Germany Drops Plan to Directly Buy MQ-28 Ghost Bat

Germany’s Ministry of Defence has formally told Boeing that it will not directly procure the MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone wingman, as Berlin reworks its approach to a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) acquisition. The move was first reported by Politico and confirmed to Breaking Defense by a Boeing spokesperson, who said the ministry had “informed” the company of the decision.

The Boeing spokesperson added that the company “stands ready to support” its German customer going forward, while deferring questions about the reasoning to the ministry itself. A spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defence said it could not comment on potential procurement projects “as a matter of principle,” citing procurement and public contracting law as well as a requirement that such matters first be put before parliament.

A 2029 target now in doubt

Germany had set 2029 as its target to field a CCA, a timeline that would have made it the first European country to reach that milestone. According to Politico, Berlin now intends to push that target into the early 2030s, with flight tests beginning in 2027 — tests that will give Boeing and other competitors a renewed opportunity to win the eventual acquisition.

The reversal also puts a March 2026 partnership in question. That month, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the Ghost Bat was “under consideration” for the Luftwaffe, and Rheinmetall — Europe’s largest ammunition maker — subsequently signed on as the aircraft’s German systems integrator.

Rivals move to fill the gap

Germany’s pullback intensifies competition in Europe’s nascent CCA market. German start-up Helsing is pitching its CA-1 Europa platform, claiming it will be ready for operations by 2029. Airbus, partnered with Kratos on the U740-Valkyrie, announced that aircraft’s first flight this week and says the programme remains “on track to deliver a combat-ready uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft” by 2029. General Atomics could also offer a platform from its Gambit family; a company spokesperson told Breaking Defense in June that it had “spoken to Germany many, many times.”

Why it matters

The episode illustrates how fragmented and unsettled Europe’s approach to loyal-wingman drones remains, in a field Türkiye is also pursuing closely through TUSAŞ’s ANKA-3, designed to fly alongside the KAAN fighter. If one of Europe’s best-resourced defence budgets is struggling to settle on a single CCA platform, that underlines how much of the challenge lies not in the technology itself but in contracting structures and industrial policy.

Germany’s delay could also slow the broader consolidation of unmanned combat aircraft capability inside NATO. Allies clustering around different, incompatible platforms makes shared training, logistics and data standards harder to achieve. For Boeing and Rheinmetall, the setback means an unexpected delay in securing a foothold in the European market — one now open again to competitors making their own case to Berlin.

Sources

• Breaking Defense, Tim Martin, “Germany changes course on plans to buy MQ-28 drone wingman: Boeing official,” 16 October 2026 — https://breakingdefense.com/?p=98724 — primary source for the Boeing and German Ministry of Defence statements.
• Politico, original report on Germany’s MQ-28 decision (as cited by Breaking Defense) — used for details on the revised timeline.