BAE Systems Australia Lands $32M Contract to Keep Royal Australian Navy Mk 45 Guns Combat-Ready.

BAE Systems Australia will keep the Royal Australian Navy’s Mk 45 naval guns combat-ready under a five-year, A$32 million contract announced by the company on 17 September 2026, covering weapons aboard Hobart-class destroyers and Anzac-class frigates. The agreement protects a versatile source of surface firepower and naval gunfire support while reducing pressure on finite stocks of high-value missiles during sustained operations.

The contract covers maintenance and refurbishment of the 127 mm Mk 45, including work tied to Hobart-class upgrades and specialist support at BAE Systems Australia’s Henderson facility in Western Australia. Maintaining that capability on Australian soil strengthens fleet availability and sovereign sustainment while preserving expertise that will also support the Mk 45 guns planned for the future Hunter-class frigates.

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BAE Systems Australia has secured a five-year, A$32 million contract to sustain and refurbish the Royal Australian Navy’s Mk 45 naval guns across its Hobart-class destroyers and Anzac-class frigates (Picture Source: BAE Systems Australia)

On 17 September 2026, BAE Systems Australia announced it had been awarded a five-year, A$32 million contract to continue sustaining the Royal Australian Navy’s Mk 45 naval gun systems. The agreement covers weapons fitted to Australia’s Hobart-class destroyers and Anzac-class frigates, preserving a frontline capability shared across the Navy’s principal surface combatants. At a time when Australia is strengthening maritime readiness, sovereign sustainment and its capacity to operate across an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific, keeping these guns combat-ready carries significance beyond routine maintenance. According to BAE Systems Australia, the Commonwealth-awarded contract will provide preventative, corrective and priority maintenance for every Mk 45 operated by the RAN.

The A$32 million award extends a sustainment relationship built around one of the Royal Australian Navy’s most established and versatile naval weapons. BAE Systems Australia will provide the maintenance required to keep the Mk 45 systems operational while also undertaking substantial refurbishment as individual weapons move through fleet upgrade cycles. This matters because naval readiness is determined not only by acquiring advanced missiles, sensors and combat systems, but by ensuring proven weapons remain reliable through years of demanding deployments. The Mk 45 is a 5-inch, or 127 mm, naval artillery system designed for surface engagements and naval gunfire support, with the RAN having operated the weapon for decades. Its enduring value comes from combining substantial conventional firepower with a reusable gun system that can address missions for which expending a sophisticated long-range missile would neither be necessary nor proportionate.

For the Hobart-class destroyers, the Mk 45 forms one element of a far broader layered combat capability. The Royal Australian Navy’s Hobart class operates the 5-inch, 62-calibre Mark 45 alongside a 48-cell Mk 41 Vertical Launch System, advanced missiles, torpedoes, close-in defensive weapons and the Aegis combat system. The gun complements rather than competes with the destroyers’ increasingly sophisticated missile arsenal: long-range weapons deliver strategic reach, while the Mk 45 provides commanders with responsive conventional firepower across surface-warfare and supporting missions. This combination becomes particularly relevant during sustained maritime operations, when a warship may have to manage threats and engagements across very different ranges and levels of intensity while preserving its finite inventory of high-value missiles.

BAE Systems Australia will also refurbish Mk 45 guns aboard the Hobart-class destroyers as the ships progress through their Destroyer Capability Enhancement program, with HMAS Hobart’s gun already undergoing refurbishment at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia. The wider destroyer enhancement effort is intended to preserve the relevance and lethality of Australia’s three Tier 1 surface combatants through upgrades including a modernised Aegis Weapon System, electronic-warfare improvements and enhanced maritime strike, air and missile-defence capabilities. Sustaining and refurbishing the Mk 45 alongside these upgrades illustrates an important aspect of naval modernisation: advanced long-range strike does not eliminate the requirement for dependable naval artillery. Instead, the upgraded destroyers will combine new-generation sensors and missiles with a proven gun capability that remains available across a much broader spectrum of maritime operations.

The Anzac-class frigates give the contract an equally important operational dimension. These ships remain the longest-serving surface combatants in Australia’s current fleet and were described by Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mark Hammond in March 2026 as the “backbone” of the Navy as Australia transitions toward a larger and more lethal surface force. Their 5-inch/54-calibre Mk 45 guns continue to deliver relevant surface firepower during contemporary regional deployments. That role was demonstrated in May 2026 when HMAS Toowoomba, operating in the South China Sea with Canadian frigate HMCS Charlottetown, employed its Mk 45 during coordinated high-seas firing exercises against a maritime target. The activity provides a recent example of why continued sustainment matters: the Mk 45 is not simply a legacy weapon retained aboard ageing frigates, but an actively exercised capability supporting Australian readiness, multinational interoperability and persistent regional naval presence.

Perhaps the most strategically significant part of the agreement is found ashore. Sustainment will be performed by a specialist BAE Systems Australia team at the company’s dedicated Mk 45 workshop in Henderson, Western Australia, where personnel have supported the naval gun since the Anzac-class frigates entered service in the 1990s. BAE Systems Australia states that the Henderson facility is one of only two sites in the world capable of both refurbishing Mk 45 guns and replacing bespoke components. That distinction gives Australia access to an unusually specialised capability on sovereign soil and reduces dependence on distant overseas maintenance pathways for a weapon central to its surface fleet. Just as importantly, the expertise has relevance beyond the Anzac era: the Mk 45 will also equip Australia’s future Hunter-class frigates, allowing skills sustained today to support the next generation of Australian major surface combatants.

That sovereign capacity acquires even greater importance when viewed against Indo-Pacific geostrategic developments. Australia’s 2026 National Defence Strategy places greater self-reliance, prioritised sustainment and a resilient sovereign defence industrial base at the centre of preparations for a more contested and uncertain strategic environment. It also identifies protecting Australia’s economic connections with the region and contributing to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific among the ADF’s core tasks.

Naval power in such an environment depends not simply on how many ships and weapons can be acquired, but on whether Australia can keep them available during prolonged deployments or periods when international supply chains may face disruption. The A$32 million Mk 45 contract has significance beyond its headline value: it supports the readiness of two frontline combatant classes, contributes to the Hobart modernisation effort and protects specialist Australian industrial knowledge that can be carried into the Hunter-class era. BAE Systems Australia’s role is consequently not only one of maintaining equipment, but of preserving an Australian-based capability that directly supports the resilience and endurance of national maritime power.

BAE Systems Australia’s latest Mk 45 contract reinforces a principle increasingly central to Australian maritime power: a capable fleet must also be a sustainable fleet. By maintaining the guns aboard the Hobart destroyers and Anzac frigates, refurbishing systems during major destroyer upgrades and preserving rare technical expertise at Henderson, BAE Systems Australia is helping ensure Royal Australian Navy surface combatants can deploy with dependable firepower when Australia requires them. As Canberra develops a larger and more lethal fleet to protect national interests and contribute to Indo-Pacific security, sovereign sustainment capabilities will become increasingly important to the credibility of that force. The Mk 45 may be a long-established weapon, but the Australian expertise supporting it, and BAE Systems Australia’s continuing role in preserving that expertise, connects today’s fleet readiness directly with the maritime combat power Australia is building for the decades ahead.

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Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.