Germany will purchase 8 American MQ-9B maritime patrol unmanned aircraft for hunting russian submarines. At rough calculation, they could cost over €230 million, more expensive than a full-fledged Eurofighter Typhoon fighter.
The procurement will proceed through the uMAWS program, for which the Bundestag budget committee allocated €1.9 billion, giving a price of €237.5 million per drone. Meanwhile, Hartpunkt citing its own sources writes that exactly €1.52 billion goes to procurement, where rough calculation yields €190 million per UAV unit.
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MQ-9Bs are planned to cooperate with P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, the first of which was already delivered to Germany. The first five aircraft were ordered in 2021 for $2 billion, and in 2023 three more for $1.47 billion. A contract for four additional aircraft is expected to be signed.
Here we can immediately recall that Germans ordered 20 Eurofighter Typhoon fighters in the newest Tranche 5 modification for €3.75 billion. This yields $187.5 million per aircraft.
Defense Express notes that someone might immediately point to the impossibility of a situation where one unmanned aircraft would cost more than a fighter and slightly less than a full-fledged manned analogue. And actually speaking, this is somewhat true, because as always there are nuances.
In December 2024, Japan revealed that the price for one bare MQ-9B is approximately $80 million or €68.58 million. Of course, this isn't very cheap and many nuances exist regarding pricing policy formation, but it's very unlikely the German order is much more expensive specifically for the drone itself.
So it turns out that the larger part of the contract for Germany consists of spare parts, additional infrastructure, specialized equipment, services, training, and other things. Of course, almost no deal proceeds without other costs besides the product itself, but this is a good demonstration of rough calculation price shortcomings.
Another interesting nuance: German MQ-9Bs will undergo modernization in 2031-2032 for submarine hunting capability. However, the current contract supposedly covers only the first two years of operation until 2030 so it's unlikely refinements are being financed now, but this isn't impossible.
Currently, Bundeswehr plans to start receiving these American unmanned aircraft from 2028. The 3rd Naval Squadron Graf Zeppelin, which will also have P-8A Poseidons, will operate them. German UAVs are also expected to benefit from cooperation with other NATO countries having these drones.
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