On Tuesday, August 19, 2025, the British Army press service announced on LinkedIn that earlier this year, at Salisbury Plain Training Area in Wiltshire, southern England, the first firing of an FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank guided missile was carried out from a Protector RS4 remote weapon station mounted on a GTK Boxer 8×8 wheeled armored vehicle.
Photo: British Army – Programmes via LinkedIn
The integration tests and live firing carried out represent a key step toward the implementation of this anti-tank missile system on the newly introduced Boxer 8×8 vehicles and in providing the British Army with the capability to destroy armored vehicles from these platforms. The tests demonstrated the seamless integration of this weapon with the Protector RS4.
This test is part of a comprehensive testing and demonstration phase under the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) program. Vehicles are currently arriving from both British and German production lines, and training is set to accelerate in the coming months (the first British-produced unit was delivered on August 7 of this year).
The German group Rheinmetall AG released a video of the tests:
Video: Rheinmetall AG
Deliveries of vehicles for the British Army are being carried out by the German-British joint venture Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL) based in Telford, covering up to 623 vehicles with an option for an additional 800.
Under a contract signed on December 22, 2020, worth 1.03 billion NOK between the British company Thales UK and Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA), some of the Boxers are to be integrated with Protector RS4 remote weapon stations. These can be armed with either a 12.7 mm or 7.62 mm machine gun, or a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher, depending on the configuration of the base vehicle, but a later decision was made to integrate Javelins.
On February 28, 2023, the United Kingdom received U.S. approval to purchase 600 of the latest FGM-148F Javelins for up to 125.13 million USD. The British Army introduced the FGM-148E Block I ATGM in 2005 under a 2003 contract covering about 3,800 sets. In 2004, 1,200 missiles were ordered with deliveries completed by the end of 2008. In 2009, a further 1,300 missiles were ordered with deliveries completed by the end of 2012.
Boxer 8×8 from British Soil
In Telford, with the support of KNDS UK and over 100 British subcontractors (achieving a level of 75% locally supplied components), production began on March 27, 2023. On January 9 of this year, Maria Eagle, Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement and Industry at the UK Ministry of Defence, visited the plant. In her presence, on January 21, the first locally produced unit was presented. Co-production is also planned at WFEL’s facilities in Stockport, Greater Manchester.
In addition to the baseline armored personnel carriers, production will also include specialist variants, such as command and control vehicles, medical evacuation vehicles, and specialized carrier versions. Thanks to the modular design of the GTK Boxer, the latter can be configured into 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 NEMO 120 mm is being offered), or a self-propelled howitzer (the RCH 155 AGM has been selected).
The MIV program is expected to generate 4,000 jobs in the UK. Subcontractors include Thales UK (delivering the aforementioned remote weapon stations), Horstman Holdings (transmissions), Qioptiq (optics and optronics), and Pearsons Engineering (assembly and integration of general vehicle architecture, situational awareness systems, and emergency lighting). Operational support, maintenance, and repairs will be carried out domestically by ARTEC Boxer UK Ltd., established on October 4 2023.
In January 2024, it was reported that verification and validation trials were conducted at the Millbrook UTC Land Equipment Operations Centre in Bedfordshire on two GTK Boxer command and control variants for a British customer (vehicles supplied by Rheinmetall AG, produced in Kassel, Germany).
GTK Boxers are produced by the German-Dutch joint venture ARTEC (ARmoured vehicle TEChnology), comprising Rheinmetall AG, KNDS Deutschland, and Rheinmetall Defence Australia Pty Ltd, at the Rheinmetall Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence (MILVEHCOE) in Redbank, near Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Current operators, in addition to the UK, include Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Australia, and, most recently, Ukraine, with Qatar as a potential future customer. Slovenia canceled its purchase, while the vehicle is currently being offered to the Czech Republic. Previously, it was unsuccessfully offered to Bulgaria, Japan, and Spain.
