The French Ministry of the Armed Forces announced Thursday that it had placed an order for 109 new generation Caesar self-propelled guns from Nexter, a subsidiary of the Franco-German group KNSD, in order to have
“better mobile long-range fire support capacity”
.
The order for these trucks carrying a 155 mm cannon, capable of firing six shells 40 kilometers in less than a minute, amounts to
“around 350 million euros”
and was notified on December 30, according to a press release from the ministry.
The first delivery is planned
“by 2026”
.
The development of the Caesar Mark II was launched in February 2022 by Prime Minister Jean Castex for 600 million euros.
Developments concern the addition of an armored cabin, a more powerful engine, new fire control software and the integration of the Caesar into the Army's Scorpion program allowing the vehicles to communicate with each other.
18 Caesar for kyiv
Paris, which has been equipped with Caesar since 2008, is aiming for a fleet of 109 of these cannons in 2030. France had 76 examples before 2022 and ceded 18 to Ukraine to support it against the Russian invasion.
Besides Ukraine, this material is proving to be an export success.
336 units were sold to Saudi Arabia, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Morocco, Denmark (19 guns since sold to kyiv), Lithuania and Belgium.
Faced with demand for this cannon, Nexter managed to reduce the production time to 15 months, half as much as before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and increased its production capacity from two to six cannons per month.
The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, also announced on January 18 that kyiv had ordered six additional Caesars and that France would finance 12 more in 2024 on behalf of kyiv for 50 million euros.