Oh boy, can’t wait to see who backs out of the project first.
>PARIS — France and Germany have formalized an agreement to develop a future battle-tank system, with the countries’ defense ministers signing off on an industrial work-share pact here on Friday.
>The countries’ defense firms – KNDS, Rheinmetall and Thales, among others – can now get to work on proposals, which are expected in the coming months, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastian Lecornu said at a briefing. Germany is leading the project and will be in charge of awarding contracts for the first demonstrator phase by the end of this year.
>The political agreement “will force the different industrials to work together,” Lecornu said, adding that cooperation can be decreed, or created by setting a concrete industrial target. “We can’t have this type of partnership without also creating a common culture between the industries.”
>Lecornu said lessons were learned from discussions around the joint Future Combat Air System, where in some cases industrial agreement was reached before German, Spanish and French air forces were asked for their input. That is “out of the question” for the MGCS project, which is based on the needs of the countries’ two armies rather than industrial ideas, the French minister said.
>Officials of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, have stressed the modular character of the envisioned system. Tank variants with different specializations, working in concert on the battlefield, will all share a common undercarriage, according to a statement on the Bundeswehr website. The concept has yet to be proven, and as of now there are no studies or models yet about a system demonstrator for the program as a whole, it adds.
>Designing a completely new land combat weapon will entail pulling together the operational experience from tank warfare of the past years, including lessons learned from Ukraine’s defense against Russian invaders, which has seen hundreds of main battle tanks destroyed or incapacitated.
>France and Germany will be designing “not so much the tank of the future, but the future of the tank,” Lecornu said. He said the U.S. hasn’t yet started considering the post-Abrams era, while Russia is experiencing “great difficulty” moving from its current generation of tanks to a successor.
>Germany is counting on the future combat system to replace its Leopard tanks sometime in the 2040s, while France is looking for the MGCS to replace its Leclerc fleet.
Dude on the left is experiencing the cold
Finally, hopefully?
Didn’t we add Italy recently to that program?
Why do I feel like i’ve read this same headline 14 times over the last 5+ years?
Finally, we need to build one single army not 200 different tanks, 200 different airplanes etc… 🙃, we need to put our expertise together and build one great weapons for each category and have our own army and factories for shell production. Italy 🇮🇹
This kind of thing has never gone well, so I’m not overly optimistic, but I’m willing to see what happens I suppose.
Poland had to go with Korean and US tanks, because European tanks exist on paper, but neither Germany nor France would provide sufficient amount of them in reasonable time under reasonable conditions.
Talk is cheap, but if you’re all talk, then it means nothing. Where is that artillery ammo for Ukraine that Europe was supposed to produce and deliver?
It IS possible, airbus is a major industrial success (also involving the UK and Spain). Just need enough political will.
Francois, get ze hammer, we build le panzer zusammen.
Have they agreed on who gets to make the gun, Rheinmetall or Thales? I think that was one of the big sticking points.
It’s amazing that Germany and France invited other European countries to participate in this project. Or does European solidarity only matter when others are expected to buy them for “European strategic sovereignty.”
15 comments
Oh boy, can’t wait to see who backs out of the project first.
>PARIS — France and Germany have formalized an agreement to develop a future battle-tank system, with the countries’ defense ministers signing off on an industrial work-share pact here on Friday.
>The countries’ defense firms – KNDS, Rheinmetall and Thales, among others – can now get to work on proposals, which are expected in the coming months, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastian Lecornu said at a briefing. Germany is leading the project and will be in charge of awarding contracts for the first demonstrator phase by the end of this year.
>Lecornu and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius in the past eight months [have managed to reboot](https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/09/07/europes-powerpoint-panzer-can-berlin-and-paris-pull-off-a-new-tank/) the project known as the Main Ground Combat System, which [languished for years](https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/07/10/french-german-defense-chiefs-jolt-languid-next-gen-tank-project/) amid wrangling over which countries’ industries would get to work on what. The ministers, who have said they get along well, last month agreed on [divvying up the workload equally between both nations](https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/03/22/france-germany-divvy-up-workload-for-next-generation-tank/).
>The political agreement “will force the different industrials to work together,” Lecornu said, adding that cooperation can be decreed, or created by setting a concrete industrial target. “We can’t have this type of partnership without also creating a common culture between the industries.”
>Lecornu said lessons were learned from discussions around the joint Future Combat Air System, where in some cases industrial agreement was reached before German, Spanish and French air forces were asked for their input. That is “out of the question” for the MGCS project, which is based on the needs of the countries’ two armies rather than industrial ideas, the French minister said.
>Officials of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, have stressed the modular character of the envisioned system. Tank variants with different specializations, working in concert on the battlefield, will all share a common undercarriage, according to a statement on the Bundeswehr website. The concept has yet to be proven, and as of now there are no studies or models yet about a system demonstrator for the program as a whole, it adds.
>Designing a completely new land combat weapon will entail pulling together the operational experience from tank warfare of the past years, including lessons learned from Ukraine’s defense against Russian invaders, which has seen hundreds of main battle tanks destroyed or incapacitated.
>France and Germany will be designing “not so much the tank of the future, but the future of the tank,” Lecornu said. He said the U.S. hasn’t yet started considering the post-Abrams era, while Russia is experiencing “great difficulty” moving from its current generation of tanks to a successor.
>Germany is counting on the future combat system to replace its Leopard tanks sometime in the 2040s, while France is looking for the MGCS to replace its Leclerc fleet.
Dude on the left is experiencing the cold
Finally, hopefully?
Didn’t we add Italy recently to that program?
Why do I feel like i’ve read this same headline 14 times over the last 5+ years?
Finally, we need to build one single army not 200 different tanks, 200 different airplanes etc… 🙃, we need to put our expertise together and build one great weapons for each category and have our own army and factories for shell production. Italy 🇮🇹
This kind of thing has never gone well, so I’m not overly optimistic, but I’m willing to see what happens I suppose.
Poland had to go with Korean and US tanks, because European tanks exist on paper, but neither Germany nor France would provide sufficient amount of them in reasonable time under reasonable conditions.
Talk is cheap, but if you’re all talk, then it means nothing. Where is that artillery ammo for Ukraine that Europe was supposed to produce and deliver?
It IS possible, airbus is a major industrial success (also involving the UK and Spain). Just need enough political will.
Francois, get ze hammer, we build le panzer zusammen.
Have they agreed on who gets to make the gun, Rheinmetall or Thales? I think that was one of the big sticking points.
It’s amazing that Germany and France invited other European countries to participate in this project. Or does European solidarity only matter when others are expected to buy them for “European strategic sovereignty.”
Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks Tanks
But when will they begin working on a future battle **toad** system?