The United Kingdom and Germany have taken a step forward in plans to develop a new family of long-range stealth cruise and hypersonic missiles as part of a joint deep precision strike programme.
UK Defence Minister Luke Pollard met Germany’s State Secretary for Armament and Innovation, Jens Plötner, in Berlin to review progress on the initiative during the Defence Bilateral Ministerial Group on Equipment and Capability Cooperation.
The programme aims to develop weapons capable of striking targets at ranges exceeding 2,000 kilometres, with the systems expected to enter service during the 2030s. According to the Ministry of Defence, the effort will initially focus on ground-launched missiles but could later expand to include air- and sea-launched variants.
The project is intended to deliver what officials describe as a “family” of advanced weapons combining stealth and hypersonic capabilities to improve long-range strike options. The talks form part of ongoing cooperation between London and Berlin following the Trinity House Agreement signed in October 2024, which set out plans to strengthen defence industrial collaboration between the two countries.
The UK government said the joint programme remains open to additional partners in the future. Speaking after the meeting in Berlin, Pollard said the discussions marked progress in the development of new missile technologies.
“The UK-Germany relationship is incredibly strong, and we’ve marked a step forward in our work to develop cutting-edge missile capabilities.”
He said the programme would support both military capability and defence industry development.
“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.”
As I read it the press release indicates that both stealth cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles are being considered separately, not stealth and hypersonic in the same missile. The headline is a little misleading.
It’s a good idea so long as they actually commit to it, and we need naval launch if the range is only 2000km as that barely reaches Russia from the UK.
Buy some more A400M and develop and expeditionary long range strike force based on mobile truck platforms. Deploy to Norway and Finland in a crisis and you put the Russian Naval bases at risk , and Moscow.
They would form a NATO conventional deterrent force, build enough and it counters the Ru bomber and naval CM threat.
Add German ones based on its Eastern borders and deployed in Poland and Russia loses any intimidation factor it believes it possessed
Exactly David. The Russians need to know it can not predict any number, direction, depth of penetration or type of response to its own actions. The nuclear deterrent as we know it now only restricts their planning at the most intense level, we need as wide any number and type of deep strike missiles with a range of warheads. They thought they would be essentially immune from that in Ukraine and now they aren’t they equally understand that their vaulted air defence systems can’t ultimately deal with them, so the threat of overwhelming attacks on deep lying crucial targets will make them think very deeply before risking even a focused attack on a NATO member.
Yeah, agreed. I’m not actually sure you can make a hypersonic missile stealthy currently- they create too much air disturbance and suchlike.
I do wonder why we’re straying so far into an overlap with Stratus though- I’m not sure that’s a great idea. Our guided weapons programmes with France and Italy are one of the few consistent pan-European partnership successes, I’m not sure why we’d throw any kind of upset that way…
I thought the Anglo-German weapon was going to be a ground-launched ballistic missile, similar to ATACMS or PrSM, but if we’re now talking cruise missiles then we’re in a different category.
You can’t. The plasma envelope surrounding a hypersonic missile will generate radar returns.
Thanks, I knew there was a reason- now I know what it is!
If only we already had a family of long range cruise missiles in development with another European partner that could be launched from land sea and air 🤦♂️
I am all for this weapon in it’s original guise which was to be a long range, cheapish, cruise missile than could be truck launch in the UK and hit Russia.
What we don’t need is another expensive family of hypersonic and stealthy cruise missiles designed to attack hardened targets as we already spent years and billions developing STRATUS LO and RS.
If the Iran conflict has demonstrated anything with cruise missiles it is that numbers and cost can count as much if not more than fancy survival techniques. We need a long range conventional strike capability able to deal Russia a significant strategic blow to act as a deterrent. We don’t need more expensive bespoke weapons fired in a small batches because we already have them.
Indeed a Hi-Mid-Lo mix is needed.
The problem is if you ask what is needed it is always an exquisite system that will be future proofed for 25 years to ‘maintain tech edge’.
Whereas, as you say, a massive pile of cheapish pretty good missiles that can be mass produced in numbers is essential to endurance.
Yes especially when you already have a Mach 3 plus radar seeking cruise missile and a long rage highly stealthy anti ship weapon to hand. Affordable mass with extremely long range is what’s missing.
However I fear we may be pulled down a rabbit hole as Germany is essentially looking for its own STRATUS competitor when what we need is a European FLAMINGO.
A European Flamingo or a toned down European Dark Eagle, those are the two things it sounds like they are considering. Both would be useful.
I agree with all the about comments about not wanting ver gold plating this solution, makes a lot of sense considering other programmes. I also think however you get the weapon version of mission creep with programmes like this. The request is for a cheap mass biased system that can still be effective through numbers. However the designer/developers want the orders but want prestige too and fear the risk if their weapon looking ineffective in any conflict with the reflection upon them as a result. Inevitably the message back therefore to make the platform truly effective, the message is it needs this quality, that technology or the flexibility to incorporate such in the future all adding to the cost and complexity of the system and the threat of being obsolete before it enters service or needs and expensive upgrade which then delays it, we all knows how it goes if the manufacturers get their way. This is what plagued so many projects n the 50s and 60s.
I have been studying some of these of late (though admittedly these were complex systems probably beyond the available technology) but though cancelled due to the dreaded Committees deciding they were not going to be able to achieve their stated goals against perceived new Soviet capabilities, those actual capabilities of the proposed platforms realistically would have been extremely effective even today if they had met their stated goals. I only raise this in respect of this thread because in retrospect it shows how inaccurate assessments of the effectiveness of enemy capabilities can be and also perhaps how it can be used as a cover for cancelling programmes due to costs rather than actual capability. The present Govt, like its historical predecessors seems very prone to exploiting this, using loads of programmes with fancy names to impress with arguably very little interest in bring them to fruition in the hope that everything calms down when the idea of sanity returns across the pond and/or other European powers form an effective barrier in the east. Overly optimistic in my view.
The heavy lifters in Iran strikes are PRisM artillery rockets and LUCAS – Shaheeds with better guidance
Quantity has a quality all of its own
Uk mainland to main Russian north atlantic base of Murmansk is 1700 km. Shetland is closer at 1300kms and and puts Moscow in range.
We will never directly strike mainland Russia
We will never use Trident.
Thats the intent. Deterence.
Scenario: Russia decides to occupy svalbard claiming a historical anomoly. Trumpian USA declares its s local issue.
A 2000 to 2500km weapon allows UK to directly support Norway from the UK.
Relocate systems to northern Norwegian mainland and the entire archipeligo comes comfortably into range.
I disagree- but I’m confident we’ll never be landing munitions on Moscow, or strategic bases like Murmansk.
If Russia were to invade Poland or one of the Baltics, though, I do think we’d be striking assembly areas, storage depots, logistics hubs, GBAD sites and other similar targets inside Russian borders- possibly quite a way back. The question would be about the “in between” targets- drone assembly plants hundreds of kms inside Russia etc. I suspect not.
Another day, another project for the 2030’s. Hey ho.
It stupid ideas like this that leads to our budget going absolutely nowhere. Why do we need what is essentially Stratus but bigger? Build an IRBM, build a cheap cruise missile, but stop duplicating capabilities.
Perhaps this puts the UK being involved in any export orders for all of the weapons that are being developed.
This will never happen. I’ve lost count of the number of hypersonic missile projects we are suposedly engaged in. Australia, France and Didlisquat. Liebore will never publish the costs or budgetted costs. The are currently spending 145bn GBP every year so their non pensioner supporters can sit at home. Thats the money where they need to go digging for an increase in Defence spending. Utter clowns.