Germany Forms Team Gen 6 Alliance to Develop Sixth Generation Combat Aircraft After FCAS Collapse.

Germany’s defense industry is moving to preserve a national route into sixth-generation combat aviation after the breakdown of the Franco-German fighter track within FCAS, with Airbus Defence and Space and seven partner companies preparing a Team Gen 6 alliance, according to Reuters on June 9. The move matters because it could give Berlin a fallback option for future air superiority, advanced sensors, electronic warfare, weapons integration, propulsion, and secure communications if FCAS no longer delivers a common fighter.

The proposed alliance would bring together Airbus Defence and Space, Autoflug, Diehl Defence, Hensoldt, Liebherr, MBDA, MTU Aero Engines, and Rohde & Schwarz to define how German industry could support a future sixth-generation aircraft under political direction. While the position paper does not launch a new program, it signals Germany’s effort to protect sovereign combat-aircraft expertise and keep pace with NATO allies investing in next-generation airpower.

Related topic: India eyes European sixth-generation fighter jets via GCAP or FCAS programs to counter China by 2035.

Airbus and seven German defense companies are forming Team Gen 6 to explore a German-led sixth-generation combat aircraft focused on long-range weapons, sensor fusion, and unmanned teaming beyond 2040 (Picture source: Airbus).

The decision reflects a practical assessment of FCAS rather than a sudden industrial split. FCAS was launched by France and Germany in 2017, with Spain joining in 2019, and was intended to deliver a future air combat system around 2040 with a New Generation Fighter, unmanned remote carriers, sensors, weapons, and a combat cloud. The fighter aircraft element became blocked by disagreements between Dassault Aviation and Airbus over design authority, workshare, intellectual property, and technology access. France also required a future aircraft compatible with nuclear strike and carrier operations, while Germany’s main requirement is a land-based combat aircraft tied to NATO air defense, deep strike, suppression of enemy air defenses, and eastern-flank deterrence. Reuters reported on June 8 that Paris and Berlin had concluded they were unable to continue the joint fighter project, while Airbus had already argued in April that the combat-cloud element could be separated from the fighter aircraft if the industrial structure remained blocked.

Team Gen 6, therefore, appears less like a complete replacement for FCAS on day one and more like an attempt to preserve German design leverage before a new European alignment is negotiated. Airbus would provide combat aircraft integration and low-observability work; MTU would cover propulsion and engine support; Hensoldt would bring radar, electronic warfare, and sensor-fusion experience; Rohde & Schwarz would supply secure communications; Liebherr would cover flight-control and actuation technologies; Autoflug would contribute safety and crew-survival systems; and MBDA and Diehl would define much of the weapons architecture. Airbus’ own FCAS material identifies the key architecture as a “system of systems” built around the New Generation Fighter, Remote Carriers, Combat Cloud, and enhanced low observability, which explains why Berlin may try to retain the networked-air-combat concept even if the original Dassault-Airbus fighter arrangement is no longer workable.

Armament is the most concrete operational driver because a sixth-generation aircraft designed for the 2040s must engage targets before entering the densest zones of Russian or Chinese-style integrated air defense. No final weapon fit has been announced, but MBDA’s presence points to a baseline built around Meteor-class beyond-visual-range missiles, future long-range air-to-air weapons, stand-off strike missiles, and networked effectors carried internally when low radar observability is required. Meteor is already a European reference weapon: MBDA describes it as using a ramjet motor that sustains thrust until intercept, combined with a fragmentation warhead and active radar endgame guidance, giving it a larger no-escape zone than conventional medium-range air-to-air missiles. In tactical terms, this matters because a fighter aircraft with internal Meteor or Meteor-successor missiles can attack airborne early warning aircraft, strike fighters, cruise missiles, or unmanned aerial vehicles at long range while preserving energy against maneuvering targets. The design problem for Team Gen 6 is physical as much as electronic: internal bays must be sized early, because missile length, fin geometry, cooling, safe separation, weapons-bay doors, and radar-signature treatment are structural decisions that cannot be added late without cost and schedule penalties.

Diehl Defence gives the project a second armament path centered on infrared-guided short-range missiles and air-defense-derived effectors. The IRIS-T air-to-air missile, marketed by Saab with a length of 2,936 mm, a 127 mm diameter, an approximate 25 km range, and a Mach 3 maximum speed, remains one of Europe’s principal high-agility within-visual-range missiles. Its ground-launched IRIS-T SLM derivative has been specified by Diehl for engagements out to 40 km and up to 20 km altitude against aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, and drones, showing how the same seeker and control-lineage can support layered air-defense concepts. For a future German-led combat aircraft, these points point to a weapons family rather than a single missile: infrared-guided self-defense weapons for close engagements, active-radar missiles for beyond-visual-range combat, and possibly air-launched effectors derived from surface-to-air missile work to intercept cruise missiles and unmanned systems at lower cost than heavy strike weapons.

The operational concept implied by Team Gen 6 is not a lone crewed fighter aircraft conducting traditional patrols. The aircraft would likely operate as a command node for remote carriers, using unmanned aircraft as forward sensors, jammers, decoys, or additional missile carriers. That reduces risk to the pilot while forcing an opponent to defend against multiple radar signatures, communications links, and approach vectors. A German aircraft could remain farther from S-400 or S-500-class surface-to-air missile zones, collect data through passive sensors and unmanned aircraft, then launch air-to-air or stand-off weapons based on fused targeting information. This is why the combat cloud remains politically important even if FCAS is split: without secure data exchange, remote carriers become expensive drones; with reliable connectivity, they become distributed sensors and weapons extensions. Rohde & Schwarz is already presenting NEMACS as a communications subsystem intended for data exchange in covert operations, crewed-uncrewed integration, and real-time decision-making across domains.

Sensors and electronic warfare will determine whether the concept is credible. Hensoldt and Indra have started live testing of the Eurofighter Common Radar System Mk1, with airborne trials planned in 2026; Hensoldt describes the Mk1 as using a new multi-channel receiver and broadband transmit-receive modules to improve target recognition, classification, agility, and electronic protection. That work is relevant because Germany cannot jump directly from fourth-generation radar architecture to sixth-generation sensor fusion without intermediate experience in active electronically scanned arrays, electronic attack modes, and software-defined mission systems. A Team Gen 6 aircraft would need passive radio-frequency detection, infrared search and track, low-probability-of-intercept datalinks, onboard processing, and automated emissions control. The tactical benefit is not simply seeing farther; it is deciding when not to radiate, when to assign a remote carrier to expose itself, and when to launch a missile based on offboard tracks.

Propulsion is the other hard constraint. MTU states that the New Generation Fighter Engine under FCAS was expected to support a 2040 aircraft and to combine compressor technology, engine control, hybrid technologies, efficiency, maneuverability, and availability. A future German-led engine will have to generate enough electrical power and thermal margin for radar, electronic warfare, datalinks, cooling, and possible directed-energy growth, while preserving combat radius and acceleration with internal weapons. This is a major reason Germany is trying to organize industry before choosing partners: engine architecture, weapons bay dimensions, sensor apertures, and cooling capacity are early design choices that define the aircraft for decades.

The main risk is that Team Gen 6 becomes another workshare mechanism rather than a requirements-driven program. Germany still needs partners, money, test infrastructure, and a clear decision on whether to build independently, cooperate with Spain and Sweden, or negotiate entry into the UK-Italy-Japan GCAP effort, which is already targeting a next-generation fighter aircraft around 2035 and has secured additional Italian funding. Germany’s advantage is that its industrial base covers many of the required subsystems, and Berlin’s defense expansion gives it budgetary weight. Its disadvantage is that Airbus has not independently led a clean-sheet fighter aircraft comparable to Dassault’s Rafale or BAE-led Tempest work in recent decades. The strategic issue for NATO is therefore not whether Germany can announce a sixth-generation project, but whether it can turn Team Gen 6 into a governed acquisition program with frozen requirements, realistic milestones, export rules, and a weapons-first design philosophy.

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Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.