Ground Combat Capabilities the focus of new European industrial cooperation

A Patria-led defence industry consortium has been selected to work on European Ground Combat Capabilities (GCC) to develop next-generation armoured platforms and upgrade existing ones.

Selected as part of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), the consortium has been dubbed FAMOUS (Future Highly Mobile Augmented Armoured Systems) and includes 20 defence companies from different EU countries.

A 1 July statement from Patria said the EDIDP is the first EU-funded programme to develop defence capabilities, with a funding envelope of €500 million.

The selection for the EDIDP programme was made at the end of June 2021 and is due to start in the second half of the year. The Ground Combat Capabilities project will last two years.

‘The FAMOUS programme aims to develop future technologies and performances that enhance ground combat capabilities in the areas of mobility, hybrid operation, power generation and energy storage, such as well as security systems, situational awareness, robotics, C4I solutions, weapons systems and modern life cycle support solutions,’ the statement said.

Jussi Järvinen, President of Patria’s Land business unit, said the development programme was valuable not only because of platform development but also because it was an innovative approach to develop areas of next-generation technology that can be applied to a variety of armoured vehicles and systems.

‘These concepts can be made rapidly available and implemented already during the current Multiannual Financial Framework in future system architectures as well as utilised in future European armoured vehicle systems. Development work is not only funded but that the products eventually reach their actual use. This approach will lead to unity and thus increase coherence, standardisation and compatibility between different platforms in the EU,’ Järvinen said.