Australia’s politicians and many state highway patrol cops might be getting around in München-made 5-Series BMWs these days, but when it comes to buying serious all-road grunt, the German Army’s top brass goes shopping in the grassroots suburb of Redbank, just out of Brisbane.

In an auspicious kick-off to Exercise Talisman Sabre 2023, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, chief of the German Army, and Vice Admiral Carsten Stawitzki, head of equipment, Department Ministry of Defence, have burned some rubber in their new locally manufactured Rheinmetall marques.

The German government has ordered 100 Boxers in a deal worth $1 billion to replenish its own fleet of armoured vehicles as a number of nations, including Australia and Germany, donate motorised armour to Ukraine to aid resistance to the Russian invasion.

The deal was personally inked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin this month.

The Boxers, known as Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles, are being made at the Rheinmetall Defence Australia Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence (MILVEHCOE) that will create around 1,000 local jobs in a serious boost to the region’s advanced manufacturing capability.

Queensland narrowly beat out Victoria in the bake-off to be the manufacturing base for the massive Land 400 project that is re-equipping Australia’s armoured combat vehicle fleet.

Land 400 has been the subject of relentless speculation the Albanese government is preparing to scale back local production of armoured vehicles to save cash, but the deal with the German government will ensure the Redbank factory will run for some years to come, especially if it is augmenting German production capacity.

The visit by German army top brass to shoot their own episode of Top Gear Australia comes as part of the massive Exercise Talisman Sabre 2023 series of war games being thrashed out across northern Australia.

The huge event jets in more than 30,000 military personnel from 13 nations across Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and New South Wales, with participants (aside for the United States) including Fiji, France, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany.

In a sign of geopolitical pressures in the region, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are all also attending as official observers. This year marks the tenth anniversary of Exercise Talisman Sabre.