Germany and France plan to heavily revise a joint battle tank project, Berlin indicated on Monday, potentially scrapping a future shared vehicle long seen as the project’s centrepiece.
Both countries might instead develop their own next-generation tanks or other armoured vehicles, a German defence ministry spokesman said, while still building a shared set of digital combat systems.
The news on the so-called Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) project comes after last week’s failure of another Franco-German defence project: the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter jet programme.
France’s Dassault Aviation had pushed to have greater control over the jet project, including over technology it was bringing to the table, angering corporate partner Airbus and many German politicians.
MGCS was launched with fanfare in 2017 by French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s then-chancellor, Angela Merkel.
The project was aimed at replacing the current main battle tanks for both countries: France’s Leclerc and Germany’s Leopard 2.
But as tensions over the FCAS project mounted in the past year, Macron had suggested that France would re-evaluate the tank project if Germany baled on the joint fighter jet.
The defence ministry spokesman in Berlin said on Monday that “some adjustments have been made in recent weeks” to the tank programme, which would now focus on “the research, development and demonstration of cutting-edge future technologies for the operation and command of main battle tanks”.
Asked if that meant France and Germany would end up developing their own separate armoured vehicles, the spokesman said that “the question remains open”.
– Some cooperation –
Both France and Germany have officially insisted that the FCAS programme would also continue to develop shared technology systems even after the aircraft at the centre of the project was cancelled.
The MGCS programme has been troubled by its own corporate tensions, in addition to the risks of fallout from the FCAS failure.
Franco-German tank builder KNDS and French defence contractor Thales were originally the main contractors on the project, but German defence giant Rheinmetall was added to the programme in 2019 at the insistence of Berlin.
In an interview published on Saturday, the head of Rheinmetall mentioned a possible withdrawal by France.
KNDS, meanwhile, unveiled its own new battle tank on Monday at the Eurosatory arms industry trade fair just outside Paris.
The tank, dubbed “Capint”, is intended as a bridge between the French army’s ageing current Leclerc tanks and a future replacement.
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