The United Kingdom has announced a “nearly £1 billion” contract for the production of 72 BOXER Remote Controlled Howitzers (RCH 155) for the Mobile Fires Platform project, a desperately needed and overdue British Army requirement for a successor to the long gone AS90 self propelled howitzers. The last AS90s left service at the end of 2024 and all howitzers were handed over to Ukraine, leaving the British Army operating just 14 ARCHER self propelled guns, acquired second-hand from Sweden as (very partial) stop-gap.

The contract has been awarded by the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) on behalf of the British Army to ARTEC GmbH, a joint venture between KNDS and Rheinmetall.

The RCH155s for the UK will be manufactured largely in the UK: the BOXER Drive Modules will come from the assembly line operated by KNDS UK in Stockport, while the barrel, breech, recoil system and trunnions will be manufactured at Rheinmetall’s new large-calibre production facility in Telford.

Rheinmetall is also “set to use British steel supplied by Sheffield Forgemasters, supporting the UK Steel Strategy”. Overall, the UK MoD says that the project will support the creation of 100 new skilled jobs at Rheinmetall’s Telford facility, support 100 jobs at KNDS Stockport and back 300 jobs in the wider UK supply chain.

The order comes several months after Germany signed, in December 2025, its own order for 84 guns as part of this joint programme. The UK had to wait to get into the new financial year before money could be allocated and it partially bridged the divide by awarding a £52 million “Early Capability Demonstrator” contract in December 2025, ordering a single RCH155 demonstrator and securing a joint campaign of trials with Germany. Earlier this year, a £53 million Long Lead Item procurement contract was awarded to kick-start production of barrels, breeches, recoil systems and trunnions at Telford for the first 34 howitzers.

The automated, crewless gun turret ensures rates of fire that can exceed 8 rounds per minute. The fully  automatic loading system for projectiles and modular propellant charges handles a combat load of up to 30 fuzed projectiles and 144 modular propellant charges. Fuses are inductively programmed during loading, and the weapon system is electrically aimed.

The RCH155 is described as a system with a firing reach of “up to 70 km”, which is interesting but will wholly depend on the ammunition employed. For example, Rheinmetall had demonstrated in November 2019 that its M2005 V-LAP ammunition could achieve ranges of almost 67 kilometers from the 52-caliber barrel. V-LAP stands for Velocity Enhanced Long Range Artillery Projectile, which is an artillery projectile with increased velocity achieved through basebleed and a rocket motor. Germany operates the Italian-designed VULCANO extended range, guided munitions. UK plans are yet to be discovered beyond the planned introduction of a new base-bleed, course-corrected shell, the XL-12 Tactical Guided Munition – Indirect.

A number of BONUS shells with smart anti-armour top-attack sub-munitions have been introduced into Royal Artillery service alongside the ARCHER and might carry over. The current order for 72 guns is the bare minimum needed to meet the stated “minimum” requirement of equipping 3 Close Support regiments: 1 Royal Horse Artillery (1 RHA), 19 Royal Artillery (19 RA) and 4 RA.

The British Army clearly needs at least another regiment as 4 Brigade is currently devoid of regular-manned artillery at all but it’s impossible to say at this stage if the Defence Investment Plan, as-yet unpublished, will offer any hope in this sense. At launch in the early 2020s, the Mobile Fires Platform had been a 98 to 116 guns project with 4 Regiments planned for conversion. The missing fourth unit is 3 RHA, which in the meanwhile changed role to Deep Fires and converted to M270A2 GMLRS.

The BOXER RCH155 purchase extends the number of BOXER 8x8 vehicles to be acquired by the British Army: 623 vehicles are being separately procured with production ongoing in Germany (the first 100 or so vehicles), Stockport (KNDS UK) and Telford (Rheinmetall Bae Systems Land, RBSL).

Another, Batch 2 order for a number of other BOXERs is anticipated. OCCAR believes the contract will be signed sometime this year, after years of delays and uncertainty, but at present there are no confirmations.

Follow us on Telegram, Facebook and X.