The last frontier where structural dependence on America persists
In a market long shaped by American and Franco-Italian dominance, two European startups — Estonia's Frankenburg Technologies and Ukraine's FirePoint — are now challenging the established order of ballistic missile defense, armed with fresh capital and a counterintuitive logic: that affordability and scale may matter more than the precision of any single shot. Frankenburg's €100 million Series B, paired with a new production facility in Latvia, marks a concrete step toward offering Europe an alternative to Patriot systems whose supply chains have grown so strained that Switzerland now faces a twelve-year wait for hardware it ordered in 2022. The deeper question these companies are raising is not merely commercial but civilizational — whether Europe can finally close the last frontier of its strategic dependence on the United States.
- Europe's two dominant missile defense supply chains — American Patriot and Franco-Italian SAMP/T — are stretched to breaking point, with delivery delays now measured in decades rather than years.
- Switzerland's twelve-year wait for Patriot systems it ordered in 2022 has already sparked diplomatic friction with Washington, exposing how badly scarcity distorts the relationship between allies.
- Frankenburg Technologies and FirePoint are betting that mass-salvo warfare has rewritten the economics of interception — where a cheaper missile fired six times can outperform an expensive one fired twice.
- Building a competitive interceptor from scratch demands solving hard engineering problems in guidance, control authority, and system integration that have humbled far larger defense primes for decades.
- If either startup delivers at scale, Europe gains something it has not had in this domain: genuine choice — and with it, a meaningful reduction in structural dependence on a single supplier.
In late June, Estonian firm Frankenburg Technologies announced €100 million in Series B funding to develop a low-cost anti-ballistic missile defense system, with production already beginning at a new facility in Latvia. It is the second European company in recent months to challenge the established duopoly in this space — Ukrainian manufacturer FirePoint made a similar move earlier — signaling that a market long controlled by American and Franco-Italian suppliers is beginning to crack.
Until now, European nations have faced a stark binary: the American Patriot, equipped with PAC-3 MSE or PAC-2 GEM-T interceptors, or the Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG using Aster 30 missiles. Both supply chains are under severe strain. Switzerland ordered five Patriot fire units in 2022 expecting delivery by 2028; production prioritization for Ukraine and other conflicts has pushed that date to at least 2034 — a twelve-year wait that has strained relations between Bern and Washington. SAMP/T serves fewer customers and moves more efficiently, but reports from Ukraine raise questions about its performance against ballistic missiles, and Switzerland's refusal to switch systems despite its procurement ordeal speaks volumes. A third option, Germany's IRIS-T SLX, won't arrive until 2029 or 2030 and was ultimately rejected by Switzerland as insufficiently purpose-built.
The opportunity Frankenburg and FirePoint are pursuing rests on a shift in how missile defense is now understood. In an era of mass-salvo warfare — sustained barrages over weeks or months — what matters is not whether a single interceptor reliably kills a single missile, but the total cost of achieving a required intercept probability across many engagements, and whether supply can be sustained throughout a conflict. A Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs roughly seven million dollars and carries an individual intercept probability of around seventy percent; achieving eighty to ninety-five percent confidence per engagement typically requires two to three interceptors, pushing per-target costs to fourteen or twenty-one million dollars. A one-million-dollar interceptor with only twenty percent individual accuracy can, if produced in sufficient volume, outperform that calculus entirely.
Executing on this logic is genuinely difficult. Guidance at high altitude, sensor-to-steering integration, and compatibility with existing command, radar, and launcher ecosystems are problems that have challenged established primes for decades — MBDA's long road with SAMP/T being the clearest example. But new entrants building from scratch, without the weight of legacy architecture, may hold a structural advantage, as American and European strike-weapon startups like Anduril and Castelion have already demonstrated in adjacent domains.
What is at stake is more than market share. Ballistic missile defense remains the last area of Europe's strategic landscape where dependence on the United States is both structural and largely uncontested. Denmark's recent pivot away from Patriot — reportedly requiring the shock of American threats toward Greenland to catalyze — and Switzerland's quiet endurance of a decade-long procurement nightmare both illustrate how few alternatives have existed. If Frankenburg Technologies or FirePoint can deliver competitive systems at scale, they would introduce something Europe has lacked in this domain: a genuine choice. Whether they can execute remains an open question, but the attempt itself marks a meaningful shift in the landscape.
In late June, an Estonian missile manufacturer named Frankenburg Technologies announced it had secured one hundred million euros in Series B funding to build and produce an anti-ballistic missile defense system. The company, which recently opened its first production facility in Latvia, is positioning itself to compete directly with the American Patriot—one of the two dominant air defense platforms in Europe—by offering substantially lower costs. It is the second European company in recent months to make such a move. A Ukrainian manufacturer called FirePoint announced a similar ambition earlier, signaling that the European ballistic missile defense market, long dominated by American and Franco-Italian suppliers, is beginning to fracture.
Until now, European nations have had essentially two choices. They could buy the American Patriot system, equipped with either PAC-3 MSE or PAC-2 GEM-T interceptors, or they could purchase the Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG system, which uses Aster 30 interceptors. Both supply chains are stretched to capacity. The Patriot supply chain supports eighteen customers worldwide, including the United States itself, and lead times have become punishing. Switzerland ordered five Patriot fire units in 2022 with an original delivery window of 2026 to 2028. After repeated delays caused by production prioritization for Ukraine and Iran conflicts, delivery has slipped to at least 2034—a twelve-year wait that triggered diplomatic friction between Bern and Washington. The SAMP/T supply chain, serving only five customers including Denmark, operates more efficiently but raises questions about capability. Reports from Ukraine suggest its performance against ballistic missiles has sometimes fallen significantly short of Patriot's. Switzerland's decision to remain committed to Patriot despite these procurement nightmares, rather than switching to SAMP/T, lends credibility to those concerns, though hopes exist that a new interceptor variant, the Aster 30 B1NT, may narrow the gap.
A third system, the IRIS-T SLX developed by German firm Diehl Defence, offers some capability against theater ballistic missiles but will not be available until around 2029 or 2030. Switzerland considered it a temporary solution but ultimately rejected it, apparently seeking something more purpose-built for ballistic missile defense. The landscape, then, is one of scarcity: few suppliers, long waits, unresolved questions about performance, and costs so high that sustained defense becomes economically prohibitive, especially in protracted conflicts.
This gap is precisely what Frankenburg Technologies and FirePoint are attempting to exploit. The logic is straightforward but counterintuitive. In the 1990s and early 2000s, ballistic missile defense meant individual engagements with limited numbers of projectiles. Today it means mass salvo warfare—sustained barrages over weeks or months, with arsenals that must be reconstituted during an ongoing conflict. The metric that matters is no longer whether a single interceptor reliably destroys a single missile. It is the total cost to achieve a required probability of intercept across multiple shots and salvos, and the ability to keep supplying the customer throughout the fight.
Consider the mathematics. A Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs approximately seven million dollars per unit, with an individual intercept probability of roughly seventy percent. To meet operational requirements of eighty to ninety-five percent intercept probability per engagement, a defender typically needs to allocate two to three interceptors per target. That means fourteen to twenty-one million dollars per incoming ballistic missile. Across multiple salvos, the cost becomes ruinous. But a low-cost interceptor with an individual intercept probability of only twenty percent and a per-unit cost of around one million dollars can actually outperform the Patriot at the engagement level, provided the manufacturer can supply six times as many missiles. If production scalability is achievable, a competitive advantage emerges.
Developing such a system is not simple. Building a functioning interceptor requires maintaining control authority at high altitude, translating sensor inputs into steering commands with precision, and integrating the entire missile into a broader ecosystem of command centers, radars, and launchers. MBDA's decades-long struggle to bring SAMP/T up to speed illustrates the difficulty. But new entrants may have an advantage: rather than trying to replicate legacy systems, they can start from scratch, prioritizing affordability and production scalability from the beginning. American and European startups like Anduril, Zone 5 Technologies, Castelion, and Destinus have done exactly this in long-range strike, with considerable success. Whether that model can work in ballistic missile defense remains an open question.
What is clear is that Europe's strategic autonomy depends on breaking free from American suppliers in this domain. Ballistic missile defense remains what one analyst calls Europe's last frontier—the final area where structural dependence on the United States persists and the cost of alternatives is prohibitively high. Switzerland's willingness to endure a twelve-year wait rather than switch suppliers, and Denmark's recent shift away from Patriot, which arguably required the specter of American military action against Greenland to motivate, both underscore the point. If Frankenburg Technologies and FirePoint can deliver competitive systems at scale, they would introduce genuine choice into a market that has lacked it. Whether they can execute remains to be seen, but the attempt itself signals that Europe's missile defense landscape is beginning to shift.
Citas Notables
The key metric in today's environment is not how reliably a single interceptor destroys a single missile, but rather what it costs to achieve a required intercept probability across multiple shots and salvos.— Analysis in Missile Matters
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that a new company is trying to build a cheaper missile? Isn't cheaper usually worse?
Not in this case. When you're defending against dozens of missiles arriving in waves, you can't afford to spend twenty million dollars per intercept. You run out of money before you run out of missiles. A cheaper system that works most of the time beats an expensive system you can't afford to use.
But can these startups actually build something that works? It sounds like a hard problem.
It is. MBDA, a company with decades of experience, still struggles with it. But the advantage for newcomers is they're not trying to copy the old systems. They're starting fresh, designing for mass production from day one instead of trying to retrofit affordability onto a legacy design.
What happens if they succeed?
Europe stops being dependent on America for something critical. Right now, Switzerland waited twelve years for Patriot deliveries because the U.S. prioritized other customers. If there were real alternatives, that wouldn't happen.
And if they fail?
Then nothing changes. Europe keeps waiting in line, paying whatever the Americans ask, and hoping the Franco-Italian system improves. The supply chain stays broken.
Is there a reason to think they'll succeed?
There's precedent. Startups in long-range strike missiles have done exactly this—built cheaper, scalable systems that work. But ballistic missile defense is harder. It's the last frontier, as the analyst put it. If anyone cracks it, Europe's whole defense posture shifts.