As ex Armoured Corp and an EX M113 operator I can say without a doubt this is LONG overdue and is a good step up HOWEVER the number being delivered is laughable 129 will not give us the capability to have more than training vehicles at Puka and one Mechanised Infantry Battalion. with the numberrequired to be held in war stocks. This means the reserves and even some regular units will still have to continue to train with the M113 as the redbacks will likely be transfered to the deployable standby brigade as they rotate through the 3 year cycle
I think the idea was to invest more in the Navy and Air Force. I don't think we envisage the Army being a LSCO Army any more and transition away from Mech Infantry Army to a light deployable Army which can island hop, capture key objectives under the umbrella of the Navy and Air Force and leverage the capture points and further build strategic capabilities (such as Air Fields and Rocket Artillery) to capture more objectives. The Army is going to be the hinge in future operations while Navy/Air Force will be the wrench. I just think when replacing the ASLAV is might have been better to make sure the Boxer was waterproof.
Having been involved in the M113’s first refit Post Vietnam, I could tell you some aspects that would send a shiver down the spine of anyone who’s relied on them for protection. It was never anticipated that they would remain in Service anywhere near the length of time the reduction in purchase from the full 400 is a grave miscalculation by our current government in the requirements of our army.
Oz military is and has always been a joke and I am not meaning the people who serve. I remember the Defence Review in 1976 said Australia had enough resources to successfully defend *_10 miles of coastline._* Just had to hope the invading enemy chose the part of the coast where everything was.
@@hgf334 So right at least now we are attending more to our projected defence instead of waiting until the enemy is on our shores. An example is patrol boats only had a 50 mm Machine Gun as their main offensive weapon where now they have or will have missiles with a 200 Kilometer range.
@@jasonhassard9168agreed. The emphasis has definitely shifted to keeping as many adversaries off of our shore as possible, rather than take them head on once they get here. This is pretty evident with the purchase of the Aukus subs and the increase in medium range anti-ship missiles that our naval forces will be able to deploy.
@@rmar127 It is impossible to fight an enemy with the size of the Defence Force we have and on top the size of the land mass and massive coast line we have. The Army would struggle to come up with 15,000 front line soldiers and on a coast line of 34.400 kilometer that would leave us spread pretty thin. Then there is the logistics needed to supply such troops.
@@bigman23DOTS Yeah right. Denying an opponent is all good and well, but we don't have the numbers or the capability for that, not too mention we will ALWAYS be outnumbered in a warfighting scenario. And if you have ever served in the army, any army, you'll know it is the infantry soldier on the ground that has to assault and hold that position. The navy and airforce and will have their own priorities, but they are all there to support the infantry soldier that has to go the hard yards. And infantry soldiers need that fast, armoured support to get them there, hold the position and if need be get them the hell out of there.
@bigman23DOTS , there's this thing called manouveing and counter attack. Missiles can be part of counter attacks, but can't win battles. How do you defend missile batteries?
@@topendgold9284 Mate you have no idea at all. I've just spent the last several months in Ukraine as a medic on the front. You need lots of missiles and artillery, which we don't have. Those same artillery pieces can only fire a few rounds then have to get the heck out of there before counter battery fire takes them out. Your missile batteries have to be mobile as well, otherwise those cheap drones will taken them out, they also have to be out of range of any artillery. If the land is like anything on the eastern front in Ukraine, it's pocket marked with thousands of craters, the ground is uneven af. Not to also mention your counter attack is going to be spotted by those cheap arse drones before you even start. There's also the weather over there, once the winter and snow starts, it's just going to be defensive, we only did small scale attacks. Then after winter, all that snow melts and everything gets turned to crap mud. Vehicles become bogged and then even easier to take out. Maneuvering and counter attacks don't work if your enemy has hundreds of drones in the sky watching your every movement. Same goes for them.
They will increase in price as the years go by. Bit like the Leopard tanks when the Government purchased them. Didn't want Nuclear/Biological filters installed at the time of purchase. Tanks eventually had to go back to have all of this installed as it included the air-conditioning unit. Extra cost. We have some real dickwits in procurements.
There is a lot of interest for the Redback from many other countries. Even with our lower order numbers it will be handy having the manufacturing plant in Australia to help fulfil other orders for Hanwha.
Always smart for Korean companies to shift some production to places like Australia. After all if they faced a NK & Chinese invasion, then their ability to produce in S. Korea would likely be hit straight away, so having a backup source outside the conflict zone might prove crucial.
Yup. The production line is the important thing. There's economies of scale with keeping it going. We should be piling these things up as spares and if anything happens suddenly everyone will want them.
It's only what labor government ordered. Future government may purchase more. Labor has cut many defence programs. As they do every time they get in government. Even the Navel review of the surface combating fleet may change. You can't trust anything labor does with defence.
Keep going , we must build a sustainable military manufacturing sector. As a former serving member of the ADF , 2/4 RAR I wholeheartedly support this move. DUTY FIRST.
Our policy in WW2 was have a highly trained military and buy what we need off the shelf if at war. There was nothing on the shelf, all the other countrys needed all weapons made... We had to panic design and build The Owen machine gun, Sentinel tank and Boomerang fighter plane. The Owen was good the other two a great effort but not first rate. We did learn a lot making them and those industries should have been kept going to produce home grown weapon systems but on the advice of the British we were encouraged to buy off the shelf. The hard part is starting up an industry. You are not likely to get a world beater first go like the Collins Submarine but but once started they can develop. Sweden did this with a quarter our population!
@@AndyViant I couldn't agree more we need a massive boost to the navy but that is no excuse for this woeful government to cut back on the Redback & the F35 Jets along with everything else. This government is not really serious about defence.
@@JohnMcGillivray-u4b The problem you're comparing is one government that made a whole bunch of announcables with no ability or intent to pay for it. Everything they touched as far as defence spending turned to sh*t. That was the whole point of the recent review Let's look, because this is gonna take multiple posts to address. First? Subs. We're in hock for nuclear submarines. How much? We don't know. When will we get them? At least a decade, maybe two, after we need them. Where from and what type? The US nor UK have spare production capacity for over a decade. The US is currently 44 Virginia class subs short. We pulled out of the modified French Shortfin Barracuda, after millions wasted. It was up to Labor to fix that disaster and pay compensation. Had we just ordered the Nuclear version of the Barracuda, the problem could have been solved. Worst case scenario that we don't want to do the refuelling, we send them back on rotation to France, one at a time, every decade. If we actually developed our own nuclear power industry as seems likely, then they could be refuelled here, no lost travel time. Staffing numbers are almost identical to the Collins, too. The Astute class is probably the best match for Australia. But we're probably looking at something like 2038 at a MINIMUM before we're replacing the Collins Class with them. So Collins class get another mid life update, that takes even more of them out of service indefinitely. Then there's staffing, the Astute need over 60% more stuff than the Barracuda class, so we can afford to run far less of them as we don't have enough submariners to run them. Without more submariners than we have now we can probably operate no more than 4 of them and thus have 3 active subs at once. The Viginia Class would be far far worse, with a crew complement of 135, or 2 1/4 times as many as the Barracuda class. Basically with Virginia class we'd be lucky to have two in the water at any given time. Not good.
@@JohnMcGillivray-u4b next, lets get onto surface vessels. The Hunter Class purchase has been an unmitigated disaster. In 5 years, a 50% cost blowout. An expansion of ship size by 25%. A redesign of a not even yet in water What was that quote again? "The Department of Defence has admitted that it 'did not conduct an effective limited tender process' for the design of the $45 billion Hunter class frigates." So the $30 billion, now $45 billion project has overweight vessels that are now being delayed at least 18 months, while we're retiring Anzac frigates. The Hunter class is now attempting to be remarketed and repurposed, due to the blowout in size and cost as opposed to an anti submarine warfare frigate. Heck, it's 50% bigger than the Hobart Destroyers now. Yet with the planned VLS upgrade, it will probably be WORSE in the Anti Submarine role than the Anzac, despite being almost triple the tonnage, and thus a much larger proportion of our sea power to lose in a single combat loss. By any standards this is a design failure by the DMO that needed to be addressed. Now, with most of these purchases they're done across multiple terms of government, by multiple parties in fact from start to rollout. And they're done on the reccomendations of the DMO, along with other groups that studio geopolitics and military strategy. The world we're in post 2016 and the more belligerent China and Russia, and the expansion of drone warfare see us needing to adapt to new challenges. High cost vehicles, whether tanks or ships, are an expensive target to lose to a cheap drone attack. But it's very hard to pin the blame for a failure on a political party that has been in place for 2 years compared to the one that was in place for the previous decade and was actually in power when those decisions were made. DMO needs a review and cleanout. Absoultely.
whilst i agree in general to focus on our naval procurment, all i hope is we keep building them past the current production numbers to not only pad out our army, but to build our reserves and spare parts. as we are seeing in ukraine having any armored vehicle in storage for a rainy day is especially usefull in a protracted war.
I remember when Leopard AS1 was adopted, we were told in RAAC that Krauss Maffei had offered to build the Leopard in Australia if the buy quantity was (from memory) 150 approx. Aussie govt declined and bought about 100 or so. I remember seeing a Leopard turret at Pucka tank museum in the early 2000s which had been used as a target. A 105mmm main armament round had be fired at it, it penetrated both layers of armour with ease. We were told the Leopard was only good for resisting 25mm cannon fire. I hope this new IFV has a higher penetration resistance than the Leopard.
Either platform is a win as we desperately needed these. I think over the years we will probably purchase an extra 100 or so platforms. Governments do weird things. I thought the Lynx would have been the winner due to the turrets could have been swapped to the boxer in the field. The programable ammo as well might be an issue between boxer and the red back. Not sure on that one but all in all, we needed 450 of these 15 yrs ago and Redback, what a kick Arse name
Exactly. It is like they have missed the FACT the MBTs are being taken apart by flying drones, and interdicted by mine-fields laid in hours by ground drones.
Yeah, you're much better off walking everywhere. Nevermind the threat of machine guns and artillery. Both of which are still around, cheap, easy to use and hard to defeat 🥴
To all those saying the vehicle costs around $70 million each, listen up. The cost of the project is not the same as the cost of the vehicles. A project has to deliver not just the vehicles themselves, but also the logistics behind them - the construction facilities, maintenance facilities, garaging facilities, supply of spare parts, training for both crews and maintainers etc etc. Just to look at the weapons - 30mm cannon and Spike missiles - neither of these are currently in service with the ADF and require their own logistics base as well. Now, if the concern is that the money could be better spent on other areas - for example purchase of drones or HIMARS, then that is a valid discussion. But conflating project cost with vehicle cost is not helpful.
Well, that sort of conflating is common political shorthand used not just by media by positively and negatively by politicians and the brass whenever it suits them to make something seem less or more expensive (depending on the agenda they have when talking about costs at all).
For that investment you might as well have bought the entire 400. That’s probably enough to outfit two mechanized infantry battalions with minimal spares.
@@jamesjacobson3966 I think you are missing the point. The existing large amount of money gets 129. Getting 400 takes even more money. Yes, there is economies of scale, but it's still more. And at the end of the day, what is the point of 400 IFVs when you can't transport them anywhere they are likely to be fighting? Use that money instead for Navy and Air Force equipment.
@@kenreckless2757 Purchasing more brings the unit price down considerably. It’s probably complacency to believe Australia is invulnerable to invasion. You have the now 2nd most populous and certainly the most ambitious nation and people in the world to the North who need Australia’s natural resources including food and raw materials to feed its people and industry. The Japanese were never capable of it during the last war admittedly even if things had gone there way, was as so much of their army was tied up garrisoning and fighting China and keeping an eye on the Russians. Even closer to home Australia has the most populous Muslim nation on earth as their neighbour. As far as I know relations are good currently but Sukarno Mk 2 is always potentially down the road. A strong RAN and RAAF are vital it’s true and would be the first line of defence along with their allies. But even the best of allies can have conflicting priorities. I gather the Australian govt of the time was livid that Britain “ the mother country” was unwilling or unable to send reinforcements and material to their child at the time of crisis as the dominoes were falling early in 42. Russia, India and the western desert not necessarily in that order were taking priority. Turning a different page of those 129 IFVs they will never all be serviceable at one time even in peacetime. The battle in Ukraine with modern weapons including man portable ATGMs and drones illustrate the value of reserve stocks as loses are massive. The Russians have their tank parks etc and the Ukrainians their western allies drawing down their own stocks alarmingly to keep them supplied.
@@jamesjacobson3966 Your points are valid, however it comes down to not having enough money to have everything. Australia is an island. Any military that tries to invade Australia faces an enormous physical and logistical challenge. And remember it is far more economical to destroy a battalion by sinking their amphib before they can land than it is to destroy them once they have landed. So what would be more useful in defending Australia - a dozen IFVs that can travel at 80km/h and fire small munitions out to around 8km, or a couple of fighters that travel at 800km/h and can fire large warheads out to around 300km? I would argue the latter. Australia is an island, therefore air and naval force matters far more than land forces. Honestly, I look at the Abrams and the Redback and wonder if we might have been better off with more ships and drone capability.
400 down to 129 because we need to prop up UK sub manufacturing. The problem with diverting all our funds to nukey subs, is that it leaves Australia with reduced capability in every situation where a sub is of little value. So low level expeditions that might serve our interests in helping to de-escalate long term strategic threats, are now going to be substantially more difficult for the Army to support. The reduced number of vehicles will also prevent the army from properly meeting it's target of having 3 fully capable brigades on a yearly rotation.
Ever wonder what the governments plan is in the situation where they’d have to replace combat loses? 129 sounds like a tight number. I doubt these ifvs will ever see real combat though.
@@ItsRozzaMate the thing that always drives me up the wall is that we have no real means of mobilisation, no real plan to do it and when Ukraine kicked off the government failed to us it as a chance to see what our mobilisation capability was/is. Our defence industry is set up in so many stupid locations with such tiny populations that there's no fucking way to rapidly increase it and it's so spread out I can't see how they're going to keep it online in a peer to peer conflict with long range strike. Is Bennala going to get one of our hand full of AA systems? The whole lets win votes with jobs in mariginal seats has been a strategic fuck up that's beyond dumb. We aren't alone in that problem though the Germans make Iris T in a town with 20,000 people. How can you go to 24/7 manufacturing for peer to peer conflict without the work force? fucking stupid.
The number one priority for Australia’s defence has to be the Navy, followed by Air Force and Army. That said these are welcome additions to the Australian fighting force. On second thoughts, Army should have higher priority than Air Force with a large long range missile attack system and a capable air defence system.
Disagree in army last, we don't have enough people in air force to warrant air superiority against any world power type country in the event of invasion, like ukraine if our air force is outmatched our ground army must be formidable, with lots of air defence capability, anti ship defence and ideally have a voluntary army made up of civilians (simillar to the SES or rural fire brigade) for the sole purpose of defending against invasion inside of our borders, we are an island surrounded by vast oceans which is why we would be very hard for another country to invade Compared to European or Asian countries which would make up for the lack of people we have but all hands would need to be on deck and with more than a couple weeks of training. We are not american we can not rely on out gunning an enemy with a larger force if it's just us fighting.
@@jordanchristie3617 It’s better to engage the enemy well before they reach our shores but I agree the Army needs a large long range missile attack system.
Navy? How many ships would you need to defend Australia's immense coast? There are modern mobile missile systems that the Army could use to destroy enemy vessels. Much cheaper than a boat and much easier to move and position.
The Redbacks are great, no question and yes MORE please. Distance and isolation make defending this country very difficult. We need to be able to quickly deploy & support significant assets, like the Redbacks to anywhere in the country very quickly. I hope they can be airlifted ?????
I served with 5/7 RAR ( MECH INF ) late 80s and early 90s and will always hold a special place for the M113 Carrier and will be a sad day to see them retired.
Initial note: ty for the video. I supported the initial order (we can put some in storage). Aus industry obvs has capacity for future additional orders. Good move .
The redback looks like a good but the price tag looks a bit high. The numbers are too small as the loss rates that we being seeing in Ukrane/Russia would suggest that 129 would disappear very quickly in a major conflict. Your presentation is very good.
the russia ukraine war is a specific type of combat where you have two armies with direct land connections and massive troop numbers on a line. whilst there are many lessons to be learned, a european war is widley different from a war in the pacific. not to mention america would be the main force in any war, and we would act as a supporting force
Until we address the speed of drone development. How can we be sure of what we need? I think we need to know for sure that our $54m dollar IFV's actually belong in a world full of $540 drones. And for that matter, will we still be fielding infantry as we know it, in a world full of machine gun toting RC buggies?
and the ALP cut the numbers back from an adequate amount to a minor symbolic number. What advantage is there to building them here if we run the line for 2 years then close it down - on the numbers we bought, we could have got them way cheaper as a direct purchase from Korea. if we bought the original number we could have run the line for long enough to then use it to remanufacture and upgrade older Redbacks.
They cut back the numbers to a level that we can afford them, NOW. Once we get into production, the cost per unit will drop. The last Government spent NO money on building the infrastructure to build these. They argued to move from an established Military hardware production area, in Queensland, to suit Dutton. We would of been able to afford more of them is we had of started to build the factories that are required to manufacture these.
@@geoffscammell145 I draw your attention to the increase in social security and the $9 billion dollar budget surplus. We could have easily afforded the full order now. The ALP decided to leave most infantry in M113s, that whilst slightly upgraded, were procured by Army when the RAAF was flying Sabres. The cost per unit will not drop because we haven't ordered extras and we will need to negotiate a new price if the Govt decides to order a second batch, at which time Hanwha will have us by the proverbials because we will have a logistic and training system in place and can't afford to replace all of them with a different machine, new spares, training etc.
I am sure they realised the war will evolve in the Asia pacific in other ways so procurement for other ideas has grown in that direction reducing what is needed on the ground like this
@@geoffscammell145 ahhhh....ever worked in Australian manufacturing? Once they are in production they will increase in cost by 100% and half will be shipped "tied up with wire."
@@Rusty_Gold85 and the soldier on the ground is the one that pays in blood when that realisation that everything changes reverts to "we still need boots on the ground again". When the M113 was procured by Aust, the RAAF were flying Sabres, if we need to increase the defence budget to not leave the Army operating the ground equivalent of a Sopwith Camel, then increase the budget.
The question I always have is, "how will the procurement support a rapid upscaling of the size of the Australian military in the event of an active local-region conflict (e.g. China commences hostile engagements in our region)?" For example, if China's activities in the Pacific escalated into active combat to an extent that necessitated large-scale mobilisation of Australians (i.e. a draft) is the procurement able to be rapidly scaled to support a significantly larger military force? Manufacturing the IFVs in Australia is obviously a good step towards being able to upscale the number of IFVs in the ADF's inventory - but are there technologies & platforms being used, as part of the IFV, that can not be reproduced locally which would severely limit production (e.g. what would happen to production if China blockaded sea routes north of Australia)? If Australia became entangled in a protracted conflict, elsewhere in the world, could we sustain a production that would support replacement of deployed vehicles?
That won't happen for 5-10 years simply due to Chinas lacking logistical infrastructure which is the main reason they haven't even invaded Taiwan as of yet so Australia would be more than capable of obliterating any Chinese forces within the region. Not to mention that the ADF is currently sorting out procurement and production issues of equipments because it's easy to increase and train more forces especially with our military's personals current high level of knowledge and experience but there's no reason to do so if we cannot arm and supply such numbers of forces. Fix the logistical aspects of the situation and use the severity of the situation to gain more personal through the truth which is people fight or Australia ceases to exist. You are clearly inept and only care to fear monger instead of understanding the reality of the situation.
China has a massive achilles heal called the Malacca Strait. China will whiter away if this trade route is cut. Hence the focus away from IFV to long range strike capabilities.
Ask what would happen to the Strategic fossil fuel reserve where most of it is stored in USA limestone caves. Chinese subs could sink both supertankers bringing it back here for the plethora of oil refineries to crack the liquid gold into its useable components. Another fine decision by the lying _scotty from marketing._
The other reason for the price being so high per unit is the reduction in the number of vehicles being bought. When you’re planning to amortise all the NRE across 450 vehicles but end up only getting an order for 129, the per unit cost skyrockets.
As an experienced Infantryman and Armoured Corps Sergeant highlights the importance of investing in top-tier training and equipment for our forces. Given the size of our military, optimizing our resources to develop highly skilled soldiers and maintaining cutting-edge equipment is crucial. This approach not only enhances our defense capabilities but also ensures that our troops remain a formidable and resilient force on the global stage.
As is usual the Australian Government finds an awesome piece of kit and then fails to procure enough to equip the army properly. Retention of armed forces is easier when they know they are well equipped and considered an asset. The soldiers are as good as any in the world, the equipment is inadequate in numbers and types. We should have integrated air defence that is fully mobile, Artillery able to shoot and scoot and IFV with full drone compatability.
I agree. Just looking at how fast IFV's are being destroyed in Ukraine gives an idea how quickly we could burn through 120 of these in a high intensity war. Retention in the armed forces would also be improved with decent salaries. Not just a one off $50,000 payment for another 3 years. With inflation, this should be at least $50,000 a year increase in all salaries for ADF personnel. I'm not impressed with outsourcing our security to pacific islanders who are willing to join the ADF on fruit and veg picker salaries with the lure of citizenship (just like overseas students) Ahhh the ponzi schemes Aus governments run 🤣🤣🙃
The price tag is for vehicles, training, facilities and initial sustainment/maintenance. I would like to see at least three infantry battalion groups (infantry plus support elements) equipped with the different variants on offer. This would mean at least one Bn was always available for deployment, with one getting ready and one recovering (standard rule of threes for any military force). Labour dudded the Army big-time on reducing the order to 129.
Don't forget the lying _scotty from marketing_ cost the country *$5 Billion* over the French sub fiasco PLUS *$40+ Billion* of JobKeeper money that should never have been paid and was never recovered. If you were a Centrelink recipient and were overpaid $50 then it was off to ail for you. I haven't even considered their far cup of the NBN and the continual ballooning of their _Cheaper, Faster, Sooner_ lie that turned into the *More Expensive, Slower, Later* crap we got.
IFV's and MBT's are highly vulnerable on the battlefield, the reduction in numbers was made with this in mind. The Liberals would have you believe that these were necessary over a home grown missile defence capability and a navy. Ten years of neglect under the previous Liberal/National coalition and the reprehensible bungling of the submarines, wasted precious years, which made it impossible to protect Australian shipping lanes. Labour made the right choice by redirecting funding to the much needed expansion of Australia's maritime forces as well as development of missiles and unmanned platforms.
@@hgf334 IFV와 MBT가 전장에서 매우 취약한 경우는 제공권을 독점하지 못해서 발생하는 문제입니다. If IFV and MBT are very vulnerable on the battlefield, it is a problem caused by a failure to monopolize the right to provide. 장비는 잃지만 병사들은 살아남는다는 게 중요합니다. lose equipment, but soldiers survive. I forgot the important thing, the Australian army is famous for being elite, trying to save a valuable workforce that can't be replaced right away is very important.
Should have kept the original sized order whilst increasing defence spend to purchase the K9's, Himars and the naval upgrades etc. Our Governments (both) have run defence down for far too long.
Needs another 129 as a second order to start production after this batch is finished. The second batch should have the 40mm cannon. But the biggest need is for missile launch systems, and patriot batteries. We seem to be lagging in the missile platform department, and in drones.
That is the intention. We will build some models for OS, clients. They will test systems for US, so our second purchase of these will be the new upgraded ones.
@@tigerpjm These things are not an either/or. We need the missiles AND the full 400+ Redbacks. Defense budget needs to grow to build the needed forces, not shrink the forces to meet an out of date level of defense spending. Poland has gone to 3½ % of GDP. The urgency of the threats demands that we do something similar. Like, yesterday. Russia and China are throwing money at their forces and sooner or later (probably sooner) they are going to launch very aggressive actions. We are currently sleep-walking into great dangers and a rapidly changing world.
Just discovered you...liking it! I'm a Yankee who has been in NZ for 8yrs. Obviously, NZ isn't...."important"...on a geopolitical scale. Aussie is the local gravity well and so I'm trying to pivot from Northern Hemisphere stuff to local stuff--and that means people like you! Aussie is key, Aussie is King.
It showed everything is vulnerable to cheap drones, just like every other war someone makes a new great weapon and the other side tries and finds a way to defeat it
Absolutely agreed... this entire generation of fighting tanks and vehicles are now outdated unless they can solve the drone problem. And drones will get more advanced and cheaper every year. Every country under threat from western countries will be mass producing them. We're in a different age now.
15-20yrs ago 'experts' were already saying tanks are outdated. EU were wanting to go for very fast vehicles with high powered weaponry, active/ counter defence... guess they just stuck to what worked. Russia and China were 'friendly' back then so...
@mnm8818 The funny thing is that these days, with tanks so easy to find and destroy, the cheapest mass produced tanks and armoured vehicles are now the most practical and effective. They have all just become disposable troop transports in a drone war.
The DSR concluded that keeping the enemy at "arms length" (force projection) is the better option than fighting within Australian territory, hence the purchase for long range missiles and rocket systems - IFV, Tanks, ARV & SPH don't have these capabilities and can only fight in close quarters (relatively speaking), hence the reduction in numbers. IF Australia was to project some elements of ground forces in combat operations overseas, our RAN can only 'ferry' a few of these vehicles at any given time on either the LHD's or Heavy Landing Ships, leaving the rest in Australia for our own security needs. The Australian Government needs to be fiscally responsible for defense spending to keep within it's 2-2.5% GDP limits and unfortunately, if the government is going to spend A$350B on submarines over the next decade or so, something had to be sacrificed and it just had to be those armored vehicles.
Definitely would love to see numbers increased and because we are building them here there perhaps is scope to build more as we go forward. Would love to see a domestically designed and built MBT.
Don't think we'll see the indigenous "Sentinel II" MBT, which is a pity, but when you look at the clusterf***k the Arjun project turned into, we can't afford that. The ability to build, even at low production rate, a licensed version of say the M1A2SLEP, with add ons for passive & active missile/drone defence , or the new RoK MBT, would however be a strategic asset, in the way that when we used to have automobile manufacturing on-shore, that was a strategic asset.
Should have been the lynx selected in all honesty 1. Rubber tracks on the red back require the whole vehicle to be lifted and the entire track to be changed, the lynx on the other hand can have the damaged linkage replaced by the crew and fit for service again in a lot smaller time frame. 2. The factory for lynx is already established in Brisbane qld, which would have lowered the cost per unit 3. Lynx shares commonality with the 210 boxers also entering service 4. Hannah facility being built in Geelong, Richard Marles home electorate (questions should be raised here) Related tangents, the only reason this was selected is because the huntsman was selected for mobile fires, also produced by Hannah. PZH2000 should have been selected in its place, building it in Geelong and giving Australia the foundation to produce leopard tanks and possibly KF51 panthers in the future. The decision to purchase Korean is a strange one and should be looked into seriously.
This is one instance where the soldiers using the Redback were actually listened to... I spoke personally to the crews of the 3 prototypes after testing at Cultana. They loved the Redback and found the usability of the vehicle and its systems to be far superior than the Lynx. The comfort was an added bonus. They found the Lynx to be 'Meh'...(their words).
@@josephking6515 Rheinmetall certainly have the $$ to do just that...but didn't. Hanhwa also got the SP Howitzer contract. Maybe their equipment is just 'better bang for the buck'....
I believe another factor is that the Lynx is an off the shelf version of the PUMA made for the export market, whereas the Redback was alot more heavily tailored for Australian conditions, did slightly better in the near explosion section of the testing. Also the ride and comfort of the redback as already stated, I also believe the turret on the redback is Australian designed but I may be wrong there....
The people who will need to trust their lives to them wanted the Redback, for once they got their way. The Huntsman is a superb unit and (IMO) was the correct choice.
Being made in Poland already. The technology being used makes them exceptional. Yes, we need more than 129 but our stingy Govt thought otherwise. They would sooner give more money to their union mates rather than defend Australia!
As an old Assault Pioneer, and with 43mths boots on the ground in the MEAO and Africa, I can already see easy ways to defeat this vehicle. I am constantly amazed by the lack of forethought and the total ignorance of the lessons learnt in 20+years in the MEAO. This is the power of kickbacks made manifest.
I wouldn't mind hearing how the Australian Army intends to engage the Kamikaze drones that are playing havoc in Ukraine? Or does it involve a guy dismounting with a shoulder fired weapon? More specifically; a) Will SHORAD be an integral part of all fighting formations, a resource deployed at the divisional level, or will it be organically integrated throughout all fighting vehicles? b) Are electronic countermeasures being installed on front-line vehicles? c) Is the roof armor designed to defend against aerial threats? d) Are active protective systems being installed to defeat aerial threats in addition to the more conventional ATGM? e) How are drones identified, and does the radar being used paint an electronic target on the vehicle that could be exploited? Also f) for the Red-back in particular, wouldn't a few stinger missiles be a better option to the spike missiles planned?
I think this is the correct vehicle for Oz, I love the fact that it is being produced here. Maybe by 2027 we will be able to keep the factory in low rate production, working up to the 450 vehicles at say 50/year. It will be easier to increase the rate of production if needed if we have some staff trained already rather than starting from nothing (note I said easier, not easy). I also think we should change all the 25 mm bushmasters over to the 30 mm (including the remote stations on the navy ships) so that we can just produce the 30 mm rounds here. These have air burst at set range should give the navy ships better protection against slow moving drone swarms.
The reality is no country has the ability to land invade Australia long term or even middle term . These vehicles may end up being used against Aussie's who don't agree!!!
Lol bro, if the gov wanted something to police the populace. This wouldn't be it. They could get more bang for the buck with bushmasters and hawkai or even the 500 m113s they have. These are designed for real combat.
So, can it transport a standard 8 man infantry section? On the tab data it’s states 3 crew plus 6 dismounts. What do you do with the other 2 section members???
If they are being built here, we can always build more here. After the first 50 or so are built, any improvements and upgrades can easily be built into a second tranche. As long as the production line operates, we can always tack more onto the end of the line if needed.
3.6m wide and 3.8m high... is it suitable rail transport especially on Queensland's narrow guage lines? Or will these need to be moved long distance by trucks?
Brilliant masters in engineering stealthy defence's very strong defence against terrisom stronger protecting people in Australia made in Australia 😮😊😮😊😅😅😮😊
Also can you do an video on the K9 and 10 Huntsman and why they halved the number of them as well, especially in light of tge artillery duels in Ukraine.
The future is distributed forces. The US Marines for example are training to use ATVs and motorcycles and trucks. They can move fast with small logistics support and use machine guns and anti tank rockets. Much cheaper and harder to stop.
It's meant to be as well, not instead of. The US Marines have the benefit of the US Army still able to fight sustained close quarter battle. Australia just has the army. Following the Marine corp is a financial and political decision, not a military one, making do with broken procurement, recruitment, and retention issues. IMHO.
don’t confuse Russia using those tactics with shitty air support bs the USA using those tactics in combination with the most powerful air forces in the world.
Looks like a decent vehicle with nice features, but here too it appears: Penny wise, pound foolish. If you have the concept of armoured infantry operations within your Armed Forces doctrine, all possibly involved units should be equipped with uniform kit and means, including vehicles. On the modern battlefield, an IFV is a force-multiplier (as seen in Ukraine) that will directly translate into improved objective attainment and crew/unit survivability. In a quick off the cuff calculation, 129 vehicles will equip 9 Companies and spare change of the remainder for training. No reserve. No backup. Once it's gone it's gone. Lunacy and premtively snatching defeat from the maw of Victory! If Australians are willing and able to serve in Defence capabilities, then Australia should honour them and make the best means available to allow them to do so and survive the effort. C'mon Australia, don't be such a tight-arse and cough up the full complement of 400 Red-Backs. Remember: Wanting front-row seats for a dime will likely get you ones worth a dime.
interesting that the production line is only active until 2027/28... I know the key is maintenance in the future... but tht will reduce the workforce needs. great piece of kit!
Wish we had gone for the lynx but get the requirement to diversify the fabrication locations of the boxxer and redback. Either way, we should have kep the original 400 number... considering how quickly we will be able to get them as opposed to our navy additions.
I will never understand how we chose the redback when the Lynx had parts commonality with the boxer. I feel like that is a choice we'll come to regret.
It’s great that is comes with the Iron Fist active protection. Ukraine has shown IFV’s and armour more generally has very low survivability. Ukraine has also shown us that 129 vehicles could be lost in a few months of conflict. We should have purchased the original 450, even if many of them were kept in reserve. If Australia is drawn into a large scale, high intensity conflict, it will be too late to then seek to increase our capacity of such equipment
QUOTE-- ''If Australia is drawn into a large scale, high intensity conflict'' '' Can I suggest you look at The Echidna Strategy? It puts us in the 21st Century. Peace.
I still wonder if they made the right choice over the lynx. The lynx represents the new design concept being adopted across the set while the redbacks is more the previous design. Would have also been good to have more cross over in parts and supply lines between the lynx and the boxer. As for price on the redbacks they will come down if more people order them and there is always options for us to order more once this order has been filled or even before.
I was greatly disappointed to see the original order drawn down to just 129. We should not be just looking at what we can equip the people who want to join the Army today with but what we will be able to give soldiers if and when we mobilise and the Army's personnel strength increases rapidly. We will need the equipment in place and ready for them. It is okay to fill our pockets with what is required now, but the avenues should be left open for rapid procurement of additional vehicles as we (if we) have to mobilise on a war/operational footing. We must be able to equip Reserve Units (in supporting combat roles with the regular units that will be moved into theatres of operations - we can't leave the reserves without the means to fight what will be largely a mobile and semi-mobile land theatre operation. In an integrated Army we need all units to be identically equipped. We cannot afford to be begging Peter to pay Paul like we have had to do in the past, where we would have to borrow equipment from one unit to equip another. We need to watch how we spend but we shouldn't set the stage for losing a fight before it begins. And how will maintenance play out in a war scenario? Will we have a third of the vehicles in training, a third in maintenance and a third on operations? How do we cover losses? Will we have sufficient vehicles in reserve?
@Talking Tactics with Mel Pikos Next video please: BV10 Goanna!! Hi mate. This was 10 years ago but the Goanna articulated amphibious vehicle was talked about and possibly tested? By the ADF. (video below.) I’d really enjoy a video on this bad boy if you’re keen. Looks sick in AusCam. Love your videos, keep up the great content! 🧐 BvS10 "Goanna" amphibious vehicle - TH-cam
Subscribed and liked. If you can do a video on the drone killer from Drone Sheild, that would be awesome. As for the Redback, I reckon we should have the full 450, 130 first then 320 over 5 to 10 years with consistent upgrades. They also require drone protection as the war in Ukraine indicates. This would sustain jobs and skills for the future as well as have plenty of toys for our AIF.
Seems pretty light on numbers. They should be complemented by a brigade of six cylinder VN Commodores that go into combat and do burnouts, while playing ACDC and throwing empty tinnies at the enemy. The smoke and commotion will hide the Redbacks advance and surprise the enemy - even more then the Commodores did.
Australia is in a unique position to become the worlds first self-sustaining country. We shouldn't be outsourcing or holding back on any industrial productions. Especially nuclear. We should be working on microprocessor production & investing in our drone technology. The vehicles of the past wouldn't be useless; they'd become bulk drone launching platforms far from the front line. Ships are more vulnerable than ever before. All navy ships need the trinity of drone protection, air, surface, and submarine drones to have an effective protection field. Australia needs guaranteed oceanic territorial defense. The best way to do it is to sink threats before they arrive, which would require the ability to strike a ship at least 1,000Km's offshore in any direction. Complete that task & Australia will become impossible to invade. That should be our #1 priority.
I remember going to to bendigo ADI and selling then aircraft grade alloys and metals, had to do a presentation in front of all the main engineers back in 1998/99. Also aerosonde was the first AU company to make drone tech available worldwide, stared off for weather ops and then realised the tech can be used in larger remote planes to gather intel with hi end optics and also carry small but hi end missiles as well. In fact used to sell all the specialised aircraft alloys to them in 199/98 Some of the best stuff is made right here in Australia. 🦘🦘👍👌✌
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
As ex Armoured Corp and an EX M113 operator I can say without a doubt this is LONG overdue and is a good step up HOWEVER the number being delivered is laughable 129 will not give us the capability to have more than training vehicles at Puka and one Mechanised Infantry Battalion. with the numberrequired to be held in war stocks. This means the reserves and even some regular units will still have to continue to train with the M113 as the redbacks will likely be transfered to the deployable standby brigade as they rotate through the 3 year cycle
I think the idea was to invest more in the Navy and Air Force. I don't think we envisage the Army being a LSCO Army any more and transition away from Mech Infantry Army to a light deployable Army which can island hop, capture key objectives under the umbrella of the Navy and Air Force and leverage the capture points and further build strategic capabilities (such as Air Fields and Rocket Artillery) to capture more objectives.
The Army is going to be the hinge in future operations while Navy/Air Force will be the wrench. I just think when replacing the ASLAV is might have been better to make sure the Boxer was waterproof.
Maybe they should be Australian made and owned.... Not Korean like #kia 😂
@@wavavoomahh what happens when the #ccp brings 2,000,000 infantry to Qld? Our Defence needs to be 100 times bigger.
@@timwilson5410 6 million if made in Korea or 60 million made in Australia.
Some cav reserve units don't even have M113's. Only bushmasters / landrovers, I would have liked to see the M113's though.
If Australia can manufacture it's own world-class defence machines, it's a win in my books 👍🏻
If we've adjusted the size of the manufacturing order, to that recommended by the defence strategic review, it's also great 👍🏻
They are Korean lol
@@jesusisking8502still manufactured in Victoria
i might be a bit of a cynic but are we even capable of producing any world class anymore??
@@owenwissing3587 world class alcoholics and ore magnates
Having been involved in the M113’s first refit Post Vietnam, I could tell you some aspects that would send a shiver down the spine of anyone who’s relied on them for protection. It was never anticipated that they would remain in Service anywhere near the length of time the reduction in purchase from the full 400 is a grave miscalculation by our current government in the requirements of our army.
Oz military is and has always been a joke and I am not meaning the people who serve. I remember the Defence Review in 1976 said Australia had enough resources to successfully defend *_10 miles of coastline._* Just had to hope the invading enemy chose the part of the coast where everything was.
@@josephking6515 badly neglected by ten years of liberal incompetence.
@@hgf334 So right at least now we are attending more to our projected defence instead of waiting until the enemy is on our shores. An example is patrol boats only had a 50 mm Machine Gun as their main offensive weapon where now they have or will have missiles with a 200 Kilometer range.
@@jasonhassard9168agreed. The emphasis has definitely shifted to keeping as many adversaries off of our shore as possible, rather than take them head on once they get here. This is pretty evident with the purchase of the Aukus subs and the increase in medium range anti-ship missiles that our naval forces will be able to deploy.
@@rmar127 It is impossible to fight an enemy with the size of the Defence Force we have and on top the size of the land mass and massive coast line we have. The Army would struggle to come up with 15,000 front line soldiers and on a coast line of 34.400 kilometer that would leave us spread pretty thin. Then there is the logistics needed to supply such troops.
NZer here - this looks great! Go you Aussies! Go you good things!
Just waiting for the Aussie military to create a "Drop Bear".......... ;)
That sounds like a good name for a drone that drops HE.
we do not "create" the drop bear
they just simply are
Yeah that will be are first Battle Mechs name!
Shhh... the drop bears are the top secret weapon kept under wraps to surprise the enemy.
@@artistjohour true secret weapon are our Emus, nobody is going to launch a ground invasion with these overgrown chickens guarding or coastline.
should of kept the full order of 400
Even Larry the lemon realises money better spent elsewhere…. Sea and missile denial is pivotal to Australia’s defence
@@bigman23DOTS Yeah right. Denying an opponent is all good and well, but we don't have the numbers or the capability for that, not too mention we will ALWAYS be outnumbered in a warfighting scenario. And if you have ever served in the army, any army, you'll know it is the infantry soldier on the ground that has to assault and hold that position. The navy and airforce and will have their own priorities, but they are all there to support the infantry soldier that has to go the hard yards. And infantry soldiers need that fast, armoured support to get them there, hold the position and if need be get them the hell out of there.
@bigman23DOTS , there's this thing called manouveing and counter attack. Missiles can be part of counter attacks, but can't win battles. How do you defend missile batteries?
@@topendgold9284 Mate you have no idea at all. I've just spent the last several months in Ukraine as a medic on the front. You need lots of missiles and artillery, which we don't have. Those same artillery pieces can only fire a few rounds then have to get the heck out of there before counter battery fire takes them out. Your missile batteries have to be mobile as well, otherwise those cheap drones will taken them out, they also have to be out of range of any artillery. If the land is like anything on the eastern front in Ukraine, it's pocket marked with thousands of craters, the ground is uneven af. Not to also mention your counter attack is going to be spotted by those cheap arse drones before you even start. There's also the weather over there, once the winter and snow starts, it's just going to be defensive, we only did small scale attacks. Then after winter, all that snow melts and everything gets turned to crap mud. Vehicles become bogged and then even easier to take out. Maneuvering and counter attacks don't work if your enemy has hundreds of drones in the sky watching your every movement. Same goes for them.
They will increase in price as the years go by. Bit like the Leopard tanks when the Government purchased them. Didn't want Nuclear/Biological filters installed at the time of purchase. Tanks eventually had to go back to have all of this installed as it included the air-conditioning unit. Extra cost. We have some real dickwits in procurements.
As an Ex member, I was qualified on the M113 and the ASLAV. This looks fantastic, hope it does its job and protects my mates. Go Australia!🇦🇺
There is a lot of interest for the Redback from many other countries. Even with our lower order numbers it will be handy having the manufacturing plant in Australia to help fulfil other orders for Hanwha.
Always smart for Korean companies to shift some production to places like Australia. After all if they faced a NK & Chinese invasion, then their ability to produce in S. Korea would likely be hit straight away, so having a backup source outside the conflict zone might prove crucial.
Yup. The production line is the important thing. There's economies of scale with keeping it going. We should be piling these things up as spares and if anything happens suddenly everyone will want them.
@@overworlder you dont see anyone doing that with ammo production (artillery shells a perfect example these days) so they wont bother with vehicles.
@@wardrobeuntermensch223 They’re certainly building up ammo stocks now and reopening production lines now at least in the US and Europe.
It's only what labor government ordered. Future government may purchase more. Labor has cut many defence programs. As they do every time they get in government. Even the Navel review of the surface combating fleet may change. You can't trust anything labor does with defence.
Keep going , we must build a sustainable military manufacturing sector. As a former serving member of the ADF , 2/4 RAR I wholeheartedly support this move. DUTY FIRST.
and we need to have some in reserve Boydie nother 2/4 digg
Our policy in WW2 was have a highly trained military and buy what we need off the shelf if at war. There was nothing on the shelf, all the other countrys needed all weapons made...
We had to panic design and build The Owen machine gun, Sentinel tank and Boomerang fighter plane. The Owen was good the other two a great effort but not first rate. We did learn a lot making them and those industries should have been kept going to produce home grown weapon systems but on the advice of the British we were encouraged to buy off the shelf. The hard part is starting up an industry. You are not likely to get a world beater first go like the Collins Submarine but but once started they can develop. Sweden did this with a quarter our population!
For all its faults the Sentinel was a brilliant first effort, even showed the yanks and Britt’s how to cram a 19 pounder into a turret.
129 is nowhere near enough, whoever arrived at this number has absolutely no idea about defence.
Defence at sea is a higher priority right now.
@@AndyViant I couldn't agree more we need a massive boost to the navy but that is no excuse for this woeful government to cut back on the Redback & the F35 Jets along with everything else. This government is not really serious about defence.
@@JohnMcGillivray-u4b The problem you're comparing is one government that made a whole bunch of announcables with no ability or intent to pay for it.
Everything they touched as far as defence spending turned to sh*t. That was the whole point of the recent review
Let's look, because this is gonna take multiple posts to address.
First? Subs.
We're in hock for nuclear submarines. How much? We don't know. When will we get them? At least a decade, maybe two, after we need them. Where from and what type? The US nor UK have spare production capacity for over a decade. The US is currently 44 Virginia class subs short.
We pulled out of the modified French Shortfin Barracuda, after millions wasted. It was up to Labor to fix that disaster and pay compensation.
Had we just ordered the Nuclear version of the Barracuda, the problem could have been solved. Worst case scenario that we don't want to do the refuelling, we send them back on rotation to France, one at a time, every decade. If we actually developed our own nuclear power industry as seems likely, then they could be refuelled here, no lost travel time. Staffing numbers are almost identical to the Collins, too.
The Astute class is probably the best match for Australia. But we're probably looking at something like 2038 at a MINIMUM before we're replacing the Collins Class with them. So Collins class get another mid life update, that takes even more of them out of service indefinitely.
Then there's staffing, the Astute need over 60% more stuff than the Barracuda class, so we can afford to run far less of them as we don't have enough submariners to run them. Without more submariners than we have now we can probably operate no more than 4 of them and thus have 3 active subs at once.
The Viginia Class would be far far worse, with a crew complement of 135, or 2 1/4 times as many as the Barracuda class. Basically with Virginia class we'd be lucky to have two in the water at any given time. Not good.
@@JohnMcGillivray-u4b next, lets get onto surface vessels.
The Hunter Class purchase has been an unmitigated disaster. In 5 years, a 50% cost blowout. An expansion of ship size by 25%. A redesign of a not even yet in water
What was that quote again? "The Department of Defence has admitted that it 'did not conduct an effective limited tender process' for the design of the $45 billion Hunter class frigates." So the $30 billion, now $45 billion project has overweight vessels that are now being delayed at least 18 months, while we're retiring Anzac frigates.
The Hunter class is now attempting to be remarketed and repurposed, due to the blowout in size and cost as opposed to an anti submarine warfare frigate. Heck, it's 50% bigger than the Hobart Destroyers now. Yet with the planned VLS upgrade, it will probably be WORSE in the Anti Submarine role than the Anzac, despite being almost triple the tonnage, and thus a much larger proportion of our sea power to lose in a single combat loss.
By any standards this is a design failure by the DMO that needed to be addressed.
Now, with most of these purchases they're done across multiple terms of government, by multiple parties in fact from start to rollout.
And they're done on the reccomendations of the DMO, along with other groups that studio geopolitics and military strategy.
The world we're in post 2016 and the more belligerent China and Russia, and the expansion of drone warfare see us needing to adapt to new challenges.
High cost vehicles, whether tanks or ships, are an expensive target to lose to a cheap drone attack.
But it's very hard to pin the blame for a failure on a political party that has been in place for 2 years compared to the one that was in place for the previous decade and was actually in power when those decisions were made.
DMO needs a review and cleanout. Absoultely.
Albo is still sulking over losing the referendum.
whilst i agree in general to focus on our naval procurment, all i hope is we keep building them past the current production numbers to not only pad out our army, but to build our reserves and spare parts. as we are seeing in ukraine having any armored vehicle in storage for a rainy day is especially usefull in a protracted war.
I remember when Leopard AS1 was adopted, we were told in RAAC that Krauss Maffei had offered to build the Leopard in Australia if the buy quantity was (from memory) 150 approx. Aussie govt declined and bought about 100 or so. I remember seeing a Leopard turret at Pucka tank museum in the early 2000s which had been used as a target. A 105mmm main armament round had be fired at it, it penetrated both layers of armour with ease. We were told the Leopard was only good for resisting 25mm cannon fire. I hope this new IFV has a higher penetration resistance than the Leopard.
Either platform is a win as we desperately needed these. I think over the years we will probably purchase an extra 100 or so platforms. Governments do weird things. I thought the Lynx would have been the winner due to the turrets could have been swapped to the boxer in the field. The programable ammo as well might be an issue between boxer and the red back. Not sure on that one but all in all, we needed 450 of these 15 yrs ago and Redback, what a kick Arse name
Yeah modularity is definitely useful for armed forces nowadays. I'm surprised as well
I'd say it was a political decision as to where manufacturing was going to be located (Melb/SA vs Brissy)
Subbed for no other reason than to support a fellow Aussie.
Appreciate it dilligaff!
Speaking of subs😬
$300 billion or so...
Many more Redbacks PLEASE!!! Great informative vid, thanks!!
Who'd want to be a bucket head these days considering the state of the art shoulder fired anti armour and drone technology?
Trophy tech overides both
Exactly. It is like they have missed the FACT the MBTs are being taken apart by flying drones, and interdicted by mine-fields laid in hours by ground drones.
The term is Jar head😂
@@JoelTopsom In the Australian Army Corp of Armour they're called by other Corp's bucket heads.
Yeah, you're much better off walking everywhere. Nevermind the threat of machine guns and artillery. Both of which are still around, cheap, easy to use and hard to defeat 🥴
To all those saying the vehicle costs around $70 million each, listen up. The cost of the project is not the same as the cost of the vehicles.
A project has to deliver not just the vehicles themselves, but also the logistics behind them - the construction facilities, maintenance facilities, garaging facilities, supply of spare parts, training for both crews and maintainers etc etc. Just to look at the weapons - 30mm cannon and Spike missiles - neither of these are currently in service with the ADF and require their own logistics base as well.
Now, if the concern is that the money could be better spent on other areas - for example purchase of drones or HIMARS, then that is a valid discussion. But conflating project cost with vehicle cost is not helpful.
Well, that sort of conflating is common political shorthand used not just by media by positively and negatively by politicians and the brass whenever it suits them to make something seem less or more expensive (depending on the agenda they have when talking about costs at all).
For that investment you might as well have bought the entire 400. That’s probably enough to outfit two mechanized infantry battalions with minimal spares.
@@jamesjacobson3966 I think you are missing the point. The existing large amount of money gets 129. Getting 400 takes even more money. Yes, there is economies of scale, but it's still more.
And at the end of the day, what is the point of 400 IFVs when you can't transport them anywhere they are likely to be fighting? Use that money instead for Navy and Air Force equipment.
@@kenreckless2757 Purchasing more brings the unit price down considerably. It’s probably complacency to believe Australia is invulnerable to invasion. You have the now 2nd most populous and certainly the most ambitious nation and people in the world to the North who need Australia’s natural resources including food and raw materials to feed its people and industry. The Japanese were never capable of it during the last war admittedly even if things had gone there way, was as so much of their army was tied up garrisoning and fighting China and keeping an eye on the Russians. Even closer to home Australia has the most populous Muslim nation on earth as their neighbour. As far as I know relations are good currently but Sukarno Mk 2 is always potentially down the road. A strong RAN and RAAF are vital it’s true and would be the first line of defence along with their allies. But even the best of allies can have conflicting priorities. I gather the Australian govt of the time was livid that Britain “ the mother country” was unwilling or unable to send reinforcements and material to their child at the time of crisis as the dominoes were falling early in 42. Russia, India and the western desert not necessarily in that order were taking priority. Turning a different page of those 129 IFVs they will never all be serviceable at one time even in peacetime. The battle in Ukraine with modern weapons including man portable ATGMs and drones illustrate the value of reserve stocks as loses are massive. The Russians have their tank parks etc and the Ukrainians their western allies drawing down their own stocks alarmingly to keep them supplied.
@@jamesjacobson3966 Your points are valid, however it comes down to not having enough money to have everything. Australia is an island. Any military that tries to invade Australia faces an enormous physical and logistical challenge. And remember it is far more economical to destroy a battalion by sinking their amphib before they can land than it is to destroy them once they have landed.
So what would be more useful in defending Australia - a dozen IFVs that can travel at 80km/h and fire small munitions out to around 8km, or a couple of fighters that travel at 800km/h and can fire large warheads out to around 300km?
I would argue the latter. Australia is an island, therefore air and naval force matters far more than land forces. Honestly, I look at the Abrams and the Redback and wonder if we might have been better off with more ships and drone capability.
Should have kept the full number, but as a minimum, 2 regiments worth of 260.
400 down to 129 because we need to prop up UK sub manufacturing.
The problem with diverting all our funds to nukey subs, is that it leaves Australia with reduced capability in every situation where a sub is of little value. So low level expeditions that might serve our interests in helping to de-escalate long term strategic threats, are now going to be substantially more difficult for the Army to support.
The reduced number of vehicles will also prevent the army from properly meeting it's target of having 3 fully capable brigades on a yearly rotation.
Ever wonder what the governments plan is in the situation where they’d have to replace combat loses? 129 sounds like a tight number. I doubt these ifvs will ever see real combat though.
💯
Honestly though with the shifting technological trends light infantry with a lot of toys may be a much better option for us than heavy mech.
@@ItsRozzaMate the thing that always drives me up the wall is that we have no real means of mobilisation, no real plan to do it and when Ukraine kicked off the government failed to us it as a chance to see what our mobilisation capability was/is. Our defence industry is set up in so many stupid locations with such tiny populations that there's no fucking way to rapidly increase it and it's so spread out I can't see how they're going to keep it online in a peer to peer conflict with long range strike. Is Bennala going to get one of our hand full of AA systems? The whole lets win votes with jobs in mariginal seats has been a strategic fuck up that's beyond dumb. We aren't alone in that problem though the Germans make Iris T in a town with 20,000 people. How can you go to 24/7 manufacturing for peer to peer conflict without the work force? fucking stupid.
What’s the point of 400 overweight (40 tonnes)vehicles designed before drones were a thing that will last only days against a few drones?
The number one priority for Australia’s defence has to be the Navy, followed by Air Force and Army.
That said these are welcome additions to the Australian fighting force.
On second thoughts, Army should have higher priority than Air Force with a large long range missile attack system and a capable air defence system.
Disagree in army last, we don't have enough people in air force to warrant air superiority against any world power type country in the event of invasion, like ukraine if our air force is outmatched our ground army must be formidable, with lots of air defence capability, anti ship defence and ideally have a voluntary army made up of civilians (simillar to the SES or rural fire brigade) for the sole purpose of defending against invasion inside of our borders, we are an island surrounded by vast oceans which is why we would be very hard for another country to invade Compared to European or Asian countries which would make up for the lack of people we have but all hands would need to be on deck and with more than a couple weeks of training. We are not american we can not rely on out gunning an enemy with a larger force if it's just us fighting.
@@jordanchristie3617 It’s better to engage the enemy well before they reach our shores but I agree the Army needs a large long range missile attack system.
You are so 20th Century, do catch up!
I suggest you both research The Echidna Strategy.
Peace.
Navy? How many ships would you need to defend Australia's immense coast? There are modern mobile missile systems that the Army could use to destroy enemy vessels. Much cheaper than a boat and much easier to move and position.
@@MicMc539 Probably works on a compressed mass like Singapore but not the wide open Australian ranges.
The Redbacks are great, no question and yes MORE please. Distance and isolation make defending this country very difficult. We need to be able to quickly deploy & support significant assets, like the Redbacks to anywhere in the country very quickly. I hope they can be airlifted ?????
Great news now to keep production going so we have adequate numbers to fight including an anti drone version!
Yep, 450 vehicles spread out throughout Australia. Not just the East coast.
I served with 5/7 RAR ( MECH INF ) late 80s and early 90s and will always hold a special place for the M113 Carrier and will be a sad day to see them retired.
I worked on the M113 Upgrade, so understand your feelings
1 say the same thing about the SLR
@@bettysteve322716 Ahh yes the good old SLR. I did my training at kapooka with that beauty
who's the man with the big red nose?
@@mfactor88 the more he drink the redder it goes
Initial note: ty for the video. I supported the initial order (we can put some in storage). Aus industry obvs has capacity for future additional orders. Good move .
The redback looks like a good but the price tag looks a bit high. The numbers are too small as the loss rates that we being seeing in Ukrane/Russia would suggest that 129 would disappear very quickly in a major conflict.
Your presentation is very good.
the russia ukraine war is a specific type of combat where you have two armies with direct land connections and massive troop numbers on a line. whilst there are many lessons to be learned, a european war is widley different from a war in the pacific. not to mention america would be the main force in any war, and we would act as a supporting force
I’m pretty sure targeting systems don’t differentiate between land and sea. Armour is consistently being destroyed from long distance
the Scorpion\Scimitar history lives on in Anzac forces
Should have kept the full order. We need everything we can
Until we address the speed of drone development. How can we be sure of what we need? I think we need to know for sure that our $54m dollar IFV's actually belong in a world full of $540 drones. And for that matter, will we still be fielding infantry as we know it, in a world full of machine gun toting RC buggies?
Hi Mel, you asked if your audience would like videos on other technologies; what about Australia's Over the Horizon Radar? That would be interesting.
and the ALP cut the numbers back from an adequate amount to a minor symbolic number.
What advantage is there to building them here if we run the line for 2 years then close it down - on the numbers we bought, we could have got them way cheaper as a direct purchase from Korea. if we bought the original number we could have run the line for long enough to then use it to remanufacture and upgrade older Redbacks.
They cut back the numbers to a level that we can afford them, NOW. Once we get into production, the cost per unit will drop. The last Government spent NO money on building the infrastructure to build these. They argued to move from an established Military hardware production area, in Queensland, to suit Dutton. We would of been able to afford more of them is we had of started to build the factories that are required to manufacture these.
@@geoffscammell145 I draw your attention to the increase in social security and the $9 billion dollar budget surplus.
We could have easily afforded the full order now.
The ALP decided to leave most infantry in M113s, that whilst slightly upgraded, were procured by Army when the RAAF was flying Sabres.
The cost per unit will not drop because we haven't ordered extras and we will need to negotiate a new price if the Govt decides to order a second batch, at which time Hanwha will have us by the proverbials because we will have a logistic and training system in place and can't afford to replace all of them with a different machine, new spares, training etc.
I am sure they realised the war will evolve in the Asia pacific in other ways so procurement for other ideas has grown in that direction reducing what is needed on the ground like this
@@geoffscammell145 ahhhh....ever worked in Australian manufacturing?
Once they are in production they will increase in cost by 100% and half will be shipped "tied up with wire."
@@Rusty_Gold85 and the soldier on the ground is the one that pays in blood when that realisation that everything changes reverts to "we still need boots on the ground again".
When the M113 was procured by Aust, the RAAF were flying Sabres, if we need to increase the defence budget to not leave the Army operating the ground equivalent of a Sopwith Camel, then increase the budget.
Informative, well presented. I'm subscribed.
The question I always have is, "how will the procurement support a rapid upscaling of the size of the Australian military in the event of an active local-region conflict (e.g. China commences hostile engagements in our region)?" For example, if China's activities in the Pacific escalated into active combat to an extent that necessitated large-scale mobilisation of Australians (i.e. a draft) is the procurement able to be rapidly scaled to support a significantly larger military force? Manufacturing the IFVs in Australia is obviously a good step towards being able to upscale the number of IFVs in the ADF's inventory - but are there technologies & platforms being used, as part of the IFV, that can not be reproduced locally which would severely limit production (e.g. what would happen to production if China blockaded sea routes north of Australia)? If Australia became entangled in a protracted conflict, elsewhere in the world, could we sustain a production that would support replacement of deployed vehicles?
That won't happen for 5-10 years simply due to Chinas lacking logistical infrastructure which is the main reason they haven't even invaded Taiwan as of yet so Australia would be more than capable of obliterating any Chinese forces within the region.
Not to mention that the ADF is currently sorting out procurement and production issues of equipments because it's easy to increase and train more forces especially with our military's personals current high level of knowledge and experience but there's no reason to do so if we cannot arm and supply such numbers of forces.
Fix the logistical aspects of the situation and use the severity of the situation to gain more personal through the truth which is people fight or Australia ceases to exist.
You are clearly inept and only care to fear monger instead of understanding the reality of the situation.
Gave up the playing the ball and went straight for the man.
China has a massive achilles heal called the Malacca Strait. China will whiter away if this trade route is cut. Hence the focus away from IFV to long range strike capabilities.
Ask what would happen to the Strategic fossil fuel reserve where most of it is stored in USA limestone caves. Chinese subs could sink both supertankers bringing it back here for the plethora of oil refineries to crack the liquid gold into its useable components. Another fine decision by the lying _scotty from marketing._
Can I suggest you look at The Echidna Strategy?
It puts us in the 21st Century.
Peace.
Hopefully these vehicles will be a great success and we will realise that we need to buy more as they are so good at what they do.
54 million per vehicle sounds incredibly expensive for an IFV. This number must be wrong.
generally these costs are lifetime costs, i’m not sure of the specifics of this vehicle but normally the ADF quotes include sustainment costs
This does also include all the facilities, life time service cost and crew. It is still overpriced but not as overpriced as it appears.
The other reason for the price being so high per unit is the reduction in the number of vehicles being bought.
When you’re planning to amortise all the NRE across 450 vehicles but end up only getting an order for 129, the per unit cost skyrockets.
This number always includes the vehicle, upgrading or building facilities, trainin, and maintenance of a period of years
Unit cost is somewhere between 3-5 million USD
The Bradley has demonstrated the value in combat of a well designed IFV. Hope it finds a place in the export market. go Aussies!
As an experienced Infantryman and Armoured Corps Sergeant highlights the importance of investing in top-tier training and equipment for our forces. Given the size of our military, optimizing our resources to develop highly skilled soldiers and maintaining cutting-edge equipment is crucial. This approach not only enhances our defense capabilities but also ensures that our troops remain a formidable and resilient force on the global stage.
the redback now thats a mean machine and love the name of it you wouldnt name it any other name than this.
As is usual the Australian Government finds an awesome piece of kit and then fails to procure enough to equip the army properly. Retention of armed forces is easier when they know they are well equipped and considered an asset. The soldiers are as good as any in the world, the equipment is inadequate in numbers and types. We should have integrated air defence that is fully mobile, Artillery able to shoot and scoot and IFV with full drone compatability.
I agree. Just looking at how fast IFV's are being destroyed in Ukraine gives an idea how quickly we could burn through 120 of these in a high intensity war. Retention in the armed forces would also be improved with decent salaries. Not just a one off $50,000 payment for another 3 years. With inflation, this should be at least $50,000 a year increase in all salaries for ADF personnel. I'm not impressed with outsourcing our security to pacific islanders who are willing to join the ADF on fruit and veg picker salaries with the lure of citizenship (just like overseas students) Ahhh the ponzi schemes Aus governments run 🤣🤣🙃
Cool channel Mel. Good work man
The price tag is for vehicles, training, facilities and initial sustainment/maintenance. I would like to see at least three infantry battalion groups (infantry plus support elements) equipped with the different variants on offer. This would mean at least one Bn was always available for deployment, with one getting ready and one recovering (standard rule of threes for any military force). Labour dudded the Army big-time on reducing the order to 129.
Don't forget the lying _scotty from marketing_ cost the country *$5 Billion* over the French sub fiasco PLUS *$40+ Billion* of JobKeeper money that should never have been paid and was never recovered. If you were a Centrelink recipient and were overpaid $50 then it was off to ail for you. I haven't even considered their far cup of the NBN and the continual ballooning of their _Cheaper, Faster, Sooner_ lie that turned into the *More Expensive, Slower, Later* crap we got.
IFV's and MBT's are highly vulnerable on the battlefield, the reduction in numbers was made with this in mind. The Liberals would have you believe that these were necessary over a home grown missile defence capability and a navy. Ten years of neglect under the previous Liberal/National coalition and the reprehensible bungling of the submarines, wasted precious years, which made it impossible to protect Australian shipping lanes.
Labour made the right choice by redirecting funding to the much needed expansion of Australia's maritime forces as well as development of missiles and unmanned platforms.
@@hgf334 IFV와 MBT가 전장에서 매우 취약한 경우는 제공권을 독점하지 못해서 발생하는 문제입니다.
If IFV and MBT are very vulnerable on the battlefield, it is a problem caused by a failure to monopolize the right to provide.
장비는 잃지만 병사들은 살아남는다는 게 중요합니다.
lose equipment, but soldiers survive.
I forgot the important thing, the Australian army is famous for being elite, trying to save a valuable workforce that can't be replaced right away is very important.
Where them links to your content at bro? You said they'd be linked somewhere. Imma find em.
Should have kept the original sized order whilst increasing defence spend to purchase the K9's, Himars and the naval upgrades etc. Our Governments (both) have run defence down for far too long.
Great article thanks Mel. Looks to me that the bean counters have won here (again). The number should be at least triple!
Needs another 129 as a second order to start production after this batch is finished. The second batch should have the 40mm cannon. But the biggest need is for missile launch systems, and patriot batteries. We seem to be lagging in the missile platform department, and in drones.
That is the intention. We will build some models for OS, clients. They will test systems for US, so our second purchase of these will be the new upgraded ones.
@@tigerpjm These things are not an either/or. We need the missiles AND the full 400+ Redbacks. Defense budget needs to grow to build the needed forces, not shrink the forces to meet an out of date level of defense spending. Poland has gone to 3½ % of GDP. The urgency of the threats demands that we do something similar. Like, yesterday. Russia and China are throwing money at their forces and sooner or later (probably sooner) they are going to launch very aggressive actions. We are currently sleep-walking into great dangers and a rapidly changing world.
Just discovered you...liking it! I'm a Yankee who has been in NZ for 8yrs. Obviously, NZ isn't...."important"...on a geopolitical scale. Aussie is the local gravity well and so I'm trying to pivot from Northern Hemisphere stuff to local stuff--and that means people like you! Aussie is key, Aussie is King.
Ukraine showed that tanks and IFVs are seriously vulnerable to cheap drones.
It showed everything is vulnerable to cheap drones, just like every other war someone makes a new great weapon and the other side tries and finds a way to defeat it
Drone warfare is the future
I would like to see your ideas on the new nuclear submarines
Unless it can shoot a drone outta the sky it’s outdated
Not necessarily there are other ways of protecting vehicles
Absolutely agreed... this entire generation of fighting tanks and vehicles are now outdated unless they can solve the drone problem. And drones will get more advanced and cheaper every year.
Every country under threat from western countries will be mass producing them. We're in a different age now.
Absolutely agree, we're in a new era now. Vehicles like this are almost redundant. Expect the drone threat to multiply in every way in coming years.
15-20yrs ago 'experts' were already saying tanks are outdated. EU were wanting to go for very fast vehicles with high powered weaponry, active/ counter defence...
guess they just stuck to what worked. Russia and China were 'friendly' back then so...
@mnm8818 The funny thing is that these days, with tanks so easy to find and destroy, the cheapest mass produced tanks and armoured vehicles are now the most practical and effective. They have all just become disposable troop transports in a drone war.
I worked on some of the cooling systems for the redback, they super effective , more effective than some of the systems we did for race cars
The DSR concluded that keeping the enemy at "arms length" (force projection) is the better option than fighting within Australian territory, hence the purchase for long range missiles and rocket systems - IFV, Tanks, ARV & SPH don't have these capabilities and can only fight in close quarters (relatively speaking), hence the reduction in numbers. IF Australia was to project some elements of ground forces in combat operations overseas, our RAN can only 'ferry' a few of these vehicles at any given time on either the LHD's or Heavy Landing Ships, leaving the rest in Australia for our own security needs. The Australian Government needs to be fiscally responsible for defense spending to keep within it's 2-2.5% GDP limits and unfortunately, if the government is going to spend A$350B on submarines over the next decade or so, something had to be sacrificed and it just had to be those armored vehicles.
Definitely would love to see numbers increased and because we are building them here there perhaps is scope to build more as we go forward. Would love to see a domestically designed and built MBT.
Don't think we'll see the indigenous "Sentinel II" MBT, which is a pity, but when you look at the clusterf***k the Arjun project turned into, we can't afford that. The ability to build, even at low production rate, a licensed version of say the M1A2SLEP, with add ons for passive & active missile/drone defence , or the new RoK MBT, would however be a strategic asset, in the way that when we used to have automobile manufacturing on-shore, that was a strategic asset.
Should have been the lynx selected in all honesty
1. Rubber tracks on the red back require the whole vehicle to be lifted and the entire track to be changed, the lynx on the other hand can have the damaged linkage replaced by the crew and fit for service again in a lot smaller time frame.
2. The factory for lynx is already established in Brisbane qld, which would have lowered the cost per unit
3. Lynx shares commonality with the 210 boxers also entering service
4. Hannah facility being built in Geelong, Richard Marles home electorate (questions should be raised here)
Related tangents, the only reason this was selected is because the huntsman was selected for mobile fires, also produced by Hannah. PZH2000 should have been selected in its place, building it in Geelong and giving Australia the foundation to produce leopard tanks and possibly KF51 panthers in the future. The decision to purchase Korean is a strange one and should be looked into seriously.
This is one instance where the soldiers using the Redback were actually listened to... I spoke personally to the crews of the 3 prototypes after testing at Cultana. They loved the Redback and found the usability of the vehicle and its systems to be far superior than the Lynx. The comfort was an added bonus. They found the Lynx to be 'Meh'...(their words).
Obviously Lynx didn't slip the right person a big enough brown paper bag.
@@josephking6515 Rheinmetall certainly have the $$ to do just that...but didn't. Hanhwa also got the SP Howitzer contract. Maybe their equipment is just 'better bang for the buck'....
I believe another factor is that the Lynx is an off the shelf version of the PUMA made for the export market, whereas the Redback was alot more heavily tailored for Australian conditions, did slightly better in the near explosion section of the testing. Also the ride and comfort of the redback as already stated, I also believe the turret on the redback is Australian designed but I may be wrong there....
The people who will need to trust their lives to them wanted the Redback, for once they got their way. The Huntsman is a superb unit and (IMO) was the correct choice.
The slinger anti drone system.
Being made in Poland already. The technology being used makes them exceptional. Yes, we need more than 129 but our stingy Govt thought otherwise. They would sooner give more money to their union mates rather than defend Australia!
Seriously, I don't think a tin box on tracks should cost over $50m each. They'd last a couple of days on the Ukrainian front.
As an old Assault Pioneer, and with 43mths boots on the ground in the MEAO and Africa, I can already see easy ways to defeat this vehicle. I am constantly amazed by the lack of forethought and the total ignorance of the lessons learnt in 20+years in the MEAO. This is the power of kickbacks made manifest.
At this stage who and what are we defending ? and who are we defining against ?
Drones are gonna nail these.
Possibly
1st time I’ve seen your videos, good stuff mate .. I like the content
$ 7 b worth of drone bait ?
WOW that was well presented . Subed,Liked,Commented,Belled . Well done Mate nice work.
If Labor get elected again they'll drop the order to 60, they need the money for more "grants" to the unions.
I wouldn't mind hearing how the Australian Army intends to engage the Kamikaze drones that are playing havoc in Ukraine? Or does it involve a guy dismounting with a shoulder fired weapon?
More specifically;
a) Will SHORAD be an integral part of all fighting formations, a resource deployed at the divisional level, or will it be organically integrated throughout all fighting vehicles?
b) Are electronic countermeasures being installed on front-line vehicles?
c) Is the roof armor designed to defend against aerial threats?
d) Are active protective systems being installed to defeat aerial threats in addition to the more conventional ATGM?
e) How are drones identified, and does the radar being used paint an electronic target on the vehicle that could be exploited?
Also
f) for the Red-back in particular, wouldn't a few stinger missiles be a better option to the spike missiles planned?
I think this is the correct vehicle for Oz, I love the fact that it is being produced here. Maybe by 2027 we will be able to keep the factory in low rate production, working up to the 450 vehicles at say 50/year. It will be easier to increase the rate of production if needed if we have some staff trained already rather than starting from nothing (note I said easier, not easy).
I also think we should change all the 25 mm bushmasters over to the 30 mm (including the remote stations on the navy ships) so that we can just produce the 30 mm rounds here. These have air burst at set range should give the navy ships better protection against slow moving drone swarms.
The reality is no country has the ability to land invade Australia long term or even middle term . These vehicles may end up being used against Aussie's who don't agree!!!
Yep digital id is coming vote labor out
America for 1 could quite easily
@@drewbateson2873wouldn't happen Australia and the US are like this 🤞 plus alot of Americas military equipment is here already
Lol bro, if the gov wanted something to police the populace. This wouldn't be it. They could get more bang for the buck with bushmasters and hawkai or even the 500 m113s they have. These are designed for real combat.
Don’t know much hay, you all watch too many movies.
This looks like a good military vehicle, nothing 20th century about this ✌️❤️🇬🇧
But alot of the technology is 21st century tho
Can I suggest you look at The Echidna Strategy?
It puts us in the 21st Century.
Peace.
Considering the size of the Redback IFV, i'm not sure what it intends to engage if it intends to take on larger prey like its namesake. Godzilla?
Great video, I really like the defence-relatated topic.
I bet the the Black Berets and the Cavalrymen are gonna love operating these new Redbacks with the grunts in the back😂
So, can it transport a standard 8 man infantry section?
On the tab data it’s states 3 crew plus 6 dismounts.
What do you do with the other 2 section members???
it carries 11 in total. 3 crew 8 dismounts
the standard infantry section is 8 now
We will eventually require the 400 IFV's, however it is great to see Australia start to build its own defence equipment.
You are spot on - it's about time we got serious about building our own equipment and becoming less reliant on other countries.
If they are being built here, we can always build more here. After the first 50 or so are built, any improvements and upgrades can easily be built into a second tranche. As long as the production line operates, we can always tack more onto the end of the line if needed.
Great overview! I still question the decision to go with Redback over Lynx - that rubber track design is… problematic.
Its not actually rubber. its better than wheels and unlike steel tracks it can be quickly replaced on the go
3.6m wide and 3.8m high... is it suitable rail transport especially on Queensland's narrow guage lines? Or will these need to be moved long distance by trucks?
Just found this channel. Thank you youtube algorithm. Subbed.
Thanks Irish!
@@melpikos8533 You're welcome mate, and thanks to you. Wouldn't mind some other vids of this type tbh.
Brilliant masters in engineering stealthy defence's very strong defence against terrisom stronger protecting people in Australia made in Australia 😮😊😮😊😅😅😮😊
Also can you do an video on the K9 and 10 Huntsman and why they halved the number of them as well, especially in light of tge artillery duels in Ukraine.
Hey Mel, love your videos. Can you talk about the sunshine coast rail link and your thoughts on what they should do with it?
Great topic idea, Matt! That one has been on the board awhile, I just keep delaying it 🤣
So I wonder how much of a kick back Richard Marles got from Hanwa as these are being made in his electorate, get the picture!.
Nope, got more. Love the video.
I’m 52 years old and I want join the army! (When we have more of these.
The future is distributed forces. The US Marines for example are training to use ATVs and motorcycles and trucks. They can move fast with small logistics support and use machine guns and anti tank rockets. Much cheaper and harder to stop.
ATVs and motorcycles and trucks aren't they working out great for #russiaTerroristState military in Ukraine.
It's meant to be as well, not instead of. The US Marines have the benefit of the US Army still able to fight sustained close quarter battle. Australia just has the army. Following the Marine corp is a financial and political decision, not a military one, making do with broken procurement, recruitment, and retention issues. IMHO.
don’t confuse Russia using those tactics with shitty air support bs the USA using those tactics in combination with the most powerful air forces in the world.
Looks like a decent vehicle with nice features, but here too it appears: Penny wise, pound foolish. If you have the concept of armoured infantry operations within your Armed Forces doctrine, all possibly involved units should be equipped with uniform kit and means, including vehicles. On the modern battlefield, an IFV is a force-multiplier (as seen in Ukraine) that will directly translate into improved objective attainment and crew/unit survivability.
In a quick off the cuff calculation, 129 vehicles will equip 9 Companies and spare change of the remainder for training. No reserve. No backup. Once it's gone it's gone. Lunacy and premtively snatching defeat from the maw of Victory!
If Australians are willing and able to serve in Defence capabilities, then Australia should honour them and make the best means available to allow them to do so and survive the effort. C'mon Australia, don't be such a tight-arse and cough up the full complement of 400 Red-Backs.
Remember: Wanting front-row seats for a dime will likely get you ones worth a dime.
interesting that the production line is only active until 2027/28... I know the key is maintenance in the future... but tht will reduce the workforce needs.
great piece of kit!
Wish we had gone for the lynx but get the requirement to diversify the fabrication locations of the boxxer and redback. Either way, we should have kep the original 400 number... considering how quickly we will be able to get them as opposed to our navy additions.
Are these well equipped to defend against drone warfare?
How can they cost $7billiom that’s like $40 million a vehicle? That’s way too expensive by a huge factor
42 tons is starting to get into the main battle tank weights that's going to put some constraints on mobility
I will never understand how we chose the redback when the Lynx had parts commonality with the boxer. I feel like that is a choice we'll come to regret.
Definitely a winner but larger batches required to also equip our Reserve Force which will be critical in a unforeseeable conflict! 🤔👍💥
It’s great that is comes with the Iron Fist active protection. Ukraine has shown IFV’s and armour more generally has very low survivability.
Ukraine has also shown us that 129 vehicles could be lost in a few months of conflict.
We should have purchased the original 450, even if many of them were kept in reserve.
If Australia is drawn into a large scale, high intensity conflict, it will be too late to then seek to increase our capacity of such equipment
QUOTE-- ''If Australia is drawn into a large scale, high intensity conflict'' ''
Can I suggest you look at The Echidna Strategy?
It puts us in the 21st Century.
Peace.
The Iron Fist active protection is welcome but it should be developed to defend against top down attacks like drones also.
Yep Peter, we knew this 40 years ago.
It’s deliberate that we are left without good weapons.
Enjoyed your vid. Just one thing that was a tad off - MK is usually pronounced 'mark' in this context.
I still wonder if they made the right choice over the lynx. The lynx represents the new design concept being adopted across the set while the redbacks is more the previous design. Would have also been good to have more cross over in parts and supply lines between the lynx and the boxer. As for price on the redbacks they will come down if more people order them and there is always options for us to order more once this order has been filled or even before.
Seems like a smart decision to purchase a great weapon system. Hope it works out well!
Future frigate program would be interesting
Does the Jindalee Operational Radar Network still exist and if so, is it any good?
I was greatly disappointed to see the original order drawn down to just 129. We should not be just looking at what we can equip the people who want to join the Army today with but what we will be able to give soldiers if and when we mobilise and the Army's personnel strength increases rapidly. We will need the equipment in place and ready for them. It is okay to fill our pockets with what is required now, but the avenues should be left open for rapid procurement of additional vehicles as we (if we) have to mobilise on a war/operational footing. We must be able to equip Reserve Units (in supporting combat roles with the regular units that will be moved into theatres of operations - we can't leave the reserves without the means to fight what will be largely a mobile and semi-mobile land theatre operation. In an integrated Army we need all units to be identically equipped. We cannot afford to be begging Peter to pay Paul like we have had to do in the past, where we would have to borrow equipment from one unit to equip another. We need to watch how we spend but we shouldn't set the stage for losing a fight before it begins. And how will maintenance play out in a war scenario? Will we have a third of the vehicles in training, a third in maintenance and a third on operations? How do we cover losses? Will we have sufficient vehicles in reserve?
Great stuff Mel. Any chance of review on how Australian manufactured technology is performing in Ukraine?
@Talking Tactics with Mel Pikos
Next video please: BV10 Goanna!! Hi mate. This was 10 years ago but the Goanna articulated amphibious vehicle was talked about and possibly tested? By the ADF. (video below.) I’d really enjoy a video on this bad boy if you’re keen. Looks sick in AusCam. Love your videos, keep up the great content! 🧐
BvS10 "Goanna" amphibious vehicle - TH-cam
Subscribed and liked. If you can do a video on the drone killer from Drone Sheild, that would be awesome. As for the Redback, I reckon we should have the full 450, 130 first then 320 over 5 to 10 years with consistent upgrades. They also require drone protection as the war in Ukraine indicates. This would sustain jobs and skills for the future as well as have plenty of toys for our AIF.
Seems pretty light on numbers. They should be complemented by a brigade of six cylinder VN Commodores that go into combat and do burnouts, while playing ACDC and throwing empty tinnies at the enemy. The smoke and commotion will hide the Redbacks advance and surprise the enemy - even more then the Commodores did.
Australia is in a unique position to become the worlds first self-sustaining country. We shouldn't be outsourcing or holding back on any industrial productions. Especially nuclear. We should be working on microprocessor production & investing in our drone technology. The vehicles of the past wouldn't be useless; they'd become bulk drone launching platforms far from the front line.
Ships are more vulnerable than ever before. All navy ships need the trinity of drone protection, air, surface, and submarine drones to have an effective protection field. Australia needs guaranteed oceanic territorial defense. The best way to do it is to sink threats before they arrive, which would require the ability to strike a ship at least 1,000Km's offshore in any direction. Complete that task & Australia will become impossible to invade. That should be our #1 priority.
I remember going to to bendigo ADI and selling then aircraft grade alloys and metals, had to do a presentation in front of all the main engineers back in 1998/99. Also aerosonde was the first AU company to make drone tech available worldwide, stared off for weather ops and then realised the tech can be used in larger remote planes to gather intel with hi end optics and also carry small but hi end missiles as well. In fact used to sell all the specialised aircraft alloys to them in 199/98
Some of the best stuff is made right here in Australia. 🦘🦘👍👌✌