From Gauting to Penzberg

EMT was founded in 1978 in Gauting, near Munich, as Elektro-Mechanische Technologien GmbH, and moved its head office to Penzberg in Upper Bavaria in 1987. It grew into Germany’s best-known maker of small military reconnaissance drones, with just under 200 employees spread across Penzberg, Iffeldorf, Abenberg and Osterrönfeld in Schleswig-Holstein. Its range ran from the hand-launched ALADIN to the catapult-launched LUNA and, latterly, the LUNA NG.

LUNA goes to war

The LUNA X-2000 was the drone that made EMT’s name. German KFOR troops have flown it over Kosovo since 2000, and it went on to serve in Afghanistan. In mid-2009 the German Army ordered four more systems comprising 40 aircraft. Exports followed: the Pakistan Navy signed a contract on 27 June 2012, Saudi Arabia produced the type under licence, and around 12 February 2019 Houthi fighters claimed to have shot down a Saudi-operated LUNA over Yemen. In August 2023 Ukraine was announced as a user.

Insolvency and Rheinmetall

Success in the field did not guarantee solvency. EMT entered self-administered insolvency in December 2020, while the Bundeswehr was introducing LUNA NG as the replacement for the original LUNA from 2019. On 23 November 2021 Rheinmetall announced it would take over EMT’s business in an asset deal, effective at the end of December 2021, merging the activities into Rheinmetall Technical Publications of Bremen.

מפעלים

• Penzberg headquarters · Penzberg, Upper Bavaria — Head office from 1987
• Other sites · Iffeldorf, Abenberg and Osterrönfeld — Three further locations

שיאים וראשונות

• LUNA in continuous German service over Kosovo since 2000