“This is the first rotation in the 15-year history of the program to be certified as a MAGTF, and that’s a big deal,” Col. George Flynn, commanding officer of MRF-D 2026, explained to Defense News.

Flynn noted that being certified validates the MAGTF’s credibility and proficiency because, if called upon, a commander “knows the force is going to be able to accomplish all those tasks it’s assigned as part of its task order to facilitate operations in the theater.”

“What makes it special purpose is just the uniqueness of how it’s placed here in Darwin in support of the Pacific theater,” Flynn continued. “We’re responsible for being ready for the full spectrum of operations from full-scale combat to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

This certification process was completed in early May during an exercise in the Philippines, making “an incredible statement” on its ability to respond to crises.

Flynn said MRF-D is authorized to have 2,500 personnel, but he typically has around 2,000 in his SPMAGTF. They arrived in Darwin in March, with his task force including, among others, the California-based 1/5 Marines and MV-22B Ospreys from the Hawaii-based VMM-268.

High tempo

Flynn pointed out that “the Marine Corps, we always seek to deploy”.

MRF-D has maintained a heavy operational tempo, with the commander saying personnel had traveled to six or seven different countries to date.

“We’re busy, but Marines are having a great time. For this deployment, we’ve had 13 planned operations, activities, investments or exercises,” Flynn said. “We’ve been in the Philippines, we have forces in Indonesia right now, and we have forces that are getting ready to go to Tahiti to do training with the French. And we’ve certainly been all over the Australian continent.”

The latter includes major exercises with the Australian Army’s Darwin-based 1st Brigade and Townsville-based 3rd Brigade. Operating with the 1st Brigade is particularly helpful to both parties, since that formation now specializes in littoral warfare.

“We get to share good practices,” Flynn noted. “We have a great relationship with 1st Brigade.”

Asked about difficulties operating in such far-flung locations, often simultaneously, Flynn acknowledged, “It’s a good challenge to have. It allows us to demonstrate our ability to be distributed, and how well we can achieve operational reach throughout the region.

“I think it goes to demonstrate that, where needed, Marines can show up and provide the support that Marines are capable of providing.”

He said the SPMAGTF’s expeditionary mindset, its ability to get to locations quickly and to sustain itself, has “really been eye-watering to watch.” Flynn noted formations typically “spend their workup getting to their max level of readiness and then, once that deployment starts, that readiness starts to degrade over time.”

However, this is not the case with MRF-D, as “we have the unique ability to gain and maintain readiness throughout the deployment,” he said. This is due in part to “the expansive training areas throughout the continent that give us some wonderful opportunities to be most ready when called upon.”

Capability growth

“We have a robust C2 [command-and-control] capability down to our supporting elements as well, and we’ve been able to work with those systems and demonstrate … the ability to go up and down on different communication systems using satellite capabilities down to high-frequency capabilities and the like,” Flynn told Defense News. “At no point have I ever felt challenged with being able to command and control the force based on the capabilities that we’re working with.”

The Marine Corps continues to evolve for modern combat, too.

“Our Sec War has been adamant about increasing capabilities of the force with regards to small UAS [unmanned aerial systems] and first-person-view, one-way attack drones. We’ve had the opportunity to experiment with those systems out here, and you saw some of that at the counter-landing live-fire in the Philippines,” Flynn said. “So, we’re definitely using those. We’ve also used others like logistics-based unmanned aerial systems to facilitate movement of logistical requirements throughout the training areas here in Australia.”

However, he noted the Marine Corps “is actively still working through to increase capabilities” in counter-drone systems.

Perhaps one of the biggest helps to the SPMAGTF would be more assets for “lift and the ability to move the force around the theater,” Flynn shared.

Nevertheless, he said, “I’m beyond happy with what we’ve been able to demonstrate with our operational reach, and I think it’s just the opportunities that exist to further achieve interoperability with our allies and partners with moving the force around the theater is something that we should continue to look at going forward”.

Positive vibes

Asked about what he has gained from leading the deployment, Flynn said, “Every day, I get a chance to lead all these Marines and sailors that are under my command, and how they generally seem to understand their purpose, and they operate with happy hearts out here.

“The relationships we’ve built with the Australians and with other nations, allies and partners we’ve got a chance to work with — and just a demonstration of what it means to be a MAGTF operating in the Pacific theater — has just been really powerful for me personally.”

Flynn said MRF-D has contributed to a free and open Indo-Pacific theater.

“I think our presence, our posture and our ability to demonstrate that we can get into locations and be responsive to countries in need facilitates that free and open Indo-Pacific. All countries in this area have their own sovereignty and we respect that, and we stand by to support and protect that sovereignty as required.”

Each MRF-D deployment lasts six months. The current one ends in October, just before the wet season arrives in northern Australia.

After dawdling over the need to improve its ground-based air defense (GBAD) capabilities, Australia — with American assistance — is prioritizing a hybrid solution that takes sensors, software and weapons already in the Australian inventory.

This first-of-type integration, which successfully fired an SM-2 interceptor missile, offers an alternative to buying expensive Patriot-type air defense systems, for example.

A Department of Defence press statement said the SM-2 test “followed a period of close collaboration, innovation and engineering to produce this successful prototype.”

Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Navy were heavily involved, for example.

Piece of the puzzle

During Exercise Taipan Strike 2026, an SM-2 was launched from a Derringer trailer-mounted launcher – also called the Expeditionary Launch System – at the Woomera test range in the south of Australia.

To shoot down a BQM-74E target drone, the SM-2 was controlled by a virtualized Lockheed Martin Aegis combat system, and guided by a phased-array radar from Australian firm CEA Technologies.

Aegis, normally utilized aboard warships, was deployed in a small-scale, expeditionary form factor. The Aegis test setup was based on the baseline version found on the Australian navy’s Hunter-class frigates and Hobart-class destroyers.

In a statement to Defense News, Lockheed Martin said this approach “unlocks cross-service integration and interoperability, delivering greater capability and value.”

Jeremy King, chief executive of Lockheed Martin Australia and New Zealand, also remarked that “this prototype system leverages existing weapons, launchers and command and control. It can fire any of the weapons currently fielded on the Hobart-class destroyers or future Hunter-class frigates.”

This is an important revelation for the Royal Australian Navy, as the service has the SM-2 Block IIIB and Block IIIC missiles in its inventory, as well as the SM-6.

The SM-6 could now be considered a candidate for an Australian defense against ballistic missiles. However, this would require a strike-length variant of the Mk 41 Vertical Launching System on the mobile Derringer launcher.

Taking aiming at GBAD

The novel Australian air-defense technology pairing appears to have been on the drawing board for a while, at least conceptually.

“When you have a limited [missile] inventory, you want to be able to be as flexible as possible, so that might be using maritime stocks on land, it might be using land stocks in the maritime domain,” Air Vice-Marshal Nick Hogan, head of Air Force Capability told Defense News last year. “There are many options to go forward. What we’re trying to do is make sure, where possible, we can get the biggest return on investment using sovereign capabilities.”

Australia’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review urged, instead of “pursuing a long-term, near-perfect solution at unaffordable cost,” that Canberra should allocate sufficient resources “to deliver the initial capability in a timely way”.

Later, the 2026 National Defence Strategy called for “accelerated introduction of medium-range, ground-based, active missile defense through investment in missile launchers and munitions and integrating them with … command-and-control systems.”

Missile threats

The same document identified missile defense as a priority, with a need to protect critical defense infrastructure from long-range and high-speed missile threats.

In fact, the July 9 timing of Australia’s announcement of the SM-2 test was significant. The test had actually been conducted a month earlier, but Canberra publicized it just three days after a Chinese submarine hurled a nuclear-capable ballistic missile deep into the South Pacific.

After the Chinese launch, Australia’s opposition party warned how “dangerously exposed” military bases are and the country’s insufficient ability to counter ballistic or cruise missiles.

Australian defense officials stress that the new air-defense weapon is still a work in progress. However, the test reduces technical risk and validates the prototype system’s performance, as Australia weighs cost-effective medium-range GBAD options.

Lockheed Martin added that this hybrid solution represents a “robust air defense capability option paving the way for continued integration efforts.”

The significance of this demonstration extends beyond Australia, as Lockheed Martin said “it demonstrates the potential for enhanced air defense capabilities that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of countries and regions.”

The contract, worth almost $2 billion CAN (US$1.4 billion), was awarded to General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, based in London, Ontario. Canada will also pay for GDLS-Canada to build another 35 armored combat support vehicles for Ukraine, said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who announced the deal on July 16.

Canada had previously donated 89 such vehicles to Ukraine.

The new purchase will see the Canadian Army’s wheeled light armored combat support vehicle fleet increase from 360 vehicles to 550 vehicles.

GDLS-Canada was originally awarded the contract for the first 360 armored combat support vehicles in August 2019. Those vehicles have already been delivered.

ACSVs have eight variants – ambulance, command post, troop/cargo, electronic warfare, maintenance and recovery, mobile repair team, fitter/cargo, and engineer. They are all based on the GDLS-Canada’s Light Armored Vehicle 6.0 platform, which helps the army reduce training and sustainment costs. ACSVs are currently deployed with the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia.

Carney also announced that GDLS-Canada has been designated as the first strategic partner under his government’s newly established Defence Industrial Strategy’s framework. That framework puts emphasis on buying defense equipment from Canadian-based firms.

“Through this framework, we’re creating a pathway for Canadian companies like GDLS-Canada to work more closely with our government to build those sovereign capabilities: the armored vehicles, the drones, the icebreakers, the equipment that our armed forces need,” Carney said in a televised news conference from the GDLS-C plant.

The framework requires companies to commit to investing in Canadian research and development, hiring domestic workers and expanding their domestic supply chains. “In return, the federal government will act as an anchor customer — accelerating approvals and opening doors to new export markets,” Carney said. “The commitment is simple: when Canadian companies build for Canada, Canada will build with them.”

Carney said the construction of armored vehicles at GDLS-Canada involves more than 600 Canadian suppliers.

Carney launched the defense industrial strategy framework in the aftermath of U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision in 2025 to hit Canada with significant tariffs as well as other threats of economic punishment. Trump has warned that the only way Canada could escape such economic measures would be to become a 51^st state.

As a result, Carney noted that Canada needed to reduce its alliance on the U.S., particularly in regard to U.S.-built military equipment. “We should no longer send three-quarters of our defense capital spending to America,” Carney said June 9, 2025.

He left the door open to working with U.S.-owned firms, such as GDLS-Canada, as long as they made an economic commitment to Canada.

GDLS-Canada vice president and general manager Dave Haggerty welcomed the strategic agreement between the firm and the Canadian government. “Our team takes great pride in the opportunity to provide Canadian soldiers with the advanced combat vehicle platforms and support they need to succeed, while continuing to strengthen Canada’s sovereign capabilities, its defense industrial base, and skilled workforce,” Haggerty said in a statement.

Despite a goal of 100,000 rounds per month by October 2025, the Army had only managed to produce 36,000 rounds per month as of March 2026, according to a report published this month by the Department of Defense Inspector General.

Shell production requires first building the projectile at a metal parts factory, followed by packing the shell with explosives at another facility. But this means “projectile metal part production is the limiting factor for reaching the 100,000 round-per-month goal for 155-mm artillery rounds,” the report noted.

The Army has not been able to forge enough metal parts to ramp up production of projectiles. In particular, “at a contractor-owned, contractor-operated facility in Mesquite, Texas, the contractor has been unable to produce any projectile metal parts that meet contract specifications,” the report reads.

After investing $469 million, the Army opened a modular metal parts factory in Mesquite, Texas in 2024. The Universal Artillery Projectile Lines facility — operated by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems — was supposed to use “modern manufacturing practices, high levels of automation and digital data capture ability” to forge large numbers of large-caliber metal parts for shells, the Army announced at the time.

That optimism proved premature.

Officials at the Army’s Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics, or CPE A&E, “issued the contract and accepted the risk associated with purchasing and adapting unique production equipment which had not been proven to meet U.S. specifications,” the IG report said.

To save time, the Mesquite factory tried to adapt manufacturing lines originally designed to make parts for the M107 155-mm shell — which dates back to 1958 — rather than the newer M795.

CPE A&E “accepted the risk associated with the contractor’s plan to purchase and adapt M107 metal part production equipment to produce a newer variant of the 155-mm projectile metal parts at different specifications,” said the report.

The report noted that some Army officials had concerns regarding an older ammunition plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that included “separate ongoing problems with the contractor in terms of responsiveness, equipment maintenance, and timeliness. Those officials expressed concern to the evaluation team that ACC [Army Contracting Command] did not open the contract for the Mesquite facility to competition from other contractors.”

The bottleneck at the Mesquite plant left the Army’s three existing plants in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Ingersoll, Canada, to try to pick up the slack.

Amid voracious expenditure of 155-mm rounds by Ukraine that depleted U.S. stockpiles, DoD issued a congressionally-mandated plan in 2022 to modernize howitzer ammunition production. DoD’s 2025 National Defense Industrialization Strategy Implementation Plan aimed at churning out 100,000 155-mm shells per month by October 2025.

The Army’s efforts have borne some fruit, with production nearly tripling to 14,000 shells per month to 36,000. By modernizing the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant and creating two new facilities in Kansas and Arkansas, the Army hopes to load, assemble and pack 140,000 155-mm rounds by December 2027.

In the meantime, the IG suggested the Army could get a refund.

The report recommended that the Army review the contract for the Mesquite facility to determine how the money was spent and whether the DoD can recoup any funds and also “determine whether the Mesquite contract was appropriately issued.”

The company is in talks with a French producer to launch manufacturing of its solutions abroad and is also looking for partners in other European countries, according to a senior company representative.

Oleksii Konik, the co-founder of Trinity Robotics, told Defense News that the company initially planned to make around 1,100 UGVs this year, but, with the Ukrainian military increasing its orders, the business is ramping up throughput at its facilities in Ukraine.

“We work with the [Ukrainian] military procurement agency and more than 20 military units directly,” Konik said. “The most important mission that we have now is the robotization of the battlefield, because only this will allow our country to win the war.”

The company’s flagship UGV, Konyk One, is suitable for performing logistics and medical evacuation tasks. At the same time, Trinity Robotics is working on a new variant that will be fitted with a turret. This will enable users to deploy the UGV for combat operations, according to the co-founder.

While some Ukrainian officials expect the country’s ban on exporting weapons could be lifted this year, local defense companies are currently prohibited from exporting their wares. Meanwhile, Trinity Robotics is discussing cooperation with partners from allied countries to produce its unmanned vehicles abroad.

“We are looking for partners, manufacturers from Europe that manufacture trucks, vehicles, military parts,” Konik said. “We have an opportunity to create a joint enterprise in Europe … to produce our UGVs.”

“This will allow us to give additional volumes of our UGVs to our end users who are interested in that,” he said.

Under Kyiv’s Build with Ukraine program, joint manufacturing isprimarily intended to cover the needs of the country’s armed forces, but surplus output can be exported to other countries.

The company’s co-founder said that Trinity Robotics is currently negotiating with an unnamed French producer to launch a joint venture and produce its UGVs abroad. The Ukrainian manufacturer is also working to secure funds for its expansion, with recent investors including Sweden’s Front Ventures and Hede Capital Partners.

In its standard version, Konyk One weighs 460 kg (1,014 lb) and has a load capacity of up to 300 kg, according to data from the producer.

Suddenly in June it was showcased for the first time in official Chinese media, as analysts tell it, and described as one of China’s top military assets as English-language subtitles extolled its battlefield capacities.

Experts say the broadcast answers Asia-Pacific military exercises by other countries and aims to warn the U.S. military that the missiles better known as DF-17s, for short, have what it takes to cause particular pain in any war with China.

“Video footage might be political signaling or mild deterrence, because the DF-17 is very hard to defend against, especially for large surface targets,” said Alexander Huang, chairman of the Council of Strategic and Wargaming Studies in Taipei. “It’s a big threat to carriers and other assault ships.”

The medium-range missiles are equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle, which means they can fly at lower altitudes in unpredictable directions.

DF-17s have existed for at least 12 years and been available to the People’s Liberation Army since 2019, according to a paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

The release of DF-17 into the Chinese media syncs up time-wise with the ongoing U.S.-led 2026 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) maritime military exercises near Hawaii and the U.S.-Japan drills in late June.

“The other exercises were pretty tough and harsh, clearly targeting Chinese possible actions,” Huang said.

By showing the DF-17s after RIMPAC, China wants to suggest that the missiles can evade interception and make “saturation strikes” at the same time, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant professor in the Diplomacy and International Relations Department at Taiwan’s Tamkang University.

“This signaling is intended to underscore the PLA’s growing confidence in its capacity to overwhelm regional missile‑defense systems and complicate operational planning” by any military opponents, Chen said.

The missiles, as shown during a drill in an English-language YouTube video by the Chinese state-run media outlet CGTN, can make “ultra-precise” strikes and “penetrate advanced defense systems”, per the video.

CGTN said the missiles may be used without fixed launch sites and in any kind of weather.

“The coordinated salvo launches greatly improve strike efficiency and battlefield safety, demonstrating China’s advances in military technology,” CGTN said.

The U.S. think tank describes the DF-17 missiles as 11 meters (36 feet) long with a range of 1,800 to 2,500 kilometers (1,118 to 1,553 miles). It says they can carry conventional or nuclear payloads. China has 1,300 missiles and 300 launchers.

“As one of the PLA’s premier strategic assets, the DF‑17 is likely reserved for the most consequential scenarios, such as foreign military intervention perceived as supporting Taiwan independence,” Chen said.

American military bases in Hawaii, Guam and Japan are monitoring the uptick in People’s Liberation Army naval drills around Taiwan and Beijing’s tiffs with the Philippines in the South China Sea.

China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan, a de-facto U.S. ally. China and the Philippines – a U.S. treaty ally – contest sovereignty over small islets in the sea between them.

The DF-17’s hypersonic glide vehicle would give the missiles an edge in battle, said M. Taylor Fravel, Security Studies Program Director at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“This maneuverability means that it is much harder to defeat than a ballistic missile without a hypersonic glide vehicle,” Fravel said. “It can more easily penetrate missile defenses.”

Earlier DF-series missiles flew the traditional path of a surface-to-surface missile, meaning they were easier to predict than the flight course of a DF-17, Huang said.

U.S. forces may need to expand their long-range radar technology to spot any DF-17s launchers and respond preemptively in the case of any conflict, analysts said.

The U.S. is already developing systems “similar” to the DF-17, Fravel said. He said those include the U.S. army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon missile system as well as hardware that may defeat hypersonic glide vehicles.

A long-range hypersonic system is designed to strike well defended targets from thousands of miles away.

“Washington must accelerate the development and deployment of its own hypersonic weapons to establish credible mutual deterrence,” Chen said.

The memorandum of understanding, announced at the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum in Ankara, was backed by both the U.S. and German governments and is described by the companies as a step toward a joint venture that would create a European “centre of excellence” for manufacturing, integrating and distributing ATACMS to NATO and allied forces.

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger called Unterlüß’s selection a way to strengthen “the industrial base in Germany for modern defense systems,” while Lockheed Martin’s European chief, Dennis Goege, framed the deal as pairing “proven U.S. technology with European manufacturing strength.”

Unterlüß, a 125-year-old Rheinmetall site employing roughly 4,000 people, has been expanding rapidly: a new artillery-ammunition plant opened last year, and a rocket-motor factory now nearing completion is slated to begin producing motors and guided-missile components as early as 2027. That timeline tracks with earlier statements from Papperger, who in May said full missile production would start in 2027 and scale up through 2028 and 2029 to meet what Rheinmetall estimates is annual European and Ukrainian demand of 600 to 800 ATACMS units.

The move addresses a real bottleneck. Lockheed Martin has been winding down ATACMS output at its Camden, Arkansas, plant as it prioritizes the newer Precision Strike Missile, which is set to eventually replace ATACMS in the U.S. arsenal − even as European and Ukrainian demand for the older missile remains high.

Once implemented, the site in Germany will be the first non-American location to produce ATACMS missiles. Lockheed says it will keep running the Arkansas line until the transition to European production is complete.

The Rheinmetall-Lockheed partnership has been building for over a year: the two firms first signed a missile-cooperation MOU in 2024, expanded it in April 2025 to cover a broader “Center of Competence” for missiles and guided weapons, and by last August were already discussing ATACMS and Hellfire specifically for Unterlüß. Whether Tuesday’s MOU translates into an approved joint venture still depends on U.S. government sign-off, since ATACMS technology transfer requires Washington’s consent.

Yet this modernization push has major knock-on effects in terms of logistics support.

Brigadier Ben McLennan, the brigade’s commander, told Defense News, “The Australian Army is undergoing its most significant recapitalization, at least since World War Two, and I’d say it’s happening at record pace.”

Yet he noted most of his bandwidth is invested on how to sustain this armored brigade that has “the potential to be the most lethal formation of its type on the planet.”

McLennan quoted figures to underscore the criticality of logistics. “This brigade’s heavy armored vehicle fleet increases 630% in three years. Also, the brigade is going from 3,200 to around 4,000 personnel in three years,” including growth in “the very, very important logistics echelon.”

As another example of the growing sustainment burden, McLennan said his former multirole combat brigade is moving from an average of 40,000 liters (roughly 10,000 gallons) of diesel per day in high-intensity operations to a daily fuel requirement of over 300,000 liters (79,000 gallons).

Bulking up on armor

An important reason for such a thirst for fuel stems from heavier armored vehicles. For example, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment has already received its full complement of new M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams main battle tanks.

Furthermore, two armored engineering squadrons will have received all their Abrams-based combat engineering vehicles – the M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle and M1074 Joint Assault Bridge – by the end of 2026.

The first Hanwha AS9 Huntsman self-propelled howitzer (SPH) has arrived in Townsville, and due next year are Hanwha AS21 Redback infantry fighting vehicles. Then, Rheinmetall’s Boxer 8×8 combat reconnaissance vehicle will start replacing the long-serving ASLAV in 2028.

McLennan added, “Our stock of M88A2 recovery vehicles has tripled over the two years that I’ve been here, and our armored logistics battalion increases by a subunit at the end of this year.”

It is not just heavy armor that is snowballing either, for the brigade is adopting greater numbers of aerial drones for logistics, surveillance and attack. The commander revealed that unmanned ground vehicles will arrive soon too, including variants that can enter minefields dragging a tube full of explosives to clear paths.

All these new weapon systems require rearming too. McLennan spoke of the need for resilient logistics units “to move the heavy natures of ammunition and the increasing types of ammunition: 30mm, Spike LR, different types of 155mm, a whole lot more 12.7mm.”

He pointed out the brigade’s heavy-duty expansion “will take us from about 30 pallets of ammunition a day to 105 when we factoring us conducting high-intensity combat as a brigade with all our equipment. So it’s a significant transformation.”

Artillery advances

The brigade’s 4th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery is trading in its M777A2 towed howitzers for the AS9 Huntsman. The first 155mm SPH reached 106 Battery in late May, and the unit will eventually have a full allotment of six AS9s plus three AS10 armored ammunition resupply vehicles.

The regiment’s two other batteries will be identically equipped by the end of 2027. Significantly, the 4th Regiment is moving from four M777A2s per battery to six AS9s, with McLennan claiming the new structure and platforms “increase our capability, our firepower, our mobility, our protection by at least 300%.”

Maj. Fergus Robinson, commander of 106 Battery, highlighted: “One of the biggest challenges for soldiers will be vehicle husbandry – this is your vehicle, this is your home and you’re responsible for it. Their ability to maintain the vehicle, as well as the weapon system, is extremely important.”

Given the hulking size of the 48-ton AS9s and their supporting AS10s, the 4th Regiment will receive M88A2 Hercules recovery vehicles for the first time. “That will be something where we need to practice and develop our own skills to get it to a mature point, where we’re confident we can do this under night, under fire, under contact,” Maj. Robinson admitted.

Base infrastructure

All this expansion in capability requires new infrastructure, with McLennan discussing a transformation at the brigade’s home turf of Lavarack Barracks in Townsville.

“We’ll have opened by the end of the year probably the best common user facility, certainly in the Southern Hemisphere and perhaps the most modern in the world, that services all these fleets with light- and medium-grade repair.” That infrastructure work continues over the next couple of years as new equipment pours in.

As an example, the artillery regiment opened a new maintenance hangar in May. This features a 10-tonne gantry crane that permits vehicle power pack changes.

McLennan added: “Concurrently, additional range facilities are being built up at the Townsville Field Training Area to enable the armored brigade to achieve its mission-essential task lists in training year on, year on.”

Greater lethality

While some army units around the world are seeking to become lighter and more mobile, the opposite is true of Australia’s 3rd Brigade.

As McLennan explained to Defense News: “The fact is that the combined-arms fighting system – not just tanks, but armored engineering vehicles, self-propelled artillery – are just as relevant, if not more relevant, than ever. They’re adapting to the threat and also the technologies that can help them reach a level of potential that we previously couldn’t.”

He said “we’re very, very focused” on this transformation, and “we’re drawing lessons from others who are doing it for real routinely.”

As well as transforming the 3rd Brigade, the Australian Army is simultaneously raising a Littoral Maneuver Group, maturing its 10th Brigade equipped with HIMARS and NASAM, and inducting the AH-64E Apache helicopter.

The deal includes the supply of launchers, interceptors, radar systems, training programs and logistical support.

The Israeli company said a first order under the full framework agreement was signed last week. Delivery of the systems is expected to begin within 36 months of the signing date, while “achieving initial operational capability based on extensive industrial cooperation and local manufacturing in Romania,” a Rafael statement reads.

The company also notes that the latest deal is the largest contract in its history. The sale comes amid rising tensions in Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine war, which also posed a challenge to the Eastern European NATO member that suffered several incidents of crashing drones as a result.

The latest occurred at the beginning of June, when Romania reported that a drone exploded in its port city of Constanța, and about a week prior, a Russian drone hit a residential building in the city of Galați, near the Ukrainian border.

The Spyder sale was made possible after Rafael won the Romanian Ministry of Defense’s tender for air-defense systems capable of intercepting drones, cruise missiles, guided munitions, airplanes and helicopters.

The Spyder is a mobile air defense system developed based on the company’s air-to-air missiles: the radar-guided Derby, and the heat-seeking Python 4 and Python 5, combined with MMR radars manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries.

According to the company’s website, the system is capable of launching up to four interceptors simultaneously, reaching a maximum range of 40 kilometers (25 miles) and a maximum interception altitude of 12 kilometers (7 miles).

The two holding companies that currently control KNDS, French state-owned Giat Industries and German family-owned Wegmann & Co, will together sell about 20% of the company, KNDS said in a statement on Wednesday. The Federal Republic of Germany agreed with Wegmann to buy 40% of the maker of armored vehicles, while France will hang on to the remainder of its stake through Giat.

France and Germany reached agreement on Monday on becoming equal shareholders in KNDS, paving the way for the company to forge ahead with plans for a stock-market listing announced in December. The operation also allows the group of German heirs that collectively own half of the company to cash out, after a surge in defense stocks following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“The planned IPO is a natural next step for KNDS,” CEO Jean-Paul Alary said in a statement. “It will increase our strategic agility and support continued investment in capacity, innovation and next-generation technologies.”

As share prices for listed defense companies have surged in recent years amid rising defense investment, Europe has seen a string of initial public offerings, including German tank-transmission maker Renk and French night-vision maker Exosens in 2024, German shipbuilder TKMS in 2025 and arms maker Czechoslovak Group, or CSG, in January this year.

The STOXX Europe Targeted Defence Index, which is weighted for the portion of sales its constituent companies get from defense, has climbed sixfold in the past five years.

KNDS says it targets revenue growth of around 30% in 2026, after posting sales of €4.4 billion (US$ 5 billion) and operating profit of €661 million in 2025. The company reported a record order backlog of €33.1 billion at the end of December.

The Federal Republic of Germany plans to buy its stake in KNDS via an acquisition by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, with the transaction to be finalized ahead of the stock-market listing, according to the company. The German investment remains subject to a number of conditions, including a special federal mandate following approval by the parliamentary Budget Committee, KNDS said.

“Germany’s intention to invest alongside the French State is a strong signal of confidence in KNDS and its future,” KNDS Chairman Tom Enders said in the statement.

The existing shareholders will sell about 20% of KNDS to institutional investors through private placements, with no public offering planned. The listing won’t include the sale of any new shares, Alary told Defense News at the Eurosatory defense show outside Paris last week.

Giat and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau will remain long-term shareholders, with a 10-year lockup period expected to apply to both owners, according to KNDS. During that period, a sale of KNDS shares that would result in the stake of either the French or German investment vehicles falling below 30% would require prior approval of the other party.

The transaction is also expected to introduce a loyalty share plan, where shares that are held by registered owners for two years are granted double voting rights.

KNDS is a strategic asset for both France and Germany as the supplier of both countries’ main battle tanks and self-propelled artillery, and with a lead role in development of the future Main Ground Combat System designed to replace France’s Leclerc tanks and Germany’s Leopard.

The company at Eurosatory showed a proposed a main battle tank with a French turret and gun mounted on a German Leopard 2 chassis as an intermediate solution to replace the Leclerc, which is expected to reach the end of its service life before a next-generation tank arrives.