Ok from France and Germany to the first phase of the tank of the future (MGCS)
The Defense Ministers of France and Germany have signed the agreement on the division of work which officially launches the first phase of development of the MGCS program for the tank of the future
Paris and Berlin launch the first phase of development of the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) program, a program for the European tank of the future launched by the two countries in 2017 (together with the parallel FCAS for the sixth generation fighter).
On 26 April, the French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius signed the agreement on the MGCS construction program in Paris. This was reported by the respective defense ministries.
Starting in 2035, the Franco-German MGCS is expected to replace the Leopard 2 and Leclerc tanks, in service in the German and French armies respectively. The project risked failing due to differences between Berlin and Paris, which were never fully resolved. However, last month the two countries managed to unblock the dossier by agreeing on the distribution of industrial tasks.
The protocol signed today provides for an equal distribution between the companies participating in the project: Knds, a group made up of the French Nexter and the German Kmw, and Rheinmetall, based in Duesseldorf.
“Tank of the future”: France and Germany carve their union in stone, comments Les Echos. The agreement in fact marks a rapprochement between the two countries whose political relations have been put to the test by differences on European defense policy and on armaments for Ukraine.
“It's finally coming to fruition!”, declared German minister Pistorius in a joint interview with Lecornu published yesterday in the German newspaper Faz , specifying that “the detailed contract should be ready at the beginning of next year”.
All the details.
THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN PARIS AND BERLIN ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WORK
Today's formal agreement kicks off the development of the first phase of the tank of the future, a project worth billions of euros.
The first contracts, worth several hundred million euros, will be notified to producers by the end of the year, Usine Nouvelle wrote last month. “By the end of the year, Germany will award contracts worth up to several hundred million euros for the pre-demonstration phase. In addition to a significant part of Nexter, the French stake is expected to include Thales, Safran and Mbda as well as smaller companies, while German companies in addition to Krauss-Maffei Wegmann will include Rheinmetall and others” reports Defense News .
The MGCS will have to replace France's Leclerc tanks and Germany's Leopard tanks by 2040
WHAT THE NEW MGCS TANK OF FRANCE AND GERMANY WILL BE LIKE
“It's not just a new tank design. This is a combat system project that will mark a technological turning point, explained the Minister of the French Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, underlining that this program would be the first new generation tank project.
The new tanks will incorporate “next generation firepower, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, as well as laser and directed energy weapons,” the French minister highlighted in the interview with Faz .
For his part, Minister Pistorius declared: “Let's develop together a system of the future that is oriented towards what we need: from artificial intelligence and the most modern sensor technology to the possibility of unmanned use in certain situations.” The French defense minister added: “We started from the operational needs of the German armed forces and the French army, while our predecessors sometimes relied more on those of industry.”
With their joint project taking shape, Lecornu said France and Germany have an advantage over the United States, which "has not yet started thinking about the future of the Abrams tank."
ITALIAN INTEREST IN THE MGCS PROGRAM
And will Rome get on board the MGCS?
From the beginning, both Italy and Poland repeatedly asked to join the MGCS program, but Paris and Berlin wanted to keep the project exclusively bilateral until the development of a prototype. But the Franco-German cooperation had indeed broken down and the project remained stuck in the architectural study phase, regularly extended for several months. Meanwhile, rather than including these new partners in the original MGCS project, Germany seemed to have preferred to start a new project with Italy and Sweden together with Spain, putting France aside.
But on March 22, the German and French defense ministers reached an agreement on the distribution of work among producers for the MGCS, ratified with today's signature.
Not forgetting that last year Italian Defense announced that the planned purchase of German Leopard 2 A8 tanks would keep Rome in play for a role in the MGCS programme, helping Italy to become more closely involved with German industry. The strategic alliance between the national defense giant Leonardo and Knds also fits precisely in this direction.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/ok-di-francia-e-germania-alla-prima-fase-del-carro-armato-del-futuro-mgcs/ on Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:32:08 +0000.