PERTH — Australia’s top minister for defense acquisition today announced a raft of spending decisions meant to greatly increase Australia’s ability to build and buy longer-range precision missiles, as it faces what he called “a new Indo-Pacific missile age.”
“Why do we need more missiles? Strategic competition between the United States and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment,” Pat Conroy told the National Press Club here.
The most immediate commitment to increasing missile capabilities here came when Conroy said Australia would spend $316 million AUD ($207 million USD) to create a local factory to build Lockheed’s Martin’s Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS), starting in 2029. It will be able to produce 4,000 missiles a year, roughly one quarter of current global production, he added.
“Producing GMLRS missiles in Australia is the stepping stone towards local production of more advanced, longer-range strike weapons in the future — local production that is essential to our sovereignty and our security,” Conroy said.
Breaking Defense contacted Lockheed Martin and the ministry for more details about the plant. Lockheed declined to comment. At press time, defense had not responded.
Australia recently committed to jointly manufacture Naval and Joint Strike Missiles with Norway’s Kongsberg Defense in the city of Newcastle on Australia’s eastern coast, the only site outside of Norway. The JSM can be carried internally by the F-35, preserving its stealth profile.
Reinforcing that made-in-Australia penchant, Conroy announced that BAE Systems Australia received a $160 million contract to triple production of the Passive Radio Frequency Sensor (PRS) used in the JSM. However, those sensors, at least in the short term, will primarily be put into missiles procured by the US Air Force, Japan and other countries, BAE Systems said in a statement.
“This is a significant achievement for our manufacturing teams at Edinburgh Parks and an innovation success story that has required more than a decade of commitment from our employees and our partner Kongsberg,” Andrew Gresham, managing director of defense delivery at BAE Systems Australia, said in a statement. “The Passive Radio Frequency Sensor is highly innovative technology designed, developed, and built in Australia.”
Speaking to Breaking Defense last week, Conroy pledged that a new contract for manufacturing 155mm shells would be announced “shortly.” That turned out to be true, with Thales Australia winning a hotly contested contract to manufacture the shells, part of the Lucky Country’s effort to better able to handle supply chain disruptions and build stockpiles of crucial weapons.
That contract includes building a new forge to make the shells, notable because Australian-owned NIOA, which had been competing with Thales for the contract, already has a custom-built forge in operation to produce 155mm shells. However, those shells are under contract to be exported to Germany, whose company Rhenimetall has a majority interest in the shell-making joint venture. Australia currently imports its finished 155s from a South African subsidiary of Rhenmetall.
The artillery shells are the most in-demand military product in the world and mark an important commitment by the Labor government to ensure the Lucky Country’s supply chains are more organic and less subject to the vagaries of global manufacturing and shipping.
As usual, the opposition’s defense expert, Andrew Hastie, cast scorn on today’s announcements, saying the government had provided very few details about either GMLRS or 155s.
“Part-time Defence Industry Minister, Pat Conroy, used his National Press Club speech to announce Labor’s preferred tenderer to build a new forging capability for 155mm artillery ammunition – excluding any details around the costs associated. We are left scratching our heads once again,” Hastie said in a statement.
“Meanwhile, Labor’s announcement to establish a new $316 million Australian Weapons Manufacturing Complex comes with no plan or details for implementation. We must now wait for the Albanese Government to identify a site sometime next year for the facility which won’t be operational until 2029. But the clock is ticking and we have no time to waste.”
Outside of the munitions announcement, Conroy was asked about a Chinese ICBM test from September, which flew more than 11,000km and landed in the Pacific Ocean off of Australia’s north-east. It was the first such test by China in more than 40 years.
Australia “expressed significant concern about that ballistic missile test, especially its entry into the South Pacific given the Treaty of Rarotonga that says the Pacific should be a nuclear weapons free zone,” Conroy told reporters during Q and A.