Australia’s Defence Force has test-fired a locally assembled missile critical for our army and allies around the world.
7NEWS can reveal exclusive video of the launch at a secretive site in South Australia, marking a significant milestone in Australian defence manufacturing.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Australia test-fires first locally assembled missiles in over 50 years
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Officials from American weapons giant Lockheed Martin watched as 12 Australian-assembled versions of their GMLRS surface-to-surface missiles rocketed across the South Australian desert. The missiles are designed to pinpoint enemy targets up to 150km away.
The weapons were put together at a four-month-old Defence and Lockheed Martin facility outside Adelaide. It’s only the second factory in the world and the first outside the United States that makes these missiles.
“This starts to build additional capacity, really, for the global demand,” said Gaylia Campbell, Lockheed Martin’s Vice President of Tactical Missiles.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy and the missile maker are acutely aware that wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have alarmed military allies with how quickly they’ve drained stocks.
“So there’s a big global backlog, and the only way to avoid being at the end of the queue is to build your own,” Conroy said.
Military analyst Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute is critical of the government, not for entering the missile business, but for moving too slowly.
He says in an Indo-Pacific war, which many now fear, Australia’s current missile stockpile would vanish almost overnight.
“Within days, essentially, we would be out of munitions within days,” Davis warned.
He applauds plans to begin production in two more Australian missile factories this decade but argues the government must tip in many billions of dollars more to do it much faster.
“But now time is not our friend, and so therefore we can’t afford to continue to crawl,” Davis said. “We need to sprint at this point in time,” Mr Davis said.
“By this time next year, we’ll have two factories,” added Conroy.
The government says Australia’s missile industry is moving at lightning speed, but it’s not fast enough for some.
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