American defence start-up Anduril will team with German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall to offer European variants of several Anduril weapons systems, including the company’s autonomous combat aircraft.
Announcing the new partnership at the Paris air show, Anduril said the co-operation agreement will include two of its marquee products: the Fury uncrewed fighter jet and the Barracuda family low-cost cruise missiles.
The pair will also explore the possibility of developing solid rocket motors for European use.
The partnership is intended to make advanced defence capabilities from the USA available to European militaries, while still retaining local control of production and sustainment.
“This is a different model of defence collaboration, one built on shared production, operational relevance, and mutual respect for sovereignty,” says Anduril chief executive Brian Schimpf. “Together with Rheinmetall, we’re building systems that can be produced quickly, deployed widely, and adapted as NATO missions evolve.”
Both firms have in recent years emphasised the importance of high-volume production in defence manufacturing applications. Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger describes to concept as “strategic depth”.
“By integrating Anduril’s solutions into Rheinmetall’s European production set up and digital sovereignty framework, we’re building on that foundation to bring new kinds of autonomous capabilities into service, ones that are quick to produce, modular, and aligned with NATO’s evolving requirements,” he says.
American defence companies, including Anduril, are significantly farther along in the development of autonomous combat aircraft than their European counterparts.
Anduril is preparing to fly its YFQ-44A collaborative combat aircraft prototype in the coming months. Developed for the US Air Force, the pilotless fighter is a full-scale derivative of the baseline Fury covered under the Rheinmetall partnership.
Central to the European proposal for Fury will be Rheinmetall’s digital sovereignty framework, which both companies say will prioritise local customer control, transparency, and adaptability over “dependency or lock-in” with the original equipment manufacturer.
Specifically, the Rheinmetall digital backbone would allow each Fury operator to configure its own command-and-control systems and operational constraints.
The partnership will also see Anduril’s air-breathing Barracuda cruise missile offered to European militaries.
Available in multiple sizes and with a modular payload capacity, the Barracuda is designed to be mass producible at rates significantly higher than current precision munitions.
