Rheinmetall starts production of new cruise missiles in Unterlüß

Next Coup Rheinmetall Wants to Build Long-Range Cruise Missiles

2026-05-11 Source: dpa 1 min Reading Time

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Rheinmetall is in the starting blocks to produce cruise missiles with a fairly long range, as has now become known ...

Rheinmetall is realizing its plans to build cruise missiles with Destinus in the future, as can be seen here ...(Image: Destinus) — Rheinmetall is realizing its plans to build cruise missiles with Destinus in the future, as can be seen here ...
(Image: Destinus)

According to Rheinmetall, it will start manufacturing cruise missiles for "Deep Strike" operations in Unterlüß this year. This was also confirmed by Group CEO Armin Papperger in the manuscript of a speech he intends to give at the Annual General Meeting on May 12. Unterlüß in Lower Saxony (Germany) is home to Rheinmetall's largest plant. Over 4,000 people work there. When it comes to cruise missiles, Rheinmetall would like to work together with the Dutch defense company Destinus. Their new system called Ruta 2 has a payload of 550 pounds and a range of 435 miles. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used for target recognition, as we are told. And the predecessor model, Ruta 1, has already been successfully deployed against Russian targets in Ukraine. Destinus produces around 2,000 cruise missiles a year. Together with Rheinmetall, the number could now increase significantly.

Donald Trump Will No Longer Give Europe Missiles

Rheinmetall and Destinus had already announced in April that they intended to establish a joint venture called Rheinmetall Destinus Strike Systems in the second half of the year. The aim is to manufacture advanced missile systems, which will also be marketed and supplied. However, ballistic missile artillery is also a topic. The Dutch-German cruise missiles could help European NATO states to counter the Russian threat with their own new weapons systems. Germany will probably no longer be able to count on US Tomahawk medium-range missiles, the report continues. This is because the US government of President Donald Trump may not be able to implement plans to station such weapons systems in Germany from 2024. Their range is specified as up to 1,550 miles, which is significantly further than the maximum range of cruise missiles.

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