This is not a tongue twister but our take on how a fairly straightforward approach to industry for the supply and support of a Lightweight Automatic Grenade Launcher (LWAGL) came unstuck, leaving infantry with a serious gap in direct fire capability.
To conduct effective close combat operations, direct fire weapon systems are required to neutralise, suppress or destroy designated targets to a range of at least 2,000 metres. This is to allow manoeuvre groups to close on the enemy in the assault, or to prevent the enemy from either closing with or standing off and engaging the company in defence.
With a focus on more recent operational deployment theatres, there has been a lack of dedicated direct fire assets with the necessary range and rapid fire effect to adequately support manoeuvre at infantry battalion and company group level. A weakness had existed at the rifle company/combat team level, whose principal weapons systems were limited to small arms with an effective range of 400 metres.
The earlier acquisition of the Javelin direct fire guided missile under Land 40 Phase 1, and the subsequent introduction into service of the lighter, harder hitting M3 version of the Carl Gustav anti-armour weapon under Phase 2, were to be followed by a new generation of lightweight automatic grenade launchers to equip ARA infantry battalions. Under an interim arrangement, a number of older GD Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers were acquired for service with the Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan, where they are mounted on ASLAVs and Perenties, as alternatives to .50 cal machine guns.
The Javelin was procured primarily to enable the Army to defeat a modern, well-equipped armoured threat, and the system provides a credible and lethal stand-off ‘fire-and-forget’ technology. However due to the missile’s cost, Javelin is reserved for high value targets and the weapon is not issued as a matter of course to manoeuvre support companies equipped with a range of direct and indirect fire support weapons. The lighter M3 version of the 84mm Bofors Carl Gustav, that has now been introduced into service, is a medium range weapon effective against light armour and fortified bunkers at ranges up to 700 metres. It was supplied under a $10.5 million contract with SAAB for 437 weapons, spares and documentation to support the system. Under a separate contract valued at some $16 million, BAE Systems Australia supplied 437 AN/PAS-13C heavy weapon thermal sights (HWTS) for the M3 Carl Gustav making Australia the first country to use both weapon and sight as an integrated system, for day/night use.
But equipped with a standard picatinny rail, these versatile sights have been widely adopted, mounting readily to 40mm grenade machine guns, .50 cal heavy machine guns, and on long range sniper and other weapons. Following delivery of all 437 weapons and sights, roll-out to entitled units was completed in October 2011. And therein lies one of the many issues that helped stall the LWAGL contract negotiations until they were finally broken off by the DMO on the basis that the preferred contender could no longer meet the requirement.
LWAGL RFT Pre-tender briefings for Land 40-2 by CDG in 2007 clearly articulated that the Commonwealth was seeking a MOTS, fully qualified, in-active-service, light weight 40mm grenade launcher, capable of firing standard NATO ammunition with a high level of desirability for air-burst capability.
How is it then that DMO ultimately shortlisted a developmental system, not fully qualified, not in-active-service, the heaviest on the market, incapable of firing air-burst ammunition and not feeding standard NATO packed ammunition, that ultimately they also failed to buy? More has been spent on examinging options than was budgeted to actually buy the weapons. Following is the way ADM believes this shameful situation came about.
An RFT for the Land 40 Phase 2 requirement, which closed in October 2007, sought the initial provision of 60 Lightweight Automatic Grenade Launchers (LWAGL) with an option to subsequently purchase up to 90 additional units and their in-country support. The approved budget for this phase of Land 40 was $145 million of which $39 million was estimated to have been spent by June 2013. That anticipated expenditure for 2013-14 is only $1 million suggests that most of the urgency has gone from this project!
The RFT called for the gun, a fire control system (FCS) incorporating a day/night optical sight with laser range finder, a TWS, and the ammunition. An airburst capability was desirable, rather than essential - the only fully qualified programmable 40mm airburst ammunition available was the Mk2B5 round manufactured by NAMMO in Norway and ADM understands the Mk47 was the only weapon qualified to fire it at the time.
Following extensive trials of various weapons systems offered by the contenders, two systems were shortlisted. They were the General Dynamics Mk-47 LAGL with a fully compliant Raytheon lightweight video sight (LVS) and FCS offered by NIOA Defence, and the Heckler & Koch 40mm GMG with Vinhog FCS proposed by Point Trading.
Point Trading Group is a highly capable Australian-owned company specialising in the engineering and integration of defence and national security products ranging across ballistic protection, electro optics, data video systems and so on. It took almost two years before Point Trading was selected as preferred tenderer in July 2009, with unconfirmed rumours suggesting this was due to a lower priced bid plus a strong preference for the HK GMG that seemingly overrode various other issues with Point Trading’s proposal.
ADM is not privy to their Land 40-2 proposal but understand that it included various system elements sourced from their known subcontractors. These were: • Heckler & Koch (Germany): E-model 40mm GMG; • Vinhog (Norway): Gun tripod, soft mount cradle, FCS, day camera, LRF/GPS, smart ammo antenna; • Senso Optics (Israel): Advanced thermal camera with wide/narrow FOVs/ and laser boresight for the HK GMG; • Laser Devices (US): RFID Tag on weapon and integrated bullet counter; and • Trimcast (Australia): Rugged packaging.
While Point Trading, a quality assured company, would be responsible for the cabling and integration of the various components, it seems that due to the ‘developmental’ aspects of their proposal there may have been concerns over the warranties of OEMs, not fully involved in the integration of their products with those of other manufacturers, required for final certification of the system. None of which suggests that this was a military off-the-shelf system.
It is believed there were issues also over other capabilities proposed by the company, such as an Israeli sourced wireless head-up display (HUD) for the gunner and a hand-held display (HHD) for the commander, that were initially included but which the DMO probably saw as optional extras.
That protracted negotiations continued, despite these and presumably other issues, says much for the preference for the HK GMG as the weapon of choice. To some this was surprising especially for those attending CDG’s pre-tender release briefing (mentioned above) when it was stated that Defence wanted a grenade launcher that was lightweight, MOTS, in military service, qualified and fired standard NATO 40mm rounds. At the time of selection however, the HK GMG was a heavier weapon, and the actual system proposed by the preferred tenderer was neither a qualified nor an in-service system.
ADM believes a major problem arose over Point Trading’s insistence on including its Senso Optics thermal sight as part of their proposal – which was not interchangeable with any other weapon. As noted earlier 437 Heavy Weapon Thermal Sights had already been acquired for the M3 Carl Gustav recoilless rifle through BAE Systems. Not only were these now in the Army’s DFSW inventory, but were already fielded to troops trained in their use. Moreover, readily mounted and certified on automatic grenade launchers including the HK GMG (and the Mk 47 Stryker) – why would anyone buy any other thermal sight for the Land 40 LWAGL?
It seems that Point Trading was not prepared to shift ground and dismayed by growing uncertainty about the outcome, Vinhog terminated their arrangement and established a joint venture, VingTech Australia with HK’s Australian representative, HK Systems Research and Development Pty Ltd, based in Melbourne. During this time it is understood that NIOA made several offers to enter parallel negotiations to assist the Commonwealth to successfully arrive at an outcome. All were refused. In early 2011 Defence cancelled contract negotiations with the preferred tenderer for the LWAGL because an agreement could not be reached. But it seems that NIOA, which had offered a fully compliant solution, had also grown weary of the Land 40 Phase 2 process. In October 2010, after three years, NIOA had been requested for a fifth time to extend contract validity by the DMO while they negotiated with Point Trading.
But when company representatives visited the DMO Land 40-2 team at the time, they were advised that the DMO was very close to finalising a contract with Point Trading. Ultimately GD and NIOA decided not to extend the validity of the bid but instead to extend an offer to re-validate in the event that negotiations with Point Trading failed. When contract negotiations broke down three months later, the NIOA bid was no longer valid and DMO chose not to accept NIOA’s prior offer to re-validate. With no valid bid on the table DMO followed DPPM guidelines to close off the tender process.
The project was raised by the DMO in November 2012 during the Land Warfare Conference, and listed as a Project of Concern by government in December 2012. According to Defence Portfolio Budget statements for 2013-14 the acquisition strategy for the LWAGL component of Land 40-2 is still under review. And with but $1 million project expenditure estimated for 2013-14 it would appear that the ADF, including those new multirole brigades, won’t be fielding AGL sections within their rifle companies for some time yet.
