Australia awards Anzac-class frigate contract to BAE Systems

BAE Systems Australia – Maritime has been awarded a $163 million engineering design contract to sustain and upgrade the Royal Australian Navy’s Anzac class frigate fleet, the company announced Wednesday. The seven-year Anzac Class Designer Support Contract, known as DSC-West, was secured in partnership with British maritime engineering firm BMT and will be delivered primarily out of the Henderson shipyard in Perth, Western Australia.

The award positions BAE Systems Australia – Maritime and BMT as the principal design authority support team for the Anzac class — a fleet of ten frigates that form a core component of Australia’s surface combatant capability. Henderson, long regarded as the home of the Anzac class, will serve as the contract’s operational hub, with additional work carried out across offices in Melbourne, Sydney, and other locations around the country.

The DSC-West designation itself carries deliberate meaning, anchoring the program to the Henderson maritime precinct’s decades of warship sustainment work and signaling a commitment to developing sovereign industrial capacity within Western Australia’s defense sector.

BAE Systems Australia – Maritime Managing Director of Surface Ships David Shepherd said the contract represented a significant milestone for Anzac class sustainment. “This award marks a new chapter in Anzac class sustainment,” Shepherd said. “As the company that constructed the Anzac fleet and successfully helped deliver two major upgrade programs across the class, we’re proud to combine our experience with the expanded capabilities of BMT to deliver safe, efficient and reliable outcomes for the Commonwealth.”

BMT’s Managing Director Graeme Nayler echoed that confidence, noting that BMT’s 2025 acquisition of Australian Maritime Technologies — the firm with a direct heritage link to the original Anzac class designer — gave the partnership a uniquely positioned knowledge base. “We are delighted the Commonwealth has selected the DSC-West team,” Nayler said. “With AMT now part of BMT, we bring together decades of Anzac class knowledge, ensuring we can continue delivering operational excellence for the Anzac class fleet.”

Nayler added that the contract would leverage the teams’ “deep platform knowledge, direct design authority access, and robust sovereign capability to deliver assured availability and future ready upgrades for the Anzac class.”

The partnership’s combined credentials are notably well-suited to the demands of the role. BAE Systems Australia constructed the Anzac class frigates and has supported two major upgrade programs across the fleet. BMT, through its acquisition of AMT, now holds a direct institutional connection to the class’s original design authority — giving the DSC-West team what both companies describe as the “know-how and the know-why” required for sustained, reliable platform management. That phrase, cited in the contract announcement, refers to the combination of hands-on engineering experience and deep design-level understanding necessary to maintain complex naval platforms over decades of service.

The Anzac class frigates, built jointly with New Zealand under a collaborative procurement arrangement in the 1990s and 2000s, have undergone successive capability upgrades over their service lives and remain central to the Royal Australian Navy’s surface warfare posture.

Australia has invested significantly in extending and enhancing the class as it manages the long lead times associated with its broader naval modernization agenda, including the AUKUS submarine program and the acquisition of the Hunter class frigates, which are intended to eventually succeed the Anzacs in the fleet.