Australia Strengthens Boxer CRV, Redback IFV and AS9 Artillery for Indo-Pacific Combat Readiness.

Australia has made the sustainment and upgrade of its combined-arms land force a core defence industrial priority, linking Army modernisation in the 2026 Defence Industry Development Strategy to the ability to keep combat vehicles operational at home. The move matters because it strengthens Australia’s capacity to maintain armoured, protected mobility, infantry fighting and artillery systems during competition, crisis or conflict.

The priority covers land forces built for littoral manoeuvre and connected to long-range land and maritime strike, with platforms such as Boxer, Bushmaster, Hawkei, AS9 Huntsman and Redback identified in the wider industrial framework. Its main operational value is resilience, ensuring Australia can repair, overhaul and upgrade key land systems without relying on vulnerable overseas supply chains.

Related topic: NATO Plans First European PAC-3 Missile Maintenance Site to Boost Patriot Air Defense Readiness.

Australia is prioritizing domestic sustainment and upgrade capacity for combined-arms land systems, including Boxer, Redback, AS9 Huntsman, Bushmaster and Hawkei, to support littoral manoeuvre, long-range strike, readiness and industrial resilience between 2026 and 2030 (Picture source: Australian MoD).

The operational logic is based on geography. Australia’s Army is being shaped for operations across the northern approaches, archipelagic terrain and the wider Indo-Pacific littoral, where land forces may need to secure ports, airfields, straits, logistics nodes and coastal firing positions rather than conduct large continental armoured offensives. In that setting, a combined-arms force must move protected troops, conduct reconnaissance, deliver direct fire, provide mobile artillery, protect command nodes, and contribute targeting data to joint strike networks. This explains why Canberra links land manoeuvre with long-range land and maritime strike: ground forces become part of a denial structure that complicates an adversary’s movement at sea, in the air and ashore.

The Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle is central to the reconnaissance and direct-fire layer. Rheinmetall Defence Australia is contracted to deliver and support 211 Boxer CRVs for the Australian Army, and the vehicle is designed for environments ranging from the littoral region to contested urban terrain. The armament is significant because the Lance turret combines a 30mm MK30-2/ABM automatic cannon, secondary weapons, and anti-tank capability. Rheinmetall lists an effective range of up to 3,000 meters for the 30mm gun and up to 5,500 meters for anti-armor engagements, with stabilized sights and digital fire control that allow accurate fire while moving.

The German Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier export case shows how Canberra is using production scale to support readiness. Under the April 2024 contract, more than 100 Australian-made Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles are to be built at Rheinmetall’s Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence in Redbank, Queensland, for the German Army, with the contract worth more than $1 billion to the Australian economy and supporting 600 direct jobs in Queensland. For Australia, the military value is indirect but concrete: production for Germany keeps welders, turret integration specialists, electronics technicians, quality-control staff, and suppliers active between domestic demand cycles, which reduces the risk that specialist skills disappear before the next Australian requirement.

Redback gives the Army a tracked infantry fighting vehicle for close combat, replacing legacy M113AS4 armored personnel carriers with a better-protected and more heavily armed infantry carrier. Hanwha Defence Australia is contracted to deliver and support 129 locally built Redback infantry fighting vehicles, with the project valued at about $7 billion and acquisition plus initial support contracts worth about $4.5 billion. Redback’s main armament is the Mk44S Bushmaster II 30mm cannon firing 30x173mm ammunition, including advanced rounds such as proximity-fuzed munitions. In tactical terms, this gives mounted infantry suppressive fire against dismounted troops, light armored vehicles, fortified positions and drones operating at low altitude, while anti-armor missiles extend the vehicle’s reach against heavier threats.

The AS9 Huntsman addresses a different problem: how to deliver artillery fire without leaving gun crews exposed to counter-battery attack. Hanwha Defence Australia was selected under LAND 8116 Phase 1 to deliver 30 AS9 Huntsman 155mm self-propelled howitzers and 15 AS10 armoured ammunition resupply vehicles. The AS9 uses a 155mm/52-calibre gun system, and Australian Army reporting has noted a three-round burst in 15 seconds and a sustained rate of six to eight rounds per minute until empty. This matters for littoral manoeuvre because artillery units may need to fire from dispersed positions, displace quickly and keep supporting forces operating around ports, landing zones and coastal corridors.

Protected mobility fills the space between heavy combat vehicles and logistics trucks. The Bushmaster PMV-M can rapidly deploy up to ten battle-ready troops, is blast-resistant, and has a flexible cabin layout for multiple roles. Hawkei provides the lighter protected mobility element, with earlier Army reporting noting procurement of 1,100 vehicles and 1,058 trailers, including two-door and four-door variants. These vehicles are less about defeating enemy armor and more about moving command teams, reconnaissance elements, anti-armor teams, communications detachments, and small units across dispersed operating areas with protection against mines, fragments, and small-arms fire.

The less visible technical layer is positioning, navigation, and timing. Advanced Navigation announced in December 2024 that it would provide additional fibre-optic gyroscope inertial navigation systems to Rheinmetall Defence Australia for Boxer CRVs associated with the German export program, following an earlier supply of more than 200 FOG INS units for Australian Army Boxer CRVs under LAND 400 Phase 2. In practical terms, this supports movement and targeting when satellite navigation is degraded by jamming, spoofing, or terrain masking. For a dispersed force expected to operate near coastlines, islands, and electronic-warfare threats, assured navigation is not an accessory; it affects route planning, fire missions, casualty evacuation, and coordination with naval and air assets.

The industrial numbers explain why the land-system priority is being treated as a national policy issue rather than only an Army equipment matter. The strategy reports that the defence industry contributed $12.05 billion in gross value added to the Australian economy in 2024–25, up 18.1 percent since 2021–22, while defence manufacturing grew 34.9 percent over the same period. It also states that $22.5 billion of Defence acquisition and sustainment expenditure was spent in Australia in 2024–25, including $9.2 billion for acquisition and $13.3 billion for sustainment. The conclusion is straightforward: Australia is trying to keep combat mass, repair capacity and export credibility aligned before a crisis, because in a contested Indo-Pacific supply environment, readiness will depend as much on industrial depth as on the number of vehicles held in units.

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Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.