It’s just one thing after the other. FFS. How can we have gone through the selection process and chosen the lance turrent with spike to find that it’s not feasible …even if not feasible from day 1 that is not acceptable. How much do the guys doing this work get paid?… bewildering that we have these issues one after the other in Australia defence procurement.Report today in the Asia Pacific Defence Reporter that troops will have to dismount from the Boxer CRV to engage enemy armour:
'April 6. During Senate Estimates today, Chief of the Army Rick Burr indicated a major failure on the LAND 400 Phase 2 acquisition of Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles. He indicated during testimony that the vehicles will no longer be able to fire turret mounted anti-tank guided missiles. These were meant to be Spike missiles from Rafael – and Army has been funding the redesign of the turret for their inclusion.
Lieutenant General Burr said:'
“It will not have an organic anti-armour weapon – they will be carried by the troops inside to engage those sorts of threats.”
UPDATED: Army says Block 1 Boxer 8x8s will not be able to fire guided missiles, but later versions will - APDR
April 6. During Senate Estimates today, Chief of the Army Rick Burr indicated a major failure on the LAND 400 Phase 2 acquisition of Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles. He indicated during testimony that the vehicles will no longer be able to fire turret mounted anti-tank guided missiles...asiapacificdefencereporter.com
How the hell can this happen after such an extensive evaluation prior to the contract being signed? Not for the first time in the last week I am
left speechless!
Tas
Volk I certainly hope so.
Concerning however is the fact defence cannot reply at this stage of the project and categorically state that," no this is not true".
As a tax payer and some one interested in defence matters this is what I want to hear.
No dig at yourself Volk as you do try to put reality and perspective back where there is conjecture, but in 2022 I want to hear that Boxer is on time and budget with an integrated ATGM, complete with an active protective system.
What I also want to hear is that we are increasing the number of Boxers fitted for ATGM's and are endeavouring to do our best in ramping up the production schedule in light of developments in Europe and Asia
Further more, we wish to announce the winner of LAND 4000 phase 3 shortly with a revised production roll out for this program.
ASLAV is knackered and the M113's are history.
Talk of replacing these fleets started last century.
The pedestrian nature of LAND 400 Phase 1 & 2 would be comedic if it was not so serious.
Regards S
If this is true about the Boxer does it meant they went through selection without test firing a Spike Missile from the twin launcher on the Lance turrent ? That is mind boggling if it turns out be true.
The German Army selected a "germanized" (radios and machine guns will be different) version of the Boxer CRV a few weeks ago.
93 vehicles are intended for the heavy companies of 6 Jäger/Mountain Jäger Bn.
Reason for the CRV: Everything is developed and ready for use, including SPIKE.
I wonder what the German decision will mean for either price or upgrade of the Australian vehicles.
93 vehicles are intended for the heavy companies of 6 Jäger/Mountain Jäger Bn.
Reason for the CRV: Everything is developed and ready for use, including SPIKE.
I wonder what the German decision will mean for either price or upgrade of the Australian vehicles.
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You should know better than that Tas! All Bergmann got wrong was:Report today in the Asia Pacific Defence Reporter that troops will have to dismount from the Boxer CRV to engage enemy armour:
'April 6. During Senate Estimates today, Chief of the Army Rick Burr indicated a major failure on the LAND 400 Phase 2 acquisition of Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles. He indicated during testimony that the vehicles will no longer be able to fire turret mounted anti-tank guided missiles. These were meant to be Spike missiles from Rafael – and Army has been funding the redesign of the turret for their inclusion.
Lieutenant General Burr said:'
“It will not have an organic anti-armour weapon – they will be carried by the troops inside to engage those sorts of threats.”
UPDATED: Army says Block 1 Boxer 8x8s will not be able to fire guided missiles, but later versions will - APDR
April 6. During Senate Estimates today, Chief of the Army Rick Burr indicated a major failure on the LAND 400 Phase 2 acquisition of Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles. He indicated during testimony that the vehicles will no longer be able to fire turret mounted anti-tank guided missiles...
How the hell can this happen after such an extensive evaluation prior to the contract being signed? Not for the first time in the last week I am
left speechless!
Tas
First of all, it wasn’t Chief of Army’s testimony the above quotes, he has mis-mashed quotes from Chief of Army and Major General Blain, Head of Armoured Vehicles…
Second, the comment about no Spike related to the Block I Boxer CRV’s, Spike was never intended to go on the Block I vehicles, it IS being integrated onto the Block II vehicles.
Senator AYRES: So no anti-tank missiles are able to be fitted for two years? Is that right?
Major Gen. Blain: We never scoped to have any tank guided munitions fitted to our Block I vehicles. Again, in transition, as we move into Block II, there is in the project scope and a plan to integrate an anti-tank guided munition system onto the Block II vehicle.
Senator AYRES: Just say that again?
Major Gen. Blain: We will have ATGMs, those missile systems, on our Block II fleet. It was never the case we'd have them on our Block I vehicles.
Senator AYRES: When will those be delivered? That's June this year, is it?
Major Gen. Blain: The first assembly of those commences this year, and the first vehicles start delivery next year. The final delivery of our Block II vehicles is in 2027.
“Lt Gen. Burr: To be really clear, Senator, there are two different vehicles here. General Blain has been talking about the Boxer vehicle, which is our reconnaissance vehicle, being acquired in two blocks, the first block coming directly from Rheinmetall in Germany is to allow us to buy time to build the factory here in Australia, to learn the lessons of the Block I vehicle and make sure they are applied into the Block II vehicle, which will commence production later this year. So there are known limitations in order to accelerate its acquisition and development for the Block II vehicle. One of the limitations is that it will not have an active protection system on it. It will not have an organic mounted anti-armour weapon. They will be carried by the troops inside, as they would, to engage any threats with those anti-armoured weapons. The phase 3 vehicle, which is the one I've been talking about, is the infantry fighting vehicle. It will have on it—or would expect to have on it, subject to decision—an active protection system and other protection systems for the known modern threats.”
It ain't mind boggling. That “twin launcher“ doesn’t exist. What you saw on the trials vehicles was a vendor supplied mock-up.
Spike is still being integrated onto the Lance turret, so how could it be possibly fired?
On top of which, Spike LR2 hasn’t even been delivered to the Australian Army yet, so how could they launch, from a turret they don’t have, a missile that hasn’t yet been integrated, nor even delivered?
Honestly… Some of the ‘reactions’ to this so-called “news” is getting a bit OTT and even verging on silly…
Edit: musing further over the timing of this “news” and other rumours floating around… I wonder how many of these un-named “sources” just coincidentally happen to speak South Korean?
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You are absolutely right AD! I should know by now that APDR is no longer a magazine that can be relied on for balanced reporting and I am really angry that Bergmann would write such a misleading story full of selective and even inaccurate quoting.
However, I am hugely relieved that the full transcript of the Senate hearing paints a different picture. I was quite depressed by the APDR report.
I don't think I'll ever read anything published by Bergman ever again!
Tas
Interesting how the ABC and Bergmann paint it as ‘defence is refusing to ask questions’ when that is not the case at all. Maybe they have not responded directly to those organisations, but defence have certainly addressed those supposed issues…
I notice that APDR put out an update today confirming that the 'quoted' answers only applied to the imported Block I vehicles. Lazy and misleading reporting at best!
Tas
RubiconNZ
The Wanderer
It wouldn’t surprise me if they read AD’s posts had a oh @$&* moment and updated accordingly.
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Appreciate you filling in the gaps. I was sceptical when I read it on the ABC but took it as confirmed from the APDR report. Makes sense. Now.It ain't mind boggling. That “twin launcher“ doesn’t exist. What you saw on the trials vehicles was a vendor supplied mock-up.
Spike is still being integrated onto the Lance turret, so how could it be possibly fired?
On top of which, Spike LR2 hasn’t even been delivered to the Australian Army yet, so how could they launch, from a turret they don’t have, a missile that hasn’t yet been integrated, nor even delivered?
Honestly… Some of the ‘reactions’ to this so-called “news” is getting a bit OTT and even verging on silly…
Edit: musing further over the timing of this “news” and other rumours floating around… I wonder how many of these un-named “sources” just coincidentally happen to speak South Korean?
I know the spike isn’t in Australia yet but was of the view that a test had taken place. I thought the missiles and turrent had been delivered on the test vehicles for testing … how else would they arrive at the decision?
FormerDirtDart
Well-Known Member
So, if I've read everything correctly, all this kerfuffle is about 12 CRV Blk 1 vehicles?
Well damn, you really won't even need to retrofit new turrets on those. Between either commander and XO vehicles at regimental and squadron level you can account for 12 vehicles which have no business shooting ATGMs with no problem
Well damn, you really won't even need to retrofit new turrets on those. Between either commander and XO vehicles at regimental and squadron level you can account for 12 vehicles which have no business shooting ATGMs with no problem
I wouldn't be too harsh. Credit where credit is due for the correction. We all make mistakes.
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
The Bushmasters are far easier to deploy very quickly to Ukraine in decent numbers and no requirement for special Trg, if you can drive a light Truck you can drive a Bushmaster. They provide a decent Armoured Vehicle for poorly trained Soldiers to use(and there are a lot of those in Ukraine right now)
How hard are they to drive compared to the ASLAVs with a 25mm gun?
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
How easy is it to effectively train a ASLAV crew when all the Military Trg the Crew has gotten is, here is your Rifle, you point it at the enemy and pull the trigger, would you put a day 2 Recruit from Kapooka in an ASLAV? Be more dangerous to his own Army. Ukraine probably has plenty of AFVs and crews trained to use them, what they need is Armoured Vehicles they can put Day 1 Recruits in that has some chance of keeping them alive while travelling from point A to Point B.
I don’t really know the answer to those questions. Mine was really about how much more training is required to drive an ASLAV. As to operate and maintain the gun is clearly a bit more involved than take the clutch out and push the accelerator Down and turn the round thing if a tree is in the way.
But the Op does pose the question which I think is fair enough….what effect would it have on our force supply and how hard would it be to send some ASLAVs if the Ukrainians wanted them. With all respect to ASLAV operators I assume it’s not like learning to fly a F35 and the Ukrainians appear pretty quick on the uptake so far.
RubiconNZ
The Wanderer
When you start to include armoured vehicle turrents into the equation you quickly run into proprietary technology issues. If the ASLAV is anything like the NZLAV you couldn’t just give that away, the M113 turrents are relatively new also.
1) Replacements for both aren't in service in meaningful numbers yet (in the case of M113s, not even selected yet), so none to spare.
2) Training times. Yeah, you might be able to instruct someone in the basics of driving an ASLAV in an afternoon, but training someone to the level they can confidently drive it off-road is gonna take weeks, and then training a unit to operate them effectively as a unit is likely gonna be months.
3) Given the above Ukraine (hopefully) has better options, either ex-Soviet material held by NATO members (can mosty slot right into Ukrainian organization with minimal training) or whatever Bradleys the Seppos can shake out of storage (substantial training time but MUCH more capable than an M113 and somewhat more capable than the ASLAV/LAV-25).