Thales Australia builds GWEO case on quality munitions track record

Thales Australia has declared interest in the $100bn sovereign Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise.

At the end of the rocketry supply chain is vehicles such as the Lockheed Martin long range anti-ship missile, above.

Sydney-based Thales Australia believes its history of manufacturing munitions for the Australian Defence Force and its allies will help it play a key role for Defence in its $100bn sovereign Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise.

It is the third Australian company to declare itself following Defence’s Request for Information (RFI) back in August. The others are NIOA in Brisbane and EOS Defence Systems in Canberra.

“We’ve positioned ourselves for whatever opportunity comes down the track,” says Dion Habner, managing director of Thales Australia’s subsidiary, Australian Munitions. He says that US confidence in the company’s quality and safety standards was vital for safe technology transfer.

Australian Munitions’ previous incarnations have supplied the US with munitions components since World War II. It’s now preparing for the manufacture of US 155mm artillery rounds at Benalla, Victoria, for the ADF, with the goal of US Army certification to open up US supply opportunities.

It has been manufacturing warheads, missile rocket motors and ammunition at Benalla and nearby Mulwala for more than 20 years and previously manufactured rocket motors for the Australian-made Nulka antimissile decoy, the only foreign-made weapon the US Navy allows on its ships.

Short-term opportunities exist to undertake sovereign manufacture for some rocket motors and warheads for the ADF inventory; medium-term the company would undertake expanded sovereign manufacture and sustainment of these and other guided weapons.

Long-term, the aspiration is to play a key role in the design, build and manufacture of things like hypersonic missiles in Australia.

According to Peter Chesworth, who heads Defence’s GWEO task force, Defence will be making critical decisions by the end of 2021. He told industry recently that complementarity with the United States and its partners, along with sovereignty, are vital parts of the program.

Supply chains need to be de-risked early and used across multiple common platforms, so Australian SMEs need to be embedded in GWEO supply chains from the outset to make this a reality.

Thales Australia’s supply chain at Mulwala and Benalla is more than 600 companies strong. And it has signed an agreement with Adelaide SME Southern Launch whose two rocket launch sites at Whalers Way and Koonibba in South Australia will be used to discreetly test Thales’s advanced rocket motors and guided munitions. Southern Launch’s own high-technology supply chain will build missile and rocket motor bodies for these new weapons.

Another partner is VRA, a joint venture between Israeli company RAFAEL and NSW-headquartered Varley, that will deliver the SPIKE LR2 missile and future variants selected by the Australian Army, with potential assembly and all components, warheads and rocket motors made in Australia.