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France, Germany kick off race for ‘quantum leaps’ in aircraft and tank tech
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  1 hour ago
COLOGNE, Germany ― The defense ministers of Germany and France have inked new agreements for the joint development of a new combat aircraft and a next-generation tank, key programs that could shape the European defense landscape for decades to come.

Ursula von der Leyen and Florence Parly signed the letters of intent on the sidelines of a bilateral Cabinet meeting in Berlin on Tuesday. The documents are meant to provide the necessary guidance to set up a program of record for the Future Combat Air System and the Main Ground Combat System.

A defense spokesman in Berlin told Defense News the agreement calls for the examination of potential management structures, for example through OCCAR, a European collective for joint weapons acquisition and management. The core members of OCCAR include France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Belgium, though other nations can partake in individual projects.

According to a German Defence Ministry statement, the signed documents establish the two governments’ “left and right boundaries” for the programs.

“Industry is now requested to fill the space,” the statement reads. “Both projects ... stand for technological quantum leaps that shall be approached together while integrating the strengths of each nation’s industries.”



Led by France, the Future Combat Air System aims to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon in Germany and the Rafale aircraft in France. The Main Ground Combat System, helmed by Berlin, will succeed the German Leopard 2 tanks ― used widely in Europe and beyond ― and the French Leclerc.

The new aircraft are envisioned to hit the skies by 2040, while the the new tanks are pegged to roll in the mid-2030s. Connected to the tank effort is also an artillery replacement plan, named Common Indirect Fire System.

While both projects initially are exclusively German and French, partner countries will have an opportunity to join once a “strong foundation” is established by the two lead nations, the German Defence Ministry said.

KNDS, a joint venture by German tank-maker Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter, unveiled a European Main Battle Tank as an interim step toward the future tank program at the Eurosatory defense trade show in Paris last week. The next-generation combat aircraft project, which officials said will include a sizable unmanned component, is slated to enter a concept-study phase by the end of the year, according to the German ministry.

Both efforts are still some time away from formulating concrete military requirements, to which companies eventually can tailor their offers. That cooperation process is expected to be thornier than the agreement on political pronouncements so far that paint Germany and France as the motor of Europe’s new defense ambitions.

Absent from Tuesday’s joint statement was any mention of cooperative work on a new air-to-ground missile and modernization of the Tiger attack helicopter to a Mark 3 version.

The two ministers had announced at the ILA Berlin air show in April that the two countries would cooperate on the airborne weapon and the midlife upgrade of the combat helicopter.

A common weapon for both French and German Tiger helicopters would cut down integration costs for the missiles.

Pierre Tran in Paris contributed to this report.

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Tank makers steel themselves for Europe’s next big land-weapon contest
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  23 hours ago
PARIS ― European manufacturers of armored vehicles are jockeying for position in what looks to be the most expensive land program for the continent in decades.

The industry activity follows plans by France and Germany, reiterated this month, to build a Main Ground Combat System that would replace the current fleet of Leopard 2 and Leclerc tanks. While conceived as a two-country project for now, the hope is to develop a weapon that other European land forces will also pick up.

Details remain murky about exactly what the new vehicles must be able to do, though the job description includes something about

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. Perhaps that’s why officials chose an amorphous name for the project, as it could be anything from a nimble, autonomous fighter to the type of human-driven steel beast of today’s armies.

The target date for introducing the new platform is set at 2035, and Germany has picked up the lead role for the project both on the government

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.

KNDS, the Franco-German joint venture of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter, put the program on the radar of visitors of the

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in Paris earlier this month. The companies mated the chassis of a Leopard 2 tank to a Leclerc turret ― and voila, a European Main Battle Tank was born.

Company officials stressed that the hybrid behemoth is only a stepping stone on the way toward a full-blown European tank offering under the Main Ground Combat System banner. But the product might interest Eastern European nations looking to divest their Russian legacy fleets for a good-enough, Western-made tank that ― presumably ― doesn’t break the bank.

The marriage of KMW and Nexter saves the two companies from having to compete against one another for the next-generation tank. It also creates the appearance that Paris’ and Berlin’s love for a future tank is happily echoed by their industries.

“Let’s assume we wouldn’t have joined forces,” said Frank Haun, the CEO of KMW. Both he and his Nexter counterpart, Stephane Mayer, would have had to lobby their respective governments for a purely national solution, pulling the old argument of keeping jobs in the country, Haun said.

The two companies hailed an announcement last week about a new Franco-German deal aimed at examining possible program options for the future tank.

“The Letter Of Intent signed yesterday is a significant step forward in the defense cooperation between the two countries and in Europe,” reads a June 20 statement. “This close cooperation was the key motivation for the foundation of KNDS in 2015, where Nexter and KMW cooperate as national system houses for land systems.”

But the binational industry team is far from the only game in town.

Take Rheinmetall, for example, which is KMW’s partner in the Leopard program. Company executives at the Paris weapons expo were tight-lipped about their strategy toward the Main Ground Combat System, or MGCS. But it’s probably a safe bet to presume the Düsseldorf, Germany-based firm won’t cede a market of tens of billions of dollars without a fight.

“Come back and see me in December in Unterlüß,” Ben Hudson, head of the company’s vehicle systems division, told Defense News during an interview in Paris. He was referring to a small German town one hour south of Hamburg where Rheinmetall runs a manufacturing plant.

Hudson declined to say more about what the company would roll out at that time. “I can’t mention it just yet,” he said. “Expect more surprises in the future. We’re already working on some other things in the secret laboratories of Rheinmetall.”

Either way, officials were eager to note that KNDS, despite its industrial alignment alongside the two governments in charge, is only one bidder in a field that has to fully emerge.

“I think there is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge on this program, as it is only in its early days. However, with the technology in the Rheinmetall Group, we have a significant interest in playing a key role in MGCS,” Hudson said.

He argued that developing the next-generation tank must begin with considering the “threat” out there, namely the Russian T-14 and T-15 tanks, which are based on a common chassis dubbed Armata. Those vehicles’ characteristics, or at least what is known about them, dictate “high lethality” be built into the future European tank, according to Hudson.

“How do you defeat a tank that has four active defense systems on it?” he asked.

And then there is General Dynamics European Land Systems, the Old World’s offspring of the U.S. maker of the Abrams tank and Stryker vehicle.

The company is careful to note its European roots: a consolidated mishmash of formerly independent armored-vehicle makers from across the continent.

Manuel Lineros, vice president of engineering, told Defense News that the company’s Ascot vehicle will be the GDELS offering for the European next-gen tank. Advertised for its mobility and weighing in at roughly 45 tons, the tracked vehicle falls in the class of infantry fighting vehicles, putting it one notch below the heaviest battle tank category.

“I understand the battlefield has changed,” Lineros said in an interview at Eurosatory. “We have to abandon the ideas of a combat vehicle versus a classic main battle tank. Everything is so mixed up now.”

Whatever the Ascot lacks in sheer mass against projectiles aimed at its shell could be compensated with an active protection system and the ability to move quickly on the battlefield, argued Lineros. “We have to be flexible in this way of interpreting the requirements.”

That includes defending against

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, which could become the peer-to-peer equivalent of improvised explosive devices designed to rip open the underbellies of vehicles, he said. Unlike the recent countermine vehicle architecture, that type of aerial threat could mean the top surface of future vehicles will be a weak point requiring special protection, he added.

Though adding armor plates remains the industry’s first instinct in responding to new threats, Lineros said there is a limit to what he called an “addiction” to steel. “More and more we’ll be moving out of this sport.”

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