenges in sustaining the existing medium/heavy trucks.
These are fleets that are ageing significantly through wear and tear and fatigue.
“The greatest challenge in the DCP as a whole is the integration and alignment issues,” COL Saddington reflects.
“Getting a trailer before the vehicle makes no sense.
“And there is a same issue when it comes to radios and BMS.
“Army is trying to balance legacy fleets with how they introduce new capabilities.
“How much effort do we put in when and where?
“All the while keeping the capability operational.”
Managing the transition between the legacy fleet that really is just a truck to a C4I networked platform with wheels, and the implications this means for training, people and sustainment, is something that Land Development Branch is very aware of.
Once again, the importance of communication between CDG, DMO and Army for scheduling is highlighted.
Trailer Capability
The Commonwealth signed contracts with Haulmark Trailers of Rocklea, Queensland on 16 April 2010 for the Land 121 Phase 3 light/lightweight trailer requirements, almost three years after then Defence Minister Brendan Nelson announced them as the preferred tenderer.
Under this contract, 973 light/lightweight trailers will be acquired.
In addition, Haulmark is the preferred tenderer for the Land 121 Phase 3 medium/heavy trailer requirement where approximately 1,864 medium/heavy trailers will be acquired.
“The design of the trailer depends heavily on the design of the vehicle, particularly for the integrated load handling system trailers,” LTCOL Dickie explained.
And since the medium/heavy decision is yet to be made, “putting the cart before the horse makes little sense”.
It must also be remembered that Army is not the only customer here.
The Air Force will also be sharing in the basis of provisioning for vehicles acquired under the project.
And without trucks, generic or purpose-built, people, kit and logistics don’t move very well.
“My mantra has always been that we’re getting a system, not a vehicle,” COL Saddington told ADM.
“There’s a lot of integration work that needs to be done for that system to work.”
Phase 4
Land 121 Phase 4 will procure around 1,300 light Protected Mobility Vehicles.
To this end Australia is participating in the US Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program; and the Project Office is seeking to determine Australian industry's capacity to provide a Manufactured and Supported in Australia (MSA) option.
The three shortlisted contenders in the MSA option, Thales Australia with the Hawkei, General Dynamics with the Eagle and Force Protection’s Ocelot, have each been allocated $9 million by the Commonwealth to further develop their offerings and complete a prototype for testing early next year.
“Any evidence that the MSA contenders have that their vehicles meet the Australian requirements, they have been asked to produce as part of their data deliverables in the current MSA contract,” LTCOL Dickie explained in light of the Ocelot vehicle being selected for the UK’s Light Protected Patrol Vehicle (LPPV) program, which has some similarities to Land 121 Phase 4.
But the Australian project office is not asking the UK to share the information gathered in the LPPV process due to differences in the proposed configurations.
There have been some concerns raised about the respective testing timelines and maturity of the JLTV and MSA contenders.
JLTV is a developmental program that has been running for two to three years and their shortlisted contenders (Lockheed Martin, General Tactical Vehicles and BAE Systems/Navistar) have each clocked up well over 50,000 miles on their test vehicles.
Australia signed an agreement in February 2009 to fund nine of the first 30 JLTV prototypes.
“On our current tracking, they’re both heading for their next pass in the middle of next year,” Kelly said.
“In terms of JLTV, it’s currently tracking two months ahead but that timelines hasn’t been finalised yet and it may move to the right as it’s not set in stone.”
There are currently seven right-hand operated JLTV vehicles in Australia and the US undergoing testing as part of the JLTV testing regime (a non-financial contribution, Kelly points out) but Australia will also have the chance to undertake some Australian-specific user tests.
“Also the usability trials that we mentioned in Phase 3 before have been a great tool in getting all parties to work together and this will no doubt be used with similar great effect in Phase 4,” COL Saddington said.
Kelly spoke of the value that user trials at the early stages of a vehicle program could bring to all parties and hopes to use the practice in all vehicle programs in the future.
This bodes well for programs such as Land 400, which may see a similar Phase 4 issue between local and overseas programs.
“In terms of the MSA vehicles, we’re calling them line of departure vehicles and they’re the ones that will be delivered early next year and will go through our testing around them.
“These aren’t prototype vehicles per se but rather RFP samples to demonstrate technical readiness.
“The JLTVs that we are testing at the moment here in country are true prototypes.
“The challenge will really be how we compare the two at intermediate pass,” Kelly said.
And this is where the scheduling issue is.
Australia has contributed $40 million to the first phase of development in the JLTV and $27 million on the MSA option.
The JLTV office in the US will need to know from Australia early next year, around May 2011, if we wish to take part in the Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase.
How the JLTV timeline will gel with the MSA testing program timeline, which is due to finish mid next year, remains to be seen.
“By the time we have to make a decision on the EMD phase for JLTV, we will have received two line of departure vehicles from each of the three shortlisted MSA contenders and have a raft of test and blast data on hand,” Kelly confirmed to ADM.
The project office is working on various models to compare the two programs on both technical and cost fronts that fit in with these timelines.
All parties are keen to affirm that both the JLTV and MSA contenders will have to meet the same technical and dollar benchmarks in order to be considered for future engagement.
“Given that we’ve made these benchmarks quite clear to the MSA companies, they know they are working to a certain standard,” COL Saddington said.
“And if we didn’t have that up front, the true comparison that we’re seeking just wouldn’t be possible and could have been challenged.
“We’ve worked hard to ensure that.”
“The new aspect about this process is the array of data deliverables that we’re asking for from both JLTV and MSA vehicles in terms of technical deliverables, production elements and cost elements,” LTCOL Dickie said.
“We do understand that Australian industry has taken on quite a challenge with the MSA timeline,” COL Saddington said.
“They’re doing it in less time than the JLTV program.
“That’s the reality.
“And at the end of the day, we’ll measure the two against each other as best as we can to compare them fairly.”
The bigger picture
And while Land 121 aims to supply the Army with a quantum leap forward in transport and command and control (C2) capabilities, the management of the transition between old and new and how the capability fits into the wider Hardened Networked Army is ever present.
“These vehicles will fundamentally change how we operate,” COL Saddington told ADM.
“Both how we conduct war, how we manoeuvre and function and it will change the way we train people to operate these systems.
“Drivers aren’t just driving anymore as they operate a true system of systems in a C2 environment.
“That in itself illustrates the complexity that we face.”
And the customer admits they are impatient (alongside some impatience on behalf of industry as well) to get the vehicles but want to get it right.
“It’s so important to get this right up front and we will be issuing capabilities to Army next year (G Wagons),” Colonel Andrew Fidge, director of combat service support and development, Army, said.
“This is just one of 48 concurrent land projects that Army is trying to manage and integrate.”