Rheinmetall Presents First Heavy Weapons Carrier Prototype to the German Army

Rheinmetall today presented to the German Army the first prototype of the “Infantry Heavy Weapon Carrier” for development and testing.

The handover of the keys took place at the Rheinmetall Unterlüß site in the presence of the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense Siemtje Möller and other officials.

Just a few weeks ago, Rheinmetall was commissioned to deliver a total of 123 of these vehicles based on the Boxer platform with 30mm automatic cannons. Delivery of the series vehicles is scheduled to begin in 2025.

Once it is ready for series production, production will take place primarily at Rheinmetall's Redbank site in Australia. The primary aim of using Australian capacities is to make the vehicles available to the German Army as quickly as possible. Substantial performance components will come from Germany, including the first twenty series vehicles and essential key components of all series vehicles.

Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH will also be responsible for the complete service package of logistics, maintenance and repairs and will serve as the Bundeswehr's contact partner in Germany throughout the vehicles' entire service life.

From as early as 2025, the heavy weapons carrier infantry will provide the intermediate forces, the new force category of the German Army, with fast-moving additional firepower as a core element.

The heavy infantry weapon carrier serves as a replacement for the Wiesel tracked vehicle for direct tactical fire support of the infantry units. The 8x8 combat vehicles are characterized by their ability to be deployed quickly over long distances and thus contribute to credible national and alliance defense.

The Heavy Weapons Carrier Infantry is based on the Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle (CRV), the wheeled reconnaissance vehicle of the Australian Armed Forces, which is also supplied by Rheinmetall. This is the proven 8x8 combat vehicle with a wheeled scout tank mission module including the two-man Lance turret. The main weapon is the MK30-2 ABM machine cannon, which is also installed in the German Puma infantry fighting vehicle.

The vehicles intended for the German Army will be mass-built using production capacity at the state-of-the-art Rheinmetall Competence Center for Military Vehicles (MILVEHCOE) in Redbank in southeast Queensland - together with the wheeled reconnaissance vehicles produced for the Australian Defense Force.

To this end, a comprehensive German-Australian cooperation - with the signing of basic agreements - was launched in 2023