Taurus Neo: Germany Prepares Longer Range Successor to Taurus KEPD-350 Bunker Buster Missile.

Germany’s defense ministry has secured parliamentary approval to fund Taurus Neo, a next-generation evolution of its Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missile, with €415 million allocated through 2029 to prepare serial production. The move reflects Berlin’s broader shift from crisis management to credible long-range deterrence as Europe recalibrates for a sustained security confrontation with Russia.

According to the German newspaper DER SPIEGEL, on December 17, 2025, Germany’s defense ministry won parliamentary backing to move ahead with Taurus Neo, a next-generation evolution of the Taurus KEPD 350 bunker buster cruise missile, with roughly €415 million earmarked to complete serial production preparations by December 2029. The decision lands inside a much larger rearmament wave approved by the Bundestag’s budget committee, which cleared more than €50 billion in defense contracts and included funding to upgrade the existing Taurus system. The key point is not that Taurus suddenly became inadequate, it is that the operational environment has changed faster than the missile’s 2005 to 2010 era electronics, and Germany is now rebuilding a credible deep strike toolkit for a Europe that is planning for deterrence against Russia.
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Taurus Neo boosts stand-off range, cuts planning time, and improves jam-resistant precision for hardened target strikes. Taurus missile on a Eurofighter jet (Picture source: MBDA).

Taurus remains a classic air-launched stand-off weapon, about 5 meters long, weighing roughly 1,400 kilograms, with a high subsonic profile and very low-level terrain following to stay below radar coverage. Its lethality comes from the 481-kilogram dual-stage Mephisto warhead and an intelligent programmable fuze that can count structural layers and sense voids, then detonate at a preselected floor inside a bunker or hardened building. In practical terms, that translates into a weapon built to collapse aircraft shelters, rip through protected command posts, and cut bridges or runway segments with a tailored impact point and fuzing logic rather than brute force.

Taurus's survivability is a chain rather than a single trick. The missile’s route is planned in detail before launch, then it flies autonomously, hugging terrain, exploiting valleys and masking features, and approaching from angles that complicate air defense engagement geometry. Navigation is deliberately redundant, combining inertial guidance supported by satellite signals with terrain reference and image-based sensors that allow continued flight even when GPS is denied or corrupted. This matters because modern integrated air defenses are no longer just radar and interceptors. They are networks designed to jam, spoof, and exhaust an attacker’s kill chain. Taurus is therefore optimized for high-value target sets that shape an entire campaign, including logistics hubs, fuel and ammunition depots, airfields, and command and control nodes behind the front that enable sustained missile and drone pressure.

Modernization through Taurus Neo focuses on three decisive operational gaps revealed by recent conflicts. The first is responsiveness. The new missile is intended to cut mission planning timelines from several days to a matter of hours. This transforms Taurus from a largely preplanned strategic asset into a weapon that can support time-sensitive targeting, striking mobile air defense elements, relocatable headquarters, or fleeting logistics concentrations within a single air tasking cycle. In a conflict defined by dispersion and deception, speed of targeting can be as important as raw range.

The second pillar is extended reach and endurance. Taurus is officially described as having a range in excess of 500 kilometers, with credible estimates placing it beyond 600 kilometers. Taurus Neo is expected to push this further through propulsion and efficiency improvements, potentially adding significant standoff distance. This is not simply about striking deeper targets. Greater range increases routing flexibility, allowing planners to shape flight paths that avoid dense air defense zones and approach targets from unexpected axes. In real combat, survivable range is defined by threat avoidance rather than maximum fuel burn.

The third pillar is electronic warfare resilience and terminal accuracy. Taurus Neo is designed for a battlespace saturated with jamming, spoofing, and decoys. Improved seekers, higher resolution infrared imaging, and modernized processing are intended to preserve target recognition and impact precision even in heavily contested electromagnetic environments. This evolution reflects hard lessons from Ukraine, where both sides continuously adapt sensors and countermeasures in an ongoing electronic duel.

Germany’s motivation to upgrade an already respected missile also reflects platform continuity and force structure realities. The Luftwaffe’s Tornado fleet, long the primary Taurus carrier, is scheduled for retirement around 2030. Integration work on the Eurofighter has already demonstrated that Taurus can transition to a new generation of aircraft, preserving Germany’s deep strike capability beyond the Tornado era. In parallel, existing Taurus stocks are being sustained and upgraded to remain operational into the 2040s, ensuring no gap emerges while Taurus Neo matures.

Operationally, Taurus has remained a deterrent weapon rather than a combat-proven one. Known operators include Germany, Spain, and South Korea. While there is no confirmed battlefield use in an active war, South Korea has conducted long-range live fire exercises from F-15 K aircraft, demonstrating the missile’s ability to strike targets hundreds of kilometers away. The absence of combat footage does not diminish its relevance. Taurus is designed as a first phase of a conflict weapon, intended to neutralize hardened assets that enable an adversary’s entire war effort.

At the strategic level, Taurus Neo fits squarely into Germany’s broader surge in defense spending. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Berlin has accelerated rearmament, met NATO’s two percent benchmark, and committed to modernizing the Bundeswehr for high-intensity conflict. This reflects a wider European movement toward credible deterrence and preparedness for a potential confrontation with Russia. Deep strike, once politically sensitive in Germany, is now openly discussed as a necessary pillar of collective defense.

In this context, Taurus Neo is both a bridge and a signal. It bridges the gap between legacy Cold War era concepts and a future European long-range strike ecosystem still under development. At the same time, it signals that Germany is prepared to hold hardened targets at risk, complicate Russian operational planning, and contribute meaningfully to NATO’s deterrence posture. Taurus Neo is not simply a missile upgrade. It is a marker of Germany’s strategic shift from restraint to readiness in an increasingly contested European security environment.