Pacific Defence to upgrade Australian Army Bushmasters

Date: 31.08.2022

The US-based military technology company has been awarded a contract to deliver new systems for the Australian Army, to be fitted to the iconic Bushmaster vehicles.

Pacific Defence will be delivering Electronic Warfare systems for the Bushmaster armoured vehicle.

Pacific Defence announced today that it has signed a definitive contract with Raytheon Australia to deliver force-level Electronic Warfare (EW) systems for Australia’s LAND 555 Phase 6 program. Pacific Defence says it is a leading open systems integrator delivering Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) products and mission solutions.

Pacific Defence says their chassis-based EW systems will include an array of plug-in cards and mission software, including wideband Software Defined Radios (SDR) and EW application software, enabling electronic support for signal detection and electronic attack jamming techniques.

The new EW systems will be fitted to Australian Army’s Bushmaster vehicles and will be interoperable with EW systems acquired by the Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Australian Navy, and other members of the Five Eyes community including the US Army.

The Bushmaster is a protected mobility vehicle, which the Australian Army says it can carry up to ten troops and deploying them into dangerous environments. Other features of the armoured vehicle include run flat tyre inserts in all tyres and a central tyre inflation system, explosive device protection, an operational range of up to 800km and a top speed of over 100km/ph.

The Bushmaster vehicles are built locally by Thales Manufacturing in Bendigo, Victoria.

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Pacific Defence says their EW systems are fully aligned with C5ISR Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) and The Open Group’s Sensor Open Systems Architecture™ (SOSA) technical standards, the same standards employed by the US DoD on several programs of record.

“Our company is at the forefront of advanced multi-function radio frequency (MFRF) mission solutions fully aligned with CMOSS and SOSA technical standards,” said Frank Pietryka, VP at Pacific Defence.

“Our industry leading focus on CMOSS mission system integration, along with modular plug-in card and software development, has positioned us to deliver on the Land555 mission requirement.”

Pacific Defence says systems built to the CMOSS and SOSA standards are designed for rapid refresh of hardware and software through open standards and interfaces and will foster interoperability between coalition systems from the US and Australia.

Pacific Defence says their winning of the award with Raytheon Australia is the culmination of a multi-year effort to mature CMOSS and SOSA mission solutions for US DoD customers and prime contractors.

Pacific Defence says their systems are designed with a “common core” product base enabling significant reuse and rapid adaptation to a range of customers and mission needs in all domains.