STARK Says the First Virtus Deliveries Go to the German Brigade in Lithuania — A EUR 275 Million First Batch and a EUR 2.9 Billion Framework

Kranawetvogl described the round as it will be used: two cameras, a link to reconnaissance drones that assign the target, a dive onto the target within its endurance or a self-destruct where nobody is, and swarms of two to four so that if one round takes the cage off a tank the next reaches the hull. He put the exchange in money: a round under EUR 100,000 against a tank worth several million. Drones, he said, complement tanks and artillery and ease the personnel shortage of Western armies; the operator keeps control. In exercises the rounds fly without a warhead and land under their own propellers.

The numbers need reconciling. The committee's record of 25 February is about EUR 270 million per manufacturer as a first drawdown, with a cap of EUR 1 billion each before the committee is asked again; dpa's EUR 1 billion "approved" is that cap, and its EUR 2.9 billion for STARK alone does not map onto the EUR 4.4 billion combined framework the record carries. The delivery date has moved too: the February record scheduled first deliveries for early 2027 subject to acceptance trials; the company's word on 23 September is soon. No Bundeswehr or BAAINBw statement accompanied it.

A EUR 275 million first batch against a EUR 270 million approval is the same tranche described from the seller's side, and the EUR 2.9 billion is a ceiling the company has been promised, not money the committee has voted. The binding resolution means the next call-off returns to the Haushaltsausschuss, which is where the framework's real size will be set. The third line is already running: Rheinmetall's FV-014 in series production at Neuss since May, and Helsing's HX-2 was flown against jamming with the US Army at Pabradė. The step to watch is the acceptance trial, not the trade-fair date. Signal No. 152 set the dpa figures beside the February record and stated the non-reconciliation.