Germany — Serial start for new PUMA infantry fighting vehicle

Con­trac­tu­al deliv­ery of the first two vehi­cles
Rhein­metall and Krauss-Maf­fei Weg­mann (KMW) hand­ed over on Decem­ber 6th in time the first two PUMA infantry fight­ing vehi­cles to the Fed­er­al Office of Defense Tech­nol­o­gy and Pro­cure­ment (BWB) in Kas­sel for ver­i­fi­ca­tion tests. This marks the start for the con­trac­tu­al deliv­ery of 405 ordered vehi­cles to the Ger­man Armed Forces. The con­tract with a vol­ume of rough­ly € 3.1 bn was signed in July 2009. The deliv­ery of the PUMA is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for the most impor­tant pro­cure­ment pro­gram of the Ger­man Army.

Ready for deliv­ery: the first two IFV PUMA

“This is a cru­cial day on the way of intro­duc­ing the PUMA to the Ger­man Armed Forces. We have under­gone a chal­leng­ing peri­od of research and devel­op­ment, push­ing the lim­its of this tech­nol­o­gy” stat­ed Klaus Eber­hardt, CEO of Rhein­metall, and Frank Haun, CEO of KMW. 

Tech­nol­o­gy of extremes: lessons learned from cur­rent operations 

The devel­op­ment of the new infantry fight­ing vehi­cle is marked by tech­no­log­i­cal extremes. It will not only be the new trans­port plat­form for the Ger­man Army but also a cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy sys­tem. With its unique bal­ance of tac­ti­cal and strate­gic mobil­i­ty, sur­viv­abil­i­ty and fight­ing pow­er, the PUMA gives the Ger­man Armed Forces a state-of-the-art infantry fight­ing vehi­cle sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tai­lored to the cur­rent and future oper­a­tional require­ments of the Ger­man mil­i­tary both at home and abroad. The devel­op­ment achieve­ment was guid­ed by the demand to induce lat­est mis­sion expe­ri­ence from cur­rent oper­a­tions and to con­se­quent­ly deliv­er effec­tive mis­sion per­for­mance. To that extent this has not been real­ized in any oth­er infantry fight­ing vehicle. 

The PUMA is sched­uled to under­go an intense round of test­ing and ver­i­fi­ca­tion. This includes extreme sum­mer and win­ter tri­als abroad. The com­plex prepa­ra­tions are deemed to ensure the smooth intro­duc­tion of the sys­tem to the Ger­man Army. 

PUMA sets the new stan­dard – max­i­mum pro­tec­tion for the crew 

No com­pa­ra­ble vehi­cle pro­vides its crew with such a high lev­el of pro­tec­tion from typ­i­cal con­flict zone threats such as land­mines, rock­et pro­pelled grenades and impro­vised explo­sive devices. Well-pro­tect­ed yet light enough to air­lift, the PUMA’s mod­u­lar­i­ty and expand­abil­i­ty make it the per­fect tool for inter­na­tion­al con­flict man­age­ment. The PUMA, whose main arma­ment and ammu­ni­tion had to be mod­i­fied to match the altered threat spec­trum, rep­re­sents the ulti­mate in fight­ing pow­er and survivability. 

Today, more than thir­ty years after Ger­many first field­ed the MARDER, the PUMA is poised to sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand the Bundeswehr’s capa­bil­i­ties spec­trum, pro­vid­ing it with an entire­ly new cat­e­go­ry of tac­ti­cal vehi­cle. In any inter­na­tion­al com­par­i­son, the PUMA clear­ly rep­re­sents the cut­ting edge in con­tem­po­rary armoured vehi­cle technology. 

Source:
Rhein­metall AG
Cor­po­rate Sec­tor Defence
Press and Infor­ma­tion
Oliv­er Hoff­mann
Rhein­metall Platz 1
40476 Düs­sel­dorf
Ger­many
Phone: +49 211 473‑4748
Fax: +49 211 473‑4157