Hensoldt Takes a EUR 750 Million Framework for the Bundeswehr's Dismounted Joint Fire Support Teams
Taufkirchen, 4 August 2026
Key points
- BAAINBw awarded Hensoldt a series contract on 4 August to equip the Bundeswehr's dismounted Joint Fire Support Teams, with Hensoldt as prime contractor for procurement, full system integration and software development
- The equipment packages serve Joint Terminal Attack Controllers and Joint Forward Observers working without dedicated vehicles: communications, integrated power and networking, electro-optical sensors for target measurement, and laser target designators
- Hensoldt develops the Digitally Aided Close Air Support software that links the controller on the ground to the supporting aircraft, with a video downlink carrying the aircraft's imagery back to the team
- The ADLER III command, control, communications, computing and fire-support system is integrated so the teams can also request and coordinate ground-based indirect fire
- The Bundestag budget committee cleared a framework of more than 300 equipment sets worth over EUR 750 million on 8 July; 50 sets at slightly more than EUR 100 million are firmly ordered, for delivery in 2028 and 2029
Germany's procurement office awarded Hensoldt the series contract for the Bundeswehr's dismounted Joint Fire Support Teams on 4 August — the first call-off against a framework the Bundestag budget committee cleared in July at more than EUR 750 million for over 300 equipment sets.
A Joint Fire Support Team is the pair of trades that turn an observation into an engagement: the terminal attack controller who clears and directs close air support, and the forward observer who calls artillery. Hensoldt's package equips them to do it on foot. The hardware is sensing and communications — electro-optical sensors for target measurement, laser designators, radios, integrated power and networking — and the software is the connective part, a Digitally Aided Close Air Support suite that puts a digital link between the controller and the aircraft, with a video downlink returning the aircraft's own picture to the ground. ADLER III integration extends the same team into the indirect-fire chain.
The commercial shape matters as much as the capability. The framework authorises more than 300 sets at over EUR 750 million; the firm order is 50 sets at a little over EUR 100 million, delivering in 2028 and 2029. That is roughly a sixth of the framework committed, with the balance held as an option — the standard German instrument for reserving industrial capacity without appropriating against it.
The relevant word in this contract is "dismounted". Germany's land recapitalisation has been buying shooters — wheeled howitzers, air-defence guns, ammunition lines — and this is the sensing and clearance layer that decides what those shooters are given to fire at; buying it separately, and for observers working off the vehicle rather than in it, is a doctrinal position, not just a procurement. Großwald recorded the award in Signal No. 116. Our judgement is that the schedule undercuts the intent: a squad-level digital link fielded in 2028 and 2029 arrives after much of the artillery it is meant to direct, and a force that takes delivery of guns before it takes delivery of the means to aim them collectively has sequenced its own modernisation backwards. The test is the second call-off — whether the remaining 250-odd sets are ordered before the first fifty are delivered, or after.
