The German Taurus is a 1.5-ton cruise missile with a turbofan engine propelling it to high subsonic speeds over a distance of around 300 miles under GPS and inertial guidance. Most importantly, it packs an 1,100-pound dual warhead with a smaller charge to blow a hole in the target and a bigger charge to explode the target from the inside.
The missile’s high-tech features explain why the Ukrainian air force has been so desperate to get its hands on the Taurus. The same features are why the government of German chancellor Olaf Scholz has consistently rejected repeated Ukrainian requests for the missile. “I do not think it is right to deliver destructive weapons deep into the Russian hinterland,” Scholz said last month.
But Scholz’s party, the social democrats, came in third place in the recent German elections, trailing the first-place conservatives and the second-place far right. And the new chancellor-in-waiting, conservative Friedrich Merz, isn’t as strategically timid as Scholz. Merz endorsed a possible missile transfer last fall.
All that is to say, Ukraine is likely to get some Tauruses. The only questions are: How many? How will it use them? And how soon?
Missile math
MBDA Deutschland GmbH and Saab Bofors Dynamics built just 600 Tauruses for the German air force. And until next-generation American and German missiles arrive, the Tauruses are the German air force’s only deep-strike munitions—critical weapons for a major air war with a serious foe. Reportedly, German leaders believe they can give away around 100 Tauruses without jeopardizing Germany’s own war plans.
That’s not an insignificant number given that, between them, France, Italy and the United Kingdom have provided Ukraine with just a few hundred similar Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG cruise missiles. German Tauruses could grow Ukraine’s cruise missile inventory by a third.
The Ukrainian air force would likely hang the Tauruses under the swinging wings of ex-Soviet Sukhoi Su-24 bombers that the British and French have already modified to carry Storm Shadows and SCALP-EGs, in part by salvaging old pylons from retired Royal Air Force Tornado bombers. Coincidentally, the German air force still flies a few dozen of the swing-wing Tornados—primarily as Taurus-launchers.
Technology probably isn’t the major factor in the timing of a possible Taurus transfer. Merz won’t take over as chancellor until after his conservative party has negotiated the formation of a new government with the social democrats—a process that could take weeks if not months. Merz might not have the authority and political capital to push through a missile deal until late spring or early summer.
Better late than never, of course. Ukraine’s Storm Shadows and SCALP-EGs could run out soon, potentially forcing the Ukrainian air force to fall back on less far-reaching and hard-hitting missiles for the most challenging strikes on fortified Russian targets: thickly-built depots, buried command posts, warships tied up pierside.
In that case, the deepest and most damaging raids could resume once the Tauruses arrive.
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