Germany places a mega arms order worth 7 billion euros

The federal government continues to strengthen the armament of the Bundeswehr , or rather to try to spend to reinforce it. As the Bloomberg news agency reported, citing informed sources, the traffic light coalition, which is trying to govern Germany, will place orders this quarter for two naval frigates and hundreds of armored vehicles with a total value of up to seven billion euros.

According to the report, the plan is to purchase two more F126 frigates for around three billion euros. The initial plan was to acquire four frigates. For this the federal government had calculated around 5.3 billion euros.

F126 frigates

At the same time, the federal government had also agreed an option to build two further frigates with the general contractor for the construction of the F126, the Dutch shipbuilding company Damen Naval. Delivery of the first F126 to the German Navy is scheduled for 2028.

The Bundeswehr will receive new armored transport vehicles

According to Bloomberg, these are 900 Fuchs armored personnel carriers. The costs amounted to up to four billion euros. The manufacturer is the Düsseldorf arms company Rheinmetall, the same one that builds the Leopard tanks. The Ministry of Defense has not yet commented on the news.

The new model of the Fuchs armored personnel carrier

So far it seemed that the Finnish arms company Patria’s 6×6 armored personnel carrier would replace the Fuchs in the Bundeswehr. However, Rheinmetall chief Armin Papperger recently said in an interview with Handelsblatt that he would like to equip the Bundeswehr with the successor Fuchs 2. This way the money will flow more into the homeland and not go elsewhere.

Homeland: Negotiations with the federal government are still ongoing

Patria communications director Sirje Ahvenlampi-Hyvönen said Patria would not comment on the report and stressed that the federal government had not commented on the report. According to Patria, negotiations with the federal government are still ongoing. Ahvenlampi-Hyvönen did not provide any information on the status or timetable of the negotiations. “Negotiations are currently underway. As a company, we inform when we have something to report,” he said.

The Finnish Patria AMV

Furthermore, Rheinmetall would not comment on the report on a possible purchase of Fuchs armored vehicles by the federal government. The Rheinmetall vehicles may have been purchased simply to replace in-service vehicles that are being sent to Ukraine inconspicuously.

At the same time, Patria is an 8X8 model and therefore, simply, the two vehicles could be purchased in parallel.

After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the federal government established a special fund worth 100 billion euros. Added to this is the regular defense budget, which this year amounts to around 52 billion euros. Germany will try to assign orders to domestic companies as much as possible, in an attempt to revitalize the military industry.