Rheinmetall UK unveiled its Light Tactical Vehicle for the UK MoD Land Mobility Vehicle (LMV) requirement at DSEI 2025 in London, reports Bob Morrison.
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In a press release issued to coincide with the 09 September unveiling of its UK Light Tactical Vehicle at DSEI, Rheinmetall stated: “The platform is a mission-ready solution designed to meet the Land Mobility Vehicle (LMV) requirement within the Land Mobility Programme (LMP). The vehicle has been specifically engineered to meet UK operational requirements. With a projected in-service lifespan of over 10 years, it is backed by comprehensive OEM support, ensuring long-term reliability and through-life value.
“The platform is integrated and supported in the United Kingdom, with approximately 50% of the platform’s content sourced from British suppliers. The capability will support over 800 skilled jobs and apprenticeships across engineering, manufacturing, and the wider supply chain. The design has been carefully adapted in the UK to meet British Army requirements, ensuring performance and resilience in demanding mission environments.
“The platform shares a common base with Rheinmetall’s Caracal family (in industrial cooperation) offering flexibility, interoperability, and efficiencies across the Land Mobility Programme, and supporting the ambitions of the UK’s Land Industrial Strategy.
“The unveiling at DSEI 2025 reinforces Rheinmetall UK’s commitment to innovation, sovereign capability, and industrial growth, while demonstrating the tactical advantage and versatility of its mobility solutions to the UK and allied forces worldwide.”
John Abunassar, CEO of Rheinmetall UK, is quoted as saying: “This programme represents Rheinmetall UK’s commitment to delivering value, capability, and operational readiness to the British Army. It is a mission-ready, sustainable solution built with and for the United Kingdom.”
As can be seen from the accompanying images taken at DSEI UK 2025, the basic Rheinmetall UK Light Tactical Vehicle is based on the current Mercedes-Benz G-464 model, now called the G-class but previously known as the Gelandewägen or G-wagen. Of five-door BA06 Station Wagon configuration, with the rear side windows blanked off, the displayed four-seat vehicle had been heavily militarised with with communications and other specialist equipment.
There has been chatter on social media about the quoted ‘projected in-service lifespan of over 10 years’ and comparison with the current in-service Land Rover Defender ‘Wolf’ fleet and some of the Pinzgauer fleet having served for over 25 and 30 years respectively. However it should be borne in mind both that the projected 10-year service life is based on initial MoD requirements, not the possible and/or probable lifespan of the vehicle if selected for UK LMV, and also that the 1990s requirement for the TUL/TUM and TUM [HD] (i.e. Defender Wolf and Pinzgauer) was for a projected in-service lifespan of 15 and not 30 years; many military G-wagens dating from the 1980s and 1990s are still in military service, often with a second user nation.
Comments have also been passed about the displayed Rheinmetall LTV being Left Hand Drive for Right Hand Traffic, when of course most vehicles in the UK are RHD for LHT, but this configuration is purely because one-off demonstrator vehicles built for defence expos are usually based upon standard production models to both keep costs down and allow reuse at other shows. At the late 2021 launch of the G-464 in Austria I specifically asked the question about RHD availability and was told this was not only a future possibility but was most likely to be introduced a little further down the line. It should also be borne in mind that the in-service UK Forces Land Rover Defender model (aka Wolf or TUM HS) was procured in both RHD and LHD variants to meet both peacetime and operational needs.
The second vehicle displayed at DSEI UK 2025 based on the Mercedes-Benz G-464 chassis was a Caracal 4×4 Air Assault Vehicle conversion, produced in cooperation with Mercedes-Benz AG and ACS Armored Car Systems GmbH, similar to the vehicle ordered in July 2023 for German and Dutch rapid reaction forces. This demonstrator, configured as an R-WMIK replacement, was displayed with a supplementary armour package; for a fully armoured UK MoD LMV requirement (to replace Defender-based CAV-100 ‘Snatch’ and VIXEN categories) Rheinmetall would be able to supply a similar vehicle to those already in service on the earlier G-461 chassis.
Although Rheinmetall have produced a technical data sheet for the in-production Caracal variant, the company has not yet released specification details for the utility version of its forthcoming UK LMV submissions; this is unsurprising, as at time of writing final tender requirements have not yet been publicised by UK MoD.
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