Rheinmetall will be delivering from the end of 2025
Bundeswehr orders 50 Puma tanks
05/15/2023 11:48 am
A few days after the Bundestag released the funds, the Bundeswehr ordered dozens of Puma infantry fighting vehicles from the armaments companies Rheinmetall and KMW. The first should be delivered in two and a half years.
The armaments companies Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann are supplying the Bundeswehr with 50 more Puma infantry fighting vehicles. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in December 2025 and be completed by early 2027, the companies said. The order has a total volume of a good one billion euros, of which 574 million euros went to Krauss-Maffei and 501 million euros to Rheinmetall.
Last week, the Bundestag gave the go-ahead for the order, which is to be financed from the so-called special assets of the Bundeswehr. In addition to the tanks, the contract includes kits of spare parts, special tool kits and eight training simulators for the Mells missile system that is on the tank.
Separately, 143 armored personnel carriers in the Bundeswehr’s inventory will be modernized by 2029, for example with night vision systems. The combat vehicle for Panzergrenadiers has space for a crew of nine: In addition to a six-man rifle squad, these are the commander, the gunner and the driver. The weapon system is intended to replace the Marder infantry fighting vehicle, some of which have already been delivered to Ukraine.
The Puma hit the headlines at the end of last year because several of the armored personnel carriers had failed due to technical defects during a Bundeswehr exercise. Since then, the Department of Defense and manufacturers have worked together to correct the deficiencies.