KNDS LORAS and Rheinmetall L60 Highlight Europe's 60-Kilometer Artillery Gap 2026

60 kilometers with standard ammunition and up to 100 kilometers with special projectiles: The figure with which KNDS promotes its new LORAS system at Eurosatory 2026 initially sounds like a technical advancement. In truth, it marks a political gap. Europe's armies have learned since 2022 that artillery is once again decisive in warfare. However, they have not yet learned to create a common procurement regime from this.

The Technical Leap is Real

KNDS presented LORAS on June 15 in Paris as a 155-mm system with a 58-caliber barrel. The difference from the currently widespread 52-caliber standard is not cosmetic. CAESAR, PzH 2000, and RCH 155 are fundamentally based on the 52-caliber generation; with standard high-explosive ammunition, they usually range from about 30 to 40 kilometers, with special ammunition higher. KNDS now claims that LORAS can reach over 60 kilometers with 155 mm/58 cal. and advance into the 100-kilometer class with precision or special ammunition. Defense News described the same point soberly on June 17: The barrel is about twelve percent longer than the 52-caliber systems commonly used in Europe.

Rheinmetall is sending a very similar signal in parallel. The company presented its L60-155-mm system at the same fair and speaks of about a 30 percent increase in range compared to L52 weapons. Initial firing demonstrations are expected to take place in 2026. The L60 barrel measures 9,300 millimeters and weighs just over 2.5 tons; Rheinmetall cites muzzle velocities of over 1,100 meters per second in tests from 2025. The message from the German industry is clear: Not only rockets, but also towed artillery should once again operate deeper into enemy territory.

Why the 58-Caliber Debate is Political

The operational background is simple. Drones, counter-battery radars, and digital fire control chains have accelerated reconnaissance. Those who shoot further are more likely to survive because they remain outside part of the enemy's counter-battery effect and can more frequently deliver the first salvo. Ukraine has demonstrated this connection with bitter precision. An artillery system that reaches 60 kilometers with standard ammunition does not automatically shift the front, but it increases the area in which a battery can exert influence without rocket launchers.

This is precisely where the European temptation lies. A 155-mm shell costs only a fraction of a tactical missile. The logistics are known, the ammunition family is broad, and the training is available. Therefore, KNDS does not randomly emphasize compatibility with the Joint Ballistics Memorandum of Understanding and with existing NATO ammunition stocks. For finance ministers, this sounds like the ideal formula: more range, no completely new missile architecture, no immediate departure from existing depots.

But is that enough? No. A longer barrel does not solve the fundamental European problem if each country pursues its own fire support architecture, its own ammunition priorities, and its own industrial protection logic. The debate about LORAS and L60 is therefore less a question of metallurgy than of institutions.

LORAS Shows the Strength and Weakness of KNDS

KNDS is credible in this field. The company cites 11,000 employees, 4.4 billion euros in revenue, and 33.1 billion euros in order backlog for 2025. It has emerged from Nexter and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and thus embodies exactly the French-German industrial integration that European defense politicians like to invoke. LORAS is based on an RCH-155 architecture with an automated Artillery Gun Module; the current RCH 155 already offers more than eight rounds per minute, 30 projectiles with fuses, 144 modular charges, a 360-degree aiming range, and ranges of up to about 54 kilometers depending on the ammunition, according to KNDS.

This is impressive, but it remains a system offering, not a European standard. The RCH 155, PzH 2000, CAESAR, Archer, Krab, Zuzana, and K9 already form a European artillery mosaic today. Many systems are capable, but the variety creates training costs, spare parts issues, and ammunition planning along national lines. LORAS could reduce this fragmentation if it were procured as a common generation. It could exacerbate it if each country only buys another national variant.

Rheinmetall Makes Competition Productive and Risky

The fact that Rheinmetall is simultaneously presenting L60 is industrially healthy and politically uncomfortable. Competition can lower development risks and prevents a single supplier from defining the entire European artillery future. At the same time, the familiar European reflex threatens: two high-performance solutions from Germany or German-French cooperation, multiple national procurement logics, and ultimately too small series for both.

The problem is not that Europe has too many engineers. The problem is that European states rarely translate technical excellence into mass capability. In Ukraine, it is not the most beautiful demonstrator vehicle at a fair that counts, but the monthly production of barrels, breeches, propellant charges, fuses, and shells. Rheinmetall itself states that ammunition production will be significantly expanded. That is where the crucial question lies. A 60-kilometer barrel without ammunition throughput is a trade fair success, not a war capability.

The Artillery Gap is Also a NATO Gap

European armies have been discussing 5 percent targets, SAFE loans, and new industrial funds for months. However, fire support remains a particularly honest test. It forces politics into hard categories: range, cadence, barrel lifespan, ammunition stock, transport, maintenance. These categories cannot be replaced by summit declarations.

The United States is increasingly shifting planning reserves toward the Indo-Pacific. Even if no large U.S. troops are withdrawn from Europe, the assumptions about which carrier aircraft, tankers, missile stocks, and deep fire capabilities are immediately available in a crisis are changing. For Europe, this means: The gap between 40 and 100 kilometers can no longer be silently covered by American missiles and air power.

This is where LORAS becomes strategically interesting. A European 155-mm system that reaches the lower edge of the missile space could relieve NATO planning. But only under three conditions: common ammunition qualification, coordinated series orders, and a maintenance regime that does not end at national borders. Without these three elements, LORAS remains another example of European capability in the singular and European impotence in the plural.

What Europe Must Decide Now

The first decision concerns standards. If LORAS and L60 generate different ammunition paths, different pressure profiles, and different qualification logics, the next fragmentation will occur. The second decision concerns quantities. A handful of demonstrators does not change fire planning on the eastern flank. The third decision concerns Ukraine experience. Kyiv does not need a perfect artillery family by 2035, but systems, barrels, and ammunition in a reliable rhythm starting in 2026.

The European paradox thus remains visible. The industry is finally providing answers to a real military question. Politics must now prove that it can turn answers into capacity. More range is necessary. But range without common procurement is just ballistics with European rhetoric.

Sources

• Defense News, June 17, 2026, report on KNDS LORAS and 58-caliber artillery
• KNDS, press release from June 15, 2026, on LORAS and CAPINT
• Rheinmetall, press release from June 15, 2026, on the L60-155-mm system
• KNDS, technical specifications for the RCH 155