“What we are going to do is launch an intermediate capacity program to bridge the gap between the end of the Leclerc in 2038 and the arrival of the MGCS,” Catherine Vautrin told members of the Defense Committee as she presented the bill to update the military programming for 2024-2030.
“Studies to define the capacity to succeed the Leclerc tank will be launched to mitigate the risk of a temporary capacity gap,” the bill text specifies.
The 200 French Leclerc tanks are currently being modernized but will reach the end of their life before the entry into service of the MGCS (Main ground combat system), which is set to succeed the German Leopard 2 and the Leclerc by 2040.
But this flagship Franco-German cooperation program launched in 2017 is “about ten years behind schedule,” according to Ms. Vautrin.
The industrial companies KNDS France, KNDS Germany, Rheinmetall, and Thales are still in the early stages of developing a demonstrator of the MGCS, a kind of prototype to test technological building blocks.
Facing the possibility of a conflict with Russia and the needs of European countries to arm themselves, Germany continues to modernize the Leopard 2 tank.
The MGCS aims to be a system of systems: a tank accompanied by other vehicles, manned or unmanned.
Catherine Vautrin did not specify when studies for this intermediate tank will formally begin.
The chassis of the future tank will likely be designed by KNDS France (formerly Nexter) or KNDS Germany (formerly KMV, which produces the Leopard’s chassis) and its turret “would be a French turret,” according to the minister.
