Govt seeks buyer for armoured vehicles
Personnel carriers were duds in Afghanistan and are unlikely to find a buyer, source tells George Block.
The Defence Force is battling to find a buyer for 30 unwanted armoured vehicles which cost about $186 million.
It is another chapter in the long-running saga of one of our most controversial military purchases.
The army quietly increased the number of NZ Light Armoured Vehicles (NZLAVs) for sale from 20 to 30 early in 2019.
That increase was an attempt to make the fleet more attractive to buyers, according to a minute obtained under the Official Information Act from a senior Army officer.
‘‘It was assessed that the current fleet of 20 NZ LAV was too small to generate a genuine interest,’’ the lieutenant colonel, whose name was redacted, wrote.
But a former NZ Armoured Corps officer has told the Sunday Star-Times the nearly two-decadeold vehicles are unlikely to find a foreign buyer as they have been supplanted by better technology.
Defence Force senior public affairs adviser Jo Ramsay said the sale ‘‘continues to be explored with a number of parties’’.
Details of those parties were commercially sensitive, Ramsay said.
The fifth Labour Government purchased 105 LAVs from General Dynamics Land Systems Canada for $653m in 2001 to replace ageing armoured personnel carriers.
They entered service in 2003. Around the same time, the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s air combat wing was disbanded and plans to purchase F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft as replacements for A-4K Skyhawks were scrapped.
In 2001, then-National defence spokesman Max Bradford said the Army withheld important information from the Government when it recommended purchasing the LAVs in the late 90s.
‘‘It is little wonder Helen Clark disbanded the Air Force Skyhawks and put 700 air force men and women out of a job,’’ Bradford said at the time.
‘‘She needed the money to pay for nearly threequarters of a billion dollars of army personnel carriers, which obviously aren’t suitable for peacekeeping tasks in our region.’’
A subsequent 2005 report by Auditor-General Kevin Brady said the Army could have met its obligations with fewer than the 105 LAVs it purchased.
A former regular force Armoured officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were well-designed and ideal for a big land-based invasion, racing around open country.
But they were not a success in Afghanistan, as shown during the Battle of Baghak in Shikari Valley, Bamyan in 2012, he said.
‘‘I know that valley quite well, the guns only went up to 30 degrees. That valley had cliffs of 2000 feet (609 metres).
‘‘The LAVs in the Battle of Baghak couldn’t shoot high enough in the valley to shoot at the Taliban.’’
Three LAVs were deployed in 2009 to support the NZ Special Air Service (SAS) on Operation Watea in Kabul.
In the former officer’s view they were only deployed for ‘‘political purposes’’.
‘‘I know the SAS in Kabul didn’t want to go near them, because driving around Kabul in a LAV is just a massive target for the Taliban,’’ he said.
‘‘We only put them there because we bought them, so we had to deploy them.’’
The former officer said it was likely to be a larger nation that would want, and have the resources to crew, 30 LAVs.
Such nations would be unlikely to buy a used 20-year-old vehicle.
‘‘There is probably cheaper and better and more modern kit available now.’’
The Defence Force said it had no comment to make in response to the former officer’s views.