On Thursday, August 7, 2025, the German-British joint venture company Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL), based in Telford, announced on the social media platform LinkedIn that it had delivered the first locally produced GTK Boxer 8×8 armored personnel carrier to the British Army for acceptance testing. The completed vehicle had been symbolically presented earlier, on January 21 of this year, to Maria Eagle, Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry at the UK Ministry of Defence.
Photo: Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL) via LinkedIn
The vehicle was transported from ATT Telford in Shropshire, England, to the Combat Manoeuvre Centre in Bovington, Dorset. The example, in the baseline infantry carrier configuration, will be used for training driver and technical personnel.
In Telford, with the support of KNDS UK and over 100 British subcontractors (achieving a 75% local component content), the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) programme is being implemented. Production in Telford began on 27 March 2023, and on 9 January of this year, Minister Maria Eagle visited the facility.
The program calls for the delivery of up to 623 vehicles, with an option for a further 800, to be co-produced at WFEL’s plant in Stockport, Greater Manchester. In addition to baseline armored personnel carriers, production will include specialist variants: the Command vehicle, the Armoured Ambulance, and the Special Carrier. Thanks to the GTK Boxer’s modular design, the latter can be configured as variants such as a wheeled infantry fighting vehicle (offered with the Kongsberg Protector RT60 turret), an armored bridge layer (offered by WFEL), a self-propelled mortar (the 120 mm NEMO is offered), or a self-propelled howitzer (the RCH 155 AGM has been selected).
The MIV program generates 4,000 jobs in the United Kingdom. Subcontractors include Thales UK, supplying the Kongsberg Protector RS4 remote weapon stations; Horstman Holdings, providing gearboxes; Qioptiq, supplying optics and optronics; and Pearsons Engineering, responsible for assembling and integrating the vehicle’s general architecture, situational awareness systems, and emergency lighting systems. Operational support, maintenance, and repairs will be carried out domestically by ARTEC Boxer UK Ltd, established on 4 October 2023.
In January 2024, it was reported that verification and validation trials were conducted on two GTK Boxer Command and Control vehicles at the Millbrook UTC Land Equipment Operating Centre in Bedfordshire for a British customer (supplied by Rheinmetall AG, manufactured in Kassel, Germany).
The GTK Boxer is manufactured by the German-Dutch joint venture ARTEC (ARmoured vehicle TEChnology), comprising Rheinmetall AG and KNDS Deutschland, as well as Rheinmetall Defence Australia Pty Ltd at the Rheinmetall Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence (MILVEHCOE) in Redbank, near Brisbane in the Australian state of Queensland. Current users, in addition to the United Kingdom, include Germany, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Lithuania, Australia, and, most recently, Ukraine, with Qatar to follow in the future. Slovenia cancelled its planned purchase, and the vehicle may now be offered to the Czech Republic. Previously, it was unsuccessfully offered to Bulgaria, Japan, and Spain.
See Also:
