US Alternative For Euro Hawk Drone To Cost Germany More Than Half A Billion

The German ministry of Defense will have to spend US $709 million (648 million euros) for the purchase of US Triton drones as an alternative to the German Euro Hawk Drones.

The acquisition of three Tritons will cost Germany more than the money spent on developing the Euro Hawk.

Germany spent 600 million Euros (US $657 million) on developing Euro Hawk. It spent 270 million Euros (US $295 million) alone for development of Isis (Integrated SIGINT)-sensors for interception of data at high altitude. Germany will now examine whether the sensors can be installed on the US drones that would cost around 255 million euros (US $280 million).

According to Der Spiegel, a German magazine, Germany with the purchase of Triton drones, would have spent over a billion Euros (US $1.09 billion) only on drone projects.

Last week, Tobias Lindner, a Green party Bundestag member submitted official parliamentary information request to the Defense Ministry in regard to the Euro Hawk.

"The initial cost estimate of the US Navy from May 2014 for three Tritons, including all operationally necessary system components, such as e.g. ground station, is $648 million (600 million euros) (not including import sales tax and customs duties)," the government replied in an answer to Lindner, DW website reported.

"I was always very skeptical about de Maiziere's theory that all that money wasn't wasted, because at least they got a fully developed surveillance system out of it," Lindner was quoted as saying by the website. "Now we are being told, bit by bit, that the whole project will be much more expensive."