France Orders Four More SAMP/T NG Sections Through OCCAR — Twelve for the Air and Space Force, Ten Due by End-2030

The SAMP/T NG replaces the Franco-Italian SAMP/T, known in French service as Mamba, with a new fire-control chain built around Thales's GF300 radar and matched to the Aster 30 B1NT interceptor. France and Italy launched the programme in 2021; OCCAR manages it. On 8 April Catherine Vautrin, the armed forces minister, told the National Assembly's defence committee that the update raised the target from eight systems to ten in 2030 and twelve in 2035, and named four SAMP/T NG among the orders France would place this year. The update adds EUR 1.6 billion to ground-based air defence and counter-drone spending, a rise she put at 32 per cent, to accelerate SAMP/T deliveries among other things.

With one system delivered in early 2026, ten by the end of 2030 means nine more in under five years. In April Großwald's Danish selection dispatch asked whether Eurosam would publish a revised throughput plan; it has not, and the DGA release gives a delivery target without a production rate and does not mention interceptors. Germany, which is examining co-production, has the same unanswered rate question.