I am trying to work that out to, did we increase the order from 42 to 48, or from 42 to 90?
I am still curious as to how they will be used.
They must be for targeting HVTs at distances that arty, drones can't reach, or not important enough for RAAF targeting.
They surely wouldn't be used in a fire support role for ground forces, as they couldn't provide the volume of fire required for some engagements....well they probably could, but for how long?
I would love to see some doctrine on how they will be employed, and deployed. Maybe it's just too modern for me to get my head around, but they would require some protection as well.
And:
So far we have placed 3x letters of request to the USG for the HIMARS system and ancillaries. So everyone is on the same page an FMS announcement on the DSCA website is not a “purchase”. It is an announcement that the US has received a request to “potentially” purchase whatever is in the request. US legislation requires Congressional notification and approval for supply of military equipment and services to other nations above certain dollar values (around USD $15m if I recall correctly). These notices are the formal notifications from the US State Department to Congress (and everyone else…) that such a request has been received via the foreign military sales system used by the US to manage these things.
The three requests we have made are as follows:
2025 for 48x HIMARS et al.
2023 for 22x HIMARS et al.
2022 for 20x HIMARS et al.
So far we have proceeded with the 2022 and 2023 requests meaning we have contracted for 42x vehicles and ancillaries.
We have now requested an additional 48x vehicles via a new letter of request. If it goes to contract this will mean we will operate 90x HIMARS vehicles and ancillaries.
This 2025 request is not an amended request where we have decided to add more equipment, services etc to an existing request. It is a brand NEW request.
DSCA does from time to time amend requests and adds or subtracts parts of the request, but when they do amend a public request, they say so.
We recently requested 161x Javelin Lightweight Command Launch Unit via FMS. This WAS an amended request, because we already had an FMS case open for Javelin training support and sustainment that was not previously disclosed because it was below the legislated threshold. It literally says in the notice the additional Javelin launchers are being added to that previous case.
This new 48x HIMARS request does not and it does not, because this is not 42 + 6 it is 42 + 48.
We need 90 systems because Government has authorised the development of 2x long ranged fires Regiments to support it’s National Defence Strategy. Each Regiment will be equipped with 36x launchers, the school of artillery will be equipped with “xx” number of launchers (I’d say somewhere around 12) and “xx” numbers will be held as a rotational maintenance pool / attrition (I’d say around 6).
Why 2 Regiments with so much long range fires capability, compared to substantially smaller forces for the rest of Army?
Well there is quite a bit of back and forth on that issue even on this forum, but in a nutshell - 1 is to provide long ranged fires in support of land operations and 1 is to provide land based anti-ship fires in support of the requirement to do so under our National Defence Strategy…
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Maybe, though the Patriot FCR is a bit long in the tooth, for my liking… LTMDS would be the preferred option for PAC-3 MSE only, but there are other options…
Previously “High Speed and Ballistic Missile Defence” and “Medium Ranged Air Defence” had a combined funding envelope of around $30 Billion for the ADF, so quite some ambition was included in the scope of the projects.
Accordingly and in conjunction with the planning work that obviously went into that before NDS arrived and air and missile defence was suddenly no longer important to Australia, we probably need to look beyond just Patriot / PAC-3 MSE.
To do justice to the intended scope of the work, my pick would be THAAD AND PAC-3 MSE. With as many batteries and interceptors as we can afford for AUD $30B thanks…
A layered system of kinetic / non-kinetic C-UAS, short ranged AD (via NASAMS) medium ranged AD / high speed missile defence via THAAD / PAC-3 MSE all stitched together by the AIR-6500 C2 systems, along with our air and naval capabilities sounds to me to be, just what the Doctors ordered, in this space…
Unfortunately, it is no longer a priority. Our 3 Air Warfare Destroyers and their SM-6’s and RAAF can do everything, apparently…
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