RHEINMETALL AG 
"The troops want to stick with the Puma," said the SPD politician after a top-level meeting with the tank's manufacturers in Berlin on Friday. The Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, Eberhard Zorn, also emphasized: "The Puma has a clear future with us in the Bundeswehr, we need it." The heads of the manufacturers Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) also expressed their support for the project and announced their intention to further develop the infantry fighting vehicle.
The Puma is the "best infantry fighting vehicle in the world", said Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger after the meeting with Lambrecht and Zorn, adding: "We will do everything we can to improve this system." KMW CEO Ralf Ketzel also said that his company was fully committed to the infantry fighting vehicle and would ensure that the Puma would be "a real success story" for the Bundeswehr. The ministry and industry assured each other that action had been taken quickly after the problems arose, but that cooperation would have to be more closely interlinked in future in order to rule out defects. Lambrecht said that the Bundeswehr and industry now had their "homework" to do.
During a Bundeswehr maneuver in December, all 18 Pumas deployed failed. The infantry fighting vehicles were actually intended for the Bundeswehr's command deployment with the NATO rapid reaction force (VJTF) to secure the eastern flank of the military alliance. The deployment in response to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began on January 1, and the Pumas are now being replaced by the much older Marder infantry fighting vehicle. At the beginning of January, the ministry stated that the Pumas had been repaired by the industry. However, "further investigations are necessary" so that the tank can also be used in the field.
(Report by Alexander Ratz. Edited by Christian Götz. If you have any questions, please contact berlin.newsroom@tr.com)
