Defense: Franco-German “breakthrough” in the MGCS land combat system

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German-French “breakthrough” in the MGCS land combat system

Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (r, SPD) and his French colleague Sébastien Lecornu have reached an agreement. photo

© Kay Nietfeld/dpa

Germany and France are jointly planning state-of-the-art weapon systems. Following a fundamental agreement on the air combat system, progress is now also being made on the battle tank of the future.

The defense ministers of Germany and France have reached an agreement in principle on the jointly planned land combat system of the future. The division of labor for the future battle tank, which will include a whole range of support weapons such as drones, has also been determined.

“We have the Breakthrough achieved today. It is no exaggeration to describe this as historic for a project like this. We have agreed on the distribution of all tasks for this large project,” said SPD politician Boris Pistorius, who appeared before the press in Berlin with his counterpart Sébastien Lecornu after the negotiations. Lecornu said the weapon system would be a “generational leap.” .

MGCS, which Germany will lead, is the counterpart to the Air Combat System of the Future (FCAS), led by France. The ground combat system will follow the Leopard and Leclerc battle tanks, but will have fundamentally different capabilities, such as linking to drones, artificial intelligence and new types of laser weapons.

Industrial distribution struggles had led to delays and tensions between Berlin and Paris. In May 2021, after an industrial policy struggle, Germany, France and Spain had already reached a “fundamental agreement” on the billion-dollar air combat system FCAS.

dpa

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