Australia Orders 211 Rheinmetall Boxer Wheeled Armored Vehicles for $2.4 Billion

Australia has awarded $2.4 billion (€2.1 billion) contract to Rheinmetall to procure 211 Boxer wheeled armored vehicles.

The contract was signed at Parliament House in Canberra today by the Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull and the Managing Director of Rheinmetall Defence Australia Gary Stewart. Delivery of the advanced 8x8 Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles (CRV) will take place between 2019 and 2026, the company said in a statement Friday.
Turnbull first announced his government’s intention to order the fleet of Boxer vehicles in March 2018.

The ADF will introduce several variants of the Boxer with the reconnaissance variant – accounting for 133 of the 211 vehicles – equipped with Rheinmetall’s Lance turret system and armed with a 30mm automatic cannon.

Under Australia’s LAND 400 Phase 2 selection process, the Boxer CRV was chosen in 2016 as one of two candidates for Risk Mitigation Activity trials where the 8x8 wheeled armoured vehicle performed convincingly in the categories of survivability, mobility, firepower, and command & control.

More than 40 Australian companies will be included in the programme.