Australia wants to cut its infantry fighting vehicle acquisitions by a third

Launched by Canberra in 2018, the LAND 400 phase 3 program aimed to replace the M113s in service with the Australian armed forces with 450 new generation infantry fighting vehicles for a planned investment of 18 to 21 billion Australian dollars, i.e. between €12 and €14 billion. He now opposes two models, the KF41 Lynx offered by Rheinmetall Defense Australia, and South Korea's Hanwha's Redback AS21, after the Ajax and CV-90 were phased out in 2019. However, according to information obtained by the economic site Financial Review, it seems that Canberra is about to reduce its ambitions around this program, to target only an order of 300 copies, a third less than the 450 initially planned, in order to remain within the planned budget envelope, and not come to threaten the execution of other critical defense programs for Australia, while the provisional budget for 450 VCI now reaches $27 billion. Thus, such a reduction in volume would make it possible to stick to the initial budget range, especially since the country has launched new programs in recent years.

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