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Published by SPOTLIGHT 93 / JUN-15-18 Eurosatory Daily No 4 Europe’s Role In Defence On Monday the chairmanchip of ELDIG passed from Leonardo to Rheinmetall. The ceremony took place at Eurosatory. ESD Spotlight spoke with the new ELDIG chairman, Dr Thomas Weise, on the role of ELDIG, the development of the EU in the defence sector and the future of European defence procurement. The interview was conducted by Dorothee Frank. ESD Spotlight: What is the purpose of and no longer effective against what our ELDIG? someone in Russia, for example, is putting Weise: For official bodies the ASD is the in front of our noses in Lithuania. ELDIG’s central industry contact. When the Europe- task is to ensure that these programmes an Commission needs industry consulting, are now increasingly implemented in Eu- it goes to ASD. This means that it no lon- rope together with the EU member states. ger addresses individual companies, but In the shortest time. rather the associations. This also means that we will be involved in all development ESD Spotlight: Does the EU have a new or steps for the European Defence Agency in more important role in the defence sector? Brussels when it comes to filling industrial Weise: Yes. The EU entered the defence positions. ASD has a substructure and a de- sector three years ago, this did not exist fence business unit. This is the highest Eu- before and is completely new. The Lisbon ropean body of representatives of Europe- Treaty was made in 2013, but no one fol- an industry in the defence sector, under lowed it. But since Federika Mogerini’s defence systems, which is now supported the umbrella of ASD. In turn, there are so- announcements in the summer of 2015 by various defence ministers, will ensure called “sectoral groups” which represent on the global European strategy, which is that everyone goes down the right path, specific interests of the individual sectors a derivative of the defence plan, the EU that we all have a European battle tank, a or domains. There is a land group, an air has taken up the issue of defence. Not to European frigate, a European aircraft car- group and a naval group, and the ELDIG re- replace the sovereignity of the member rier, a European soldier. In total, we have presents the land group. states, but to do what the member states 40 different initiatives and there will then In the last two years we have built up ELDIG alone can no longer do. The EU must speak be only 40 industrial consortia operating very intensively, because what you see in with one voice, as we have seen over the these programmes, and not 120 or more as global comparison, the European defence last few days, otherwise it will not be heard before. All this is developing today. is land defence. The Americans have the in the concert of power. It’s happening now. Pacific as another area of operation, but The interesting thing is, there is so much ESD Spotlight: So the EU will take the lead we must defend Europe on the Pacific’s political pressure behind it, that everything on military developments over the next rim. We don’t do this with aircraft carriers, at EU level is realised to the day. This dis- two years? we do it with ground troops. Therefore, tinguishes the EU from several national -ef Weise: The train may still be derailing, but ELDIG plays a very important role. After all, forts, for example. If a paper is announced at the moment it is relatively stable. Last 15 years in Afghanistan have meant that for June 2018, it will be on the exact day but not least, of course, this depends on the the equipment of our land forces no longer in June 2018. And of course this gives us member states, but an increasing number corresponds to what we need today for the planning certainty in EU programmes. This of member states are realising that with- European alliance and national defence. is very important for industry. Ms Moge- out the European bond they can no longer Everything we have is completely outdated rini’s objective, the unification of European make any progress and cannot achieve the ISSUE 93 / 2018 2 SPOTLIGHT development they would otherwise have And that is a completely different task for presented on the German side and only to make on their own. The development of industry. have four companies in it. These are Rhein- a new European battle tank that can with- metall, Diehl Defence, Rhode & Schwarz stand what the Russians might put against ESD Spotlight: So it’s worth to look at Eu- and IABG. That was it. Other nations are us, we we talk about €100 billion. That’s rope? much better represented. Some countries it for any national defence budget. So we Weise: Everybody’s doing it now. Mean- are currently trying to design every- can only do this together. This of course while more and more defence players thing according to their wishes. We need to has the advantage for industry that we will identify that one has to orientate towards rebalance that a little bit at the moment. I then have a single European market. Then the EU, that one has to participate in the can only recommend to all companies, not we are not talking about 200 in Germany, committees, otherwise one is not part of only the German, participate in Brussels. 400 in France, but about 4,000 in Europe. the team. We are still relatively weakly re- There is still a lot to be done here. Italian Army Chooses Centauro II (df) This week the Italian Army signed a contract to procure 148 Centauro II. It is the third contract (but first on procure- ment) following the joint development of this armoured vehicle that started about five years ago. Therefore the flag “Just cho- sen by the Italian Army” was added to the Centauro II on display at the booth of the Consortium Iveco - Oto Melara (CIO). “The Centauro having been the first 8x8 wheeled antitank vehicle in the world with a high-pressure gun. The Centauro II represents the logical evolution, being ar- med with a third generation 120/45 mm gun, with integrated muzzle brake and se- mi-automatic loading system. The weapon system provides a fire power equivalent to that of most modern main battle tanks, and is capable of firing all latest generation 120 mm, NATO APFSDS and multi-role MP munitions,” the company said. parated from the crew section by explo- Another interesting detail is the jammer The statement continued: “While main- sion-proof doors, pre-carved panels and installed on top of the turret, to even ent- taining the H-drive architecture, the Cen- dedicated anti-explosion systems ensuring er electronic war with the new Centauro tauro family hallmark, the chassis was further crew safety. The Centauro II turret II. Some technical details: length (with rearranged to further improve protection is fitted with latest generation optronics 120mm barrel): 8.26 m; height (with tur- against mines and IEDs, state-of-the-art for the commander and gunner and with ret): 3.65 m; width (without mirrors): 3.12 add-on ballistic packages fitted to the hull a suite of communications and command m; ground clearance: 0.40 m; wheelbase: ensuring high level protection against ki- and control systems ensuring maximum 2.65 m; gross weight: 30 t; max speed (pa- netic energy and hollow charge projectiles. situational awareness. The turret can be ved road): 105 km/h. The first Centauro II The same applies to the turret, which also fitted with a Hitrole Light RCWS, that -in will be delivered in two years to the Italian follows the add-on armour kit concept. creases flexibility in other-than-war scena- Army. Ammunition stored in the hull and in the rios while ensuring maximum crew pro- CIO: Pav IT / Hall 6 B 301 & C 301 turret are hosted in compartments se- tection.” www.iveco-otomelara.com ISSUE 93 / 2018 3 SPOTLIGHT Future European Tank (ds) Without doubt the most important future European armoured vehicle pro- gramme will be the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) which will be managed by KMW+Nexter Defense Sys- tems (KNDS). However, while everybody talks about European countries and de- fence companies working together there are considerable obstacles to overcome to make that a reality. The current generation of in-service tanks were designed primarily in the Cold War era. The Leopard 2 was developed in the 1970s, the first order was placed in 1977 and the first deliveries were made in 1979, with 380 tanks delivered by 1982 and even- fence modernisation programme, Leclerc plenty of weight in reserve (some six tons) tually many thousands were built. In con- tanks are due to be upgraded. According to accommodate future growth. The fact trast the French Army Leclerc was designed to Nexter “the Scorpion programme inclu- that the Leclerc turret is fitted with an au- in the 1980s and entered service in the ear- des the modernisation of 200 Leclerc MBTs toloader system is also significant as it will ly 1990s. between 2020 and 2028 in order to enhan- give the German side of KNDS, and perhaps Inevitably the German tank was developed ce and extend their operational capacity.” the German customer, the opportunity to meet the operational requirements of They also note that “upgrades will allow to investigate a tank autoloader system, the German Army. The large numbers of industrial skills to be maintained in order something they do not have, at first-hand.

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