Paris and Berlin officially launch “Tank of the Future” program / Main Ground Combat System should be operational in 2040

Sébastien Lecornu, the French minister of the armed forces, and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, signed the commitment agreement in Paris on Friday, which seals the collaboration between the two countries regarding the “tank of the future” program, which is part of the so-called phase “1A”, reports the Reuters agency.

Boris Pistorius explained, during a joint press conference with the French minister, that the objective is to sign the contracts by the end of the year.

Sébastien Lecornu named Rheinmetall, Thales and KNDS, the holding formed in 2015 by the French Nexter and the German Krauss Maffei Wegmann (KMW), among the manufacturers that could be called upon for the MGCS (Main Ground Combat System).

The agreement signed on Friday covers phase 1A of the project, which involves the design of a pre-prototype.

The MGCS program, estimated to cost around 100 billion euros, was launched jointly by Paris and Berlin in 2017, at the same time as Scaf, the “fighter of the future”, which is slowly advancing. Spain later joined the two partners in the latter project.

The MGCS is designed to replace the German Leopard 2 and French Leclerc tanks.

“In the 2040s, it will be time for two neighboring and friendly countries, members of the European Union and NATO, to have a fully functional armored cavalry framework,” said Sébastien Lecornu, who received his counterpart at the Hôtel de Brienne.

He spoke of a “technological break” at a time when “our American friends have not begun to think about the post-Abrams era” and when “the Russians are having major difficulties in breaking away from the current generation of tanks.”

In his view, France and Germany are “the first nations to be concerned about in the 2040 era in terms of cavalry and armored vehicles.”

After signing a joint roadmap last September, the two ministers announced in March at a meeting in Berlin an agreement on the sharing of tasks between the two countries for this ambitious project, which should be completed by in 2040-2045.