BERLIN — The first of eight P-8A Poseidon submarine-hunting aircraft ordered for the German Navy arrived in Berlin last week. The aircraft will serve to ensure no Russian submarines are able to enter the open Atlantic undetected, German officials said.
Although based at the northern German air base Nordholz, the fleet of Poseidon aircraft that Germany ordered in 2021 will be spending a lot of its time based abroad and surveilling the North Atlantic, German officials said on the sidelines of welcoming the first aircraft to German soil at the Berlin airport.
The Poseidons will be flying out of air bases in the U.K., Norway and Iceland, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said Nov. 7, adding that this has been “firmly agreed” with host nations. There will be close cooperation with other NATO countries in the area, Pistorius said, specifically naming Canada.
“This allows us to increase our presence and range,” he said.
The P-8A Poseidon, a U.S.-made submarine hunter and marine surveillance plane, is designed to detect and, if needed, engage submarines and surface vessels. It has been dubbed Germany’s largest warplane in public information materials of the Bundeswehr.
Several other key NATO countries also operate the Poseidon, including the United Kingdom, the U.S., Norway, and Canada. Introducing the type into active service will further deepen the interoperability between these countries’ forces, Pistorius and Navy Deputy Chief of Staff Vice Adm. Axel Deertz told reporters.
“The German contribution to deterrence in the far north will be based largely on this aircraft,” said the defense minister.
Crews have already been training in the U.S. and aboard British planes for several months, Pistorius said.
The P-8A’s introduction marks a significant upgrade, replacing Berlin’s aging fleet of Lockheed P-3 Orions, a turboprop plane that currently serves as the German Navy’s submarine hunter. A key advantage is that the Poseidon, built by Boeing, is based on the same airframe as the civilian Boeing 737, one of the most widely used aircraft types. This means that civilian contractors can also do maintenance on the P-8A.
Furthermore, the sensor suite, consoles and software aboard the aircraft are state-of-the-art, Pistorius said.
The first P-8A Poseidon to touch German soil landed at the Berlin airport in the early afternoon on Friday, flying in from Keflavik airport in Iceland, where it had stopped over coming from the Boeing factory near Seattle.
“As I have just been told, of course, this wasn’t just a transfer flight. So all the consoles were on, of course, and they tested everything thoroughly,” said Deertz. His verdict was that the capabilities of the plane “are, in fact, immense.”
Germany will receive seven more P-8A Poseidon aircraft, with two more scheduled to arrive “in the near future,” Deertz said. The Bundeswehr is also maintaining an option for four additional machines, which would bring the total fleet up to 12.
Linus Höller is Defense News’ Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds a master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.
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