The head of Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control Division says a domestic capability for production of solid rocket motors (SRM) is fundamental to Australian manufacture of guided weapons.
Tim Cahill said the supply of high demand SRM in the US was improving, with the two major manufactures doing better.
But the supply was not yet sufficient, he told reporters in a briefing at the Avalon Air Show.
“We are not done building up capacity worldwide. Thales is the next step that we have announced. It is likely not the last step” he said.
“Fundamentally if you want to build a GMLRS in Australia with Australian content, yes we have to have a solid rocket motor provider. That is absolutely a key element of it. There’s a lot of other elements that obviously have to come together to do the same thing.
“But yes in our case the partnership with Thales, getting them to the point of producing SRM that will go into GMLRS, is critical. We have a way to go. We have adequate time; we have adequate investment to do that but fundamentally yeah we have to have the motors.”
Through the Defence Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise, Lockheed is ramping up domestic production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles for the Australian Army’s new HIMARS vehicles. The first two of 42 HIMARS were on display at Avalon.
Initially GMLRS assembly will involve wholly US sourced components. Lockheed Martin and Thales plan to develop local production of SRM and warheads for HIMARS.
The Commonwealth is now running a contest to decide who will build SRM in Australia. Other contenders are Nioa and Anduril. Shortage of SRM production remains a global problem including in the US.
Cahill said Australia was the first nation outside the US to be ramping up a high production US munitions system.
He said HIMARS and GMLRS were very capable, flexible systems which have proven their worth in Ukraine.
“The potential there is to then grow that to be part of a broader ecosystem of capabilities and of course the Commonwealth has identified the most obvious next choice would be PrSM,” he said.
The basic GMLRS missile has a range of 84 kilometres, more than double traditional artillery. PrSM goes more than 400 kilometres and the new PrSM Increment Four exceeds 1000 kilometres.
“The concept of an Australian F-35 looking forward and finding threats and targets and then relaying that information rapidly back for an Australian HIMARS to fire an Australian-built GMLRS or PrSM on that target is not that far into the distant future,” Cahill said.
“We are putting together all the pieces to make that a reality.”
Ken Kota, Vice-president for International Integration, said Lockheed was working towards the fit out of an interim guided weapons production capability in a Commonwealth defence site at Orchard Hills, NSW.
“Ninety per cent of all the tooling and test equipment is in Australia for this initial activity. That is a pretty significant step. Another really significant item is the training of our engineering staff.”
Kota said the power was in the supply chain.
“We are finding very good partners here in Australia. We have visited over 60 small to medium enterprises,” he said.
One is AW Bell which has been granted a demonstration contract to build canards (fins) for GMLRS. Marand has also been contracted to perform some specialist works.
James Heading, Lockheed Martin Australian Director and General Manager for Missiles and Fire Control, said Australian production of SRM was vital for national resilience.
“Energetics in a time of dire need are the most difficult things to actually try and ship around the world. Having that resilience here in country is fundamental,” he said.
“This is not something that one person and one company can solve. This needs to be an enterprise approach. You look at the numbers. If we solve the problem for GMLRS great. But what do I do for Naval Strike Missiles (NSM), what do I do for SM-6,” he said
“It’s a family. We have to look at how we actually do that. That’s the important part for us – getting that supply chain resilience in country.”