The U.K. Ministry of Defence has awarded the ARTEC German manufacturing joint venture a $2.9 billion deal to produce over 500 Boxer armored fighting vehicles.
The deal to the Rheinmetall
and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) partnership follows the British Army selection of Boxer as its future infantry fighting vehicle in April, with plans to start fielding in 2023 and potentially procure up to 1,500 vehicles.
Boxer 8×8 combat vehicles will be delivered in several configurations, according to Rheinmetall, including armored personnel carriers, command vehicles, specialist carriers and field ambulances.
Rheinmetall and KMW will each take 50 percent of the order, with the full-scale production to begin in Germany.
The companies noted that over 90 percent of the production process will still take place in the U.K., including at a plant operated by the new Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL) joint venture.
In January, Rheinmetall said it would hold a 55 percent majority stake in the RBSL group, which is based out of the U.K. company’s Telford, England facility (Defense Daily, Jan. 22).
Rheinmetall said the ARTEC group is currently on contract for 700 additional Boxer vehicles across Germany, the Netherlands and Lithuania, with Australia also recently ordering 200 Boxer combat reconnaissance vehicles in seven variants.