Blohm+Voss
German shipbuilder in Hamburg, part of Rheinmetall's naval business, building uncrewed surface vessels
Last refreshed: 24 July 2026
Why is a 148-year-old Hamburg shipyard now building Rheinmetall's robot boats?
Background
Blohm+Voss is a Hamburg shipbuilder founded in 1877, historically one of Germany's premier naval yards and builder of the Second World War battleship Bismarck. After passing through several owners in the postwar decades, including the Thyssen Group and private-equity firm Star Capital, it became part of the Lürssen group as Naval Vessels Lürssen (NVL) in 2016.
On 18 February 2026 the European Commission cleared Rheinmetall's acquisition of Blohm+Voss and NVL from Lürssen, a deal first agreed in September 2025, giving Germany's largest defence contractor its first in-house naval shipbuilding Arm after decades of supplying guns and systems rather than hulls.
The former Blohm+Voss yard is now the industrial base for Rheinmetall Kraken GmbH, the Rheinmetall/Kraken joint venture that began series production of the K3 SCOUT uncrewed surface vessel there on 20 April 2026, at an initial rate of around 200 vessels a year, scalable to as many as 1,000.