Germany seeks US approval to produce Tomahawk missiles and Patriot PAC-3 interceptors under license.

On July 1, 2026, it was revealed that Germany is negotiating with Washington to authorize licensed production of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors on German soil, potentially establishing the country as the first continental European nation to manufacture these two critical United States precision weapon systems. The bilateral initiative is aimed at expanding the Bundeswehr under its 100 billion euro Sondervermögen defense fund while compressing procurement delivery timelines and diversifying NATO's missile industrial base. This strategy intends to mitigate systemic reliance on United States domestic production lines that are currently strained by concurrent requirements for American inventories, Ukraine, Indo-Pacific partners, and Middle Eastern operators.

The proposed industrial arrangement leverages Germany's manufacturing infrastructure, which comprises 23 to 25 percent of total European Union industrial output and employs over 770,000 personnel in the automotive sector alone, to expand localized military production capacity. If authorized by Washington, the transfer of sensitive proprietary software and guidance algorithms would allow German defense contractors to assemble land-based Tomahawk variants with strike ranges exceeding 1,600 kilometers and optimize air defense density against tactical ballistic missiles via the hit-to-kill PAC-3 MSE interceptor.

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Initial industrial output for both the Tomahawk and the PAC-3 missile would likely concentrate on components, subassemblies, or final checkout before transitioning toward complete missile fabrication as the transfer of intellectual property scales. (Picture source: US DoD)

On July 1, 2026, the Financial Times revealed that Germany is negotiating with Washington to authorize the licensed production of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors on German soil, potentially making it the first European country to manufacture two of the U.S.'s most important precision missile systems. This bilateral talk coincides with the ongoing expansion of the German Army under the €100 billion Sondervermögen defense fund established in 2022, while total German military expenditure is projected to surpass 3.5% of national GDP later this decade. Berlin's strategic objective extends beyond basic procurement, seeking to compress delivery timelines, diversify the broader NATO missile industrial base, and mitigate systemic reliance on U.S. domestic production capacity that remains heavily committed to American inventories, Ukraine, Indo-Pacific partners, and Middle Eastern operators.

While existing industrial cooperation, such as Rheinmetall's F-35 center fuselage assembly line in Weeze and COMLOG's Patriot GEM-T production in Schrobenhausen, provides an established framework, licensed manufacturing of the Tomahawk and PAC-3 MSE would require a significantly deeper level of sensitive technology transfer. This request also follows Germany's previous formal request in July 2025 to acquire three Typhon Mid-Range Capability launch systems along with up to 400 Tomahawk Block V cruise missiles. The ongoing negotiations represent an effort to convert Europe's largest industrial economy into a primary missile manufacturing hub for the NATO alliance. Germany currently accounts for approximately 23% to 25% of the European Union's total manufacturing output and maintains Europe's largest machine tool, automotive, and industrial engineering sectors, offering a supplier base that exceeds any other European economy.

The German automotive industry employs over 770,000 personnel and encompasses thousands of specialized firms focusing on precision machining, advanced robotics, metallurgy, electronic components, composite materials, and automated production systems directly applicable to missile fabrication. Since 2022, the federal government has increasingly categorized underutilized civilian industrial capacity as a strategic national resource that can be reallocated to ammunition, missile, and armored vehicle production rather than permitting structural contraction in the civilian sector. Established domestic firms including Rheinmetall, Diehl Defence, MBDA Deutschland, Airbus Defence and Space, KNDS Deutschland, and Hensoldt possess deep expertise in system integration, propulsion, guidance electronics, sensor systems, air defense architectures, and military vehicle manufacturing.

Consequently, licensed manufacturing would expand an existing, highly mature industrial infrastructure already embedded within NATO supply networks rather than demanding the creation of an entirely new production ecosystem. Integrating the Tomahawk would provide the Bundeswehr with its first operational land-based deep-strike capability since the conclusion of the Cold War. The German army currently deploys no ground-launched precision weapon capable of engaging targets beyond an approximate range of 84 kilometers, while the air-launched Taurus KEPD-350 remains entirely dependent on fighter jets to achieve its range of over 500 kilometers. This capability gap became more acute after Washington cancelled the planned deployment of a U.S. Army Multi-Domain Task Force to Europe, which was intended to field Typhon launchers, Tomahawk missiles, SM-6 interceptors, and the Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon.

With these systems, the Tomahawk Block IV and Block V variants provide operational strike ranges exceeding 1,600 kilometers, with certain land-based mission profiles and payloads assessed at ranges beyond 2,000 kilometers. Operating from deployment zones in central Germany, these systems could hold adversary command headquarters, logistics infrastructure, air bases, ammunition depots, integrated air defense nodes, and mobile missile brigades throughout Kaliningrad, Belarus, and western Russia at risk without committing or exposing manned combat aircraft. This missile also utilizes a high-tech guidance package combining inertial navigation, GPS, TERCOM terrain-reference databases, DSMAC digital scene-matching optical correlation, and two-way satellite communications to enable real-time in-flight retargeting and battle damage verification. 

Following a similar request by Ukraine, establishing a German PAC-3 MSE production line would address one of the most critical and fast-growing interceptor shortages across the alliance. Germany currently maintains a force structure of nine Patriot air defense systems, and the PAC-3 MSE missile used by those batteries differs fundamentally from the older PAC-2 GEM-T by utilizing hit-to-kill kinetic interception rather than proximity blast-fragmentation warheads. This optimizes the interceptor against high-velocity tactical ballistic missiles, including Russia's Iskander-M and North Korea's KN-23. Furthermore, due to its reduced diameter, a standard Patriot launcher can carry sixteen PAC-3 interceptors compared to only four PAC-2 missiles, substantially increasing defensive capacity during high-density saturation attacks.

To meet surging global demand, the American company Lockheed Martin expanded its PAC-3 MSE production from approximately 300 interceptors annually earlier this decade to more than 500 deliveries in 2024, with industrial expansion targeting 650 units annually by 2027. Concurrently, U.S. Army modernization strategies require global production to approach 2,000 interceptors per year by 2030 to satisfy simultaneous requirements for U.S. stockpiles, Ukraine, NATO reinforcements, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Germany, Romania, Sweden, and Gulf Cooperation Council partners. For now, every Patriot operator competes for the same production base, meaning licensed German production would expand overall alliance output rather than simply reallocating existing U.S. production capacity. While Germany actively manufactures major U.S. military hardware, it has never previously been granted access to strategic American missile technologies.

For example, Rheinmetall's specialized Weeze facility fabricates center fuselage sections for the F-35A fifth-generation fighter, yet the core mission computers, radar software source codes, electronic warfare suites, sensor fusion architectures, and low-observable stealth technologies remain strictly under unilateral American control. Similarly, COMLOG, a joint venture between MBDA Deutschland and Raytheon located in Schrobenhausen, currently handles the production and modernization of Patriot PAC-2 GEM-T missiles for European users, demonstrating that licensed assembly of certain systems is already operational within the country. However, localized Tomahawk manufacturing would necessitate the transfer of highly classified technologies, including TERCOM navigation mapping databases, DSMAC image-processing software algorithms, encrypted military-grade GPS receivers, mission-planning software architectures, and secure satellite communication nodes.

The PAC-3 MSE production similarly depends on the transfer of proprietary active Ka-band radar seekers, attitude-control motors for terminal maneuvering, dual-pulse solid rocket motors, and specialized hit-to-kill guidance logic. Japan is one of the only foreign states previously authorized to produce the PAC-3 under license following protracted multi-year negotiations, underscoring the strict export controls governing these specific technologies, meaning negotiations concern intellectual property and manufacturing authority rather than Germany's industrial capability. Industrial data indicates that sub-tier supply chain capacity, rather than final factory assembly space, constitutes the primary bottleneck restricting Western precision-guided munition output.

Final assembly and checkout lines represent only a marginal fraction of the overall manufacturing timeline, which is fundamentally constrained by global shortages in solid rocket motors, small turbofan engines, energetic materials, radiation-hardened microelectronics, inertial measurement units, advanced composite airframes, and specialized military semiconductors. The Tomahawk manufacturing relies explicitly on Williams International F107 turbofan propulsion units, specialized TERCOM processing electronics, flight-control computers, and precision-machined structural airframes supplied by a large sub-tier network. The PAC-3 MSE production is subject to comparable constraints, relying on a narrow vendor base for its specialized solid rocket motors, terminal radar seekers, miniature control actuators, and advanced chemical energetic materials.

These identical second- and third-tier suppliers must simultaneously support concurrent production for the Tomahawk, SM-6, LRASM, JASSM-ER, GMLRS, and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), generating persistent bottlenecks across the broader U.S. defense industrial base. Therefore, Germany's manufacturing sector provides extensive capacity in CNC machining, industrial automation, specialty chemicals, metallurgy, and precision electronics to expand this second- and third-tier supplier capacity and increase total NATO missile output. The primary structural impediment to implementing Germany's proposal is the political authorization required for high-level technology transfer rather than domestic industrial capability.

Fabricating complete Tomahawk cruise missiles demands the export of source code, guidance algorithms, complex navigation architectures, propulsion integration methodologies, and secure communication technologies that remain classified under the highest levels of U.S. technology protection protocols. The PAC-3 MSE production likewise requires access to active seeker software, hit-to-kill terminal guidance logic, flight control algorithms, and proprietary manufacturing processes. Precedent from historical multinational weapon programs demonstrates that foreign licensed production agreements rarely encompass unrestricted access to software source code or total intellectual property rights. Even Tier-1 partner nations within the F-35 program operate their fighters without direct access to core mission software, while PAC-3 technology sharing outside the United States has historically been restricted.

Consequently, an incremental, phased industrial approach beginning with structural component fabrication, propulsion modules, or final integration and testing represents a more achievable regulatory pathway than immediate full-rate missile manufacturing, as congressional export controls, ITAR licensing, and U.S. industry agreements will determine the scope of any future production arrangement. Berlin's industrial proposal also reflects a broader realignment in NATO force planning driven by shifting U.S. strategic priorities toward the Indo-Pacific theater. As Washington reallocates high-end military assets to counter China and North Korea in Asia, European allies are expected to assume greater institutional responsibility for long-range conventional fires, integrated air and missile defense, and conventional deterrence along NATO's eastern flank. 

The cancellation of the land-based Typhon deployment removed NATO's intended interim ground-based deep-strike asset in Europe, while indigenous European long-range missile programs remain multiple years away from reaching operational service. In response, Germany is pursuing multiple parallel tracks: participation in the European Long Range Strike Approach (ELSA), expanding domestic IRIS-T production, deploying the Arrow 3 strategic missile defense system, conducting naval Tomahawk integration studies, and discussions regarding Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile manufacturing.

Localized Tomahawk production would deliver an immediately compatible, off-the-shelf NATO capability while these indigenous European long-range strike systems undergo long-term development. These could help reduce dependence on transatlantic shipping, shorten delivery timelines, and simplify multinational sustainment within Europe to complement broader European efforts. Even if the United States grants prompt political and regulatory approval for both the Tomahawk and the PAC-3 MSE, establishing operational production lines will require several years before yielding a measurable impact on NATO inventories.

Setting up new missile production infrastructure demands facility construction, rigorous environmental qualifications, sub-tier supplier certifications, specialized workforce training, precision tooling installation, software validation, live-fire validation testing, and formal military acceptance trials. Precision munition manufacturing cycles are defined by lengthy lead times, with solid rocket motors, advanced guidance electronics, and specialized energetic compounds frequently requiring procurement and production cycles exceeding twenty-four months.

Initial industrial output would likely concentrate on components, subassemblies, or final checkout before transitioning toward complete missile fabrication as the transfer of intellectual property scales. Once fully mature, German manufacturing facilities could support both Bundeswehr procurement and multinational European orders, thereby reducing structural pressure on U.S. production plants that are currently operating at maximum capacity. This proposal would substantially expand NATO's distributed missile industrial base while improving resilience against supply-chain disruptions affecting a single manufacturing location, establishing a permanent second production center for some of NATO's highest-priority precision weapon systems.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

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