France, Germany divvy up workload for next-generation tank

BERLIN — The industries of Germany and France will have an equal share of work in developing and producing a future tank, the countries’ defense ministers announced March 22.

The agreement for the Main Ground Combat System, to be formalized in late April as a memorandum of understanding, caps years of wrangling over national preferences for the two main industry actors: the joint venture of France’s Nexter and Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, known as KNDS; and Germany’s Rheinmetall.

The deal foresees a central role for KNDS in the project.

During Friday’s joint news conference in Berlin, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and his French counterpart Sébastien Lecornu announced the deal and praised the pact as “historic,” which brings together two countries with comparable and competing defense industries under a single major defense program.

For his part, Lecornu noted the bilateral work leads to “interoperability” for two nations that share a continent and are members of NATO.

Italy, the Netherlands and others have expressed interest in joining the MGCS program, Pistorius said in September after a meeting with Lecornu to discuss the project .

Manufacturers are to develop the tank from scratch, the ministers said, with drones and directed-energy weapons augmenting the platform. Those additional technologies for the tank are currently experimental.

The program aims to replace Germany’s Leopard tanks and France’s Leclerc fleet sometime in the 2040s, with a demonstrator expected around 2030. The French target is to have a successor to its Leclerc main battle tank closer to 2040 than 2050, though.

The future system will be much more than a successor to existing tanks, Lecornu said, describing the MGCS as a step beyond what exists today in terms of technology, with a “particularly impressive” level of innovation regarding connectivity, electronic warfare, drone integration, armor and self-defensive measures.

The countries have agreed on eight pillars within the program, each with a 50-50 work share, including the tank platform, main gun, new weapons, communication technology and combat-cloud system.

Germany will award contracts for a total of up to several hundred million euros for the pre-demonstrator phase by the end of the year. In addition to a significant part for Nexter, the French share is expected to include Thales, Safran and MBDA as well as smaller firms, while German companies beyond Krauss-Maffei Wegmann will include Rheinmetall and others.

France and Germany also said KNDS will create a unit in Ukraine to locally produce ammunition as well as spare parts for French and German systems in use in the country. In time, there would be a possibility to produce entire systems in Ukraine, Lecornu said.

KNDS systems operating in Ukraine include Leopard 2 tanks, the wheeled Caesar 155mm howitzer, the tracked PzH 2000 howitzer and the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

柏林——德国和法国国防部长于3月22日宣布，两国工业界将在未来坦克的研发和生产中享有同等份额的工作。

主地面作战系统协议将于 4 月下旬正式签署谅解备忘录，结束了两大主要行业参与者多年来围绕国家偏好而进行的争论：法国奈克斯特公司和德国克劳斯-玛菲·韦格曼公司合资成立的 KNDS；以及德国莱茵金属公司。

该协议规定 KNDS 将在该项目中发挥核心作用。

在周五于柏林举行的联合新闻发布会上，德国国防部长鲍里斯·皮斯托里乌斯和法国国防部长塞巴斯蒂安·勒科尔努宣布了这项协议，并称赞该协议是“历史性的”，它将两个拥有可比拟且相互竞争的国防工业的国家联合到一个主要的国防计划之下。

莱科尔努则指出，双边合作有助于两个同处一个大陆且同属北约的国家实现“互操作性”。

皮斯托瑞斯在9月份与莱科尔努会面讨论该项目后表示，意大利、荷兰和其他国家都表示有兴趣加入MGCS计划。

部长们表示，制造商将从零开始研发这款坦克，并计划在其平台上加装无人机和定向能武器。这些用于坦克的附加技术目前仍处于试验阶段。

该计划旨在2040年代的某个时候取代德国的豹式坦克和法国的勒克莱尔坦克，预计在2030年左右推出原型车。不过，法国的目标是在2040年左右而不是2050年左右推出勒克莱尔主战坦克的后继车型。

莱科尔努表示，未来的系统将远不止是现有坦克的继任者，他将MGCS描述为在技术方面超越了当今的技术，并在连接性、电子战、无人机集成、装甲和自卫措施方面具有“特别令人印象深刻”的创新水平。

各国已就该计划的八个支柱达成一致，每个支柱的工作量均由双方各承担 50%，其中包括坦克平台、主炮、新武器、通信技术和作战云系统。

德国将在年底前授予总额高达数亿欧元的预演示阶段合同。除奈克斯特公司（Nexter）将获得相当大一部分份额外，预计法国方面还将包括泰雷兹（Thales）、赛峰集团（Safran）和MBDA以及一些规模较小的公司；而除克劳斯-玛菲·韦格曼公司（Krauss-Maffei Wegmann）外，德国方面还将包括莱茵金属公司（Rheinmetall）等其他公司。

法国和德国还表示，KNDS将在乌克兰建立一个生产单位，用于在当地生产弹药以及为该国使用的法国和德国系统生产零部件。莱科尔努说，假以时日，乌克兰甚至有可能生产整套系统。

在乌克兰使用的KNDS系统包括豹2坦克、凯撒155毫米轮式榴弹炮、PzH 2000履带式榴弹炮和猎豹自行高射炮。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。