FT: ФРГ потребуется два года для восполнения запасов TAURUS

Germany will need two years to replenish its stock of long-range cruise missiles TAURUS if the authorities decide to transfer them to Kiev, the British newspaper Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday, March 15, citing experts. «It is not possible to grow or resume missile production overnight — the production chain will need to increase output or resume production of components, but all of this takes time,» the publication quotes the words of Douglas Barry, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Taurus Systems Director Joachim Knoepf assured that missile production could be quickly resumed in the event of an order, but according to analysts, it will actually take about two years to replenish the TAURUS arsenal.

As noted by the FT, the production lines are currently idle. The last time they were in operation was in 2019 when an order was received from the South Korean government. According to the Financial Times, the factories located in the German city of Schrobenhausen are only engaged in repairing sold missiles. According to analysts’ estimates, each missile costs about 1.5 million euros, depending on the size of the order.

How many TAURUS missiles does Germany have?

According to calculations by Fabian Hoffman, a research fellow at the University of Oslo working on missile technology, the Bundeswehr currently has approximately 600 TAURUS missiles in its arsenal, with only half of them in working condition.

Hoffman also emphasizes that before sending TAURUS to Ukraine, we need to think about our own stocks of weapons. «Missile systems are a key asset in modern warfare, we do not have enough of them in our arsenal, and we are currently not producing them,» explained the expert.

The day before, German Bundestag deputies voted against a new resolution project to transfer TAURUS missiles to Ukraine. The Chancellor of the FRG has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of supplying TAURUS to Kiev. According to him, the effective use of such missiles requires the involvement of German military personnel, but this would effectively involve Germany in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which he does not want.