The Australian Defence Industry has again proven its ability to produce state of the art capability with Thales Australia announcing its recent sale of Bushmaster vehicles to the Netherlands Army. The Netherlands Army has ordered a further 13 Bushmaster vehicles (on top of its original purchase of 36).

The Bushmaster vehicle is built at Thales Australia’s Bendigo (Victoria) facility, and there are currently seven variants within the Bushmaster family of vehicles. There have been 443 Bushmaster variant vehicles have been bought by Australia so far with contract negotiations for approximately 250 additional vehicles for the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, the Hon. Greg Combet recently said, “The Bushmaster is currently deployed overseas with the ADF and it has performed remarkably well. Operators of the vehicle have commented to me on both its high level of operational performance and protection level.”

Thales Australia recently showcased to the Australian Army a Bushmaster fitted with a surveillance capability as a concept demonstrator in Blamey Square at Russell Offices in Canberra. While there is no current requirement for a surveillance variant, the concept demonstrator does illustrate the inherent flexibility of the base Bushmaster vehicle.