Europe’s defence expansion is described through order books, capacity announcements and aggregate investment plans. None of those measures establishes how much capital a strategically relevant manufacturer can deploy at the point where demand has to be converted into qualified output. A component maker sits at that point. It must buy materials, carry work in progress, install and qualify equipment, train staff and hold test capacity before an integrator delivers a system and a final customer accepts it. Between the announcement of a requirement and the acceptance of a product there is a financing interval, and the question is who carries it and on what terms. Exosens is a useful case because its European electro-optical activities sit inside the night-vision and infrared-imaging supply chains now being expanded for European armed forces, and because its funding is not one instrument but a layered structure: a drawn term loan, an enlarged revolving facility, a newly signed European Investment Bank facility, continuing acquisition expenditure and rising growth capital expenditure. Each layer carries a different permitted use, a different drawdown condition and a different claim on future cash.