On March 16, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, met Germany’s State Secretary for Armament and Innovation, Jens Plötner, at the latest Defence Bilateral Ministerial Group on Equipment and Capability Cooperation (MECC) to discuss the programme. The MECC dialogue was first established after the SDSR of 2015 and has continued since.

In this occasion, one of the main topics at hand was the Deep Precision Strike project, a still nebulous initiative that was central in the Trinity House Agreement signed by both nations in October 2024. The initiative fits into the wider European Long-range Strike Approach (ELSA) and “remains open for others to join”, according to the official declaration.

The latest meeting seems to have produced an agreement over the conceptual basis of the program, which until now were entirely mysterious. The stated aim is now to develop “a family of future stealth cruise and hypersonic weapons” which will be “initially” focused on ground launch, but with the programme aiming to also “explore air and naval capabilities”. Entry in service is expected “in the 2030s”.

The focus on ground launch isn’t surprising but while it makes perfect sense for Germany it is almost an hindrance for the UK which has little immediate purpose or “room” for a ground-launched 2,000 km strike capability. From the UK mainland, 2,000 kms are not really enough to achieve much of anything, which means any fielded capability would have to be forward based on someone else’s territory – very possibly within Germany itself – to have any real bearing on Russia.

It is far from clear how a ground-launched missile capability would be manned by a British Army already short of artillery regiments even just for supporting its existing brigades, even before the need to grow Ground Based Air Defence formations makes its own impact.

The rush to join this project, which has its roots primarily in the German side, seems to mostly if not exclusively be guided by the political inclinations of the current government. An update on Army programmes supplied to the Defence Committee in February quietly but clearly shows the MoD’s lack of enthusiasm due to what appears to be a serious impact on existing Land Deep Fires plans. “The (Land Deep Fires) programme is also supporting the UK’s Trinity House engagements through the European Long Range Strike Approach, along with other alternative missile systems/platforms; this work is in the very early stages”, the letter notes. The Land Deep Fires program, already in operation, envisages the upgrade of the M270 rocket launchers to A2 standard, the more than doubling of their number (from 35 pre-LDF programme) and the adoption of new munitions including the GMLRS Extended Range rockets and, under original plans, the US Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).

The letter goes on to note “the quantity of UK M270A2 platforms (read, of M270 launchers being updated to A2 standard) is 61 launchers and 8 Repair Recovery Vehicles against an initial Land Fleet Requirement of 76 + 9”, exposing how the last tranche of launchers is still not under contract (and could very well never materialize, at this point).

On the subject of the weapons themselves, while new M31 rockets have been ordered with deliveries starting this year; and new ER rockets are also in production for delivery beginning in 2028, the PrSM order that had been expected originally in the summer of 2024, then in 2025, remains nowhere to be seen. The letter remarks, in a surprisingly frank footnote, that the ELSA initiative is “an alternative to PrSM but not due to deliver before mid-2030's - therefore not a credible alternative”.

It’s as close as an official document of this kind can go to expressing dissent on a ministerial decision. In practice, once again one project which is in actual delivery phase (the first 2 M270A2s are already in the UK, with some 13 more to follow this year and the first operational deployment to Estonia already scheduled for 2027) seems to be getting a budget hit in exchange for vague promises for something which is the best part of 10 years away. 

For the UK, an air or naval-launch missile would make far more sense. Surface ships are due to eventually receive the Future Cruise and Anti Ship missile in development with France, but this probably has a significantly shorter range.

One true strategic urgency that exists but seems to be getting no attention at all is the strictly limited size of the stock of TOMAHAWK missiles for the SSN fleet. Believed to count around 65 missiles or so, this stock is not only tiny but almost irreplaceable as the british submarines need encapsulated TOMAHAWKs for torpedo tube launch. Production of encapsulated TOMAHAWKs was closed down years ago since the US Navy moved almost entirely to vertical launch capsules, which are different (the exception being the 3 SEAWOLF class vessels). While re-starting production of the capsules is not impossible, it clearly comes with a cost which has already discouraged, most recently, the Netherlands from pursuing the option to arm their new SSKs.

This actual weakness in the UK posture is getting no attention, despite the fact that it will only be eliminated decades into the future as the new SSN-A replaces the current ASTUTEs. SSN-AUKUS will have an (as yet unrevealed) number of large diameter vertical launch tubes with Multiple All-up Round Canisters.

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