Challenger 3 (CR3) is a planned British main battle tank in development for the British Army. It will be produced by conversion of existing Challenger 2 tanks by the British/German Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land joint venture. Improvements to Challenger 2 began in 2005 as the Capability And Sustainment Programme (CSP) to keep the Challenger 2 competitive until the 2030s. Lack of funding meant that it wasn't until 2014 that the programme was formally reorganised into the 'Challenger 2 Life Extension Programme' (LEP). In response to the LEP programme, two prototypes were submitted for evaluation; one from BAE Systems in 2018 and the other from Rheinmetall in 2019. Later that year BAE and Rheinmetall merged their British operations into Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL), effectively leaving Rheinmetall's proposal the only option available without replacing the Challenger 2 fleet with non-indigenous models. (Source: Wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA)