US State Department approves sale of Patriot missiles to Germany worth $5 billion

The US State Department has approved the sale of the latest variant of Patriot missiles to Germany. The value of the deal could be estimated at $5 billion, according to a statement from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency on Thursday.

The potential military sale to Germany would include 600 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles manufactured by Lockheed Martin, including 10 fly-to-buy missiles, the announcement said.

The State Department notified Congress on August 15, which will then decide whether to approve the agreement.

Germany has invested heavily in its Patriot air and missile defense capabilities this year and is sending both Patriot batteries and interceptor missiles to Ukraine to support the country in its years-long fight against the Russian invasion.

In March, Germany ordered $1.2 billion worth of Patriot systems from Raytheon and in July ordered $1.2 billion worth of additional system components. In total, Raytheon, an RTX company, will supply eight complete Patriot fire units.

Raytheon also won a $478 million NATO contract earlier this month to augment the Patriot Guidance Enhanced Missile (GEM-T) that Germany supplied to Ukraine. The contract comes as part of a partnership between Ukraine, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany – countries that have agreed to finance the procurement of GEM-T missiles to replenish stockpiles. The multinational coalition has jointly agreed to order up to 1,000 GEM-T missiles from a joint venture between MBDA Germany and Raytheon as part of a $5.5 billion production and supply contract for the weapons.

Patriot’s dominance in Ukraine has attracted new attention and potential customers from around the world. Germany is a long-time Patriot user. Patriot serves as air defense for 19 countries, with 15 of these countries having PAC-3 MSE in their missile inventory.

Lockheed Martin already had the resources to build 550 missiles annually to replenish the PAC-3 MSE missiles supplied to Ukraine. By 2018, the company had built 350 missiles per year and was already in the process of increasing that number to 500 per year before the war in Ukraine broke out.

The company is also investing internally to produce 650 PAC-3 MSE missiles annually at its Camden, Arkansas, manufacturing facility by 2027.