Hawkei


The Hawkei is an Australian light four-wheel-drive protected mobility vehicle. Originally designed in 2010 to meet an Australian Defence Force requirement for a light armoured patrol vehicle to replace some of its Land Rover Perentie variants. The Hawkei is a highly mobile, highly protected, 7-tonne vehicle, with inbuilt systems to allow it to be used as a fighting platform. It has been developed with Vehicle Electronic Architecture to be mission system ready.
It is intended to undertake a range of mission profiles, including troop movement, command and control, electronic warfare, liaison, surveillance and reconnaissance. Prime contractors include Thales Australia, Boeing Australia, Plasan and PAC Group. In October 2015, the Australian Government announced the purchase of 1,100 Hawkei vehicles from Thales Australia.

History

As part of a wider project to replace the ADF's fleet of operational support vehicles, Project Land 121 Phase 4 – Protected Mobility Vehicle or PMV-L, is a requirement for up to 1,300 specialised light armoured vehicles to replace some of the in-service Land Rovers. Key criteria for the project included: off-road mobility, integrated vehicle electronic architecture, substantial payloads, high levels of protection against land mines, improvised explosive devices and ballistic weapons, while being light enough to be airlifted by military helicopters. The three options considered as part of the project were:
Competitors for the MSA option included the combat-proven MOWAG Eagle IV from General Dynamics Land Systems; the British military then selected Ocelot from Force Protection; and the Hawkei offering from Thales Australia. The JLTV option included entries from BAE Systems/Navistar, AM General/General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin.
In December 2011, the Department of Defence announced Hawkei as the preferred vehicle for further development and testing under the MSA option.
In October 2015, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister for Defence Marise Payne announced the purchase of 1,100 Hawkei vehicles and trailers at a cost of $1.3 billion with the Hawkei to be manufactured at Thales's facility in Bendigo. The purchase includes 1058 trailers designed by Schutt Industries and manufactured by Thales at their facility in Eagle Farm. Two variants of the Hawkei will be purchased: a 4-door variant and a 2-door utility variant. The 4-door variant will be able to be configured using a mission-kit for three roles: Command, Liaison and Reconnaissance. 635 4-door variants and 465 2-door variants will be purchased.
In September 2018, the Australian National Audit Office released a report which criticised aspects of the Hawkei project. The report judged that Australia should have remained in the JLTV program to provide competition for the Hawkei procurement and that the Department of Defence had not kept ministers fully informed about the Hawkei program. This included not providing ministers with a study which found that there were few benefits from building the vehicles in Australia. The ANAO was unable to publish some elements of the audit after Attorney General Christian Porter ruled that publishing it would compromise national security. Thales had taken legal action earlier in the year seeking to have material removed from the report. Some of the suppressed elements of the report were released in 2021 following a freedom of information request, and included material stating that the Department of Defence had been unable to demonstrate that the Hawkei represented value for money compared to the JLTV.
In December 2018, the Hawkei faced reliability issues following a demonstration test conducted on 19 November 2018, delaying full-rate production.
In September 2020, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds and Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price announced that the Hawkei would enter full-rate production at Thales's facility in Bendigo at approximately 50 vehicles per month.
In November 2020, the DoD temporarily suspended the use of the Hawkei fleet until an issue with the anti-lock braking system was found. In July 2021, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price announced that Thales had developed a fix for the braking issue.
In March 2022, the production of the 1,000th Hawkei was completed by Thales.
In November 2022, Thales advised the DoD that it had identified a new issue with the Hawkei's brakes. As a result the DoD banned the Hawkei from use on civilian roads and imposed a maximum speed limit on their use. Thales developed an interim solution with the ABS modulator on every Hawkei changed every ten months on a sample fleet of 125 vehicles. In July 2024, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy and Brigadier John-Paul Ouvrier announced that Thales had resolved the Hawkei's ABS issues and that there would be a remediation program to install the fixes.
During 2023-24, 138 low rate initial production vehicles were withdrawn from service so they can be upgraded to final contracted specifications.
A total of 1,100 Hawkei PMVs and 1,058 Hawkei-configuration trailers were acquired for the Australian Army and the RAAF, with the final vehicles rolling off the line in mid-2022. Two vehicles have since been sold back to Thales Australia, which employed them in a competitive trial for the JGSDF. Introduction into service is complete, with the delivery of the 1098th and final vehicle to an active ADF unit handed over to No. 2 Security Forces Squadron RAAF at RAAF Base Amberley at an official ceremony on 28 August 2025.

Variants

All variants use the same four wheeled platform.

4 door

Dual cab with a crew of four to six, weapons system options including up to 12.7mm guns or 40 mm grenade systems in various mounts with a remote operated option.
The 4-doors variants include the following sub variants:
  • Liaison: vehicle with general communication equipment, up to 4 personnel
  • Command: vehicle with additional integrated electronic command, control and communication systems, up to 4 personnel
  • Reconnaissance: vehicle equipped for light infantry, reconnaissance and Air Force security missions, up to 4 personnel.

    2 door

Single-extended cab with a flat-bed cargo area measuring; L: x W:. The vehicle has a crew of 2–3 and has a kerb weight of with a rated cargo load of. The load bed is designed to accommodate four 1000mm × 1200mm NATO standard military pallets or a single tricon container.

NASAMS

The Australian Army fields three flatbed utility variants for their NASAMS short-range ground-based air defence system. The High Mobility Launcher variant comprises six rails that can fire either AIM-120 AMRAAM or AIM-9X missiles with the capability to fire a combination of the two missile types. The Electro-Optic Infra-Red variant is equipped with a mast-mounted Raytheon AN/AAS-52 Multispectral Targeting System -A. The short-range radar variant is equipped with a CEA Technologies CEATAC AESA radar.

Proposed variants

Border Protection

Dual cab with a crew of four to six, various equipment options including force protection radar, surveillance and communications systems.

Special Operations Vehicle

Dual cab manned by a crew of four to six with up to three weapon systems:
  • Front co-driver swing mount;
  • Roof mounted manual gunring or remote weapon station; and/or
  • Rear-facing swing mount.
Options included full doors, half doors, windscreen and scalable racking system for payload.

Etymology

The Hawkei is named after Acanthophis hawkei, a species of death adder. In turn, the snake is named after former Prime Minister of Australia Bob Hawke.

Operators

Current operators

Potential operators

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Failed bids

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