Update – IAV 2024: UK plans more Boxer variants

One possible additional UK Boxer variant is the MCCO, the concept demonstrator for which fitted with a launcher for eight Brimstone missiles was displayed at DVD 2022. (Janes/Christopher Petrov)

The UK plans additional variants of the Boxer armoured vehicle, Janes learnt at Defence iQ's International Armoured Vehicles (IAV) 2024 conference being held in London from 22 to 25 January.

The first priority is to order Boxer Repair and Recovery Vehicle, Armoured Mortar Vehicle, and Armoured Vehicle Launched Bridge variants in 2024, with initial operating capabilities (IOCs) at the end of the decade. This could be followed later by the Serpens Deep Find radar, Mounted Close Combat Overwatch (MCCO) anti-tank vehicles, and counter-unmanned aircraft system vehicles, and if the UK selects it for the British Army's Mobile Fires Platform (MFP) programme, Remote Controlled Howitzer (RCH) 155 self-propelled artillery with IOCs in 2031–37.

The UK has so far ordered 146 Infantry Carrier Vehicles, 200 Specialist Carrier Vehicles, 212 Command and Control Vehicles, and 65 Ambulance versions of the Boxer for one or two brigade combat teams.

The first two Boxers in UK configuration built in Germany were delivered to the British Army at the end of December 2023 for trials with the Royal Fusiliers at the Millbrook Proving Ground in the UK. Rheinmetall said in a press release on 23 January that it had built the two prototype vehicles in the command variant and the verification and validation trials would qualify the design against UK technical requirements, focusing on mission systems including command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I); electronic countermeasures; user human-machine interface; electromagnetic compatibility; and climatics. The trials are supported by Rheinmetall-Krauss-Maffei Wegmann joint venture Artec.