Australian Army Discussions and Updates

[40 deg south]

This the reason why I am not keen on our lot going the Airbus A400M way to replace our ancient P3s, Hercs and our B757s. TBH I would far rather them go Boeing and Embrear KC390, along with the Kawasaki C2. Same with new RNZN ships have them built in South Korea. I think we had a slightly easier ride with our NH90 acquisition but it was still very late and well over budget.

No dispute that the NZ NH90s were waaay behind schedule, but did they actually exceed the initial budget? I wasn't aware of that, but happy to be corrected.

I think NZ's somewhat easier experience is because we were a couple of years later in the development cycle and bought straight from the Merignane assembly line, rather than setting up a tiny in-country assembly operation.

The US vs. Euro equipment debate misses the point. The real difference is in buying mature in-service products vs. products that are still in development. RNZAF provides a good example - the NH90s were late and needed multiple upgrades after delivery. But NZ also bought the AW109 training/utility helicopter from Italy, which came in on time and on budget. The difference - it was a design that has first flown in the 70s, and the bugs had been ironed out in the process of building hundreds and hundreds of airframes.

Or take Canada's debacle with Sikorsky - they bought a paper aircraft from the US rather than an in-service one from the UK, and the resulting shambles makes Australia's Seasprite purchase look good.

Because of the scale of the US military and their preference for evolving/developing in-service platforms, US industry often can offer products that have been more comprehensively 'de-bugged' over long production runs. To me, that is the key difference rather than some kind of fundamental difference between the US and Europe.

 

[Waylander]

I think that Swerve and 40 deg south hit the nail on the head.

The problem is buying into projects still in development instead of mature MOTS or near MOTS products.

Australia could have tried to procure parts of the FCS family of vehicles or the GCV program and would have nothing but expenses in their hands while several Euro products are available as MOTS buys.

 

[Volkodav]

The point is Super Sea Sprite was sold as an evolved and still to be fully developed capability intended to do stuff that no one else did, i.e. form the primary offensive capability of the ANZAC class patrol frigates and proposed (but cancelled) corvettes through advanced sensors and deploying a high end AShM in a contested littoral environment. We then cancelled its primary intended platform and moved the certification goalposts.

Wedgetail was another example of a bleeding edge transformational capability, as are Jindalee, Collins and Vigilare, all of which ended up delivering a high level of capability once the issues that should have been anticipated and provided for, were overcome. FFGUP, LAND 106 (M-113 upgrade) were poorly conceived and executed upgrades that were overtaken by events and should have been cancelled. There are many examples of poor decision making in defence procurement from the mid 90s onwards, many examples where politics and bastardised business / commercial concerns were put before capability.

This was bad enough but the worst of the worst were a series of projects where the word of overseas contractors, promising everything to everyone, was accepted by government over that of the highly professional technical and operational experts in the ADF, DMO, DSTO,public service in general and even key industry players. These systems were not sold as bleeding edge developmental projects, joint ventures / projects or even as bespoke models or upgrades, they were sold as MOTS MILITARY OFF THE SHELF! They weren't even MOTS plus, they were minimum change come as is,platforms that we had already compromised on performance and capability so as to avoid risk at the expense of ADF requirements and growth margins. They were meant to be built to print or even just assembled locally but use the contractors existing supply chains with no or minimal local engineering / integration input, all to reduce risk.

The anger with the French, but this should also extend to the Spanish and BAE, is that they sold our "business / commercially" minded political class low risk, low cost MOTS options that were anything but. Those programs have gone on to cost us more and deliver less capability than any of the FMS or developmental options they were selected over would likely have cost. They have delivered way below the expected capability and have been years late. That is the problem.

 

[Waylander]

There is defenirely stuff were one wants to be part of the development/an warly customer or develop it alone in order to keep a certain edge (like Wedgetail or the F-35), keep or gain certain knowledge/jobs (bushmaster) or because the equipment one needs is just not available elsewhere (huge SSKs).

One has to ask if tankers, helicopters of all kinds or tracked APCs really fit that bill.

But as has been said before if one doesn't listen to one's own experts the above ideas are useless anyway...

That a company praises it's products like hell is nothing new and not specificly french. Just have a look at the dozens of major US defense projects which have been massively over time and budget or which outright failed in the last years.

It's up to the competent buyer to decide what to believe.

 

[rjtjrt]

?..........I think Australia had the sort of teething problems that are common with being the first customer, & everyone else is now benefiting from the resolution of those problems.
...........

Swerve, whilst I agree that US supplied stuff has not always gone smoothly, I think describing the MRTT problems as " teething" is a bit of an understatement.
The issue is the post sales attitude and accuracy of info supplied pre sales of some large French companies.
The US are willing to support their sold items much more impressively, and we have more confidence in their sales pitch being accurate.
Re Seasprite, that debacle appears to be largely due to us rather than tye company supplying.
Also, with US stuff, so long as it is also ordered by their military, they have much greater depth and deeper pockets to sort out and fix any problems than Europeans.
I seem to recall UK experience of France as a defence supplier or co developer/producer has been mixed as well.

 

[SteveR]

That Australian AFV lift out in the latest Defence Technology Review is actually pretty good. It's clear from some of the things they mention and some of the terminology used that they have knowledgeable sources on the inside of the programs. It is the first time I have seen details of Land 8160 in the public domain before, although they get some of the details wrong.

I very much agree with the write up on Hawkei and some of the potential developments of that vehicle in the magazine itself as well.

Just got back from Land Forces 2016 - great to see Boxer CRV, AMV-35 and CV-90 in the flesh, as well as the GD CRV still here - there were defence folks from other countries that might be interested in the last.

More of our Army guys climbing over the Boxer than the AMV if that is any indication of the way things are shaping. Some ARA guys were pulling off the Boxer gun mantle to have look at the feed mechanism. I heard Rheinmetall marketeer joke that if they break it they bought it.

MBDA was there to market the MMP alternative to Spike for the AMV CRV - had a simulator set up and observed some ARA guys giving it a go. Of course Rafael were there with the 3 variants of Spike.

CV-90 looks very cramped for dismounts but I suppose they could extend the chassis back a bit for more room.

 

[Raven22]

As another random announcement, as part of the Army's review of all training, it was decided to ease the access to doctrine. As a result, a lot of tactical doctrine has been declassified and put on the Internet. The below link will take you to where the doctrine that has already been declassified is kept.

Doctrine - Australian Army

 

[ADMk2]

So what you're saying is that you differentiate between divisions of Airbus to make one point, then change to "it's French & they're all the same" when that suits you. Do the tankers work? And how did their purchase compare to the experience others had buying from Boeing? I think you'd find the Japanese critical of their Boeing tanker buy & the Italians very critical indeed: "delayed, over-budget and under-developed" sounds like an accurate description. Almost 200% overrun on development time sound good to you? Much worse than KC-30. But all the buyers of the A330 MRTT after Australia seem content. I think Australia had the sort of teething problems that are common with being the first customer, & everyone else is now benefiting from the resolution of those problems.

See the point? You're complaining that Australia buys incompletely developed products & so runs into the usual problems of that, but attributing it to the supplier when that supplier is French or partly French. What went wrong with Seasprite? The French, again?

And you seem overly touchy of well earned criticism of their continual under-performance, whats more you are doing so disingenuously because I went to great pains to point out that I am not particularly happy with the performance of many American contractors either.

The Seasprite went terribly, though it actually did what we originally wanted it to in the end, but we stupidly went and changed the goalposts. At that point, abandoning the farce was the better option. Contractor performance wasn't up to scratch, which is why I fully support the ADF's position of not having purchased anything major from Kaman since.

Just as I would Airbus, with it's atrocious performance on Tiger. The 'Seasprite solution' is what we should do with that. Enforce our contractual penalties or negotiate to sell the whole lot back to Airbus and go and buy a real recon helicopter that can actually, you know SHOW people the information it has detected in something approaching real time, or at least operate over water or launch from a ship or, or, or...

In the mean time, perhaps a lease of some existing Apaches or Bell AH-1Z's might be possible, to continue whatever corporate knowledge we have gained in existence, might be possible?

 

[Volkodav]

And you seem overly touchy of well earned criticism of their continual under-performance, whats more you are doing so disingenuously because I went to great pains to point out that I am not particularly happy with the performance of many American contractors either.

The Seasprite went terribly, though it actually did what we originally wanted it to in the end, but we stupidly went and changed the goalposts. At that point, abandoning the farce was the better option. Contractor performance wasn't up to scratch, which is why I fully support the ADF's position of not having purchased anything major from Kaman since.

Just as I would Airbus, with it's atrocious performance on Tiger. The 'Seasprite solution' is what we should do with that. Enforce our contractual penalties or negotiate to sell the whole lot back to Airbus and go and buy a real recon helicopter that can actually, you know SHOW people the information it has detected in something approaching real time, or at least operate over water or launch from a ship or, or, or...

In the mean time, perhaps a lease of some existing Apaches or Bell AH-1Z's might be possible, to continue whatever corporate knowledge we have gained in existence, might be possible?

Weird double post.

 

[Volkodav]

And you seem overly touchy of well earned criticism of their continual under-performance, whats more you are doing so disingenuously because I went to great pains to point out that I am not particularly happy with the performance of many American contractors either.

The Seasprite went terribly, though it actually did what we originally wanted it to in the end, but we stupidly went and changed the goalposts. At that point, abandoning the farce was the better option. Contractor performance wasn't up to scratch, which is why I fully support the ADF's position of not having purchased anything major from Kaman since.

Just as I would Airbus, with it's atrocious performance on Tiger. The 'Seasprite solution' is what we should do with that. Enforce our contractual penalties or negotiate to sell the whole lot back to Airbus and go and buy a real recon helicopter that can actually, you know SHOW people the information it has detected in something approaching real time, or at least operate over water or launch from a ship or, or, or...

In the mean time, perhaps a lease of some existing Apaches or Bell AH-1Z's might be possible, to continue whatever corporate knowledge we have gained in existence, might be possible?

I know a few current and past Tiger maintainers and they are not happy campers, if you don't have the parts you can't fix the problems. The other whinge they have is the are so many rules as to which organisation, service or contractor, can to what work, i.e. technicians with the relevant qualifications and experience cant do certain work because they are in the wrong unit or organisation.

Modern industry has pretty much eliminated demarcation disputes, even (shock horror) working with unions to do so, but defence and other government sectors are absolutely tied in demarcation knots over who can do what, when and where, it's a ferking nightmare and some (many) of the worst offenders are ex-service personnel now working for contractors as they have transferred their allegiance fully from their old service to their new employers and are now engaging in pointless tribalism, them and us etc. with the inevitable "In my day" from the baby boomers among them.

 

[John Fedup]

Or take Canada's debacle with Sikorsky - they bought a paper aircraft from the US rather than an in-service one from the UK, and the resulting shambles makes Australia's Seasprite purchase look good.

No kidding. The latest FOC timeline for the Cyclones is 2025. We currently have 9, and these still require future upgrades to meet specification as per the PO. They are to receive 28 in total. The first consideration is not so much where you source from but rather is the product real. You can not support a POS no matter how good your technical people are even with unlimited spares.

 

[40 deg south]

https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/landwarfareintl/land-forces-2016-hawkei-slithers-toward-service/

Hawkei update from Shephard Media.

 

[t68]

https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/landwarfareintl/land-forces-2016-hawkei-slithers-toward-service/

Hawkei update from Shephard Media.

Makes it look top heavy, wonder how it effects CoG?

 

[Raven22]

I think the angle of the photo makes it seem worse than it is. With the Hawkei already being a pretty low vehicle (compared to something like a Bushmaster) having an RWS on top shouldn't make it particularly top heavy.

I'd still like to see the Hawkei with an RWS with Javelin bolted to the side.

 

[vonnoobie]

Looking at pictures of the Hawkei without the RWS and they actually still appear to sit about the same height when you look at level of the sill panel to the center of the wheel so I don't think that is any issue there.

 

[Vulcan]

I seem to recall UK experience of France as a defence supplier or co developer/producer has been mixed as well.

Lancaster House, the times they are a-changin'.

From memory, working with the French hasn't been so painful (for us), even produced some pretty nice kit with them.

 

[zhaktronz]

Makes it look top heavy, wonder how it effects CoG?

PROTECTOR is a lot of rws for the role - I'd expect it was used because they had one lying around to quickly bolt on for the show. I'd expect to see a lower profile RWS like a CROWS or the one on the bushmaster.

 

[alexsa]

Swerve, whilst I agree that US supplied stuff has not always gone smoothly, I think describing the MRTT problems as " teething" is a bit of an understatement.
The issue is the post sales attitude and accuracy of info supplied pre sales of some large French companies.
The US are willing to support their sold items much more impressively, and we have more confidence in their sales pitch being accurate.
Re Seasprite, that debacle appears to be largely due to us rather than tye company supplying.
Also, with US stuff, so long as it is also ordered by their military, they have much greater depth and deeper pockets to sort out and fix any problems than Europeans.
I seem to recall UK experience of France as a defence supplier or co developer/producer has been mixed as well.

Just some context here. It is not always the country of origin but also platform maturity, I would note the MRTT is turning out o be a very capable platform albeit late and with issues in development. As noted by others we need to remember the Wedgetail was a US supplied project and the development of this platform assisted others who adopted it. Let's face it, it was not smooth.

However, had we gone down the KC46 path (noting this was selected later than the KC30 by the US) then we would still be waiting. That project has not been without its issues (many of which were similar to the KC30 and its boom). I am not saying the MRTT project was not challenging but we need to be very careful about generalisations.

The M1, Romeos and the Super Hornets were off the shelf and demonstrate the advantage of being mature. Where practical (and bleeding edge or specific capability is not required) this seems the best option.

 

[Volkodav]

Ironically one of the delays with Wedgetail was the EWSP/ECM systems from BAE which were the cause of the additional delays following the original eighteen month extension in 2008. The reason I recall this is because a project I was on went through a similar issue of being delayed by critical work subcontracted to BAE and having to wear the heat for their non performance.

 

[ADMk2]

Ironically one of the delays with Wedgetail was the EWSP/ECM systems from BAE which were the cause of the additional delays following the original eighteen month extension in 2008. The reason I recall this is because a project I was on went through a similar issue of being delayed by critical work subcontracted to BAE and having to wear the heat for their non performance.

Shhh. Don't you know that criticism of European companies simply isn't allowed and goes against the 'US bad - Europe awesome' meme?