MELBOURNE — Shipbuilder Austal Defence Australia has received a $1 billion AUD ($681 million USD) contract from the Australian government to design and build 18 Landing Craft Medium (LCM) vessels, the company announced Wednesday.
The deal will see Austal complete the detailed design and construction for the landing craft at the company’s shipyard in Henderson, Western Australia with work on the first LCM to begin next year.
Austal’s announcement added that the last LCM, all of which are destined for the Australian Army, will be delivered in 2032. They will be capable of carrying loads of up to 80 tonnes (88 tons).
“With these 18 Landing Craft Medium and any further vessels planned as part of the Strategic Shipbuilding pilot program, we are developing the shipbuilding capability to build larger, more complex vessels, in Henderson into the future and delivering sovereign shipbuilding capability for Australia,” Austal Limited CEO Paddy Gregg said in the company announcement.
The LCM will come under Australia’s delayed Project Land 8710 Phase 1A program, which had originally called for the first landing craft to be delivered by 2026.
Australia had originally selected a design by local firm Birdon for the program and had wanted Austal to build the Birdon design under an accelerated build announced in 2024. However, the plan soon ran into headwinds, with Australia’s public broadcaster reporting in June that the LCM program could face a delay of up to two years due to risks over an immature design.
Austal has also been selected by the Australian government to build eight heavy landing craft based on the Dutch Damen LST100 design at Henderson under the Project Land 8710 Phase 2 Landing Craft Heavy (LCH) program.
The location is also set to be expanded for future naval programs, with the country having recently committed an additional $12 billion AUD towards improving Henderson to build eight Mogami-class frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and contingency docking capabilities for Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarine fleet it is acquiring under the AUKUS pact.
Henderson is located near to the RAN’s Fleet Base West, where there are plans for the nuclear-powered submarines of AUKUS partners the US and UK to operate rotationally from 2027 under Submarine Rotational Force (West).