Staff review at the Canjuers camp, in the Var. In front of military delegations from several countries, General Alain Lardet salutes the paratrooper gunners in full demonstration of the Caesar cannon. For around twenty minutes, on the largest shooting range in Western Europe, trucks equipped with this cannon popularized by the French delivery to Kiev last year carry out rapid maneuvers and live fire.
“The demonstration was very telling because it made it possible to concretize the questions we had, linked to the impact on the implementation” of the Caesar, rejoices the Belgian lieutenant-colonel David Manunta, Artillery technical authority with his army. Belgium, which entered into a strategic interoperability partnership with France in 2018, wishes, according to him, to “boost its artillery”. The country has already signed a contract for nine Caesar NG (new generation) cannons and “negotiations are reportedly underway” for “a new order of 19 pieces,” explains Belgian Colonel Marc Bastin.
This demonstration takes place as part of the launch by Nexter, a company of the Franco-German KNDS group, of the “Caesar club”. This aims to “try to regularly bring together the entire community of users of the Caesar cannon” in order to “share operational feedback, difficulties, things to improve”, explains Olivier Fort, General Director of Artillery at Nexter.
A few hours earlier, the military representatives of several foreign delegations having already acquired the Caesar, including Thailand (6 guns), Saudi Arabia (132), the Czech Republic (62) and Lithuania (18), signed the founding charter of this club within the Artillery Museum, located near the school of the same name in Draguignan (Var). Also present were European and South American “prospects”, but not Ukraine.