The Austrian Armed Forces decided a few days ago to purchase four new purchase of four new C-390M tranpsort aircraft from Embraer. One of the deciding factors was the possibility of purchasing a Pandur Evolution from General Dynamics European Land Systems-Steyr together with its weapon station (which previously had to be removed during transportation in the Hercules).
How Aerospace Central Europe reportsan M142 HIMARS has now even been loaded into a Portuguese C-390M at Ramstein Air Base, and most recently the transportation of a Black Hawk helicopter in the Brazilian transport aircraft also caused a stir (video).
In the long term, the possibility of loading a HIMARS may also be of interest to the German Armed Forces. Although the army is currently still holding on to its M109 howitzers (although more precise ammunition is to be procured for this), plans are moving towards a new artillery system in the medium to long term. HIMARS is likely to play a role in these plans, as is the new artillery system developed by manufacturer Lockheed Martin together with Rheinmetall recently the GMARS system recently presented at Eurosatory in Paris.. https://militaeraktuell.at/farnborough-generalmajor-vodosek-sikorsky/ GMARS is mounted on an HX 8×8 chassis from Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles and has two rocket pods that can hold up to twelve rockets simultaneously. The range is around 400 kilometers.
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