US green-lights potential $300M torpedo sale for German P-8 Poseidons

Sailors attached to Patrol Squadron (VP) 46, the ‘Grey Knights,’ loaded two live torpedos into a P-8A Poseidon for an exercise. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Speciallist 2nd Class Jacquelin Frost.)

WASHINGTON — The State Department on Thursday gave the green light to a potential $300 million deal to sell 80 MK 54 Lightweight Torpedos and associated equipment to Germany.

“The sale will improve Germany’s capability to meet current and future threats by upgrading Anti-Submarine Warfare capabilities on its P-8A aircraft,” the State Department said in a release, adding the sale “will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of a NATO Ally that is an important force for political and economic stability in Europe.”

Raytheon, a subsidiary of RTX and maker of the MK 54, says it is the “primary anti-submarine warfare weapon used by the US Navy surface ships, fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.”

“Designed to operate in shallow waters and in the presence of countermeasures, it can track, classify and attack underwater targets,” Raytheon’s website says. Over recent years the US has approved sales of the MK 54 to a host of friendly nations, from Canada to India to The Netherlands.

The P-8 is a “multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft” made by Boeing that the company says “excel[s]” at anti-submarine warfare.

Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Berlin approved a $107 billion special arms fund to shore up what a report months later would call serious military capability gaps. (That report noted several aquisition programs, including the P-8, had been moved from the national defense budget to the special arms fund.)

The number of torpedos and the dollar figures involved in the potential MK 54 sale are not final and could change before any munitions are actually handed over.