The Bundeswehr has contracted Rheinmetall to mount the Skyranger 30 mobile air defence system on its Boxer 8×8 armoured vehicles, the company announced on 27 February 2024.
The contract is worth EUR 595 million (including value added tax), according to Rheinmetall, and encompasses delivery of a prototype and another 18 series production vehicles. In addition, an option exists for a further 30 systems.
The prototype is to be delivered by the end of 2024.
In January the Bundeswehr entrusted Rheinmetall and its partner contractors with developing a system for short- and very short-range air defence known as the NNbS, in which the Skyranger 30 will constitute a key component. An essential part of the NNbS, the Skyranger 30 is embedded in the German government’s European Sky Shield Initiative, in which Germany, acting within a NATO context, has assumed the role of lead nation in ground-based air defence in Europe.
“The Skyranger 30 bridges an acute existing capability gap in mobile air defence,” Rheinmetall stated in a press release. “The system constitutes an optimum combination of mobility, protection, flexibility and precision, making it a match for new challenges in the short- and very short-range threat spectrum. A hybrid solution, the system’s turret combines the highly effective 30 mm × 173 KCE revolver gun, surface-to-air missiles and the necessary sensor suite, all on a single platform.”
The Skyranger 30 systems earmarked for Germany’s Boxers will be armed with Stinger missiles, although the system can be fitted with various other missiles such as the Mistral, Stinger or special counter-unmanned aerial vehicle missiles.
Rheinmetall bills the Boxer-based Skyranger 30 system as a “meticulously thought-out combination of different effectors, excellent mobility, a large elevation span and state-of-the-art sensors” that “enable autonomous as well as networked operations”. Rheinmetall’s programmable airburst ammunition, the company says, “is especially effective against drones”.
The first customer for such a system is Austria, which recently ordered 36 Skyranger 30 systems for installation on Pandur Evolution (Evo) 6×6 armoured vehicles. According to Rheinmetall, other NATO and/or EU member states have also expressed an interest in the system or are already in the process of procuring it.
In December 2023 Hungary tasked Rheinmetall with developing a concept for a Skyranger 30 turret for the future air defence variant of the Lynx KF41 tracked armoured vehicle. Lithuania is also studying the Boxer-mounted Skyranger 30, while Denmark plans to procure the Skyranger 30 solution in combination with another wheeled armoured vehicle.
As recently as December 2023 a functional demonstrator version of the Skyranger 30 underwent successful live fire field trials at Rheinmetall’s proving ground in Ochsenboden, Switzerland, proving itself in stationary mode and on the move. The functional demonstrator resulted in important new findings that will make fabrication and integration of the German verification model faster and less risk prone, according to Rheinmetall.
