New Challenger 3 Main Battle Tank Is Oozing with Firepower
The British Army Unveiled its Challenger 3 Main Battle Tank - The British Army's Challenger 2 is already considered among the best main battle tanks (MBTs) in service in the world today, and this week the Challenger 3 was officially unveiled at the Defence iQ's International Armoured Vehicles (IAV) 2024 conference in London. The new MBT was developed and designed by Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL), a joint venture between the United Kingdom's BAE Systems and Germany's Rheinmetall AG.
A total of 18 months of trials, which will be split between sites in the UK and Germany, are now planned before the systems qualifications review takes place in 2025. Eight prototypes are also expected to be developed and employed in the testing.
"The Challenger 3 program will deliver the best tank in NATO … and deliver a network enabled, digital main battle tank, providing the soldier with a step-changing capability, ensuring a 21st century deterrence through to the out of service date [slated for 2040]," Rory Breen, strategy and future business director at RBSL, told Breaking Defense. "The first prototype … will begin trials in the coming weeks."
Development of the Challenger 3 Underway
According to a report from Army Recognition, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) had initiated the Challenger 2 Life Extension Programme (LEP) to address the need for upgrading and extending the life of MBTs that first entered service in the late 1990s.
That in turn led to the development of the Challenger 3, which features several advanced upgrades and improvements that could make it a formidable platform on the modern battlefield. It will offer greater mobility, protection, and firepower, while MBT is also equipped with an all-new and fully digitized turret and improved hull. It will also feature a new suite of sights that can provide tank commanders with improved day and night targeting capabilities, improving the tank's protection, and increased mobility with an upgraded engine and new hydrogas suspension.
The most significant change from Challenger 2 to Challenger 3 is the replacement of its primary armament from a 120mm L30A1 Rifled main gun to the 120mm L55A1 smoothbore gun. Secondary armament reportedly will consist of a single coaxial 7.62mm L8A2 machine gun mounted to the left of the main armament, while a 7.62 mm L37A2 machine gun can also be mounted at the commander's cupola.
Unlike Russian-designed tanks, which employ an autoloader, the Challenger 3 will feature a crew of four including the commander, gunner, loader, and driver.
In May 2021, the MoD awarded a contract for 148 Challenger 3s as part of an £800 million contract with RBSL.
The MoD expects the Challenger 3 MBT to enter service by 2030, and serve as the backbone of the British Army's armored forces in the coming decades, replacing the aging Challenger 2 tank fleet. However, it is unclear how many Challenger 3s the British Army will maintain in its tank force. And those tanks likely can't arrive soon enough.
As of last year, the British Army had slashed the number of Challenger 2s to just 213 – although there were reports that only 157 were available for combat operations.
Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.