Live-fire target systems specialist awarded $33 million contract

SME defence business Australian Target Systems has been awarded a five-year, $33 million contract for supply and servicing of their live-fire target systems at training ranges across Australia, and providing these for Australian personnel to use while deployed overseas.

In a statement on Friday morning, defence industry minister Pat Conroy said, “Australian Target Systems has been an important defence industry partner for many years with a strong history in the delivery and support of target systems to the Australian Defence Force.”

The company’s products are described as highly sophisticated and “vital for the development of individual and collective combat shooting skills and are continually evolving to make live-fire training as realistic as possible.”

The contract will support 43 jobs and is expected to lead to another 11 hires.

According to its website, veteran-owned ATS traces its history back to the 1950s and was known as Australasian Training Aids (ATA) until 2002.

It is the “dominant provider of live fire target systems to the Australian Defence Force”, and has a presence at Canberra, as well as Queanbeyan, Albury and Currawong in NSW, and in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

In 2017 the company took out the Defence Industry Export Award at the 2017 NSW export awards, in recognition of its work supplying 34 military ranges in the UAE.

Picture: credit ATS/Linkedin