MBDA and Safran exhibited their joint project, Thundart 227 mm guided artillery rocket to be used on French M270 LRU MLRS in Eurosatory 2024. Janes reports that Thundart is offered for the first step of France’s FLP-T programme for an upgraded MLRS fleet. While few technical details were disclosed, the range is stated as 150 km, matching ER-GMLRS of the U.S. for HIMARS/M270 MLRS. France is currently using M31 227 mm GPS-guided rockets with a more than 70 km range. Aside from the increase in range,
Thundart can be anticipated to have improved guidance and warhead efficiency.
Following Thundart, the next step is to develop a missile with a range of 500 km. This might point out to a new SRBM like the U.S.-made PrSM or a cruise missile. Germany aims for the latter by integrating JFS-M on GMARS MLRS and an upgrade on MARS-II for new missiles.
