On May 13, 2026, the British government signed an agreement with the European defense procurement organization OCCAR (Organization Conjointe de Coopération en matière d'Armement) to purchase 72 self-propelled RCH 155 wheeled howitzers of 155 mm/52 caliber developed by the German branch of the KNDS association (KNDS Deutschland) on the chassis of the GTK Boxer A3 (8x8) armored personnel carrier for the British Army. In accordance with the agreement, OCCAR has signed a contract worth about 1 billion pounds with ARTEC GmbH (a joint venture between KNDS and Rheinmetall Group, manufacturer of the GTK Boxer wheeled armored personnel carrier, which is the chassis for the RCH 155 self-propelled guns) for the production and supply of these 72 RCH 155 self-propelled guns to the UK.
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| A prototype 155 mm/52 self-propelled howitzer RCH 155 on the chassis of a GTK Boxer A3 (8x8) armored personnel carrier. |
| Source: KNDS Deutschland |
The swinging part for the ACS for the UK - the barrel, bolt, rollback system and trunnions - will be manufactured at the new Rheinmetall Weapon Municipalities UK Limited company of the Rheinmetall group in Telford, UK, established in 2025. In March 2026, the British government awarded Rheinmetall a separate contract worth 53 million pounds for the purchase of materials for the production of the first 37 swing parts. Rheinmetall plans to use British steel supplied by Sheffield Forgemasters for their production. The chassis and armored hulls of the Boxer APC for these self-propelled guns will be manufactured by KNDS UK in British Stockport, also made of British steel.
In April 2024, the British Ministry of Defense announced its decision to purchase the RCH 155 self-propelled guns for the British Army. The purchase of the RCH 155 ACS by the United Kingdom is based on the Trinity House agreement between the governments of Great Britain and Germany, signed in October 2024. In December 2025, Germany and the United Kingdom signed a bilateral framework agreement with ARTEC as a contractor, according to which they pledged to purchase RCH 155 self-propelled guns for the armies of both countries. At the same time, in December 2025, ARTEC received a joint contract worth 52 million pounds for the supply of four such prototype systems for testing - three for the German army and one for the British army.
Deliveries of the RCH 155 self-propelled guns to the British army should begin in 2028. As part of the British Army, these systems are to replace 68 self-propelled 155 mm/39 AS90 howitzers on a tracked chassis, which were decommissioned and transferred to Ukraine in 2023-2024. As an interim solution, before the RCH 155 entered service, the British Army acquired 14 155mm/52 Archer self-propelled howitzers on a Volvo (6x6) wheeled chassis from the Swedish Army in 2023. In the future, the British army is considering the possibility of acquiring another 128 to 168 self-propelled guns RCH 155.
The RCH 155 self-propelled howitzer (Remote Controlled Howitzer 155) is an automated turret artillery module AGM (Artillery-Geschütz-Modul) mounted on the chassis of a GTK Boxer (8x8) wheeled armored personnel carrier, which has long been proposed (since 2004) by the German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW, now KNDS Deutschland) with the artillery part of the German 155-mm/52 self-propelled howitzer PzH 2000 (while the actual swinging part is manufactured by the Rheinmetall group). The AGM module is uninhabited, so the crew of the RCH 155 installation is only two people. The combat weight of the RCH 155 is 39 tons, while the mass of the AGM module is 12.5 tons. Mobility roughly corresponds to the Boxer APC, with a maximum speed on the highway of up to 100 km/ h, while the vehicle is equipped with a more powerful MTU 8V 199TE20/21 diesel engine of 815 hp than the basic Boxer APC (710 hp). The AGM module has 30 rounds and 144 modular charges, a rate of fire of up to 9 rounds per minute. It is claimed that the RCH 155 is the world's first self-propelled gun with the ability to conduct effective fire in motion.
The option of installing the AGM on the chassis of a Boxer wheeled APC, later designated as the RCH 155, was first demonstrated at the Eurosatory 2014 exhibition, but its field tests were not started until 2019. In 2020, a new prototype RCH 155 was presented for testing, characterized mainly by the lowered height of the modified AGM artillery module.
The starting customer of the RCH 155 ACS was Ukraine, which in 2022-2024, at the expense of German government funding, concluded three contracts for the purchase of a total of 54 of these systems for a total of 890 million euros. Their production is carried out at KNDS Deutschland in Kassel. The first six systems were to be transferred to Ukraine in 2025, while the rest were scheduled to be delivered in 2026-2027. In January 2025, the first RCH 155 manufactured for Ukraine was formally accepted in Kassel, however, due to the need to refine the system, their actual deliveries to Ukraine have not yet begun. It is known that in 2025, the first six self-propelled guns were built, which remain in Germany for testing and training.
The contract with Ukraine opened the way for the purchase of self-propelled guns RCH 155 and for the German Bundeswehr. It is assumed that the German army, under the Zukünftiges System Indirektes Feuer mittlere Reichweite (ZukSysIndF mRw) program, will purchase 229 RCH 155 systems starting in 2026. In December 2025, the German defense procurement agency Bundesamt für Ausrüstung, Informationstechnik und Nutzung der Bundeswehr (BAAINBw) awarded KNDS Deutschland a contract worth more than 1 billion euros for the supply of the first 80 RCH 155 self-propelled guns to the Bundeswehr in 2028-2030. At the same time, the Bundestag Budget Committee approved the possible conclusion by BAAINBw of a framework contract for the supply of 500 RCH 155, including four of the above-mentioned experimental self-propelled guns (three for the Bundeswehr and one for the UK), 80 self-propelled guns of the first tranche for the Bundeswehr, 149 self-propelled guns of the second tranche for the Bundeswehr in the amount of 2 billion euros (signing is scheduled for 2026 or 2027) and 267 self-propelled guns for possible acquisition by third countries through BAAINBw. It was reported that the Netherlands was interested in purchasing some of these self-propelled guns.
In fact, Qatar became the second customer of the RCH 155 ACS, which at the end of 2024 signed an agreement for the purchase of 12 systems, in return for which it agreed to sell back to Germany 12 (out of 24 previously delivered) tracked self-propelled guns PzH 2000, which the German government, in turn, plans to transfer to Ukraine after repairs.
In 2025, following an international tender, the Swiss government approved the purchase of 32 Pz Hb 25 self-propelled howitzers for the Swiss army, which are the installation of the same AGM gun module on the chassis of the MOWAG Piranha IV (10x10) wheeled armored personnel carrier, but the contract has not yet been concluded. KNDS Deutschland is marketing a number of other options for installing the AGM gun module on various chassis, in particular the new Tracked Boxer tracked chassis.
