Australia — Government and Defence industry work together on soldier protection

Min­is­ter for Defence Stephen Smith and Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today announced the Gov­ern­ment would con­tribute more than $9 mil­lion toward research for the pro­tec­tion of sol­diers of the Aus­tralian Defence Force. 

Along with the Gov­ern­ment con­tri­bu­tion, indus­try will pro­vide around $11 mil­lion in fund­ing and in-kind contributions. 

The project is a part­ner­ship between the Gov­ern­ment, Defence indus­try and promi­nent research organisations. 

The project aims to improve the pro­tec­tive equip­ment that sol­diers wear to com­bat a range of exist­ing and evolv­ing threats, includ­ing Impro­vised Explo­sive Devices (IEDs).

It will devel­op, test and eval­u­ate pro­to­types of new equip­ment in order to: 

  • improve bal­lis­tic, blast and flash protection; 
  • improve head, face and eye protection; 
  • decrease weight and bulk of pro­tec­tive systems; 
  • reduce blunt trau­ma that can occur behind armour; 
  • reduce the risk of a sol­dier being detect­ed; and 
  • improve pro­tec­tion from fire, chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal and radi­o­log­i­cal threats. 

The Defence Mate­ri­als Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre (DMTC) will lead the team with sup­port from research organ­i­sa­tions like the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wol­lon­gong and RMIT. DMTC was estab­lished in 2008 to devel­op cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy to improve Defence equipment. 

Con­firmed and like­ly indus­try part­ners include Aus­tralian Defence Appar­el, Bal­lis­tic and Mechan­i­cal Test­ing, Bruck Tex­tiles, Tec­ton­i­ca, Pacif­ic Engi­neer­ing Sys­tems Inter­na­tion­al and the Vic­to­ri­an Cen­tre for Advanced Mate­ri­als Man­u­fac­tur­ing. Sev­er­al oth­er com­pa­nies have also expressed inter­est in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the program. 

The research team will also work with the Army’s spe­cial­ist team of sol­diers who have recent­ly returned from Afghanistan, known as Diggerworks. 

This addi­tion­al invest­ment comes on top of the $1.6 bil­lion the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment has invest­ed in enhanced force pro­tec­tion mea­sures, including: 

  • The new TBAS lighter com­bat body armour; 
  • Heav­ier cal­i­bre weapons and extra pro­tec­tive armour on the Bush­mas­ter pro­tect­ed mobil­i­ty vehicles; 
  • Attach­ing mine rollers to the front of Bush­mas­ter to roll ahead of the vehi­cle to take the impact of an IED explosion; 
  • The deliv­ery of the Counter Rock­et Artillery and Mor­tar ear­ly sense and warn sys­tem; and 
  • New hand­held mine detectors. 

“Threats faced by our sol­diers are always chang­ing and the equip­ment they use has to keep evolv­ing to meet these new threats,” Mr Clare said. 

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

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →