On Tuesday, April 28, 2026, Australia’s Department of Defence announced that it had approved the purchase of additional M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) multiple rocket launchers and PrSM Increment 2 (Precision Strike Missile) anti-ship ballistic missiles from U.S. company Lockheed Martin under the second phase of the LAND 8113 Long Range Fires program.
Photos: Departament Obrony Australii
This means that the Norwegian-Australian counteroffer from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and Thales Australia, based on the StrikeMaster launcher mounted on the Bushmaster PMV 4×4 chassis for Naval Strike Missile (NSM) anti-ship missiles, has been rejected.
The second phase of the program will include contracts with a total value of 2.3 billion AUD. The systems will be delivered to a second rocket artillery regiment, which will be formed in Edinburgh, South Australia. Although the number of launchers to be acquired has not been specified, approval was received on September 30, 2025, for the purchase of 48 units in a package worth up to 705 million USD. They will join 42 systems that have already been contracted and are being delivered to the first regiment formed under the 10th Fires Brigade in Adelaide.
While the first phase also included the purchase of PrSM Increment 1 ballistic missiles, which will also be produced locally, together with GMLRS guided munitions, the second phase will involve Increment 2 missiles, namely the Land-Based Anti-Ship Missile (LBASM), which recently entered manufacturer testing.
The missile has received a new multimode seeker and will be capable of engaging moving targets. The system consists of a passive location system and an infrared electro-optical sensor, supported by a conventional GPS/INS guidance system. The former would be used in the terminal phase of flight for target discrimination, while for most of the flight the missile would be corrected in the conventional manner, as with PrSM Increment 1. The passive location system may allow this version of the missile to be used as an anti-radiation weapon against radars, communications nodes, or other types of electromagnetic signal emitters.
According to Australia’s Department of Defence, the new munition will increase the range of M142 HIMARS systems from 500 to more than 1,000 km; in reality, from 700 km – editor’s note.
As a reminder, on August 12, 2021, the then government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison decided to join the U.S. Army’s PrSM initiative, which aimed to introduce a successor to ATACMS missiles. On June 6, 2025, the U.S. and Australian governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the co-production, sustainment, and further development of PrSM missiles.
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