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CANBERRA - Australian and New Zealand Army chiefs have rejected claims they are putting troops in the way of danger armed with unreliable weapons.
Using documents obtained under freedom of information laws, Channel Seven reported that the Steyr rifles used by both armies were subject to locking, jamming and misfiring in the harsh conditions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Austrian-designed, Australian-made Steyr is the two armies' standard infantry weapon and the backbone of combat forces deployed on operations from Timor Leste to the Middle East.
It equips many of the 3500 Australian troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Timor Leste and the Solomons, and most of the more than 300 New Zealanders serving in similar deployments.
Channel Seven said the Australian Army was further plagued by problems with pistols used by its special forces and with heavy 50 calibre machine guns.
The network said up to 20 per cent of Steyr rifles on operational duty with Australian troops were rated "unsatisfactory", that there were 44 serious failures of war stocks of ammunition - including hand grenades, bullets and rockets - in the two years to last March, and that SAS soldiers had been sent to war with faulty equipment.
This included main weapon mounts on patrol vehicles, eight 50 calibre machine guns with key parts missing, and unreliable handguns.
Steyr rifles have previously come under fire, when former Australian Army Lt Colonel Kevan Wolfe, then editor of Asia Pacific Defence Reporter, claimed there were 78 accidental firings during the first deployment to Timor Leste after the former Indonesian province voted for independence.
But Wolfe said the fault lay with poor training rather than the rifle itself, which he described as a good weapon.
The Australian Army yesterday rebutted the report, which it said had been based entirely on selective and exaggerated use of information taken from reports on defective on unsatisfactory material submitted by soldiers after checking their weapons.
It said the weapons mounts on SAS vehicles had been modified and were operating effectively in Afghanistan, and that 44 faults had been reported from more than 10 million items of explosives ordnance issued this year.
The army said only three reports had been submitted on the Steyr rifle since 2005, each relating to minor faults.
The unit which had submitted one of the reports in December last had used 400 weapons over four months but had replaced spring kits in only 14 guns.
"This is not excessive and is considered part of the normal maintenance and repair regime," the Army said.
New Zealand Land Component Commander Brigadier Rhys Jones said Kiwi troops used the Steyr in operations from the tropics to Afghanistan but had not encountered any significant problems.
The rifles were regularly rotated back to New Zealand from overseas deployments under a maintenance, refurbishment and upgrade programme.
Brigadier Jones said the issue was whether New Zealand troops could have confidence the rifle would work when needed, such as an ambush or firefight. Use of the Steyr on New Zealand operations had shown it to be good and effective, and that the bulk of the problems reported by the Australians had been found during routine checks and maintenance - not by failures on operations.
