Defence Procurement Minister Luke Pollard has confirmed in a Written Asnwer on 3 February that the Patria 6x6 is being “considered” as replacement for the FUCHS vehicles used by the British Army for CBRN reconnaissance.

In an earlier answer he had revealed that the current assument Out of Service Date for FUCHS, despite a recent upgrade to the vehicles, is 2029. Questioned about plans for replacement of this unique capability, he notes that the replacement is being considered within the Heavy Protected Mobility sub-programme, part of the wider Land Mobility Programme (LMP). In the same answer, he goes on to confirm that the Patria 6x6 Common Armoured Vehicles System (CAVS) is being “evaluated” as the HPM solution.

Despite ongoing ambiguity on the effective status of Patria 6x6 in British Army plans, it is increasingly obvious that CAVS is the sole solution upon which Heavy Protected Mobility efforts are coalescing. The UK formally joined the CAVS multi-national program with an announcement made at DSEI in September 2025. While no orders have yet been formalized, nor have precise contracts been unveiled, it is understood that the Patria 6x6 vehicle has first of all been mandated as the base for the new Mobile Fire Unit for Short Range Air Defence (SHORAD) which is urgently needed to replace the current, tracked STORMER HVM by 2028.

Earlier this year, at IAV 2026, General Roland Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said in his speech that later this year we would see “something” about the British Army work on CAVS and this is expected to be the SHORAD unit. Indeed, progress in this area is overdue, with a 48 million development contract having been pre-announced in early 2025 for award in August 2025. STORMER HVM was until recently due Out of Service this year; this has subsequently been delayed to 2028, with the expectation that production of the new Mobile Fire Units will be underway come 2027.

In other words, although no contract award notice was so far released publicly, the hints suggest that the SHORAD variant is indeed being developed. Thales is the prime contractor for the weapon system, as the missiles to be used will still be MBDA's STARSTREAK (High Velocity Missile) and Light Multirole Missile LMM (also sometime indicated as Low Velocity Missile due to its Mach 1.5 speed in comparison to 3+ for STARSTREAK. Also known as MARTLET in Royal Navy use on the WILDCAT helicopter).

Patria signed an agreement with Babcock in the UK for production of the 6x6: the expectation is that, following a first lot to come from Patria’s existing production lines, assembly of the vehicles will begin in the UK as well, in the same new facility at Devonport (Plymouth) that already sees Babcock producing Supacat’s HMT series vehicles.

While the British Army has still not detailed the whole scope of HPM, the addition of the CBRN variant is significant, although numerically the requirement is tiny: the British Army uses between 9 and 11 FUCHS, crewed by FALCON Sqn, Royal Tank Regiment. The Sqn is operationally part of 28 (CBRN) Royal Engineers Regiment, a joint formation including Army and RAF Regiment personnel.

It is understood that HPM will be particularly important for the future of the British Army, delivering a multitude of supporting roles. Among them we expect to see a mortar variant with Patria NEMO turreted, automated 120 mm mortar: this solution, already picked by Germany, is much cheaper than a BOXER-based alternative.

There are good chances that a Patria 6x6 CBRN variant could become a bi-national UK-Germany effort, or indeed a larger multi-national initiative, although no official indications exist in this sense at this time.

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