Armament project: Paris and Berlin want to further advance the MGCS tank project

Bordeaux. Germany and France want to stick to the joint MGCS main battle tank project, but possibly in a scaled-down form.

In view of speculation about the future of the billion-dollar arms project, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) and his French colleague Catherine Vautrin said during a company visit to Bordeaux that the project, known as the “Main Ground Combat System” (MGCS), was safe and would be continued.

“The MGCS project is not over, it is not dead, it has not been ended by anyone, but on the contrary, it is a core project of German-French cooperation on land systems,” said Pistorius. The project is “completely safe and an important future project for our two nations and our two armed forces.” The French Defense Minister also said that the main battle tank project is still relevant.

However, Pistorius and Vautrin did not say specifically whether there would be a common tank as originally planned, or simply a networking of a German and a French tank model in one combat system. In view of the original plans, this would be a significantly scaled down version of the project. In a similar way, the German-French FCAS fighter jet project was cut down in the summer and reduced to a network of separate weapon systems.

The Chief of General Staff of the French Armed Forces, Fabien Mandon, sparked renewed speculation about the tank project at a parliamentary hearing on Thursday afternoon. “We had hoped to build a new tank in cooperation with the Germans, but unfortunately we have to note that the Germans have decided to withdraw from the project,” he said there.

As the General Staff subsequently announced, the MGCS project was being delayed and Germany and France had therefore decided to bridge the gap by designing their own successor tanks for the Leopard 2 currently in use in Germany and the Leclerc tanks in France. “While this program has been postponed, it will continue and maintain its high priority, with a focus now on developing improved networking, cooperative combat, automation and robotization.”

The MGCS main battle tank project is intended as a successor to the Leopard and Leclerc tanks of both countries and has an estimated volume of around 100 billion euros. Industrial distribution struggles had previously led to delays in the project and to tensions between Berlin and Paris.