UK and Germany agree £52m RCH 155 artillery deal
On 28 December 2025, the UK and Germany signed a £52 million joint contract for mobile artillery, the Ministry of Defence confirmed in a press release. The British Army will receive an Early Capability Demonstrator of the RCH 155, with two further vehicles for Germany so both armies can run joint trials and share data to speed delivery. Reuters reported matching details the same day.
If you’re new to the kit, here’s the short version. RCH 155 is a 155 mm howitzer mounted on the Boxer armoured vehicle. It can fire while moving, reach targets up to about 70 km with the right ammunition, sustain up to eight rounds a minute, drive at close to 100 km/h, and cover roughly 700 km on one tank. Automation keeps the crew to two. These figures come from the UK government announcement.
Why “fire‑and‑move” matters: modern counter‑battery radars can calculate where a shell was fired from in seconds. If a gun sits still, it risks incoming rounds almost immediately. Ministers point to lessons from the war in Ukraine-hit, shift position, and hit again-so a system that can shoot accurately on the move gives crews a better chance to survive and keep supporting troops.
There’s also a procurement lesson here. Rather than running two separate national test programmes, the UK and Germany will share facilities and test data. The Ministry of Defence says this can bring kit into service faster and at better value for taxpayers because both armies learn from the same results and avoid duplicating work.
Where it fits in the British Army: after gifting AS90 guns to Ukraine, soldiers switched to 14 Archer systems as a short‑term replacement. The RCH 155 is being positioned as the long‑term answer under the Mobile Fires Platform requirement-designed to give UK forces a faster, more protected way to deliver artillery with NATO partners.
This deal also sits under the Trinity House Agreement, a UK‑Germany pact signed in London on 23 October 2024 to work more closely on equipment, training and defence industry projects. It was billed by the Ministry of Defence as a first‑of‑its‑kind agreement between the two countries; joint artillery testing is one practical outcome of that promise.
What “Early Capability Demonstrator” means in plain English: it isn’t a full fleet. Think of it as a small number of near‑production vehicles that real units can drive, fire and maintain. Engineers and soldiers use that period to fix issues, write training, and lock down costs. If it performs, a larger production contract can follow more quickly.
A quick vocabulary check you can use in class or briefing notes. Interoperable means British and German units can work together without fuss-shared ammunition standards, compatible radios and drills they’ve practised together. Mobile fires means artillery that moves between bursts so the enemy never gets a stable target. Both ideas are central to how NATO fights today.
Numbers that help you picture scale: a 70 km reach is roughly London to Reading; 100 km/h is motorway pace; 700 km on a tank is London to Newcastle with some fuel to spare. A two‑person crew lightens the demand on manpower, but it also raises the bar for training, because each gunner needs broader skills to keep the system running safely. The performance figures are taken from the UK government release.
What to watch next in 2026: trial reports should show whether crews can sustain that rate of fire while moving, how reliable the automation is over long exercises, and how quickly ammunition stocks, spares and training scale. Those quiet, practical details often decide when new artillery genuinely arrives in front‑line units-and how confident commanders feel using it with allies.