Canada’s new self-propelled howitzer shown at Ottawa expo

Canada unveiled a new self-propelled artillery system at its premier defense exhibition this week that can fire a 155mm shell while moving at speed, reload automatically without a gunner exposed outside the vehicle, and hit targets up to 70 km (43 miles) away, all operated by a crew of three from inside an armored hull that Canada has been building and operating for decades.

General Dynamics Land Systems Canada and German artillery specialist KNDS Deutschland jointly presented the Grizzly LAV SPH, a wheeled self-propelled howitzer built on Canada’s domestically designed and manufactured Light Armored Vehicle chassis, at CANSEC 2026 in Ottawa, positioning it as the solution for Canada’s long-delayed indirect fires modernization requirement.

Canada operates aging M109 Paladin howitzers, tracked self-propelled artillery pieces that entered service in the 1960s and have seen continuous upgrades across multiple nations, but whose age and maintenance demands have become increasingly difficult to sustain. Canada’s indirect fires modernization program has been exploring replacement options for some time without reaching a procurement decision, and the Grizzly LAV SPH’s debut at CANSEC represents General Dynamics and KNDS making a direct and public pitch for that requirement at a moment when Canadian defense spending is finally accelerating toward the commitments Ottawa has long made to NATO allies.

The LAV chassis that forms the Grizzly’s foundation is one of the most successful armored vehicle designs in Canadian history, produced by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada and operated by the Canadian Army, the U.S. Marine Corps under the designation LAV 25, and militaries across dozens of countries in various configurations.

The 8×8 wheeled platform offers strategic mobility that tracked vehicles cannot match, moving at highway speeds on its own wheels rather than requiring specialized heavy transport to reposition, and it carries the operational record of thousands of vehicles deployed across multiple conflicts including Afghanistan. Canadian soldiers, mechanics, and logisticians already know how to operate, maintain, and support the LAV family comprehensively, which means a self-propelled howitzer on the same chassis arrives with a built-in training and support infrastructure that a new-platform procurement would require years to develop from scratch.

The artillery system mounted on that Canadian chassis comes from KNDS Deutschland, the Franco-German defense company that produces some of Europe’s most advanced artillery systems. The gun module integrated into the Grizzly is described as a combat-proven, fully automated, uncrewed artillery system that can fire on the move, a capability that separates modern self-propelled howitzers from their predecessors as decisively as automatic transmission separated modern cars from earlier vehicles. Traditional howitzers require the vehicle to stop, level the platform, set up the gun, load manually or semi-automatically, fire, and then move before enemy counter-battery radar locates the firing position. A fire-on-the-move system eliminates that stationary exposure window, allowing the crew to fire and continue moving without presenting a static target to the counter-battery systems that modern armies deploy specifically to kill artillery as quickly as possible after the first shot.

The rate of fire of more than 8 rounds per minute at maximum output is a figure that speaks directly to the tactical effectiveness of the automated loading system. Manual loading of 155mm artillery rounds, each weighing approximately 43 kg (95 lb) for the projectile alone before propellant charges, is physically exhausting work that cannot be sustained at high rates for extended periods. An automated system replaces that physical limitation with mechanical consistency, maintaining maximum rate of fire without crew fatigue degrading performance as a battle continues. The maximum range of up to 70 km (43 miles) is ammunition-dependent, meaning that figure applies to extended-range munitions rather than standard rounds, but even with conventional ammunition a 155mm system reaches targets well beyond the engagement range of most battlefield threats that would endanger the firing vehicle.

The three-person crew with space for a fourth reflects the automation philosophy embedded in the KNDS gun module. Traditional self-propelled howitzer crews of six or more personnel exist largely because the loading, aiming, and fire control functions required multiple dedicated operators before automation could handle them. A fully automated system concentrates the crew in the protected hull where they operate the vehicle, manage the fire control system, and oversee the automated gun operations, rather than standing exposed outside the vehicle to handle heavy ammunition. That crew reduction has operational implications beyond personnel savings: a smaller crew means fewer soldiers at risk per platform, a smaller logistics footprint for food, water, and equipment, and a faster crew rest cycle during extended operations.