Australia to Provide Thales ACAR to Papua New Guinea Defence Force

In February, the minutes from an Australian Senate meeting revealed that Australia plans to provide the Papua New Guinea Defence Force with more than 3,000 new Thales ACAR - or Australian Combat Assault Rifles.

The decision was revealed during a Senate budget estimates discussion between Western Australian senator Tyron Whitten and the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group Deputy Secretary Chris Deeble. 

ACAR is now available in: 5.56mm, 458 SOCOM, 6.5 Grendel, 6mm ARC and 300 BLK. The rifles feature a cold hammer forged barrel for enhanced accuracy and the barrel is also chrome-lined for durability, coming in a variety of lengths, including 11.5 and 14.5 inches for the 5.56x45mm carbines and 16 and 20 inches for 7.62x51mm chambered rifles. The rifle features the ambidextrous controls we have come to expect from higher-end AR-patterned offerings. The carbines weigh in at around 2.8kg, while the larger caliber rifles weigh between 4.25 and 4.4kg.

Senator Whitten asked: “I know that as part of the mutual defence treaty with PNG, Australia will be providing 3,500 automatic rifles to PNG. Has a tender been put out for this supply or is a tender being considered?” The Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group Deputy Secretary Chris Deeble, responded: “We're working through those 3,500. They would be manufactured in the Lithgow facility, which will provide ongoing manufacturing of that capability. It's the ACAR weapon, which is a Thales developed weapon.”

The budget estimates discussion also revealed that the provision of the carbines for the Papua New Guinea Defence Force had not been put out to a competitive tender. Australia ostensibly maintains the Thales-operated Lithgow facility as a sovereign capability to provide and maintain small arms. Deeble explained that “we will be using our facility. This is a sovereign capability that we maintain, supported by Thales, who have been in charge of that facility for a number of years. They provide the Steyr weapon [the Steyr AUG - F88/F90] and have provided that to the ADF and other component parts for a number of our weapons, including Mag 58 and others. The answer is that we'll be working with Thales, maintaining that sovereign capability in Lithgow.”

Intriguingly, Admiral David Johnston, Chief of the Defence Force, claimed that “one of the objectives of that work we're doing with Papua New Guinea is commonality of supply chains systems. It enables us to integrate and better support each other when we are in the field with our respective supply chains and maintenance and logistics support. The commonality is actually a core part of how we will make the arrangements with PNGDF work well.” This raises the question of why, then, were the PNGDF not provided with F90 rifles, which are currently in Australian service.

It's currently unclear which configurations or how many ACARs have been delivered to the PNGDF, and when the weapons will be fielded.