Thundart

Thundart is the MBDA-Safran guided rocket-artillery system selected in June 2026 as France's sovereign FLP-T choice to replace the aging LRU, offering roughly 150 km of ITAR-free precision deep-strike range.

Overview

Thundart is a French guided rocket-artillery program built around a 150 km surface-to-surface precision rocket and a wheeled multiple-launch system, developed jointly by missile house MBDA and aerospace-defense group Safran. On 15 June 2026, at the opening of the Eurosatory defense show near Paris, French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin announced that France had entered exclusive negotiations with the MBDA-Safran consortium to supply the system, as reported by Defense News. The decision named Thundart as the preferred solution under the FLP-T program (Frappe Longue Portée Terrestre, or Land Long-Range Fires), France's effort to replace its aging Lance-Roquettes Unitaire (LRU) launchers with a domestically controlled deep-strike capability.

Thundart matters less for what it has done — it is a program-stage system, not yet in service — than for what it represents: a sovereign, ITAR-free alternative to the U.S.-made HIMARS and other imported rocket artillery. France rejected off-the-shelf bids from Lockheed Martin (HIMARS), Hanwha Aerospace (Chunmoo) and Elbit Systems (PULS), plus a rival French offer from ArianeGroup and Thales, to keep a national industrial base. The system would give corps-level commanders a strike layer between tube artillery and air-launched weapons — a capability French Army leaders call one of their biggest gaps.

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