Australien — Australian Light Armoured Vehicle Enhancement

The Min­is­ter for Defence, Sen­a­tor John Faulkn­er, today announced that the Gov­ern­ment has giv­en sec­ond pass approval for the upgrade of the Aus­tralian Light Armoured Vehi­cle (ASLAV) under project LAND 112 Phase 4 – ASLAV Enhance­ment.

Aus­tralian Light Armoured Vehi­cles pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty with supe­ri­or fire­pow­er dur­ing the 18 hr Tor Ghar jour­ney across the Oruz­gan and Kan­da­har desert. Source: Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Defence Click to enlarge

The ASLAV has been deployed to the Mid­dle East Area of Oper­a­tions since 2004, and is now in use in Afghanistan. 

The ASLAV pro­vides our forces in Afghanistan with mobil­i­ty, fire­pow­er and pro­tec­tion, enabling our troops to con­duct search and escort oper­a­tions and pro­vide sup­port to close com­bat operations. 

Sen­a­tor Faulkn­er said: “These enhance­ments, which have a total project cost of $302.8 mil­lion, will result in our ASLAV fleet being up-armoured to pro­vide greater pro­tec­tion to cater for dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous envi­ron­ments such as those in Afghanistan. The upgrade will ensure the ASLAV fleet pro­vides the high­est pos­si­ble com­bat pro­tec­tion and capa­bil­i­ty in the future.” 

The enhance­ments will pro­vide increased pro­tec­tion against a wider range of threats — includ­ing Impro­vised Explo­sive Devices — by improv­ing bal­lis­tic, frag­men­ta­tion and blast protection. 

The project will also see improve­ments to the vehicle’s sus­pen­sion, dri­v­e­line and engine, ensur­ing the ASLAV remains a high­ly capa­ble and ver­sa­tile light armoured vehi­cle for the dura­tion of its ser­vice with the ADF. 

The project plans to deliv­er 113 upgrad­ed vehi­cles, com­menc­ing by April 2012. Defence is also inves­ti­gat­ing options for sig­nif­i­cant­ly expe­dit­ing the sched­ule for the upgrade. 

There will be a range of oppor­tu­ni­ties for Aus­tralian Indus­try to be involved in the instal­la­tion and sup­port of the upgrade. These include pre-mod­i­fi­ca­tion and refur­bish­ment work, sus­pen­sion and dri­ve­train upgrades, instal­la­tion of upgrade kits, and the redesign and man­u­fac­tur­ing of mine blast bel­ly plates, to be car­ried out by Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Land Sys­tems – Aus­tralia, locat­ed in Poora­ka, South Australia. 

Media con­tact:
Michael Nguyen (John Faulkn­er) 02 6277 7800 or 0429 571 843
Defence Media Liai­son 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia