COLOGNE, Germany – The US government has approved the sale of five P-8A maritime patrol aircraft to Germany, but Berlin is not ready to make a decision on the $ 1.8 billion purchase.

The March 12 notification by the Defense Security Cooperation on the aircraft and related equipment came after Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced in February that Germany’s successor to the P-3 Orion was not financially viable for now.

The German Navy said it was in dire need of the new aircraft, pointing to Russia’s advanced submarine capabilities in the Baltic and Nordic regions. This service supports Boeing’s P-8 Poseidon.

Potential purchases are another example of a German service branch having a preference for off-the-shelf products from the United States. This followed the Luftwaffe eyeing the F-35 as a replacement for the country’s Tornado. In the end, the defense ministry decided not to use Lockheed Martin planes to keep the defense industry pipeline working towards the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System, due to launch in 2040.

Similar considerations are now being played out with a successor to Orion. A separate German-French cooperation program, the Maritime Airborne Warfare System (MAWS), is expected to produce new aircraft by 2035. The program is still in its infancy, and the German navy needs new aircraft by 2025.

Defense leaders here are considering a US bid for Poseidon one of several potential gap-fillers for the ten-year intervention period. But, as in the case of the F-35, some officials fear that the system will be too sophisticated and expensive in that role, potentially trumping the co-development envisioned with neighboring France.

Also in the running as part of a market survey by the defense ministry was an Airbus-made C-295, but the aircraft was too small to carry the anti-submarine combat punch the navy said it needed.

“Sonobuoy and the ability to launch torpedoes are needed again on the northern flank,” said Sebastian Bruns, a naval analyst at Kiel University in northern Germany. “The Navy needs more than just eyes in the sky.”

He said Russia’s submarine warfare capabilities were “exquisite”, with European countries routinely losing track of the Moscow ships. The evolving discipline of “seabed warfare,” a sort of hide-and-seek game involving new sensors or active sleeping weapons that go undetected on the ocean floor, is a fast-moving military research area, Bruns added.

That’s why some in the German navy fear losing a major capability, potentially for good, if the defense ministry’s bridge solution to MAWS is lackluster, according to the analyst. “For German naval aviators, this is a defining moment.”

French trade publication Mer et Marine reported this week that the French defense ministry had offered Germany the possibility to lease four of its Breguet Atlantic 2 planes, the type Paris wants to replace with MAWS planes.

The German and French defense departments did not immediately confirm the proposal. A German naval official said the service was made aware of it through press reports.

Airbus is also waiting on the wing, having submitted the idea for an A320-type aircraft converted to a sub-hunting role.

However, currently no money has been budgeted for new maritime patrol aircraft, a spokesman for the German defense ministry told Defense News. The next step will be to analyze information about potential candidates and determine a preference order for later decisions, he said.