New bridges ordered for British Army

The British Army will replace its BR90 ABLE bridging systems with KNDS UK (Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter) mobile bridges based on the company’s Dry Support Bridge (DSB) design and mounted on Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicle (RMMV) HX2 tactical trucks.

The deal, worth £150 million (US$191 million), will provide bridges with a range of 46m and able to carry the weight of the army’s future tank, the Challenger 3. It will be able to cross both wet and dry gaps.

The new capability will be interoperable with other NATO partners’ bridge systems, meaning that resources can be shared between nations during joint exercises and deployments.

The procurement has been part of as part of Project Tyro which will provide a capability improvement for the British Army, facilitating the mobility of future Armoured Brigade Combat Teams and equipment across gaps in the terrain.

WFEL, now part of KNDS, was left as the last bidder in mid-2023. A DSB set consists of a launcher vehicle, six flat-track loads of bridge components and one flat-track load of launch beams.

The DSB has been sold to a number of other countries including Australia (RMMV 10x10), the Philippines (RMMV 10x10), Switzerland (Iveco Trakker 10x8) and Turkey (HEMTT).