The Bundeswehr has placed a firm order with Rheinmetall for 120mm ammunition for the onboard cannon of Leopard 2 battle tanks worth around 309 million euros and, by amending an existing framework agreement, has agreed to the delivery of several hundred thousand rounds worth around four billion euros by 2030, as the company announced has.
Documents available to ESuT show that the current call is to be financed from individual plans 14 (defense budget) and 60 (Federal Government's upgrading initiative). The deliveries in the period up to 2025 are intended to replenish the Bundeswehr's stocks - also as additional procurement for ammunition deliveries to Ukraine - and to support Ukraine.
We are talking about the 120mm x 570 types of ammunition
- programmable multi-purpose ammunition DM11 and the associated training ammunition DM88,
- Massive ammunition (kinetic energy, KE) DM73 and DM63A1 and the associated practice ammunition DM98 and
- non-programmable multi-purpose ammunition Rh31.
Almost half of the ammunition is to be delivered this year.
The non-programmable multi-purpose ammunition can be fired from all Leopard 2 barrels, while the programmable version requires an upgrade of the weapon system, which is only present in the modern Leopard 2 variants. The practice ammunition has the same ballistic properties as the combat ammunition at a limited combat distance, but is cheaper due to the missing active component and can be used in shooting training with reduced safety requirements.
Editors / gwh
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