A large factory like Rheinmetall’s new ammunition plant, Werk Niedersachsen, in Unterlüß, covers around 30,000 m². If a war breaks out in Europe, this and other large production plants become huge, easy-to-hit targets. But what if there were an alternative to gargantuan factories? What if production could be hidden and placed close to the frontline?
When it comes to unmanned vehicle manufacturing, this is exactly what NORDYN Group is building, and traction is there.
We sat down with Ossian Vogel, a longtime pilot, drone builder, and now founder of NORDYN Group — a company creating container-based microfactories enabling the production of drones and other unmanned systems close to the frontline where they’re needed.
With decades of experience in aviation and a hands-on view of Ukraine’s frontline drone production, Ossian shared how the war motivated him to get involved, what he’s building now, and why he believes decentralised manufacturing isn’t just the future of defense — it’s already a necessity.
Who Are You and What Are You Working On?
My name is Ossian Vogel. I’m 53 years old and have four children. I’m a commercial helicopter and fixed-wing pilot with 35 years of experience in drone building and aviation, and also an RC/model pilot since early childhood. I’ve gone through all the technology steps in drone operations and drone building over the past 35 years.
Motivated by the war in Ukraine, I decided I wanted to change things and help Ukraine win that war. I visited Ukraine and spoke with people from drone startups — not only aviation drones, but also ground drones and combinations — to identify their bottlenecks and challenges.
A year ago, we decided not to design another drone but to address the bottlenecks in production and the quality issues that come with decentralised production, like in Ukraine.
We founded NORDYN Group, a group of companies working on parts of a system we’re building: a containerized tactical production unit for unmanned vehicles — flying drones, water drones, even small combined systems. That’s what we’re bringing to market.
Do You Think Decentralising Defense Production Is the Future?
Our friends in Ukraine are clear: decentralised production is not an option; it’s a must in future warfare. Drones can reach any place in Europe. No factory is “safe” when its location is known.
Everyone knows where the primes produce. There’s no longer a distant rear area. Operation Spiderweb showed how easy it is to bring drones inside a country and attack from within.
That’s asymmetric warfare — no production site in Europe is truly safe. The only solution is decentralisation.
Are Governments Starting to Pay More Attention?
It’s not only attention — everyone agrees that we need to decentralize the production of assets.
We’re facing technology warfare: drone warfare isn’t about airframes; it’s about the technology inside, and that changes every six weeks. There’s no validity in producing a million drones for stock; they’ll be outdated when they leave the factory.
Decentralised production must be on demand, with tight feedback loops to the frontline, so you can immediately react and produce what’s needed — not what’s outdated or unwanted.
We have the methods to produce in an extremely agile and adaptive way without long development or tooling. 3D printing revolutionized drone production, but for many parts, it’s too slow.
We created a mix of materials and methods, applying the right method to the right part, to speed up production to industrial levels in a very small unit.
For FPV drones, one unit can produce 50–100 per day. And it requires very little space: a 40-foot container in a warehouse measuring ~300 m² somewhere in Europe.
How Do You Manage Power Supply and External Inputs?
It’s completely self-contained, featuring an onboard generator and a 10 kWh buffer battery. We’re not connected to the internet; we run our own mesh network, and we can use Starlink if available.
Data runs on a secure, encrypted lane. Production data isn’t stored in the container; it is only executed on machines. If a factory falls into enemy hands, production data can’t be stolen.
We assume operations without a grid or internet.
What Sets You Apart From Firestorm?
Firestorm is doing the right thing with one exception: they only 3D print. That’s very limited.
3D printing works for FPV frames, but even there, it’s not the fastest. It doesn’t scale for fixed-wing — say a 3-meter span — 34 hours just to print one body. That output doesn’t scale at the front.
Are You Running Pilots or Deploying a First Prototype to Ukraine?
We’re building the first unit now and testing workflows. Things look good on the drawing board, but once built, you find the 2-10 things to optimize before shipping.
We already have customers waiting:
• A Ukrainian interceptor-drone company scaling to 10-15k units/month. They need an initial five containers.
• One of the biggest drone pilot academies. They’ll have a station at each training location, building their own drones on site. Their current demand is ~20,000 drones/year, just for flight training.
We’re also an integrated partner of the Druk Army, an organization in Ukraine operating approximately 15,000 3D printers across Europe (often in private spaces), printing parts for brigades, including ammunition holders, drop mechanisms, and small and large components.
NORDYN is directly connected, so we can use Druk Army as overflow if we need capacity, and vice versa. That keeps the system continuously utilized.
These two customers already mean ten stations. With these pilots, we’ll scale quickly — demand is incredibly high. We’ll focus first on these two large customers, which already require thousands of drones per month, and this will keep us busy for at least six months. Afterward, we will focus on Eastern European countries, primarily related to building and being part of the “drone wall.”
Like Poland, for Example?
Not only Poland, but from Finland down to Poland, it’s roughly 3,000 km. You need drone manufacturing capabilities along that front.
You can’t wait until the Russians move in — you have to prepare. That implies hundreds of stations along the eastern flank, and more in the interior.
On Scaling — Are You Planning to Raise VC Money?
We’re very skeptical about VC money. At the moment, we’re working with industrial partners and smaller industrial investors. VC can be a blessing but also a curse.
We don’t see the need for a lot of VC because we’ll scale with our customers, the first containers aren’t finished, and we already have orders.
We believe in bootstrapping.
We only build a production container when we have an order; we don’t build stock, and we don’t need a thousand containers in a warehouse.
Each container is slightly adapted: if a location is FPV-only, we fit FPV production systems and skip fixed-wing assembly, for example.
If there’s no order, we have no cost; if there is an order, money is secured, and we can build it in 3-4 weeks and ship it then.
The money we’re collecting now is for marketing, exhibitions, team ramp, and first demonstration units. From there, we deliver containers where they’re needed — and there are a lot of places right now.
Recruiting — How Do You Get Top Talent?
Connections and LinkedIn. People actively apply, even when we’re not hiring, asking how they can contribute.
We’re a group of highly specialized companies already. Don’t imagine we weld and build containers ourselves: we have partners who build containers (including interiors), machine providers, and secure-software specialists.
And about “the best”: we hear that all the time. You need the most innovative people. Innovative, motivated people usually find you — not via HR companies.
Have the right mindset and a specialized area where you’re great. We’re not doing rocket science — the combination of what we do makes us special.
It’s solid manufacturing, solid engineering, and a finely tuned setup of materials, methods, and design manifestos that let us produce 12 different drone types in those containers.
That took one and a half years of work.
Is It Fair to Call It the McDonald’s of Defense Manufacturing — Standardized, Efficient, and Supply Chain Driven?
Great analogy. McDonald’s is a huge decentralised system delivering consistent quality globally.
Most time goes into recipes and supply chains. 90% of our work is securing supply chains. McDonald’s isn’t a restaurant; it’s a global logistics company.
Our “recipes” (designs/processes) barely change; what matters is control from supplier to station. That’s our job.
We’re essentially a logistics company with small, tactical restaurants — our assembly units. The container is just the last stage.
If you don’t get propellers, you don’t build drones. If you need a million propellers a year, you need a constant supply line into many factories, enough inventory, but not too much to avoid storage.
That’s the challenge, and it’s extremely complex.