Britain, Germany advance plan for new armor-piercing tank ammo

Britain, Germany advance plan for new armor-piercing tank ammo

Time Stamp: April 28, 2023 12:39 PM
Source Node: 2614676

LONDON — Britain and Germany moved closer to jointly launching a new main battle tank ammunition this week with the signing of an agreement taking the project to the next stage of development.

The two sides signed a statement of intent April 27 taking development of an 120-mm enhanced kinetic energy (EKE) round forward during a meeting in London between U.K. national armaments director Andy Start and his German counterpart, Vice Adm. Carsten Stawitzki.

A statement released by the British following the signing said defense officials hope ongoing discussions would lead to a joint program by the end of the year to field the new armor piercing round for British Army Challenger 3 and German Leopard 2 tanks.

What is currently a two-nation program could though soon be enlarged to take in other partners and other types of 120-mm tank ammunition.

“Under the terms of the new agreement, Germany and the U.K. will also remain open for additional nations to join the cooperation or be export recipients, as well as continuing discussions on potential collaboration for other types of 120-mm tank ammunition,” said the British statement.

Stawitzki signaled that expansion of the program to include other nations would be welcomed sooner rather than later.

“With the statement of intent being signed, the U.K. and Germany will consider the request to allow for additional partners to join the program as soon as possible,” he said.

The two nations are already in discussion with a potential additional partner, but nobody is saying exactly who that is for the moment.

In the meantime U.K. and German officials are preparing the ground for the joint program.

A proof-of-principle evaluation has already passed live-fire testing, and the qualification stage has already started.

The statement said the next phase of qualification work would see the nations “demonstrating that the new munition passes all legal and regulatory standards.”

The British Army is the only operator of the Challenger tank in Europe. The Leopard 2, on the other hand, is widely used by NATO countries and others, potentially leading to significant export opportunities for an advanced EKE round.

“The standardized ammunition will not only benefit battlefield collaboration with many of our NATO allies, but has important export potential for U.K. and German defense industry partners,” said British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

Rheinmetall Waffe Munition hold the design authority for the new tank ammo project, and the company is in talks with their U.K. suppliers to take a share of the program.

An export opportunity was on display April 28 as Rheinmetall announced it had secured a €200 million ($221 million) order for tank ammunition from an unnamed European customer for delivery between this year and 2025.

The British Army’s outdated Challenger 2 tank is the only NATO tank firing rifled 120-mm ammunition, but a £800 million ($1 billion) program led by Rheinmetall-BAE Systems joint venture RBSL is underway extensively modernizing 148 of the vehicles to the Challenger 3 standard.

The standout element of the upgrade is the installation of a new turret carrying Rheinmetall’s latest generation L55A1 smoothbore gun.

Firing a smoothbore gun will finally bring the Challenger 3 configuration into line with all other NATO tanks, thereby enhancing interoperability.

Initial operating capability of the Challenger 3 is scheduled for 2027 with full operating capability targeted in 2030. The new ammunition is scheduled to be available in time for the latter milestone.

Andrew Chuter is the United Kingdom correspondent for Defense News.

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