The UK and Germany have held talks on jointly developing a new deep precision strike missile capable of ranges exceeding 2,000 kilometres, the Ministry of Defence stated.
UK Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard met Germany’s State Secretary for Armament and Innovation Jens Plötner in Berlin during the Defence Bilateral Ministerial Group on Equipment and Capability Cooperation to review progress on the programme.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the project aims to develop a family of long-range weapons that could include stealth cruise missiles and hypersonic systems. The initial focus is expected to be on ground-launched capabilities, with potential future variants for air and maritime platforms.
The missiles are expected to enter service in the 2030s and are intended to provide long-range deterrence and operational flexibility for both countries.
The discussions form part of wider defence cooperation under the Trinity House Agreement signed by the UK and Germany in October 2024. According to the government, the initiative remains open to participation from additional partner nations.
Luke Pollard said the talks marked progress in strengthening defence cooperation between the two countries.
“The UK-Germany relationship is incredibly strong, and we’ve marked a step forward in our work to develop cutting-edge missile capabilities.”
“We are not only arming our military personnel with the best weaponry to act as the strongest possible deterrent to our adversaries, but in doing so we are also building the industrial foundations that will keep both nations at the forefront of defence technology, making us secure at home and strong abroad.”
Whoopee, more talks, just what we needed 🙄
The UK MOD is a true world leader in talks, projects, meetings and window shopping. I see the DIP is delayed again. Same old crap day in day out with nothing ever ordered just warm words and long winded statements.
We seem to be devloping masses of stuff for the future but not giving an in service date or any orders. As long as there is no war before 2031 every thing should be fine, finger crossed.
You are being optimistic, only the bare minimum will be available by 2031 and what is likely in small initial numbers. At least Chamberlain was playing for time to rapidly build up defences, this guy is playing for time to avoid paying for any.
What’s the point?
Starmer would refuse to deploy it
2030’s?
Neverhappenware
The UK now has so many ‘programmes’ it’s going to be the biggest military on Earth
As I mentioned before, my concern here is that this takes money from PRSM that exists, and was in the Deep Fires programme alongside MLRS expansion.
Is the Army still getting that?
This ticks two short term political boxes.
Anti American, tick.
Good Europeans, tick.
Did the Army want PRSM? Are they still getting it?
Or have industrial and political considerations intervened?
2000km is WAY beyond PrSM, this is more of a Tomahawk replacement if a cruise missile is chosen. It’s not a stupid idea as a capability, but with our negotiating skills the whole thing will just end up being built in Germany anyway like Aster was for France.
We need just one government committed to foreign policy independence and willing to pay for it.
Well I support Starmer in that, at least. Our foreign policy has automatically followed that of the US for long enough.
To be honest I think one of the most important sovereign capabilities we can have is the ability to hit our potential enemies homelands with strategic range weapons..
Absolutely.
But not at the expense of a system that was planned for and needed now, but additional to.
At the least, this stops money being spent now buying weapons IF, if, PRSM is now abandoned.
Yep, agree it cannot be an “either or” it must be both.. like the future drone ships vs actually ordering more frigates.
👍👌
I don’t care where it’s built as long as we get it. We can’t build it anyway. We used to be able to.
And importantly, when you shoot things over the fence like this it’d be good to have some substantial GBAD means on land, sea, air and space, to knock out what comes back at you!
We have the tech to build a hypersonic 2000km missile, given enough money. I suspect Germany couldn’t but they supply the money.
So inevitably there will be ‘technology transfer’ and Germany will end up producing largely british designed missiles, unless somebody in the MoD puts their foot down.
How are you gonna have hypersonic AND 2000km range? That simply doesn’t exist anywhere not even in Russia and China.
The only way to achieve that is through a ballistic missile and only France makes them in Europe through ArianeGroup. Even the long range MdCN derived from the Storm Shadow was developed by MBDA France.
Cruise missiles have to be subsonic to fly long distance. Russia has a Kalibr cruise missile variant that flies subsonic and has second stage to reach supersonic speeds for the terminal phase. But the missile is huge and definitely can’t be air-launched.
The point is that neither Germany nor the UK currently possess the know-how to do what you’re implying in a timely manner.
Dark Eagle? That’s hypersonic and 2750km IIRC. The UK has enough aggregated experience with high speed flight to produce a glide vehicle or cruise body or whatever method is chosen. We have enough experience with satellites to target them accurately. We are rapidly working on producing solid rocket motors large enough to boost hypersonic missiles, too. As this would only ever enter service in the mid 2030s I’d say we have plenty of time, it’s just a question of money and therefore political will.
It’s an hypersonic glide vehicle, which is a type of ballistic missile. And once again, France is the only country in Europe developing that (with Russia of course). You’re talking about hypothetical whatnots and what-ifs.
Russia, China, France, the US, North Korea and India have been working on that for many years already and they’re still not fully operational. Also note that all of these countries have a developed space programs and ICBMs (through ArianeGroup for France).
That’s because hypersonic glide vehicles need rockets or ballistic missiles to launch. The last UK-built space rocket was Blue Streak in the 60s… Both the UK and Germany are late to the party and before you can make hypersonic glide vehicles, you probably need to be able to make MIRV ICBMs (so Trident).
Japan is an example of a country without ICBMs that is developing hypersonic gliders but Japan has a space program and builds rockets and their glider is developed in multiple blocks have a range comparable to Storm Shadow.
You see why its hard to claim that the UK or Germany could achieve a hypersonic long range missile by the mid-2030s without external help when neither country produces space rockets or ICBMs?
Depends how this goes. It fills a gap as far as reducing dependency on the US. How many, what’s the cost, who makes what? One thing to consider… could this be adapted to fit a tactical nuclear warhead?Currently Germany carries some American fee fall nukes; it would be far better if they had something that could carry a European built tactical nuke under British auspices… Unlikely, but worth considering…
Yeah in your dreams. Be a better dream than what I just had.
Sometimes it’s nice to dream… though nothing concerning acquiring nukes or spending lots of money on defence could ever be thought of as nice. It is, however, necessary – and I just hope we don’t find that out the hard way.