Australian Munitions will be displaying its extensive product range at the Land Warfare Conference exhibition in Melbourne next week.
The Thales-owned business is dedicated to providing a wide range of munitions that deliver a battlefield advantage to Australia’s warfighters, while delivering better access to capabilities, increased flexibility, and greater cost-effectiveness to the Department of Defence.
Australian Munitions’ range of products, when fielded with its strategic partners, encompasses the majority of the Australian Defence Force’s non-guided munitions product requirements from small, medium and large calibre ammunition through to aircraft bombs, demolition stores and pyrotechnics.
Chris Jenkins, Thales Australia and New Zealand CEO, said: "Together with our world-class partners, we are adding significant depth to Australia's domestic munitions production capability. Collectively we provide extensive global reach to access the widest range of technologies, and real market scale.
"Our aim is to lower the cost of Australia’s explosive ordnance capability, while continuing to deliver world-leading safety performance in Australia’s strategically critical ordnance sites – Benalla in Victoria and Mulwala in New South Wales, which together provide employment for more than 700 people. Our expertise running these sites is unique and unrivalled.
Kevin Wall, Australian Munitions’ Executive General Manager, said: "We are also continuing to build our business in both defence and non-defence markets, pursuing investment opportunities and streamlining our operations. Our most recent investment has been to establish production of 7.62mm F4 ammunition. This was discontinued by Defence in the 1990s, but with recent operational experience and the use of weapons requiring this calibre, the company has introduced this capability for our customers."
Australian Munitions has strategic partnerships with US-based General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, Norway-based Nammo and Winchester Australia. Thales’s global network of explosive ordnance expertise includes Thales Advanced Weapon Systems, Thales Missile Electronics, Junghans Microtec, TDA Armements and Forges de Zeebrugge (FZ).