Europe’s defence-industrial expansion is usually discussed through factory construction, new production lines and long-lead capital equipment, but part of the capacity problem is more prosaic. Large milling machines, machining centres, presses, welding systems and other durable industrial assets can remain technically useful for decades and can sometimes be acquired, relocated or refurbished faster than equivalent new equipment can be built. That does not make a used machine immediately available defence capacity. The relevant economic asset is not the machine at the seller’s premises, or even the installed machine at the buyer’s factory, but equipment that can lawfully be used, can repeatedly produce within the required process capability and can support output accepted under the applicable customer and contractual requirements. For European defence manufacturers the difference matters, because importing used equipment from outside the relevant European product market can change the regulatory responsibility attached to the asset, while missing documentation, unsupported controls, site works and requalification can remove much of the apparent advantage in price or delivery time. The central investment question is therefore not whether second-hand machinery is cheaper than new machinery, but under what conditions an available industrial asset can be converted into qualified productive capacity at lower total cost and on a shorter critical path.