Lynx is, Redback is, Bundeswehr is, pletyó is... úgyhogy inkább iderakom.
It was meant to be one of the most consequential Defence investments ever – the announcement of the winner of the $25bn competition for 400 new generation tracked infantry Fighting Vehicles for the army.
The choice between South Korea’s Hanwha and Germany’s Rheinmetall was widely expected in late March after a meeting of the National Security Committee of cabinet, but days and then weeks passed with nothing further being heard. To the surprise of almost everyone, the government now says that a decision will be made in September.
The army had completed a very thorough two-year test and trials program involving three vehicles from each bidder in November last year. These were held at various locations across Australia examining issues of mobility, reliability, firepower and survivability – the latter done by measuring the effects of explosive charges near and under a Hanwha Redback and Rheinmetall Lynx.
Defence is believed to have completed their paperwork bringing together elements of price, risk and local content early in the new year.
Understanding what has happened is not easy, with the notoriously opaque department banning companies from discussing the process and the government similarly uncommunicative. However, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that things have been derailed at a political level.
Despite official denials, it seems that there have been some differences between the army – which liked the Redback – and the procurement arm that saw the Lynx as a lower risk solution.
At a distance, both vehicles look roughly similar – but as usual the difference is in the detail. The Redback uses rubber-steel mesh tracks; the Lynx has a more conventional segmented steel plate arrangement. The Redback uses a U.S. Bushmaster 30mm chain gun as its main armament; the Lynx has a proprietary Mauser gas-operated cannon – and so on. Both solutions are technically acceptable.
The Canberra rumours were that all of these internal differences had finally been resolved in favour of the Redback.
It is then suggested that the government of Germany – whether or not it was aware of the exact situation – bypassed Defence and made an unsolicited offer at cabinet level that it would also purchase a similar number of Lynx vehicles. These would come from the Australian production line, which would be established in the politically sensitive area of Ipswich in southeast Queensland.
If accepted, this would be a massive boost in an already large program, holding out the prospect of even more jobs, export opportunities and increased revenue.
At about the same time, the South Korean government communicated semi-officially that it was already in the process of purchasing an initial batch of between 30 and 50 Redback vehicles for their army – which is about 10 times larger than its German counterpart. A full Redback order could be as large as 2000 vehicles – all coming from the electorally sensitive Geelong area.
Parts of this story can be verified. The South Korean military is in the process of purchasing some Redbacks. The German Army is interested in buying Lynx vehicles following a confirmed initial sale of them to Hungary.
However, many details are still obscure and might never see the light of day because they relate to whether Australia should be buying military hardware for its excellence or because of broader economic benefits.
If it seems unlikely that the industrial powerhouses of South Korea and Germany would purchase armoured vehicles built in Australia rather than from their own production lines, think again.
There is a trend in the Western world for countries to move away from single suppliers to multiple sources among allies of critical equipment. This has been caused in part by Covid disrupting well established industrial arrangements – plus conflicts such as Ukraine where the factories of a single country are no longer capable of meeting the huge demands for material that happen after only a few days of high intensity conflict.
The intense fighting in Ukraine might also have contributed to the delay in the Australian decision in another way.
Television screens have been dominated for months by images of the smouldering wrecks of hundreds – if not thousands – of Russian armoured vehicles. These have been destroyed in huge numbers by relatively cheap anti-tank guided munitions, sometimes fired by individual Ukrainian soldiers with minimal training.
The Russian losses have been horrendous and due to social media, the vulnerabilities of conventional – if poorly handled – armoured forces are on display for everyone to see.
Putting these things together, an announcement that the government was committing $25bn on armoured vehicles might have looked like a waste of money rather than a demonstration of strength.
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