The LAND 907 Phase 2 Main Battle Tank (MBT) upgrade will look to improve Australian Army’s MBTs and acquire additional M88 Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARV). The ARV will conduct armoured recovery for both LAND 907 Phase 2 MBT Upgrade and new LAND 8160 Phase 1 Combat Engineering Vehicles (CEV).
Brigadier Jeremy King, Director General Platforms told APDR for this article: “Army needs the ability to provide highly capable combat power from a heavily armoured and mobile vehicle, being the Main Battle Tank.
“LAND 907 Phase 2 will improve vehicle sensors, communications and control systems. The Main Battle Tank will be deployable regionally and globally via air, sea and land to respond to a wide variety of threat scenarios. It will be interoperable with the Joint Force and our key ally, the United States.”
Defence seeks to deliver LAND 907 Phase 2 and LAND 8160 Phase 1, both projects being managed in parallel due to similarities in the major systems, training requirements, sustainment and schedules, through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, and as such will not go to market for the acquisition of the platforms.
This process has commenced, but is awaiting Second Pass approval in the second-half of 2021. The LAND 907 Phase 2 upgrade will be achieved by replacing the in-service M1A1 AIM SA MBT with an M1A2 variant of the United States Abrams MBT.
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Better off binning the yank tank and go with Leopard 2A7 and its variants.
Australia had Leopard tanks, and the Abrams over the last 40 years, did any of the fire a shot in anger?. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think we would “Never” use t@nks on our soil. So if America and the UK are winding back tank numbers and tanks are far more vulnerable as tech evolves, what’s the point. A drone costing thousands verses a tank costing $18 million, doesn’t make much sense. Outdated toys don’t win today’s wars.
Centurions were our last tanks firing shots in anger. But from that period between then to today, thankfully we never really went anywhere to use them, nor the capability to move them expeditiously, with the exception of the Tobruk. Today that has changed somewhat with C17’s and LHD’s able to move them if required. While I agree somewhat with your thoughts about tech evolving and making them vulnerable, but as John mentioned… armour tech also evolves to counter it. Drones aren’t the be all end all either, and will also be vulnerable to counters as that also evolves. But as any grunt may tell you, having some fast moving armour around just makes life a little easier. The tanks of today are certainly different to those of the past, and are part of that combined arms package (just as drones will inevitably be part of). The US isn’t reducing them (US Marines moved them to the US Army), and the US Marines are looking at their own more suitable option for a tank that meets their evolving role. You are totally right though….outdated toys don’t win wars.
Tanks are as important as they’ve ever been. They are a fist in and attack, MBT’s are evolving with active protection systems upgraded electronic architecture etc. I think Australia should push for M1A2 sep V3 or V4, and if America won’t trust us with their latest tech, we should upgrade on parity with America through Rheinmetall Australia, Thales Australia, BAE (who helped upgrade our aging APC’s) or Hanwha Australia. Better networking systems linked to other combined arms including unmanned systems. Tanks are not obsolete but need upgrading. Long live RAAC
Indonesia is not that friendly with Australia . Keep in mind they have around 100 leopard 2 tank’s and they have tank landing ship’s . This is one of the main reasons we have tank’s and they are based well south so as they can’t be taken out by sudden attack .
That is a fairly naive view, you would be surprised by the level of cooperation between Australia and Indonesia also , as I scroll through the list of active Indonesian Navy ships, I am having difficulty in finding any ship type that Indonesia has numbers off that could land and sustain operations on Australia’s Northern and North Western coasts. Yes Indonesia has 103 Leopard 2 A4’s but would not be able to deploy more than 32 given current naval assets and given Australian Naval and Airpower in the region, they wouldnt even be able to do that.