France and Italy are wooing potential buyers of their new joint air defence system at this week’s Paris Air Show, in an effort to convince European armies to reduce their reliance on US weaponry.
European missile champion MBDA, French defence group Thales and Italy’s Leonardo are casting their new generation SAMP-T surface-to-air weapon system as a viable alternative to the best-selling US Patriot.
With first deliveries expected next year, the commercial performance of the SAMP-T NG will be a litmus test of Europe’s resolve in manufacturing and buying more of its own weapons as it re-arms to face the Russian threat.
But the Franco-Italian pitch may be an uphill struggle since the older model was not as good as the Patriot, and many countries already have the US system installed.
One factor playing in their favour: the geopolitical shifts triggered by the Trump administration.
Donald Trump’s cold shoulder to Europe has prompted even staunch Atlanticists such as Germany and Poland to question whether the US president is still a reliable ally.
“It always used to be a safe buy if you bought American,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. But now “if you are an American defence contractor you will be aware [that geopolitics] . . . make your sales pitch that little bit harder”.
In a sign of the SAMP-T NG’s strategic importance, the French and Italian defence ministers on Wednesday are scheduled to jointly visit the stand where the weapon is on display. Last year, the pair also wrote a letter to their European peers to vaunt the system’s advantages compared with the Patriot.
French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen have argued that the region needs to be more self-sufficient, but it remains to be seen whether this will curb decades of reliance on US-made equipment.
Europe’s lack of domestic air and missile defence capabilities has come into sharp focus since the start of the war in Ukraine. Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte has estimated that about four times more systems are needed than the alliance has today.
MBDA, Thales, and Leonardo are eager to be part of the rearmament push.
Usually mounted on a truck, the SAMP-T NG uses precise radars to target and fire long-range missiles that can shoot down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, at a distance of more than 150km. It can fire up to 48 Aster missiles, which are manufactured by MBDA and battle tested in Yemen and Ukraine.
The original version of the SAMP-T that debuted in 2010 got little traction as so many countries were already locked into the American system. The first SAMP-T was only bought by France and Italy, while a marine variant was also bought by them and the UK Royal Navy. Only 23 in total were produced.
Ukrainian forces have reported subpar results from the original SAMP-T, including targeting issues and its inability to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. Patriot, by contrast, has been crucial in defending Kyiv and other cities from Russia’s aerial attacks.
For those reasons, some experts believe that the US model will continue to be the market leader. But backers of the SAMP-T NG claim that the new version matches the Patriot, while being cheaper to operate since it requires less manpower and is easier to transport.
Eric Beranger, the chief executive of MBDA, said he was convinced the SAMP-T NG would have better commercial prospects than its predecessor. “Air defence is indeed now a very, very key concern for a number of countries. We have countries who are interested,” he told the Financial Times this spring.
The French and Italian armies will be the first customers, receiving the SAMP-T NG starting next year.
Denmark and Belgium were both evaluating the SAMP-T NG versus the Patriot in ongoing procurement processes, said people familiar with the matter. For Belgium, it would be the first time it has bought air defence systems in years, so an official said the process could take several years given that its expertise was “almost zero”.
But the current rightwing Belgian government has pledged to follow its neighbour, the Netherlands, which has committed to buying more Patriots — although no final decision has been taken yet.
Other countries such as Greece, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil may also look at the Franco-Italian model when their existing Patriot systems will require an upgrade, although that would be years off.
“Today the decision to buy Patriot or SAMP-T is more political than qualitative,” said Michel Yakovleff, a former general in the French army who also served at Nato.
“Among European countries, there is simply a lack of dedication to buying European.”
Many European countries buy American in an implicit bargain that they will continue to benefit from the US security umbrella. The US government does play an active role in cajoling purchases from European countries, which are all too aware of the importance of having access to America’s extensive intelligence and surveillance network.
Europe remains divided on the strategy for air defences, although all agree much more investment is needed. Those rifts were on stark display when Germany spearheaded the creation of Sky Shield in 2022, a buying club for countries to jointly order Patriot, and Israeli and German systems. Some 25 countries have since joined, although only a few have put in orders.
Macron has vehemently opposed Sky Shield since it excluded the SAMP-T, and would lock European countries into the Patriot for decades to come.
“The US is a historical ally, but at a certain point they will put their interests first,” Macron told the FT this year. “Do you think they will have enough Patriots for other customers then? Well, that’s why it’s good we have the new SAMP-T NG — and it is better than the Patriot.”
Justin Bronk, an expert on air power at the Royal United Services Institute, said it was “more likely” that the SAMP-T NG would be “selected over Patriot than in previous” tenders given the focus among European governments on boosting sovereign resilience.
A shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles, the PAC-2 and the PAC-3, which have mostly been funnelled to Ukraine, was another factor in considering the Franco-Italian option, Bronk said.
Raytheon, maker of the Patriot system together with Lockheed Martin, told the FT that the company continued to “invest to increase production”. Tom Laliberty, president of land and air defence systems at Raytheon, said that by the end of this year the company would have “accelerated delivery times for Patriot radars by 25 per cent”.
Bronk added that it would also help the SAMP-T NG’s chances if Europe were able to “up its game and deliver” faster manufacturing, although this would “require more aggressive investment in production”.
The European Commission has spearheaded several initiatives on how to expand investment in the arms sector, including by offering governments more funding, relaxing fiscal rules for defence spending and offering to pool orders to scale up production.
The defence contractors behind the SAMP-T said they will be able to keep up, if the demand comes. At a factory in Limours, south of Paris, Thales has multiplied its production of its radars by three to respond to strong demand.
Hervé Dammann, who heads land and air systems at Thales said: “Give us more orders, we have already proven our ability to ramp up, and are ready to do even more.”
Additional reporting by Laura Dubois in Brussels
