At Eurosatory 2024 in Paris on 17 June Rheinmetall unveiled its Concept Uncrewed Turret (CUT): a concept demonstrator for an uncrewed turret for a next-generation main battle tank (MBT).
Mounted at Eurosatory on the Rheinmetall Panther KF51 modification of the Leopard 2 platform, the CUT’s main armament is Rheinmetall’s 130 mm/51 calibre Future Gun System. Ammunition is fed via a bustle-mounted autoloader from two magazines in the rear of the turret, with the magazines having a capacity of 25 rounds. A coaxial .50 cal heavy machine gun is also fitted, while the commander’s Main Sensor Slaved Armament (MSSA) remote-controlled weapon station (RCWS) is equipped with a Rheinmetall RMG762 machine gun, although this could also accept a .50 cal weapon. The RMG762 has three rotating barrels, meaning that if one is hot-fired, another barrel can brought into position to continue firing. Thanks to its high rate of fire, the RMG762 is also suitable for countering hostile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The commander’s MSSA RCWS also has an integrated smoke grenade launcher.
Both the commander and gunner, who like the other crew members are housed in the chassis of the tank, have their own day and night vision optics with integrated laser rangefinders. The gunner uses modern SEOSS 400 optics, which are also installed in the commander’s MSSA. As the commander and gunner can observe independently to each other and can both assign and engage targets, the crewless turret has both a hunter-killer and a killer-killer capability. Its reconnaissance capability can be further enhanced with small onboard reconnaissance UAVs.
The electrically powered turret also houses the fire control system, parts of the C4I equipment and other parts of the sensor system, including a meteorological sensor.
The CUT features both hard- and soft-kill active protection systems, with the example shown at Eurosatory 2024 featuring the Elbit Iron Fist and Hensoldt MUSS systems respectively. The CUT would also feature Rheinmetall’s ROSY rapid obscurant system.
Dr Bjoern Bernhard of Rheinmetall’s Vehicles Systems Europe division told journalists at Eurosatory 2024 on 17 June that the CUT concept is currently at around technology readiness level (TRL) 5 and would be ready for the market in the early 2030s. He explained that, with the Franco-German Main Ground Combat Systems running behind schedule, part of the reasoning behind CUT was to take available new technologies that could be fielded within a year and to bring them together onto a single platform.
The concept also drew upon lessons learned from the war in Ukraine (most obviously taking the crew out of an MBT’s more exposed turret), through talking to customers and was partly in response to a future MBT study conducted by the European Defence Fund.
Development of the Panther KF51 MBT on which the CUT demonstrator was mounted at Eurosatory is currently being funded by a EUR 288 million contract Rheinmetall has with the Hungarian government announced in December 2023.
Bernhard called the combination of the CUT and the Panther KF51 chassis a “transformative advancement” in the field of MBTs.
