Safran has, once again, been selected to deliver a sensor capability to the Australian Army.
This time, the service has chosen to fit the PASEO Joint Fires day-and-night, panoramic sight to its Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs).
The Australasian division is already embedded in the Commonwealth country’s supplier base. It has provided optronic solutions to the Armed Forces under the LAND 17 project aimed at enhancing Australia’s artillery capabilities, as well as the LAND 300 programme to equip the Australian soldiers with next-generation surveillance and target acquisitions ancillaries.
Now, the manufacturer will provide PASEO – a long-range intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) sensor under the Army’s LAND 400, Phase III project.
Redback procurement
Australia has selected a South Korean IFV derived from the K21 platform to replace its current fleet of 403 M113AS4 armoured personnel carriers, some of which go back to the 1960s. Known as the ‘Redback’, this decision was announced under Project Land 400 Phase 3 – Land Combat Vehicle System (IFV).
The Redback is manufactured by Hanwha Defense, and it was chosen over the German Rheinmetall KF41 Lynx following an extensive evaluation process that began testing in 2019, and was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hanwha has also established an armoured vehicle centre of excellence at Geelong, Victoria. Local manufacturers are also supporting the programme development.
According to GlobalData intelligence, the estimated contract allocation of 129 units of the IFVs will cost $4.3bn (A$6.4bn) over the contract period 2024–34.
PASEO sight
This latest contract will allow the Redback fleet to benefit from the PASEO family systems, of which Safran have sold more than 2,500 units for IFVs, Main Battle Tanks and Joint Fires.
It operates day and night, and uses all-weather optronics sensors and offers 360° coverage with a high-rate sectorial scanning capability.
The PASEO Joint Fires includes Safran’s Geonyx inertial navigation system, which provides precise and reliable positions, even if satellite navigation signals are unavailable or inaccessible (GNSS-Denied environment).
The global military Electro-Optical/Infrared Systems market, valued at $13bn in 2023, is projected to grow at a compound annual growth of 4.2% over the next decade, according to GlobalData. It is expected to reach $19.6bn by 2033 and cumulatively value $174.2bn over the forecast period.
Notably, GlobalData anticipates the market will dominated by the Land platform segment, which accounts for 47.4% of the market, followed by airborne segment with 29.2% share.
