The upgrade plan for the British Army Challenger 3 MBT will include three distinct phases, but the UK MoD is still considering its 120mm ammunition options.
RBSL (a JV between Rheinmetall and BAE Systems Land) has confirmed that the British Army’s Challenger 3 MBT Life Extension Programme (LEP) will comprise three phases with an expected in-service date of 2027.
The first phase, now underway, covers the building of six pre-series Challenger 3 MBTs at the RBSL facility in Telford. This will be followed by Phase 2 LRIP of a further 18 units, with Phase 3 being full-rate production of 203 tanks.
The end result will be sufficient to equip two regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) plus vehicles for training and reserve.
There are currently 227 Challenger 2 MBTs in service with the British Army out of a total of 386 built, which at one time equipped six regiments of the RAC.
The upgraded Challenger 3 hulls are being supplied to RBSL by Babcock from its facility in Bovingdon, Dorset. Babcock previously overhauled all of the current Challenger 2 MBT fleet and its associated support vehicles including the Titan armoured vehicle-launched bridge and the Trojan obstacle breacher.
The new RBSL turret will be armed with the latest Rheinmetall 120mm L55A1 smoothbore gun, which is already in production in Germany. However, according to RBSL the key 120mm ammunition package does not form part of its contracts with the UK MoD.
‘Several ammunition options are being considered,’ MoD Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) said in a statement, adding that ‘no decisions have been made’.
In the past, the UK preferred armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) ammunition with the penetrator being made of depleted uranium (DU), which is claimed to have increased armour penetration characteristics over APFSDS rounds with a conventional penetrator.
Rheinmetall does not make an APFSDS round with a DU penetrator. It is developing the new 120mm KE2020Neo APFSDS round but this will not be ready for serial production for several years and will have a non-DU advanced penetrator. In the US, Northrop Grumman manufactures the M829A4 round with DU but it will cease doing so after its current contract expires.
The secondary ammunition for the 120mm L55A1 smoothbore gun is the Rheinmetall DM11 Air Bursting Munition, which has been in production for some years for the home and export markets and is programmed at the breech.
RBSL will also offer the Challenger 3 turret on the export market armed with the L55A1 but it remains to be seen which direction the British Army moves as regards its future 120mm ammunition requirements; for now, the L55A1 is optimised for German rather than US ammunition.
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