Germany’s armed forces have signed a €1.7 billion contract with Rheinmetall for access to satellite-based reconnaissance data with regular radar images supplied through a partnership with Finnish satellite operator ICEYE.
Rheinmetall aims to expand its annual turnover to around €50 billion by 2030, CEO Armin Papperger told analysts during the company’s Capital Markets Day in Unterlüss, with the German defence contractor experiencing a sharp rise in revenue since the war in Ukraine, driven by growing orders for artillery, ammunition, air defence systems and tanks.
Rheinmetall has signed a €1 billion deal with Bulgaria to establish a joint gunpowder and ammunition factory near Sopot, aiming to produce 100,000 NATO-standard artillery shells annually. The German company holds 51% of the shares in the new project.
The Main Ground Combat System project is intended to replace the Leopard 2 battle tank with an identical vehicle hull, but adding a modular system with a more powerful main weapon, an unmanned turret and modern protection systems against drones.
The Ukraine war and expanding global conflict showered a windfall on German arms companies like Rheinmetall and TKMS, with some startups like Helsing becoming the upstarts of the weapons industry, and other legacy companies like Heckler & Koch even experiencing a dramatic reversal of fortunes.
A greenfield facility being set up by Reliance will support the supply of explosives for medium and large caliber ammunition to Rheinmetall and is expected to have an annual capacity of 200,000 artillery shells, 10,000 tons of explosives and 2,000 tons of propellants.
The order is for a turnkey factory that will become a ‘Ukrainian Centre of Excellence for Ammunition’ to be operated by a Rheinmetall joint venture with a Ukrainian state-owned company, that will begin production within 24 months to manufacture hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition per year.
German politicians voiced their outrage on Friday after a CNN report detailed an alleged Russian plot to assassinate the head of German arms maker Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, as a Kremlin spokesman denied any involvement from Moscow.
