Rheinmetall presents future solution of 155mm howitzer based on HX3 10x10 truck chassis.

The German Company Rheinmetall Defense presents a future solution of 155 mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer based on the new HX3 10x10 military truck chassis. With this new product, Rheinmetall offers a new generation of wheeled self-propelled howitzer for the modern military market.
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New 155mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer based on Rheinmetall HX3 10x10 military truck chassis. (Picture source Rheinmetall)

With the new HX3 military truck family, the German company Rheinmetall has developed a multirole platform able to be used as a systems carrier for complex weapon and radar systems. These include truck-based artillery systems, for example, which are likely to gain importance in coming years. In combination with the newly developed Artillery Truck Interface (ATI), the HX 10x10 could be utilized in the future as the standard basis for various artillery solutions or similar systems.

According to our first analysis, the new HX3 howitzer is equipped with a fully enclosed armored turret which is mounted at the rear of the truck chassis. The turret seems to be armed with the Rheinmetall 155mm 52 caliber gun which is also used on the PZH 2000, tracked self-propelled howitzer. The gun is able to fire at a maximum range of 30 km with standard ammunition and 40 km with extended range projectiles.

The turret will keep the electrically powered and digitally controlled automatic shell loading system designed to handle the 155 mm shells when loading and unloading the 60-round magazine, loading the gun from the magazine, and loading from outside, including the inductive fuse setting.

The turret is mounted on a platform designed for AGM (Artillery Gun Module) which has a traverse of 360°. In road position, the cannon is held in position by a clamp, located to the rear of the crew cab.

According to the HX3 howitzer drawings published by the company Rheinmetall, the turret seems to be remotely controlled offering a high rate of fire and Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact (MRSI) Mission. All the firing operations could be performed from inside of the crew cab. To respond to the new threats of the modern battlefield, the HX3 trucks can be equipped with an armored cab to provide ballistic protection against the firing of small arms and artillery shell splinters.

The HX3 155mm howitzer should be equipped with computerized firing control and communication systems to provide network communications and real-time firing sequence management including forwarding of fire-support requests and transmission of firing orders according to the target type, ammunition type, and gun availability.