Bringing jobs to Canada

Rheinmetall Canada is an established player in the security and defence industries and longstanding partner of armed forces. In Canada, its 375 employees operate out of locations in Ottawa, Ontario and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Its parent company, Rheinmetall Group, is one of the largest European suppliers to the military and automotive sectors.

 

With continuous improvement in mind, Rheinmetall Canada recently expanded to take over production of Rheinmetall Group’s Mobile Start Units (MSUs). The transfer of technology and manufacturing capabilities from Germany to Canada aligns with the company’s goals of increased international presence and product diversification. Highly versatile, MSUs have both military and commercial applications and a broad international appeal, thus bolstering Canada’s presence as an engineering leader. 

 

 

On the military side, Rheinmetall MSUs are used by the German Air Force to start their Eurofighters, and the US Navy employs them on all of their aircraft carriers. 

 

Also trusted by civilian companies including Lufthansa, British Airways, American Airlines, Air New Zealand, and FedEx, the commercial MSUs can start even the most demanding aircraft, including the B777-300ER and A380. These units are found in airports around the globe: more than 1200 have been sold in more than 40 countries.

 

Dependable and customizable, these turbine-powered air start units are known to deploy reliably in extreme conditions, run on any choice of fuel, and maximize space with their lightweight, compact builds. Manufactured with a lifespan of 15 to 20 years, the comparative ownership costs of Rheinmetall MSUs are exceptionally low.

 

The MSU integrates Rheinmetall Canada’s expansive portfolio of platform-independent solutions, including soldier, robotic, surveillance, and weapon systems. Working closely with its customers, Rheinmetall Canada is considered a reliable team player that knows how to respond to evolving military and commercial needs. 

 

In June 2020, Rheinmetall Canada announced it assumed the lead in a teaming arrangement that includes: Lockheed Martin Canada; Rheinmetall Electronics of Bremen, Germany; and Lockheed Martin Training and Logistics Solutions in Orlando, Florida – to purse the Canadian Army’s Land Vehicle Crew Training System (LVCTS) project. The team will offer a mature, modular, and cost effective solution for the LVCTS project, while ensuring high-value economic benefits to Canada.

 

The LVCTS solution will enable the Canadian Army to conduct progressive training at the individual, crew, platoon, and higher echelon levels using high- to medium-fidelity reconfigurable trainers, as well as trainee workstations and a virtual environment. The software will be common to all levels of training and designed to generate increasingly challenging situations, including the ability to realistically simulate various terrain types, weather conditions, capabilities, and tactics. 

 

The instructional system will score crews to a doctrinal standard at all levels of complexity. Individual Crew Training Systems will be linked through the Distributed Interactive Simulation protocol and High-Level Architecture gateways to provide section, platoon, or higher echelon training. 

The system will also include a learning management system that allows customization of training scenarios, monitoring of trainee progress, and after-action reviews.

 

As Pietro Mazzei, Vice-president, Rheinmetall Canada, notes, “This partnership combines two of the world’s leading providers of military training solutions in order to supply the Canadian Army with the most advanced modular system. Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin have strong global track records when it comes to supplying and supporting leading-edge systems for precision gunnery and crew task training. We look forward to bringing this expertise to the Canadian Army.”

 

Also developed in Canada, Rheinmetall’s Mission Master is a unique concept of Autonomous-Unmanned Ground Vehicles (A-UGV) that can be readily adapted for a wide variety of different missions thanks to modular build-ons. 

 

In November 2020, Rheinmetall Canada unveiled the Mission Master – Armed Recon­naissance, its latest armed battlefield robot designed for tactical intelligence gathering and combat support. As with other modules of the A-UGV family, the Armed Reconnaissance keeps a human in the loop for all kinetic operations and life-affecting decisions.

 

In operations both at home and abroad, Armed forces depend on a high level of mobility and on reliable logistics. 

 

Robustness, versatility, and functionality are the most important performance criteria – no matter how bad the roads, or how difficult the terrain. The latest generation of HX vehicles from Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles meets the criteria and is well suited to meet the requirements of the Canadian Enhanced Recovery Capability and Logistic Vehicle Modernization projects.