United Kingdom will order 72 automated wheeled self-propelled howitzers of the RCH 155 type. The contract is valued at approximately £1 billion, or €1.15 billion, putting the average unit cost at €15.97 million.
The planned delivery schedule for the RCH 155 has now also become known, as disclosed by UK Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry Luke Pollard in Parliament, as reported by UK Defence Journal.
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Deliveries of the 72 RCH 155 units are planned to run from 2028 through 2032. Systems will not be transferred in tranches or large batches but individually as each unit rolls off the production line and completes acceptance testing.
This allows for a calculation: the delivery rate for RCH 155 systems to the British armed forces will be approximately 1.5 units per month, assuming deliveries begin at the start of 2028 and run through to the end of 2032. It had previously been announced that the first RCH 155 would arrive in the UK in 2028, though that unit was specified as a demonstration example.
Importantly, despite deliveries beginning in 2028, the UK plans for the RCH 155 to achieve minimum deployable readiness only by the end of the decade approximately 2030. It is worth recalling that following the likely transfer of all AS90 howitzers to Ukraine, Britain was left with just 14 Archer SPHs a number that is clearly insufficient for a major army.
For Ukraine, 54 RCH 155 units were ordered as far back as late 2022. The first was officially handed over in January 2025, but in August of that year it was announced that delivery would be delayed by several months due to integration issues with the Kropyva battlefield management system.
Since then, no official information on RCH 155 deliveries to Ukraine has emerged. Given that Ukraine's order predates the British one, serial deliveries to Ukraine will likely begin correspondingly earlier though this remains an assumption.
The RCH 155 itself represents a new generation of self-propelled artillery with full automation and a crew of just two to three personnel. It features an unmanned turret mounting a 155 mm gun with a 52-caliber barrel equivalent to that of the PzH 2000 providing a firing range of 40–70 km depending on ammunition type.
It has an automated fire control system and an autoloader delivering a rate of fire of 8 rounds per minute with a 30-round onboard supply. The RCH 155 also has the unique capability of firing on the move.
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