NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency will support a coalition of Allies, including Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain, to procure up to 1,000 Patriot missiles to strengthen their air defences amid Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The contract will expand the European production of the missiles, enhancing supply and ensuring the replenishment of Allied stockpiles.
“I welcome Allies’ timely announcement to invest in up to 1,000 new Patriot air defence missiles to bolster the Alliance’s security”, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“This investment shows the strength of transatlantic defence cooperation and NATO’s commitment to keeping our people safe. Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians, cities and towns show how important modern air defences are. Scaling-up ammunition production is key for Ukraine’s security and for ours.”
The $5.5 billion contract has been awarded to COMLOG, a joint venture between the US company Raytheon and German company MBDA, located in Schrobenhausen, Germany. The large volume of the order will support the set up of a production facility for Patriot missiles in Germany.
Patriot air defence systems can be used to defend against aircraft, helicopters and missiles, intercepting them at great distances. In the wake of Russia’s war against Ukraine, NATO has deployed Patriot missile batteries to protect its Allies on its eastern flank. NATO Allies have also delivered Patriot systems to Ukraine and are committed to further bolstering Ukraine’s defences.
A system Britain should have bought,
Any chance we could buy some?
Why would we when France, Italy and ourselves are committed to the Aster missile system. The advanced versions are comparable and operate from land and sea.
IMHO as we alrrady have the Astor for the RN we should buy into the land based versions.
My simple answer to that would be, which option gives the best bang for your buck, Land Astor or Patriot???
Which is cheaper, buy it in quantity…
SAMP/T is said to be about half the price of Patriot.
More importantly, which one is likely to stop everything chucked at us? The Patriot is getting the best data possible that will see it stop an ever increasing number of missiles. Astor Land isn’t.
Indeed every time it shoots down a Kinzhal or indeed whatever missile that algorithm is improved and improvements shared with the whole Patriot platform wherever it is, which is a serious bonus. But what the hell would we lose to find the money for it? Will have to hope our forces operate under others umbrella I guess as we won’t have land Aster either.
Yes, and then RN and Land can share the same inventory. Simples isn’t it? Same with CAMM, which might already be happening. Not sure if RN missiles may need to be marinised?
I suspect they are hermetically sealed in their cannisters to protect from the elements.
Both versions are sealed with a punch through membrane at the top of the canister.
That way there is a longer period between inspections, you can still electronically test them sealed.
Land based Aster with the Leonardo Kronos radar would be an amazing system to supplement our Land Ceptor batteries.
Theatre based air defence and ABM it’s the main capability gap in the UK.
If the U.K. can get more destroyers they allow protection of all of the U.K. and are mobile.
A Land based system based on a naval variant would allow shared parts, common pool etc.
As usual it’s a money issue.
The SSBN and nuclear aukus are taking a large part of the defence budget and will continue to for the foreseeable.
Getting the successor program and the warhead, nuclear stuff out of the defence budget would help a lot.
You’re a bitter and twisted man aren’t you
‘Man’ is being a bit optimistic mind.
That’s quite a rude response. What’s wrong with procuring a land version of Aster?
No mate HMG don’t do Defence 🤗 🇬🇧
The way i read this, was all the European users of Patriot got together and placed a huge block order for the missile allowing them to benefit from the economy of scale , which until now had only been the preserve of the US
And the order is so large, they are being made in Germany.
Translation the US line(s) is(are) flat out so Germany was chosen to produce them?
It is good to have another line and local capacity to produce more. Issue is some of the bits will be US sourced.
Or is this just a final assembly line that turns kits into missiles?
So this is another project separate from the European Sky Shield Initiative?
No issues from me, however lets hope the the NATO status quo in regard to US support continues, depending what happens in the US with a resurgent Trump and his “effort” at getting NATO partners to share more of the load (which I do agree with incidentally), however the next few years will not be the right time to be stamping feet and getting grumpy at European NATO Allies!
It’s actually a perfect time. In peace time everyone quickly forgets and the continental ‘allies’ go back to splitting the peace dividend. Strike while the fire’s hot. Germany HAS to pay more.
There are ways and means…china wants NATO to argue..the more it thinks it’s political warfare is winning the more chance it thinks the west would fracture and western allies would not support the U.S. the more likely it is to kick off a pacific war that would lead to a a world war.
5.5m a missile. It’s a lot but this is also setting up a production facility in Germany. It should be worth it if the production facility allows for more missiles to be made overall.
The price will drop once things are up and running.
Another issue may be suppliers of parts but hopefully that is not an issue. Having commonality across missile production will allow the factory to be reconfigured to other systems when not need for patriot.
Presumably there is also the refurbishment side of things as well.
As we’re members of NATO could we get in on the act and order some for the UK? They woukd be cheaper via this bulk buy?
Well you need something to fire the missiles and help target them.
Can’t help suggesting we build our own to meet the threat we are currently seeing at the moment. Ongoing yes we need that sort of capability but is that our most pressing requirement.
It would be nice to see the UK get a decent short, medium range ballistic missile defence..land based…after all the only real kinetic warfare risk to the the homeland is long range missile attack…from the Sea..yes this could be provided by T45 but we need them to be out and about not chained at home.