Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH

The German parliamentary budget committee has pushed back the go-ahead for development of the Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa)/Bofors Taurus KEPD350 stand-off missile.

According to the Bonn defence ministry, the committee requires "additional information" from the ministry. The ministry expects the project to be cleared in the first quarter of this year. Funding has already been put aside in the 1998 defence budget for the start of a three-and-a-half year development phase, the contract for which should be signed after the project is approved by parliament.

The programme has already been approved by the parliamentary defence committee, and the defence ministry has restated its backing in a programme summary for the procurement-approvals committee, which compares the missile with the rival Matra BAe Dynamics Storm Shadow.

"The Taurus concept has been, and will continue to be, rated by the ministry as the technically more mature, more flexible and most economical solution," says the summary. The ministry also believes that the UK's decision to buy the Storm Shadow was driven by industrial strategy.

Dasa remains evasive as to how, in the light of the impending acquisition of 30% of its LFK missiles division by Matra BAe, it can continue to develop a weapon so obviously competing with the Storm Shadow. The company insists that there are "clear differences" between the weapons and that they can exist in parallel.

Dasa leaves open the possibility of transferring certain missile components between the two programmes at a later stage, an idea to which the ministry is also open, saying that it wants to buy a weapon "-developed on the basis of the KEPD 350".

LFKsays that much development and integration work has been done already, and that the missile's seeker and kinetic-energy penetrator are already mature.

The ministry wants the KEPD350 in service on German air force Panavia Tornados in 2001-2. Dasa says that it has also received a one-year definition contract from Sweden for the smaller KEPD 150 missile, which is to be carried by Swedish air force Saab JAS39s.

Source: Flight International