Eurosatory 2026, the biennial land warfare exhibition held just outside Paris, opened on 15 June with two notable unveilings from KNDS, the Franco-German defence group formed in 2015 from the merger of Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter Systems. The first is CAPINT, a new main battle tank concept pairing a German-built chassis with a French-built gun. The second is LORAS, a family of long-range artillery systems built around a 155mm gun designed to fire well beyond the reach of current NATO howitzers.
The timing matters. The unveiling came about a week after France and Germany confirmed the cancellation of their joint Future Combat Air System fighter programme, a setback that has raised fresh doubts about whether the two countries can still deliver major joint defence projects (France 24, 15 June 2026). KNDS, the company behind both the Leclerc and Leopard 2 tanks and the widely exported CAESAR howitzer, is using CAPINT and LORAS to make the case that Franco-German cooperation still works on the ground, even as it struggles in the air.
“KNDS is designing and orchestrating system-of-systems capabilities, connecting platforms, sensors, effectors and digital solutions to enhance battlefield effectiveness,” said Jean-Paul Alary, chief executive of the KNDS Group, describing the company’s approach as bringing French and German capabilities together “within single, fully integrated solutions designed, developed and supported by one company.”
CAPINT: an interim tank built while Europe’s next one stalls
CAPINT stands for CAPacité INTermédiaire, or Intermediary Capability. The name sets expectations: this is not meant to be Europe’s final next-generation tank. It is a French national project intended to strengthen French Army armour now, while the Main Ground Combat System, the joint Franco-German programme meant to eventually replace both the Leclerc and the Leopard 2, continues its slow progress toward service.
That progress has not been smooth. The Main Ground Combat System was launched in 2017-2018 with entry into service originally pencilled in for sometime between 2040 and 2045 (France 24, 15 June 2026), and the programme has been dogged by delays and disagreements between French and German industry partners. In July 2025, KNDS and Rheinmetall announced a separate venture called the Main Armoured Tank of Europe, bringing together twelve European nations under German leadership to develop another next-generation tank, this time without France (Shephard Media, 11 June 2026). Germany has also been pursuing its own upgrade path for the Leopard 2 fleet through a joint venture between KNDS and Rheinmetall. CAPINT, in that context, looks like KNDS keeping a foot in both camps: a genuinely joint platform built now, which the company says will pave the way to the Main Ground Combat System rather than simply wait for it.
KNDS describes CAPINT as more than a single vehicle. The concept calls for a central platform working alongside what the company calls robotic wings, uncrewed ground vehicles operating alongside the tank, tied together through an open digital architecture meant to let the system absorb new sensors, weapons or software over time without a full redesign. The stated requirements cover firepower, counter-drone defence, protection and connectivity, reflecting how central the drone threat has become to tank survivability since the war in Ukraine began.
The central platform itself uses an enhanced KNDS Deutschland chassis derived from the latest Leopard 2 A8, powered by a 1,500 horsepower diesel engine, giving it a power-to-weight ratio in line with current-generation Leopard variants and the mobility that comes with it. On top sits a KNDS France ASCALON turret: unmanned and described by the company as non-intrusive, meaning it does not eat into the hull’s internal volume the way a manned turret does, freeing up space for crew, electronics or additional protection. The turret carries a 120mm smoothbore gun with an autoloader.
ASCALON, the gun itself, stands for Autoloaded and SCALable Outperforming guN, and the name describes the design philosophy. The 120mm barrel fires existing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standard 120mm tank ammunition, letting any operator keep using current stockpiles, while the mount is built to take larger barrels later if requirements change; KNDS has previously demonstrated a swap to a 140mm barrel on the same turret in under an hour. According to KNDS, the ASCALON programme has now fired around 300 rounds across its development campaigns, and in January 2026 the company carried out what it calls a world first: a dynamic firing trial in Portugal, with a tank demonstrator firing the remote-controlled ASCALON turret while on the move. The company frames the gun as offering strong battlefield performance alongside lower lifecycle and acquisition costs than building an entirely new weapon from scratch.
KNDS says first CAPINT units could be delivered in the 2030s, though that timeline depends on a French Army procurement decision that has not yet been made.
Earlier in July last year, the European defense sector embarked on an ambitious new endeavor with the launch of the MARTE (Main Armoured Tank of Europe) project, an initiative designed to develop a next-generation main battle tank tailored to the evolving demands of European armed forces. Announced by Rheinmetall, a prominent German defense contractor, this collaborative effort unites 51 entities from 12 countries under the leadership of MARTE ARGE, a joint venture formed by KNDS Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG and Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH.
LORAS: pushing artillery range past 100km
If CAPINT addresses the tank side of the business, LORAS does the same for artillery. The name stands for LOng Range Artillery System, and KNDS presents it as extending the company’s position as Europe’s most complete, and what it calls sovereign, provider of land-based indirect fire, meaning the technology and supply chain stay under European control rather than relying on suppliers outside the continent.
The case for LORAS rests on a gap between what armies can now see and what their guns can hit. Target detection and localisation technology has improved considerably in recent years, letting forces identify targets at greater distances and with more precision, drawing in part on lessons from recent conflicts. Most artillery systems currently in service, including KNDS’s own CAESAR, use a 52-calibre 155mm gun (the barrel is 52 times as long as its bore diameter) and reach around 40km with standard high-explosive shells, extending to roughly 54km with guided, extended-range rounds such as V-LAP. The United Kingdom’s order for 72 RCH 155 howitzers on the Boxer 8×8 chassis, confirmed by the UK Ministry of Defence on 14 May 2026 at a cost of close to £1 billion, cites ranges out to 70km depending on the ammunition used (Breaking Defense, 14 May 2026).
LORAS is built around a new 58-calibre 155mm gun, developed by KNDS France, which the company says will reach more than 60km with standard high-explosive shells and up to 100km with specialised, extended-range munitions still under development. The case for that extra range is built on cost and survivability as much as reach. An artillery shell costs a fraction of a comparable cruise or ballistic missile, and no fielded air defence system can reliably intercept an artillery round once it is in flight. For a force that needs to strike targets deep behind the front line without burning through expensive precision missiles or risking aircraft, a gun reaching 100km starts to look like a different category of weapon rather than simply a longer-range version of what already exists.
KNDS frames LORAS as one layer in a wider fires ecosystem that also includes loitering munitions, lighter 105mm artillery for mobile forces, and existing 155mm/52-calibre systems such as CAESAR. Rather than replacing those systems, LORAS is meant to sit above them, covering distances they cannot reach. The 58-calibre gun itself is designed to be platform-agnostic: KNDS says it can be fitted to wheeled or tracked vehicles already in service, whether built by KNDS or by other manufacturers, as well as to new platforms designed around it from the start. At Eurosatory 2026, the concept appears for the first time mounted on the Boxer Tracked armoured vehicle, a German-designed and German-built platform, under the name RCH 155 tracked LORAS. According to the German trade outlet Hartpunkt, KNDS expects to begin live-fire trials of the system later this year (Hartpunkt, 15 June 2026).
On ammunition, LORAS is being designed around a new 58-calibre high-explosive round currently in development by KNDS France, but the gun will also fire existing 52-calibre shells built to the Joint Ballistics Memorandum of Understanding standard, the same family of ammunition used by CAESAR and most NATO armies. That dual compatibility means an operator adopting LORAS would not need to set aside its current artillery ammunition stocks while the longer-range rounds are still being developed and certified.
What it means beyond Europe
Neither system is close to a signed production contract. CAPINT depends on a French Army decision still to be made, and its framing as a stepping stone to the Main Ground Combat System is tied to a programme whose future looks genuinely uncertain given the parallel efforts now under way in Germany. LORAS, for its part, has yet to fire a shot in public.
What both systems do show is a consistent approach from KNDS. Rather than designing entirely new platforms from the ground up, the company is building scalable guns and open architectures that fit onto chassis and ammunition families already in service across NATO and allied forces, including CAESAR operators and Leopard 2 users well beyond Europe. For defence planners weighing future artillery or armour purchases, that lowers the practical cost of adopting new firepower: the ammunition pipelines, training programmes and maintenance chains already built around 120mm tank guns or 52-calibre 155mm howitzers do not need to be torn up to make use of what KNDS is proposing next.
Whether CAPINT and LORAS become fielded systems or remain demonstrators depends on decisions still to be made in Paris and Berlin in the months ahead. For now, they are KNDS’s clearest statement yet of what it thinks the next generation of European land warfare equipment should look like: scalable guns, open digital architectures, and ranges that push well past what current systems can reach.
