Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition.
The biggest stories across the Department and the defense industry this week:
Hegseth advances Project Agincourt and the proposed Autonomous Warfare Command while the Army reorganizes around autonomous systems.
Anduril, CHAOS Industries, Raytheon, and others unveil new air-defense systems as the Army pursues five interceptor development efforts.
Army leaders emphasize open architectures, affordable mass, industrial competition, and empowering PAEs to deliver faster.
New demands for modularity, EW resilience, and scalable production are reshaping how companies design and deliver capabilities.
New autonomous maritime capabilities, additive manufacturing applications, and greater use of OTs and commercial solutions.
Air Force emphasizes 2028 MMA operational date and progresses new ICBM
Space Force stands-up a SOF component and SDA launches more T1 satellites.
Golden Dome task force takes on cyber and LM eyes new, enhanced PAC-3
Taiwan gets V-BATs and Ukraine speeds its deployment of defensive interceptors
Hegseth Pushes Autonomy, Generational Defense Investment at AUSA
BLUF: The Defense Autonomous Working Group (DAWG) has been absorbed into a new Task Force Autonomous Warfare, which sits inside SOCOM.
While Congress will have to sign off on the plan — a move that could take time — the DoW is moving out with several efforts to pave that path forward.
The Pentagon has shifted the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for autonomy into an umbrella unmanned tech initiative called Project Agincourt.
Owen West, who is now leading that project provided some insight into management changes, including to the DAWG.
While lawmakers have not yet approved a FY27 defense spending bill or moved ahead with the administration’s separate reconciliation request, the Pentagon has laid out plans to spend nearly $55B on DAWG.
Hegseth characterized the funding as a one-time investment rather than a recurring annual allocation, intended to accelerate the development and production of autonomous and robotic systems.
Acting Secretary Adam Telle said the Army is broadening access to its programs for companies outside the traditional defense industrial base. The Army must make room for new entrants while continuing to work with established suppliers.
“You have autonomy. You have robotics. You have SI. You have space. It’s that the folks who acquire defense platforms need to be right there, up with the warfighter at the same time, who understand how to iterate it and change on and innovate on it.
Investments now are going to matter, and they’re going to ripple not just for years but for decades across our joint force.” - Pete Hegseth, SECWAR
Related: Pentagon Needs $50B for Mass Drone Production, Hegseth Says and Hegseth: Autonomous Warfare Command Has Always Been End State
The Lesson of 1986 for the New Autonomous Warfare Command
BLUF: The Autonomous Warfare Command could become an important part of the next era of American military power.
The Pentagon announced plans to establish a new four-star Autonomous Warfare Command to bring greater focus, authority, and resources to drones, robotics, and autonomous systems that are rapidly changing the character of warfare.
Forty years ago, Special Operations Forces had proven increasingly important to how America fought, but they lacked the unified leadership, dedicated resources, and institutional influence necessary to succeed. Congress responded by establishing USSOCOM, a four-star command with the authority to organize, equip, and advocate for the mission over the long term.
The Pentagon’s senior civilian and military leadership vigorously opposed many of the changes Congress proposed. Yet lawmakers persisted. This was one of the most consequential periods of defense reform in American history, and it remains the very foundation of the joint force America relies on today.
Acquisition, requirements, budgeting, and management remain burdened by too many layers, too much process, and too little accountability. Meanwhile, the pace of technological change is accelerating. Drones, AI, and autonomous systems are transforming warfare faster than traditional processes can accommodate.
The decision to create an Autonomous Warfare Command reflects an understanding that these capabilities may now require dedicated leadership, resources, expertise, and career paths of their own.
The Pentagon Must Rehearse Its Ability to Adapt
BLUF: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has invoked Agincourt to argue that warfighters and innovators should work closer together. The battle also shows that adaptation depends on choices made before an urgent requirement arrives.
A decision to expand production can be announced in a day. Qualifying suppliers, training workers, and enlarging test capacity can take years. Money committed after a crisis begins cannot recover the preparation time already lost.
An adversary can change how a weapon must operate while we are still expanding its factory.
America’s industrial buildup therefore faces two connected tests:
Can we deliver enough of what works?
Can we change what we deliver when battlefield experience shows it no longer works?
Measure success by the time required to deliver a verified improvement to the force at useful scale.
A military can accelerate procurement and digital engineering yet remain slow to revise the assumptions behind what it buys. A successful prototype may never reach the force if requirements, funding, training, and sustainment do not move with it.
DEPSECWAR should sponsor a demo with Agincourt’s leaders, operational commanders, and service requirements officials. Select 2-3 problems, each with an accountable lead, a defined mission, a supported force, and a useful timeframe.
An initial exercise would expose constraints. Selected responses would proceed through engineering, trials, and fielding, with progress reviewed in later exercises. The clock should keep running through implementation and unresolved decisions.
Digital models could help engineers and operators compare responses and trace effects across interfaces, manufacturing, testing, and sustainment. A modest redesign might require a new supplier or qualification process; finding that early could favor another option.
Industrial choices may prove harder than redesign. Retooling could reduce current deliveries; keeping the line open could leave equipment needing retrofit.
Assess cycle time alongside mission performance, cost, and delivery disruption.
Supply-chain resilience and workforce preparation must convert lessons into fielded capability. Judge the package by whether it connects forecasting, experimentation, authority, production, and force employment.
Our Take: We strongly support this approach. The Department must move beyond accelerating individual acquisition programs to building an integrated system that continuously connects operational feedback, requirements, engineering, production, and fielding. Agincourt offers an opportunity to demonstrate this model with real operational problems, empowered decision-makers, and measurable outcomes. We must not only produce at scale, but rapidly adapt what we produce as threats evolve.
Innovation Alone Won’t Prepare the U.S. for the Future Battlefield
BLUF: To fully realize its potential, the Department may need to abandon long-established pillars of its acquisition, test-and-evaluation program, and requirements systems. Current programs and practices support technological advancement, but the Secretary’s objectives more closely resemble a fundamental paradigm shift.
Project Meridian focuses on technology to dominate the future battlefield, while the Autonomous Warfare Command aims to speed adoption and use of autonomous and robotic systems.
To achieve his ambitious and laudable objectives, Secretary Hegseth should allocate parallel, expansive, and urgent resources to revolutionize systemic issues he has already identified: antiquated acquisition processes, a commercial culture that prioritizes profit over innovation, and the need to safeguard sensitive tech.
I also propose adding a concerted investment in identifying future battlefield threats and leveraging non-traditional performers to address them.
The objective should be to establish a repeatable procurement system that enables adaptation in combat and ultimately delivers a superior cost-benefit ratio compared to the current interdependent system-of-systems model, which prioritizes integrated proprietary platforms.
Success hinges on seamlessly integrating development with operations and aggressively scaling proven strategies.
To speed progress, the Department may benefit from the Vesuvius Challenge, which exemplifies innovation at its zenith: an ambitious, quantifiable objective pursued through open collaboration, competition, and cross-disciplinary expertise.
A critical aspect of this approach is the agile, near-instantaneous integration of future threat analysis and data into acquisition and research programs.
Our Take: Josh is right that Project Meridian and the AutoWarCom will not deliver the intended battlefield effect if acquisition, requirements, and T&E remain optimized for the slower, proprietary system-of-systems model. PAEs and PMs already have MTA and SWP authorities that support iterative development integrated with operations and broader use of non-traditional performers. The decisive move is to treat those pathways as the default for autonomous and robotic efforts rather than the exception. Industry should structure its proposals around open competition and rapid adaptation against evolving threats, while Congress should protect the flexibilities that let operators prioritize operational need and cost-effectiveness over predetermined platform requirements.
Convening in the Capital: Autonomy at Scale
Hosted by the Vanderbilt Institute of National Security | November 18 | Washington, D.C.
Drones and autonomous systems are changing the character of warfare. Join leaders from government, the military, industry and academia to explore what the United States must do to decide faster, defeat cheaper and deliver at scale.
The day features a keynote conversation with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, KBE; a fireside chat with General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.); remarks from Oleksandr Kamyshin, former Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine; expert-led panels; technology presentations; and the launch of a formal research challenge.
CHAOS Industries Joins Low-Cost Interceptor Parade w/VESPID Design
BLUF: CHAOS Industries unveiled a new family of small low-cost interceptors, dubbed VESPID.
The system comes in two sizes:
Mk 0, which is man-portable and designed for austere environments
Mk 1, which is a faster, more maneuverable variant designed for high-density installations with a multitube launcher
That multitube launcher is an existing system from ISS Aerospace, a UK company.
The Mk 1 can be integrated with Coyote launchers as well which is a key requirement for the Army’s Next Generation C-sUAS Missile program.
It is able to operate in congested electromagnetic environments, using CHAOS’s radar transmitter as a datalink to burn through jamming. The datalink waveform contains means for error detection and correction.
CHAOS claims plans are in place for a production capacity of 12,000 interceptors per year, with a manufacturing architecture capable of expanding to 50,000.
Anduril Unveils Steelfin Family Of Modular Surface-To-Air Missiles
BLUF: Anduril aims to produce Steelfin interceptors at scale by leveraging common components that can be configured for different threats.
Anduril has unveiled Steelfin, a family of surface-to-air interceptor missiles designed to share a common architecture and manufacturing process while being configured for different air and missile defense missions.
This approach will enable high-volume production at significantly lower cost than existing weapons.
The U.S. military seeks to expand air defense inventories against an increasingly diverse range of threats, from inexpensive drones to cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and advanced maneuvering weapons, including hypersonic ones.
Anduril’s answer is a family of missiles built around a common two-stage design.
The first stage consists of a booster, while the second is a terminal interceptor intended to share a baseline airframe, avionics, software, flight control system, and interfaces across variants.
Different boosters and terminal-stage components would allow the company to tailor individual configurations to specific missions without developing an entirely new missile for each requirement.
Both hit-to-kill and blast-fragmentation terminal-stage interceptors will be offered.
“It is an open system, so the ability to fly it with different rocket motors, different seekers, to be able to swap these components out, to be able to reconfigure the system for a range of different threats is a feature that we built into this.” Christian Brose, Anduril President and Chief Strategy officer
New Coyote Anti-Drone Interceptor Swaps Jet Engine For Rocket Power
BLUF: Raytheon is developing a new iteration of its Coyote Block 2 counter-drone interceptor powered by a solid rocket motor rather than a small jet engine.
This pushes the Block 2C+RM version, which also comes with a new seeker and warhead, into the surface-to-air missile side of the interceptor spectrum.
With a significant boost in speed, range, and terminal intercept performance, it is designed to address evolving one-way-attack drone threats.
The Coyote Block 2 series is already a combat-proven system, with more than 600 kills in the course of operational U.S. military deployments to date.
The rocket-powered version has been in the works for some 15 months now, and three successful live test launches have been conducted.
Existing versions of Coyote Block 2 are powered by a turbojet engine. A small rocket booster is also used to launch these interceptors, but does not propel them through the entire course of their flight. With the rocket motor, you get upgraded propulsion for faster launch and higher velocity flight.
Powerus Unveils Fully Autonomous Drone Interceptors
BLUF: Powerus unveiled Guardian 3 at AUSA, a counter-drone interceptor that launches on a radar cue and uses AI and onboard navigation to find and strike the target, removing the human operator from the final strike.
The company’s growth, the evolution of its interceptors and rising U.S. military demand for drone-defense systems amid the war in Iran have converged.
The U.S. used roughly two-thirds of its inventory of certain missile-defense interceptors by Aug. 1 to stop drones like Iran’s Shahed.
Powerus provided the Guardian 1 modeled after manually controlled Ukrainian drone interceptors to the semi-autonomous Guardian 2, which, when paired with a radar to detect threats, will launch the interceptor in the direction of a drone.
Powerus developed the fully autonomous Guardian 3. When the radar cues it, the system launches in the direction of the threat and can detect and strike using AI and navigation systems.
“So you kind of take the human error out of it” - Brett Velicovich, Powerus, President and Co-Founder
Related: New Drone Interceptor Takes Off Like a Quadcopter, Then Flies Forward Autonomously
Sikorsky Packs 4 Nomad Drones Into a Single Shipping Container
BLUF: Sikorsky’s Nomad 100 Fast Pack puts four Group 3 Nomad 100 drones plus mission software, power, comms and sustainment gear in one 20-foot container, with two aircraft mission-ready in 15 minutes and no runway needed.
In its planned configuration, two of the aircraft can be mission ready in under 15 minutes, and the other two available within four to six hours, according to Sikorsky.
The system is designed to launch without a runway from sites such as naval vessels, tactical vehicle staging areas and improvised landing zones. After a mission, crews can repack the container, load it onto a compatible vehicle and move it to a new site.
The kit could support ISR and targeting missions, as well as light attack and contested logistics.
Sikorsky said the U.S. military needs to rapidly expand its inventory of autonomous aircraft with compact systems that can be deployed, sustained and moved quickly in contested environments.
Subterranean Warfare – An Urgent DoW Need Without An Owner
BLUF: The DoW urgently needs to organize its scattered subterranean warfare assets into a single unified organization. Ideally, a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for Subterranean Warfare, reporting to the DEPSECWAR.
This group would have three portfolios: Subterranean Resilience, Subterranean Sensing and Subterranean Defeat.
The office would integrate validated requirements, experimentation, testing, acquisition, and fielding.
During the 2026 Iran conflict, Iranian ballistic missiles and low-cost drones hit U.S. installations across eight Middle Eastern countries. Hundreds of buildings and structures were damaged or destroyed.
The assumptions the U.S. has made about air superiority, missile defense, aircraft dispersal, building hardening, and the survivability of concentrated forward bases were all flawed.
While we were prepared for ballistic missiles and hostile aircraft, drone swarms combined with ballistic missiles saturated and got through our defenses.
The U.S. needs to know where adversaries’ underground facilities are located, and the internal layout of those facilities.
Autonomous drills could provide post-strike bomb damage assessments and/or destroy Hard and Deeply Buried Targets (HDBTs) without seizing the site. They might be inserted covertly; more likely they’d need air cover while they work.
The combination of AI, robotics and autonomy moves this from science fiction to the possible. Anduril, The Boring Company, Exodigo, Phoenix Boring, Earthgrid and Traysar are possible candidates to deliver these systems, among others.
Surface survivability and subterranean sensing and defeat are Department-wide problems, and they won’t be solved by a single system or an incremental fix.
The U.S. needs a coherent protection and survivability strategy across the DoW and all sectors of our economy.
Anduril’s Palmer Luckey Envisions Missiles Made in Car Factories, Underground Battles
BLUF: Palmer Luckey talked about his vision for the future of defense in an interview with AIAA ahead of the announcement of Project Meridian to study and identify the weapons and battlefields of the future.
Luckey explained that much of what he does in the defense space was inspired by science fiction movies like Stealth, which is about an autonomous fighter jet that goes rogue after becoming sentient, and classic science fiction novels that theorized how technology would evolve.
We need to have unified C2. We need to have unified information sharing. You need to have every sensor be a sensor for every effector and vice versa. We want everyone to be able to share everything.
We need to design missiles that can be made in car factories. We need to design aircraft that can be made in tractor factories. It would serve the practical purpose of meeting wartime demand while also sending a message to adversaries like China that U.S. factories could quickly switch gears and crank out weaponry.
While it might seem obvious that future battlefields might be in space, Luckey listed the subterranean domain as a realistic option and inevitable.
Autonomous systems will make it easier to bore through subterranean environments, and the primary cost is moving forward. Everything you drag through it afterwards is free.POINT@AIR: Tethered balloon radar could offer troops 30 days of nonstop surveillance
Drone Carrying M250 Machine Gun Completes Firing Test
BLUF: Sig Sauer and Israel Aerospace Industries say IAI’s Fire Storm 250 quadcopter, carrying Sig’s M250 light machine gun and 200 rounds, engaged targets from the air in single-shot and semi-automatic modes with human-in-the-loop fire control; Sig expects M250 fielding to begin in the first half of 2027.
Fire Storm 250 can stay airborne for two hours and is designed with a stabilized machine-gun mount.
The test required the system to hover over a simulated battlefield, ID targets with an onboard camera and fire on them using both single-shot and semi-automatic firing modes “from varying distances and altitudes.
The system can carry 200 rounds of ammunition and the 53-pound RCWS. It can take off and land vertically, lending itself to operation in austere forward locations.
National AI Force Proposal
BLUF: Establish a National Artificial Intelligence Force organized initially within existing institutions. It would combine USSOCOM-style responsibility for specialized forces and acquisition with an NRO-style civilian cadre and military–intelligence arrangements informed by NSA and CYBERCOM. Its assigned work would be to provide qualified mixed teams, sustain their capabilities, and prepare their relief for designated joint and intelligence missions.
The case for a standing force is preparation.
It would maintain qualifications, rehearse employment, and keep relief capacity ready before the next urgent request.
A service member with mission experience and a civilian engineer with deep technical knowledge should be able to work together through successive assignments without reconstructing their institutional relationship each time.
That would require funded service commitments, a credible civilian career structure, and decisions delegated to officials who can act.
I propose a 90-day Initial Operating Concept and one qualified mission team if the necessary people, authority, funds, access, and evaluation are in place.
I would begin by assigning the first mission, its force provider, and the resources already available to do useful work. The initial team should give Congress evidence about what a standing arrangement contributes, while producing an option a national security customer can actually use.
Teledyne FLIR Defense Releases New Compact Counter-UAS Radar
BLUF: Teledyne FLIR Defense released the Ranger R10-3DX, a compact digital beam-forming radar that uses AI to classify targets and detects micro drones at up to 3 km, pedestrians beyond 6 km and vehicles beyond 12 km from fixed sites or mobile platforms.
The system uses advanced digital beam-forming technology and provides continuous wide-area coverage and rapid threat detection all within a small system.
It uses AI for target classification, tracking multiple targets simultaneously, to distinguish between drones, planes, bird, people and vehicles while maintaining a small size.
“The Ranger R10-3DX gives operators an affordable, compact, and highly capable radar solution” - Rob Tarantino, Teledyne FLIR Defense, SVP of Surveillance
Specter Jet-Powered Drone Aims at Low Cost, Multi-Mission, Single Use
BLUF: AEVEX showed its modular Specter jet-powered drone, with a Divergent-built fuselage. The first flight is planned for December and the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles is the main target, though neither FAMM nor Rapid Dragon has selected it.
AEVEX announced Specter in September, describing it as a high-speed, low-cost, jet-powered autonomous platform designed for high-risk operational environments.
The aircraft is being developed around a modular architecture, with ground-launched and air-launched variants planned. Its interchangeable nose section is intended to accommodate different payloads, including kinetic warheads, EW equipment, ISR systems, and other future capabilities.
That flexibility is central to how AEVEX is pitching the aircraft. They are aiming for an adaptable system that can be configured for different operational needs while affordable enough to be used basically as a cruise missile in combat applications.
Forterra Debuts OASIS-OneLink Technology
BLUF: Forterra’s OASIS-OneLink lets operators command multiple autonomous systems from different vendors through one interface, and the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center is already piloting it.
OASIS-OneLink builds upon Forterra’s OASIS-Fabric, a shared data network that allows unmanned machines to connect in communication-degraded environments where they can’t log onto a shared data grid.
OASIS-OneLink would allow several different autonomous machines, potentially all from different companies, to be controlled using the same operating control framework.
“OneLink gives operators one place from which to monitor and command, and it’s designed to grow and adapt as mission requirements change.” - Phil Cotter, Forterra, Head of Growth
Radio Frequencies in the Intelligence Ecosystem
BLUF: Radio frequencies are a vital, underutilized, asset in the intelligence ecosystem
For decades, imagery has been the dominant method GEOINT analysts have used to evaluate the world. Unfortunately, our adversaries know it.
Adversaries have also gotten better at managing their digital signatures and concealing movement by exploiting the gaps in our known collection patterns and revisit windows.
They have deliberately adapted across multiple observable signatures to avoid detection – for instance, maritime vessels go dark and assets move under cover of darkness and spoof their location to hide where they are and what they’re doing there.
The IC already fuses multi-source intelligence to address this.
If we shift radio frequency (RF) collection further upstream in the data collection and workflow process, it can tip and identify activity worth investigating and enable cueing other collection against it.
The IC can better leverage an underutilized data layer in their analysis.
This is especially useful in gray-zone activity, sanctions evasion and other situations where the behavior observed is meant to be difficult to categorize.
Advantage comes from finding the anomaly early enough to bring the right sensors and analysis to bear.
New Montana Super Range Complex Could Add Critical Weapons Testing Capacity
BLUF: A new facility (super range) in Montana is aimed at testing autonomous weapons, space, and EW technology, supersonics and hypersonics.
As the U.S. races to develop autonomous capabilities, hypersonic munitions, laser and directed energy weapons and improved EW systems, a limiting factor has been the lack of suitable locations for testing.
The announcement didn’t go into details about exactly where in Montana the range will be, nor when and the cost.
The new super range could also leverage existing range space on the ground and in the air. There is also the large Hays Military Operations Area (MOA) which could be expanded for this new test range effort.
“I’m pleased to inform you and announce that right here in Montana, the DoW is going to establish a new super range for testing advanced weapons and technologies, technologies including potential autonomous weapons, space, and electronic warfare technology, supersonics and hypersonics. Montana will help ensure the American military always reigns supreme.” President Trump
DIU Challenge: Suitable Warfighting Adaptive Payloads-USV Sprint 2
BLUF: DIU and DRPM UxS seek mature, production-ready, maritime counter-air solutions through a multi-phase Prize Challenge under 10 U.S.C. § 4025. For Sprint 2, DIU seeks integrated combinations of mature USVs and hard-kill counter-air effectors suitable for forward operational fielding within 120 days.
Sprint 2 focuses specifically on detecting, tracking, and defeating hostile airborne threats in contested maritime environments.
Proposed solutions should combine proven USVs, mature hard-kill effectors, resilient sensor suites, and interoperable C2 architectures to provide affordable, scalable, and persistent capability while favorably shifting the cost-exchange ratio.
Other Defense Tech News:
PAC-3 Edge Will Be The Most Capable Patriot Interceptor Ever
JIATF 401 Marks One Year of Accelerating Counter-UAS Capabilities
New 360-Degree Air Defense Radar Offers 205-Mile Detection Range
New system that generates power, charges drones, and offers launch space can transform warfare
We Need to Make Industry Crash 100,000 Drones Next Year
BLUF: The US military needs to find a balance of drone inventory and training consumption that produces the most combat value for its money.
While drones are much like munitions in the numbers the US military will need to expend, we shouldn’t stockpile drones in warehouses.
Technology, threats and tactics are changing too quickly. Large inventories of today’s best drones could become tomorrow’s stockpile of obsolescence.
We should really use them, run them quite literally into the ground, and then see what we can learn.
The industrial base can’t just be seen as a supplier to the military. As the rate of technological change accelerates, manufacturing capacity and its ability to quickly adapt will become an increasingly integral part of the force generation system.
That means industry needs to be part of the exercise.
By consuming drones at significant scale, we simultaneously train the force, determine the next iteration of design and create the demand to build that next iteration.
I’m not suggesting we purchase an extra 100,000 drones just to blow them up in tests; we need to plan to crash and replace some portion of the large quantities we’re already buying.
Imagine a major exercise in which thousands of drones are treated as fully consumable. Both sides have drones and counter-drone systems. Operators employ their systems while testers collect data. Engineers, supply-chain experts, acquisition professionals and manufacturers are connected to what is happening in the field.
Then train again. And again. And again. Faster and faster. This could be done through a string of already existing exercises, modified to collect the right data and insert vendors at the tactical level. One exercise could discover a vulnerability, industry could adapt between events, and the next exercise could test the answer.
The objective should be to enter the next war with the world’s most practiced system for designing, building and delivering drones.
The Pentagon Rewrote the Rules: Has Your Marketing Plan Caught Up?
Most GovCon companies are heading into the 2027 planning season with a marketing plan built for a Pentagon that no longer exists.
Audit your website and sales materials for what they lead with. Flag anything that opens with compliance language instead of mission outcomes, and make sure your certifications, vehicles, and other qualifications are still easy to find.
Build content around the specific mission problems your priority capability areas solve, whether that’s AI, cybersecurity, sensors, or something else in your lane, so you’re building credibility with acquisition executives before a formal solicitation ever appears.
Shift some budget away from traditional RFP-cycle marketing and toward visibility in OTA consortia, Commercial Solutions Openings, and direct agency channels, since that’s where more of the fast-moving buying activity is headed.
If your company has historically leaned on prime contractor relationships to open doors, start planning for a website and content presence that can stand on its own, because more of your buyers may find you directly.
An Acquisitions Process Built for Today’s Contested Spectrum Battlefield
BLUF: The modern battlefield is now characterized by jamming, spoofing, interception, and electronic attacks, that are increasingly accessible and fast-changing.
For the past four decades of combat operations, American forces could largely assume dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Sensors, weapons, and command-and-control networks relied on links designed around relatively stable conditions. However, adversaries have spent the past ten years eroding that dominance.
The Pentagon’s acquisition system has been much slower to adapt, increasing the risk that we will design and build static systems for a dynamic fight.
Programs routinely freeze waveforms, interfaces, update rights, certification pathways, and network assumptions at the time of contract award.
The result is a system that may be software-defined internally but remains operationally static. The American warfighting enterprise must adapt.
Software defined radios create significant new capabilities to update the resilient communications paradigm.
America’s acquisition process for RF systems must change just as our warfighting enterprise should increasingly consider spectrum operations as its own warfighting domain.
All acquisition requirements must assume RF interference and product developers must test adaptability as deliberately as they test performance.
American forces cannot wait years to respond to a threat that changes in weeks. Adversaries already treat the spectrum as contested terrain. American systems must treat it the same way.
Mining Is Not a Supply Chain
Viktor Kiss and Michael Roberts
BLUF: U.S. financing for African rare-earth mines such as Madagascar’s Ampasindava project covers extraction but not the refining and magnet production China controls, so DFC deals should be tied to plans for non-Chinese processing and logistics.
In what amounts to a second great-power competition, the winners will not be the countries that own the most mines. They will be the ones that pair extraction with effective governance, resilient infrastructure, and integrated processing capacity.
China’s 91% share of global refined rare-earth output and 94% share of magnet production make clear that mining investment alone will not deliver the supply-chain resilience the U.S. is after.
The U.S. should measure critical-mineral security by how much of the resulting supply chain can operate independently of China, not by how many foreign mines it has financed.
Africa can be a genuine pillar of American rare-earth diversification, but only if Washington connects extraction to processing, purchasing, price protection, manufacturing, and local value creation.
Absent that, the U.S. risks changing where rare earths come out of the ground without changing who controls them before they reach American industry.
Other Defense Industry News
New DoW Prototype OT Guidebook
BLUF: OUSW(A&S)/DPCAP issued a memo Fostering One Strong Industrial Base Through Other Transactions announcing the Guide to Prototype Other Transactions (10 U.S.C. § 4022 and § 2808a).
Defense Pricing, Contracting, and Acquisition Policy (DPCAP) will maintain this Guide as an interactive portal at https://www.acq.osd.mil/asda/dpc/cp/index.html.
Key updates include:
OTs are now explicitly preferred. Acquisition teams have clearer policy support for selecting an OT instead of defaulting to a traditional procurement.
Government requirements should describe problems, not prescribe solutions.
It specifically encourages:
Problem statements instead of traditional statements of work.
Industry-developed technical solutions.
Avoiding military jargon that discourages commercial companies.
Refining requirements through industry engagement.
The updated guidance makes it easier to establish eligibility for nontraditional defense contractor participation. It introduces clearer direction on:
Relying on contractor self-certification where lawful.
Verification by exception rather than universal extensive validation.
A 10-business-day determination timeframe.
Defining significant participation through meaningful technical contributions rather than arbitrary percentages.
Stronger emphasis on transitioning prototypes into production. Directs acquisition teams to consider follow-on production during prototype planning.
Greater flexibility in modifying prototype agreements. The guide reinforces that FAR-based concepts of contract scope do not govern prototype OT modifications but can adjust technical objectives as prototypes mature.
Reduced accounting and administrative barriers. Also establishes a preference for fixed-amount and milestone-based payments.
The guide incorporates statutory changes to approval levels.
The new guide better recognizes approaches such as oral presentations, white papers, video submissions, and industry pitches. It also encourages multiple prototype awards where appropriate and retaining candidate solutions for potential subsequent awards.
Our Take: While these changes are relatively minor, it is an important update to ensure consistency with the latest statutory changes.
Accelerating the Fielding of Capabilities for Combatant Commanders
Andres Guerrero-Cordero, Eric Obergfell, and Nicholas Tran
BLUF: MITRE SMEs recommend shifting greater decision-making and resource-prioritization authority toward Combatant Commanders while retaining Service acquisition organizations to develop and deliver capabilities.
Empower Combatant Commanders with Executive Agent Authority: Designate Combatant Commanders (CCDRs) as Executive Agents for funded Joint Operational Problems (JOPs), giving them greater authority to prioritize capabilities and direct resources toward operational requirements.
Prioritize Joint Integration from the Start: Require military Services to incorporate interoperability, Joint Command and Control (JC2), and systems-of-systems integration requirements during capability development rather than treating integration as an afterthought.
Give Combatant Commands Greater Control Over Funding Priorities: Allow CCDRs to influence how resources are allocated across capability development, integration, and prototyping, ensuring investments address operational gaps rather than individual Service priorities.
Accelerate Prototyping and Transition to Operational Capabilities: Empower CCDRs to direct experimentation, prototyping, and transition resources to overcome the acquisition “Valley of Death” and rapidly field capabilities that address urgent operational needs.
Use Existing Authorities Instead of Creating New Acquisition Bureaucracy: Implement Executive Agent designations through existing Department authorities, avoiding the legislative changes and administrative burden associated with granting Combatant Commands independent acquisition authority.
Our Take: We completely concur with this approach to better empower the Combatant Commanders and allow them to support the innovation pipeline for different PAEs.
The Government Is Asking Industry to Help Rewrite How It Buys Technology. We Should Answer.
BLUF: The FAR overhaul represents a significant opportunity to shift federal technology acquisition toward commercial-first procurement, faster technology adoption, and reduced administrative complexity. Industry participation is critical to ensuring these reforms translate into practical improvements.
Proposed changes would eliminate cumbersome contract clause checklists, better align software licensing with commercial practices, and support consumption-based cloud purchasing which would make the defense market more accessible to small businesses and nontraditional defense contractors.
Under the rewrite, each clause would say on its face whether it applies to commercial buys, and an agency would need to issue a deviation to add additional clauses.
The FAR Council is actively requesting industry feedback on proposed regulations, due October 19, 2026. Companies are encouraged to submit recommendations that improve acquisition flexibility and reduce barriers to innovation.
Additional reforms are needed to clarify commercial versus noncommercial technology classifications, protect intellectual property and software licensing rights, and prevent inconsistent contracting requirements across federal agencies.
“The council has shown it can accept changes based on specific recommendations, so give it specifics.” Ross Nodurft, Alliance for Digital Innovation, Executive Director
Acting US Army Secretary Gives Sermon-Like First Speech
BLUF: In his first AUSA speech, Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle said every future Army purchase must use open architecture, fragmented programs are being consolidated under PAEs, and a manufacturing rodeo early next year will stress-test suppliers to find supply chain weak points.
Controlling land is fundamental to humanity. The Army does it better than anyone, and it’s on us, the people in this room, to keep it that way. Humanity’s connection to the land is biblical, and it even transcends faith, since the dawn of creation, as recorded in Genesis.
We’ve drowned ourselves and the public in buzzwords, strategies, slideshows, government acronyms and bureaucratic doublespeak that are advertised as revolutionary. But the Army’s value proposition is actually too fundamental for goofy corporate jargon.
The Army will launch a new project: a manufacturing rodeo, to be held early next year, that will put the service’s industrial base suppliers in competition with each other.
“We’re empowering a small number of teams to address our biggest mandates to make difficult trade-offs around speed, manufacturability and supply chain realities early, often and together. This is how you generate compound soldier-interest. That’s the opposite of compound self-interest.
Everything we buy from here on out will have open architecture; it’s non-negotiable. We’re going to stress-test the supply chain, the manufacturing processes and see where it breaks.” - Adam Telle, Army, Acting Secretary
Related: AUSA News: Army to Conduct Manufacturing Rodeo Next Year to Evaluate Supply Chains, Acting Army Secretary Announces Manufacturing Rodeo to Tackle Weak Links in Supply Chain, Telle Says Army Will Find the Weak Links in the Industrial Supply Chain Through Manufacturing Rodeo
Army Under Secretary on the Lessons of Modern Combat
BLUF: The Army is entering unprecedented territory. Michael Obadal oversees the Army’s business operations, acquisition strategy, and manpower and personnel systems, among myriad other duties.
Demand for exquisite munitions has skyrocketed as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine — and an ever-tense Indo-Pacific — continue to redefine stockpile demand.
So, too, has there developed an insatiable market for cheap systems and interceptors capable of balancing scales encumbered by cost-per-kill ratios.
There’s no single weapon system that operates by itself anywhere. They are all part of a joint force, and within that, you have a maneuver Army that is reliant — tanks are reliant on infantry, infantry is reliant on fires, all of it is reliant on aviation, medical and logistics.
All those components work together as a chain, and you have to make sure every link in the chain is as strong as possible.
There is an immense number of not only drones but also counter-UAS.
Being able to see, sense and integrate to understand what your positional advantage is, and understand the adversary and their vulnerabilities. How we apply the best sensors and best software to bring all of that together to give decision advantage to our commanders.
Fires, and the importance of long-range precision fires is highlighted.
Expanding out the optionality that commanders have beyond just one or two exquisite munitions, with everything from longer-range artillery, one-way attack and loitering munitions, up into our higher-end missiles.
Getting commercial industry interested in investing in tech innovation in the defense market where they can make a bet that they can get through some of the experimentation, and then we can follow on with prototyping and quickly get into low-rate and high-rate production before fielding.
Army Tweaks Acquisition Structure to Remove Unwanted Bureaucracy
BLUF: The Army is attempting to increase communication between its Portfolio Acquisition Executives and their subordinate program manager offices.
Army has attempted to remove a layer of bureaucracy between its Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) and its program managers after Congress ordered it to do so in the FY26 NDAA.
Per last year’s changes the six PAEs would communicate orders to their Capability Portfolio Executives (CPEs) which then pushed those down to the relevant program managers.
The Army renamed the CPEs to Program Manager Executives (PMEs).
Another change spurred by the FY26 NDAA was to have all PAEs be certified acquisition officials. Prior to this change, three out of the Army’s six PAEs fell into that category and the other three had backgrounds in more of an operational role, or served as the heads of the Army’s various Centers of Excellence (CoE).
“What’s critically important for the PAEs to deliver for the Army is the alignment, synchronization, and staying closely connected to our operational counterparts. We cannot deliver those formation-based outcomes if we are not tied at the hip and synchronized closely together.” BG Troy Denomy, PAE for Maneuver Ground
“We put requirements, resources, and acquisition authority all under the PAEs, where you can make those decisions in parallel instead of waiting for those sequential handoffs we always had in the past. I can say, one year in this, we can point at real results.” Brent Ingraham, ASA/ALT
Stay up to speed on the PAEs, DRPMs, PMEs, and their portfolios on Digital Pentagon.
Army Has an Affordable Mass Problem, Acquisition Secretary Says
BLUF: The Army's fires portfolio faces a wide array of constantly evolving threats, from increasingly sophisticated hypersonic weapons to one-way attack drones, and one of its biggest challenges to keeping up could be affordability.
The vast range of threats facing the fires portfolio requires thinking about affordability across the entire space, from counter-UAS and small Group 1 drones all the way up to ballistic missiles.
PAE Fires LTG Frank Lozano earlier this year stated the ideal high-low mix for munitions is 60% low-cost weapons and 40% high-end, exquisite missiles.
From a 60/40 perspective, generally the Army wants high-end exquisite capability, “but once I’m able to neutralize key and critical C2 nodes, and I've blinded them, then we have an opportunity to close with the enemy and really pummel them with more affordable mass munitions.
Lozano expressed frustration with funding profiles that emerge from the FYDP to turn rapid, iterative programs into five-year programs.
He wants continuous competition to include those who didn’t make the cut in the first phase to come out to the range and recompete for the opportunity to get back into the program.
The program is unique in that it is looking both for companies with all-up round capabilities, as well as for companies to come in at the component level.
“We have an affordable mass problem. As we think about this space, it is not really just about all-up round capability anymore. It is components. It is parts of the system that we need to put together that bring sort of that affordability, the scalability, so that we have more mass from an offensive and defensive perspective.” Brent Ingraham, ASA/ALT
Open System Architecture will be Hyper Important in Army’s XM30
BLUF: An open systems architecture allows the Army and its industry partners to plug new and different software and hardware capabilities into the platform.
The Army will make open systems architecture a key criterion when selecting the winner for its XM30 Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle.
BG Troy Denomy, PAE for Ground Maneuver, said the Army is prioritizing the ability to rapidly adapt its platforms and integrate new technologies as threats evolve, particularly in the counter-UAS fight.
The XM30 is being designed to give soldiers improved protection and capabilities to operate against new battlefield threats.
An open systems architecture allows the Army and its industry partners to plug new and different software and hardware capabilities into the platform as emerging tech becomes available and as the threat picture changes.
Out of the two vendors who are competing for the program — American Rheinmetall and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) — he said it’s too early to tell which company has implemented a more open architecture.
“There’s other aspects that we are evaluating, but adaptability and integration of new tech is hyper important to me, and we are actually going to evaluate that as part of this selection process.” BG Troy Denomy, PAE for Ground Maneuver
Related: General Dynamics Showcases Wolf XM30, New Counter-Drone Systems at AUSA
ARCYBER Expanding Use of AI Agents for Network Operations
BLUF: Army Cyber Command’s Task Force Lexington, stood up in April, has moved from a few AI agent work roles to mapping a full Cyber Protection Team of agents that operate under human oversight on the Army’s portion of the DODIN.
Task Force Lexington mapped out an entire Cyber Protection Team composed of agents, including for analytic support and network analysts, among other roles.
Humans oversee the agents’ actions, retrain them and then have let the agents work inside the Army’s network over time.
Army officials have said that adversaries are wielding the technology against the U.S., and it is too powerful to sideline against those threats.
“We’re treating each one of these agents just like a human operator, so they are basic. As they get trained and learn, we open the framework up. The guardrails are really tied to cybersecurity, really based on what humans have learned over the years on what we should do inside of operating and securing the network, defending the network, and attacking a network. We have been very deliberate in kind of ‘okay, what did we learn as humans? How do we write those guardrails, and then how do we incrementally reduce the guardrails over time?” - LTG Christopher Eubank, ARCYBER, Commanding General
Related: Army to Take a Cautious Step Toward Employing AI Agents to Defend Networks
Army, GM Defense Agree to Add 12,000 Infantry Squad Vehicles to Fleet
BLUF: The Army has expanded planned acquisition requirement for GM Defense’s Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) from the initial 649 to nearly 12,000.
Ahead of development of the ISV, GM worked closely with the Army to identify a clear operational gap. It then used the information to self-fund the creation of an ISV-Utility prototype.
In turn, the GM Defense delivered seven prototypes of the highly versatile five-soldier variant for unit-level assessments at no cost to the Army.
GM Defense added that those variants will be fielded across 39 active-duty and National Guard mobile brigades.
Project Gatekeeper to Cut Software Approval From Months to Minutes
BLUF: The Army’s new cybersecurity testing sandbox will streamline the current cumbersome, ad hoc arrangements for clearing commercial software for Army networks.
Project Gatekeeper, a new AI-enhanced cybersecurity sandbox designed to vet commercial software for use on Army networks.
Project Gatekeeper is creating a single sandboxed environment running on the Army’s cloud but isolated from operational networks and sensitive data where companies can bring their software for assessment, even if they don’t have an Army contract or a program manager to sponsor them.
Current, cumbersome clearance process that can take days or weeks, stalling some software projects for as long as nine months.
That’s a long time to wait for a software upgrade, especially under a process that officials say lack consistent cybersecurity practices, transparency for contractors and visibility for Army leaders into what’s actually happening on their networks.
The Army lacked a single, standardized, centralized process for bringing commercial software onto its secure networks. Instead, it was up to every PM.
Many program offices lacked the capability or willingness to conduct cybersecurity assessments of new and unfamiliar code. Rather than evaluate the software themselves, they would wait for another organization to vet the company and officially grant its software ATO on military networks.
“Success, to me, looks like a company, within minutes, is able to log in, submit their code and get the green check mark from our pipeline that says you are good to go.” Gabe Chiulli, Acting Army CIO
Army Explains How Merops Interceptor Drone Became Program Of Record In Just 142 Days
BLUF: The Army turned the Merops interceptor drone into a formal program in just 142 days, an acquisition milestone that highlights efforts to speed the response to emerging threats and get combat-proven capabilities into the hands of troops and allies. The Merops won accolades for its role in defending against Iranian barrages of Shahed-136 one-way attack munitions in the Middle East.
The Merops is a small, relatively low-cost counter-UAS system designed to rapidly intercept long-range, one-way attack drones in flight. It was originally developed under the U.S.-backed Project Eagle initiative, with contributions from Swift Beat.
The system uses Surveyor drones as airborne interceptors, with onboard sensors to track targets and the ability to operate autonomously or under remote control.
The interceptors can destroy enemy unmanned aircraft through direct impact or a proximity-detonated explosive warhead.
The Army procured additional Merops systems in partnership with the JIATF-401, which procured 13,000 of the interceptors. The effort also progressed from providing the capability to NATO partners to supplying mobile Merops firing teams to a second theater, presumably CENTCOM.
Costs are estimated about $15,000 per interceptor with larger orders could push price down to $3,000-$5,000.
”Merops is an example of how we can move fast when we need to. A senior commander said ‘I want this capability in the hands of our partners within 14 days’, and I said we’ll figure it out.” COL Christopher Hill, Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate (G-TEAD) Director
The Army’s Plan For Employing LUCAS Drones Against Its Adversaries
BLUF: America’s adoption of long-range one-way attack munitions like LUCAS is evolving quickly. Training on how to fold these relatively low-cost, but potentially highly destructive systems into a joint force playbook for targeting adversaries on land and at sea, from the Pacific to Europe, and anywhere in between, continues.
LUCAS made its official combat debut in the opening phases of major combat operations against Iran earlier this year.
The pusher-propeller, combustion-engine-powered kamikaze drones, which are employed from static launchers that can be positioned on the ground or installed on ships, and with the help of a small rocket booster, were subsequently praised as “indispensable” by America’s top commander in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, the Army brought the 7th Infantry and the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force together under the umbrella of what it now calls the Multi-Domain Command-Pacific (MDC-PAC).
The Army’s MDTFs, of which there are now four, have been at the leading edge of fielding new long-range strike and other advanced capabilities.
Damaging or destroying radars, comms antennas, and other subsystems could severely degrade a ship’s combat effectiveness and increase its vulnerability to follow-on attacks.
“As we start modeling out what it looks like to be able to penetrate a portion of the A2/AD network in support of the joint task force in the PACOM area of operations, we started looking at, well, how do I achieve mass at a cost curve? What effect am I really trying to achieve on a system in order to provide that window of opportunity for that joint force commander?”Maybe I don’t necessarily need to sink a ship, but if I take out certain systems on that vessel, well then it creates this temporal window opportunity. Then that joint force commander can surge in that carrier strike group or bomber task force.” MG Bernard Harrington, MDC-PAC Commander
Army Names Five Winners of 2nd Annual Tech Competition
BLUF: Army announced five winners of their xTech|Disrupt Endurance competition. The five winning companies are:
United Protective Technologies | Our Next Energy Inc. | Chariot Defense | PacMar Technologies | Harbinger Praesidia
90 companies were given one-minute pitches to judges on power generation and storage solutions. Eighteen finalists then pitched their solutions before the winners were selected.
Each winner will receive $100K and an opportunity to participate in an upcoming Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center experimentation event in Hawaii.
“The competition has been a crucible for rapid innovation. Our mission is to foundationally rewire the speed of defense innovation. We are disrupting the slow, rigid legacy structures that have been inherent in the DoW for many, many years.” Matt Willis, Army FUZE Director
Army Integrates EW Systems for Enemy Signal Disruption
BLUF: The Army has demonstrated how three EW and cyber technologies can work together to identify hostile communications and disrupt them using software-driven radio-frequency effects, potentially shortening the time needed to counter adversary signals on the battlefield.
The demonstration, led by the Army’s DEVCOM C5ISR Center took place at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.
Soldiers from the 11th Cyber Battalion participated in the exercise, which connected three previously separate programs for the first time.
The integrated system combines the Tactical Development Kit (TDK), Tactical Radio Frequency Application Chassis (TRAC), and Warped Alloy software.
Together, they are designed to detect signals, analyze their characteristics, and generate electronic effects to interfere with adversary communications.
Army officials described the demonstration as a step toward a “develop once, deploy everywhere” framework for non-kinetic cyber and electromagnetic effects.
The idea is to develop reusable software capabilities that can operate across compatible hardware platforms, reducing the need to build a separate solution for every new threat.
Army Sent Balloon Swarms to Middle East to Support CENTCOM Ops
BLUF: The Army gleaned a trio of observations about how those balloons operated, but it is not yet clear what path they will pursue when it comes to stratospheric sensing capabilities.
The Army has tested out high-altitude balloons multiple times in the last few decades, and the service has revived the push to deploy them in recent years for added battlefield sensing and communications.
Army was looking to experiment with over a hundred high-altitude balloons in the skies over waters in the Indo-Pacific in 2026. While that didn’t come to fruition, smaller balloon swarms were used in CENTCOM.
“We were asked to pivot and do some experimentation in combination with operations, and we pivoted and supported operations in CENTCOM. They were effective for the mission that they were assigned.” Andrew Evans, G2 Strategy and Transformation Director
How Autonomous Weapons Are Changing the Way Brigades Fight
BLUF: Autonomy becomes consequential not when the Army adds an individual robotic system, but when it has enough autonomous systems, performing enough missions, to change how an entire brigade fights.
During Project Sandhills 2.0, soldiers planned flight routes and operated Bumblebee V2 small unmanned aircraft systems at Range 63.
The project tested how unmanned systems could support contested obstacle breaching, while soldiers and industry partners collected feedback to inform future Army capabilities.
The Army said the effort included autonomous trucks, robotic breaching payloads, drone swarms, mine detection and counter-UAS tools operating on the same problem.
The Army FY26 budget justification includes an “Autonomy Formation” effort intended to accelerate robotics for armored and infantry formations.
Acting SECARMY directed the establishment of FASCOM.
Army Research Lab studied 13 soldiers operated a mixed air-ground formation during a two week simulation. Researchers found that the formation adapted rapidly, developed effective coordination patterns and maintained stable subjective workload as mission complexity increased.
A brigade cannot scale autonomy if every unmanned vehicle requires a soldier continuously controlling it.
The Army must determine how many systems formations can absorb, how soldiers should supervise them, how networks can support them under attack and what happens when a machine encounters circumstances its programming does not anticipate.
The Army is now aligning its organizations, acquisition efforts and training around that broader push.
The unresolved question is whether those efforts can produce something more difficult than a successful demonstration: a repeatable way for a brigade to see, survive, sustain and maneuver when an adversary is actively disrupting its communications and attacking its forces.
Army Redesignates Futures Command as FASCOM
BLUF: The Army will redesignate its Futures and Concepts Command as the Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command (FASCOM), placing responsibility for integrating autonomous capabilities across its warfighting functions under a new three-star command.
General Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s vice chief of staff and acting chief of Staff, selected the command for redesignation following Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle’s 1 October autonomous initiatives memo.
FASCOM will pioneer operational concepts that harness autonomous capabilities across all warfighting functions.
FASCOM will consolidate work undertaken by the Combat Capabilities Development Command, Medical Research and Development Command, 75th Innovation Command, Joint Modernization Command and Transformation Decision Analysis Center.
The command will support the newly established PAE for Autonomy, which is tasked with accelerating the integration of autonomous technologies.
XVIII Airborne Corps will test autonomous aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as lift companies, while 8th Army will examine the pairing of crewed and uncrewed rotary-wing aircraft.
Army Expands Drone Marketplace to 33 Nations
BLUF: The Army’s online marketplace for rapid drone acquisition is expanding internationally.
The total number of participating nations to 33. The marketplace was launched in March 2026 with nine European signers and continues to grow across regional allies and partners.
Since the marketplace was stood up, it has processed $800M in transactions.
The marketplace is intended to deliver validated commercial capability to U.S. and partner forces at speed.
Soldiers can browse and purchase UAS equipment based on specific tactical needs, evaluate system performance data and provide operator feedback.
The Days of Army Air Defense Systems Firing Just One Type of Interceptor Are Ending
BLUF: The Army is pursuing an increasingly diverse array of new anti-air interceptors for use with existing launchers and new architectures.
Army now has at least five named programs seeking new anti-air interceptors of various tiers to collectively address everything from advanced hypersonic missiles to small weaponized drones.
Low Cost Interceptor (LCI). Develop a lower-cost Patriot interceptor priced at no more than $1M per missile, compared with approximately $4M for PAC-3 MSE.
Next-Generation Short-Range Interceptor (NGSRI). Replace the Stinger missile with a modern interceptor compatible with existing man-portable and vehicle-mounted launchers.
Next-Generation Counter-UAS Missile (NGCM). Develop a new counter-drone missile compatible with existing Coyote interceptor launchers. AeroVironment’s Freedom Eagle-1 was previously selected.
Second Interceptor (IFPC). Develop an additional interceptor for the Enduring Shield/Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 system, improving cruise missile defense beyond the AIM-9X Sidewinder. Lockheed Martin and Boeing/Anduril are competing.
Future Interceptor. Develop a higher-performance Patriot interceptor capable of defeating hypersonic missiles and other advanced upper-tier threats.
In the process, an important central theme is emerging: the service’s days of fielding air defense systems that can only use one type of interceptor look to be increasingly over.
For the U.S. military, the impacts from the war with Iran have made clear that diversifying munitions stockpiles and supplier bases is no longer just valuable, it is critical.
“We have to address the threat, and we need to address the threat in a complementary way, meaning we need to fight on a cost curve that’s affordable for the U.S. Army to maintain and sustain that warfighting capability abroad.” LTG Frank Lozano, PAE Fires
Army Building Up New Space Operations Branch
BLUF: The Army has long been dependent on space capabilities to navigate terrain, communicate in hard-to-reach areas, and identify and strike targets. Now, the Army wants to deepen its space operations expertise and is making plans to expand its own cadre of operators in the coming years.
In June, the Army established a Space Operations Branch, consolidating space-related career paths and created to train Soldiers to operate and deploy space systems.
The 600 transfers were reclassified as 40D Tactical Space Operations Specialists, the Army’s Military Occupational Specialty code for space troops—uniting them with 40A Space Operations Officers.
“Training, education, experience, and talent management is how you create great leaders, and that’s how you build great units with great leaders. It became apparent to the Army that in order to capitalize on the momentum, the gains that we’ve made in Army space-delivered capabilities, we need to professionalize the branch and do it fast.” LTG John Rafferty, Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command
The sUAS Tactical Trifecta
BLUF: The Army is buying commercial drones faster than ever, but without a resilient data layer at the tactical edge it will repeat the OEF/OIF failures in airspace control, fires clearance, and the COP.
The Army must stop treating drone hardware as isolated islands and require a horizontal data integration layer at the tactical edge, whatever the platform class, to solve the trifecta of airspace command and control (AC2), rapid fires clearance, and a COP built on actionable intelligence.
The UAS Marketplace launched in March 2026 with 36 systems and is growing to hundreds. Units buy kits with decentralized funds, but proprietary software and controllers leave them with a patchwork of drones that can’t share data (the COTS Dilemma).
No single PAE owns Army-wide AC2 requirements across siloed systems (AMDWS, TAIS, AFATDS, DCGS-A, and eventually NGC2), putting fires clearance, situational awareness, and MUM-T at risk.
1BCT, 82nd ABN units in Operation Epic Fury report crippling delays from routing data to the cloud and back. A recent ONS called for edge compute hardware at Launch and Recovery Sites for real-time processing without reach-back, supported by self-healing mesh and multi-path routing.
Recommendations: enforce MOSA and a universal right to integrate, open APIs (building on Operation Jailbreak) to feed NGC2, edge compute at Launch and Recovery Sites and above, and edge data replication so intelligence survives first contact and EW jamming.
Our Take on AUSA: AUSA showcased a Department increasingly aligned on autonomy, affordable mass, open architectures, and portfolio-based acquisition. The challenge is no longer defining the direction of reform, but demonstrating that new organizations, authorities, and industry partnerships actually accelerate the delivery of operational capability. The real scorecard will be competitive production, faster technology insertion, and the ability to adapt and scale what works. We enjoyed connecting with many of you this week.
Other Army News:
Army Targets 2028 for First High-Energy Laser Counter-Drone Weapons
Army Wants High-Energy Laser Weapons It Can Put on Any Vehicle in the Motorpool
Army modernizes aging rail fleet with new locomotives and track equipment
Army, Kaizen Laboratories to establish common software platform for classified material
Army Task Force Partners With Acquisition Directorate to Accelerate Counter-Drone Tech in Africa
See the video section below for many AUSA speakers and panels.
Ship-to-Shore Connector That Can Enable Access to 80% of World’s Coastline to be Delivered to Navy
BLUF: The Navy is expected to get two Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC) craft. For this, Textron Systems was awarded a contract modification valued at $230M by the Navy.
The SSCs are designed to deliver mission-ready capability, moving over tides, terrains and obstacles, enabling access to 80% of the world’s coastline.
SSC’s core mission is to move personnel and material off amphibious ships.
Compared to legacy platforms, the SSCs feature core design enhancements that increase payload size and speed, while streamlining the number of operators and logistics, such as extending the time between overhauls.
Textron Systems has delivered 18 craft to the Navy with 13 additional craft currently in various stages of testing and production.
Acting SECNAV Appoints Christopher Miller to Lead RAS Portfolio
The appointment comes as the DoN fundamentally modernizes its defense acquisition architecture through the establishment of Portfolio Acquisition Executives to deliver decisive combat power at operational speed and scale.
By centralizing full cradle-to-grave lifecycle authority under empowered, single-point leaders, the PAE construct removes bureaucratic friction and integrates technical development, contracting, and long-term sustainment across nine critical warfare domains.
This streamlined operational alignment ensures that integrated, next-generation capabilities reach deployed Sailors and Marines without unnecessary delays.
Within PAE RAS, the Navy unifies the acquisition, development, and sustainment of robotic and autonomous capabilities spanning the air, surface, undersea, and ground domains, bringing previously fragmented efforts together under a single, coordinated portfolio.
“Our priority is accelerating the delivery of a lethal hybrid fleet to the warfighter. By managing these systems as a unified portfolio, we are opening the door to commercial technology partners, eliminating duplicative overhead, and fast-tracking capability from design to deployment.” Chris Miller, DRPM/PAE RAS
Navy Drone Lands Autonomously on Moving Ship Without GPS
BLUF: The Navy demonstrated a new capability designed to enable unmanned aircraft to operate and recover aboard ships in GPS-denied environments, advancing efforts to expand autonomous operations at sea.
Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) demonstrated that an unmanned system can navigate its mission and land aboard a Navy ship without GPS or pilot control.
The live-flight demonstration proved that a tactical drone can fly mission tasks and execute recoveries on a pitching vessel at sea – even when satellite navigation is jammed or unavailable – by using its own commercial-standard cameras, motion sensors, and electronics.
Traditional UAS landings rely on multimillion-dollar radar systems and specialized flight deck recovery equipment. Installing this hardware can require ship modifications that take months to complete.
NAWCAD’s software-based approach eliminates the need for this specialized hardware. It combines onboard sensors, such as cameras, with advanced guidance, navigation, and control software developed by the warfare center’s lab.
“By developing a modular adaptable system and putting it directly onto a UAS, we expand where and how the fleet can deploy unmanned systems with a simple software upgrade rather than expensive modifications to space-constrained ships.” Peter Arslanian, NAWCAD aerospace engineer
3D Printed $1,000 Fix That Replaces $200,000 Submarine Alteration
BLUF: The USS Pasadena (SSN 752), a Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine, crew sent an Blueye X3 remotely operated vehicle (ROV) out of a flooded torpedo tube. A 3D printed watertight enclosure kept the vehicle linked to the boat throughout. The setup cost less than $1,000 to build. The alternative it replaced runs to about $200,000 per boat.
The Navy’s Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity (SIMA) additive manufacturing team designed an enclosure for the job and produced it on a Formlabs Form 4L using Rigid 10K resin.
Technicians in the SIMA 2M Shop then fitted low-voltage cabling into the printed part and tied it into the ROV’s tether.
Blueye Robotics helped mate that harness to the Blueye controller.
Apart from the printed enclosure, every component was either off-the-shelf cabling or hardware the command already held.
Navy Accepts Next-Generation Aircraft to Modernize Strategic Communications
BLUF: The aircraft will serve as the host platform for the Navy's next-generation "Take Charge and Move Out" mission system, providing survivable, reliable and secure communications among the president, SECWAR, and STRATCOM.
This modernized capability ensures the nation's nuclear C3 architecture remains resilient and reliable.
The updated platform also delivers the enhanced endurance, capacity and operational reach necessary to support mission success in complex global environments.
Navy’s Destroyer Tests Air Defenses With Two Nordic Allies in Baltic
BLUF: U.S., Finnish, and Swedish naval personnel tested joint targeting procedures while navigating the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia.
The USS Paul Ignatius, a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer, conducted live-fire drills and air-defense exercises with Finnish and Swedish crews while transiting the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia.
These exercises tested how the three allies could work together in naval operations and target engagement. They were also part of larger U.S. and Nordic maritime activities across northern Europe and the North Atlantic.
Navy Seeks Information on SSN(X) Next Gen Submarine
BLUF: The Director Submarine Programs and PMS 351 published a Sources Sought Notice on SSN(X) seeking information from industry on manufacturing capabilities for the submarine meant to succeed the vaunted Virginia-class fast attack boats.
The notice represents one of the initial steps of getting a program off of the drawing board and into the manufacturing cycle, preceding the likely service entry date of the new class of submarines by over a decade.
The Navy also seeks information on yard availability, workforce skill and availability, and the presence of key elements such as advanced machine tooling, floating dry docks, and a crane system capable of lifting entire submarine compartments into place.
Other Navy News:
Marine Corps Eyes Expanded OTAs Amid Acquisition Reform
BLUF: Marine Corps acquisition reforms are driving increased use of OTAs to accelerate technology development and expand industry partnerships.
Other transaction authorities (OTAs) have been the in-vogue way for the DoW to prototype and develop new technology for more than a decade, but with acquisition reform underway, the Marine Corps expects to dramatically increase their use across its portfolio.
Instead of contract programs, officials are structuring acquisitions around portfolio bands like Fires & Maneuver, Command & Control or Robotics & Autonomous Systems, among others, and identifying areas where new technology tools can fill capability gaps and work across several platforms.
It also means the Marine Corps, as well as other armed forces, are actively making it easier for industry to engage them when it comes to acquisition, especially with DOW’s focus on procuring commercial technology tools.
The Marine Corps also offers quarterly innovation days where capability portfolio managers brief companies on the key operational problems they are looking for technology to solve.
Along with this acquisition innovation has come the increased focus on OTAs, which move faster than traditional contract programs and allow agencies to prototype and iterate solutions.
“I would say four or five years ago we weren’t much into OTs, CSOs, those kind of things. Obviously we changed that approach. We are probably 10-20% now, and that’s growing because we’ve been mandated in many cases to consider commercial solutions first and go with OTs.” Stephen Bowdren, PAE Marine Corps
Our Take: Yes! This is the way. Engaging industry to share operational problems, rapidly iterating with industry to prototype then produce solutions.
The Marines’ MADIS Air Defense System Is Getting a Driverless Ride
BLUF: The Marine Corps is looking to give its Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) an autonomous boost with IBEX, a new ground vehicle developed by Overland AI.
IBEX can reach speeds exceeding 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour) and travel up to 250 miles (402 kilometers) on a single tank of diesel or JP-8 fuel.
It also supplies 5 kilowatts of export power to onboard mission equipment, helping address power shortages at forward battlefield positions.
Designed for austere conditions, IBEX can autonomously navigate complex terrain in denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) environments.
MADIS is a short-range air defense system designed to counter aerial threats, including drones and low-flying aircraft.
It combines radar, missiles, and C2 capabilities to detect, track, and engage threats.
Marine Corps Launches New Challenge Asking Marines to Build Apps the Entire Force Can Use
BLUF: The Marine Corps has officially opened a second Innovation Challenge to the force. Marines and Department of the Navy civilians can now register on the Innovation Challenge Portal, form teams, and build unclassified software tools against problems submitted by commanders and staff.
Most of the tools from round one came out of II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) and were built to kill routine staff work: readiness charts, training trackers, duty rosters, and sourcing boards.
Headquarters is prioritizing problems tied to the Commanding General’s Inspection Program (CGIP), though other issues can still be submitted at a lower priority.
F-47 Sixth-Generation Fighter: How 1,000-Nautical-Mile Range Could Reshape Air Force Superiority
BLUF: The Air Force is developing the F-47 sixth-generation fighter with a planned combat radius exceeding 1,000 nautical miles which is about 70% greater than the F-22 and nearly 50% greater than the F-35A Lightning II.
Designed to offer significantly improved survivability, advanced lethality, and rapidly upgradeable combat systems, the new aircraft aims to extend air superiority operations deep into heavily defended airspace.
The additional range also enables a reduced dependence on vulnerable forward air bases and aerial refueling aircraft.
Combat radius is the distance an aircraft can travel from its base, complete its mission, and return, depending on mission conditions and fuel requirements.
Related Article: F-47 Sixth-Generation Fighter 1,000 Nautical Mile Combat Radius
50 DAF Battle Network Programs Rolled into Single, $4.5B Megatron Contract Vehicle
BLUF: The Air Force is consolidating more than 50 programs supporting its efforts to create a vast battle network into a single $4.5B “Megatron” contract vehicle to streamline software and technology integration.
Megatron combines two current IDIQ contracts: the Advanced Battle Management System IDIQ and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s architecture and integration directorate’s XA IDIQ.
But even with two large IDIQs, the Air Force had a problem. A company might bring a great concept to AFLCMC via the XA IDIQ but not have a contract under the ABMS IDIQ, creating a bottleneck between capability growth and deployment.
PAE C3BM intends to use the new Megatron contract to find the “best-of-breed” option across six lines of effort for the Battle Network:
Digital Architecture & Standards
Sensor Integration
Secure Data Processing (including Cloud, AI, and Machine Learning)
Network Connectivity (Line-of-Sight, Beyond-Line-of-Sight, and anti-jamming)
Software Applications
Synthetic Environments (computer-simulated training and development)
Our Take: We personally think this is a ridiculous approach for using an IDIQ when you could use flexible OT constructs to do exploration and prototyping and move into scaling when successful. An IDIQ is 10X more cumbersome in this regard and better for when you know what you want to buy. Also, isn’t Megatron the bad guy who gets killed by the Autobots and saves Earth?
Meink: Operational Prototypes for MMA Drones Coming in 2028
BLUF: Secretary Meink reaffirmed that the Air Force will field operational prototypes for an autonomous drone to replace its MQ-9 Reaper in 2028
MMA drones are intended to be able to fly about 4,000 miles, twice the range of CCAs, and carry a heavier payload than CCAs. But they will be slower than CCAs.
The Air Force and DIU want each MMA drone to cost $10M for the base aircraft, not counting the sensors, weapons, or other equipment it may carry.
That’s half the $20 million target price the Air Force envisions for CCAs. MMAs will also use open architecture so they could be more easily upgraded
“It’s in the scalability and the producibility. In many ways, cost goes with schedule. If something is super expensive, there’s a reason for it, which means it’s probably going to take a long time to build, so we’re really focusing on rapid production and scalability, which means we have to get the cost down on these systems as well.” Secretary Meink
Raytheon Awarded $8B Contract for Strategic Communications Terminal Modernization
BLUF: Air Force has awarded Raytheon an IDIQ contract with an $8B ceiling for developmental modernization, production restart services, and technical studies for the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center’s Strategic Communications Terminals.
Strategic communications terminals support protected communications for nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3).
These systems connect national command authorities with strategic forces, including transmitting Emergency Action Messages to military personnel responsible for nuclear operations.
Air Force Tests New Sentinel ICBM Reentry Vehicle
BLUF: The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center tested its new ICBM reentry vehicle Oct. 9, launching the developmental vehicle atop a Minotaur I rocket.
The Mk21A reentry vehicle, mated to the Sentinel ICBM, will eventually replace the Minuteman III as the land-based leg of the nation’s nuclear triad.
Carrying the new W87-1 nuclear warhead, it will launch atop the Sentinel blasting into space before reentering the atmosphere to strike its target.
The Mk21A is based on the Mk21 reentry vehicle used on the Minuteman III.
A critical design review for the entire Mk21A system is planned by March 2027.
Related Article: Air Force Tests New Sentinel Reentry Vehicle
Air Force May Buy Land for 120 New Sentinel ICBM Silos
BLUF: The Air Force may wind up buying land to build 120 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos as part of its revamped infrastructure approach for the new Sentinel ICBM.
The program’s issues are not caused by the missile, but rather by the massive infrastructure and civil engineering work needed to build the systems it requires.
The Air Force is planning to buy up to 12 acres per silo with:
30 new launch silo sites around F.E. Warren AFB
30 new launch silo sites around Malmstrom AFB
60 new launch silo sites around Minot AFB
DoW’s Reorganization Problem Comes to Fightertown
Matt Russell and Michael Carvelli
BLUF: FEMA’s experience post-Katrina offers a lesson for Defense leaders: a new organization can help when leaders define the problem, assign authority, and measure results. Leaders should weigh those needs against the cost and disruption of a reorganization before changing reporting lines or creating new offices.
Organizational redesigns frequently fail to deliver their intended results.
Sears and Yahoo show how redesigns can leave deeper business problems unresolved and create additional work for employees.
Research on major organizational transformations identifies clear goals, executive accountability, employee involvement, communication, and sustained leadership as common conditions for success.
The Air Force’s Fightertown Alaska plan offers a timely test of how leaders can manage growth.
The program’s scale calls for clear governance across organizations and projects.
Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers leaders should identify who owns requirements, budget decisions, the integrated schedule, design changes, and dispute resolution.
Program leaders should also set clear ways for operators, maintainers, installation staff, designers, and builders to raise conflicts and reach decisions.
Fightertown Alaska can become a model for a disciplined defense investment when leaders connect governance to mission outcomes.
PAE for Missile Warning and Tracking and SDA Successfully Deliver Fourth Orbital Plane of Tranche 1 Satellites to Orbit
BLUF: The Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) for Missile Warning and Tracking (MWT), supported by the Space Development Agency, announced the successful launch of the fourth orbital plane of Tranche 1 (T1) Transport satellites.
This brings the total number of on-orbit T1 SVs to 84.
These T1 SVs will provide secure, low-latency, beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) resilient, survivable data transport capabilities in support of tracking advanced missile threats.
Tranche 1 will provide initial warfighting capability beginning in 2027.
This includes persistent regional tactical data links, enhanced MT/MW, beyond-line-of-sight targeting, and user connectivity enabled by both tactical optical and Ka-Band links– aligned to combatant command warfighting priorities.
“This launch marks the delivery of satellites built by the third of four vendors selected to field Tranche 1 of the proliferated LEO architecture. SDA’s model emphasizes regular industry competition and vendor diversity. Our focus remains on rapid delivery of capabilities to support warfighter needs.” GP Sandhoo, SDA Director and USSF PAE MWT
Our Take: The progress here is excellent to see. SDA has had a tough couple years so its encouraging to see this forward progress towards T1 going operational.
Space Force Activates Component Under Special Operations Command
BLUF: The Space Force has officially established its component to U.S. Special Operations Command, creating a ninth component charged with presenting space expertise to commanders in the field.
Standing up components under every unified combatant command has been a focus of the Space Force since its establishment in 2019.
To support future surge needs, components must grow to make sure that Guardian deployments don’t disrupt regular operations.
Our Take: While this is probably advisable in many cases given the Space Force move to missions that are more integrated with air (and other domain) operations, it still is working on its expansion and these component commands are usually staffed with senior commanders who bring hefty staffs with them. When does a small space element combined with support from the Delta commanders make more sense than a large formal command structure.
AFRL Partners with Virgin Galactic to Gather Data on Space Weather
BLUF: Space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced a new partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s space warfare directorate to collect and share space weather data from the company’s suborbital spacecraft.
The two-year cooperative research and development agreement will provide AFRL with key information about space weather to help researchers understand its impact on satellites and infrastructure that reside on orbit.
AFRL will evaluate the integration of sensor systems with Virgin Galactic’s next-generation SpaceShip to collect space weather data during flight.
Understanding space environmental and weather conditions—like solar flares and winds, coronal mass ejections, and geomagnetic storms—is important for government organizations and commercial firms alike.
SpaceShip’s suborbital flights offer a chance for AFRL to get more insight into a region where those conditions are perhaps less understood: the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, or MLT.
Situated between 60 and 110 km above the Earth, the MLT is too low for satellites to operate, but space weather there can disrupt GPS signals and communications.
Multi-Constellation Networks Need Multi-Constellation Ground Stations
BLUF: Rightly, the Pentagon has decided that the future of military satellite communications should not depend on one network or supplier. But putting more satellites into orbit is only half the job. The military also needs a simple way to connect to them from the ground.
But more satellites do not by themselves make a military network more resilient. Resilience means that, when one network fails, troops can still reach another. That depends as much on the equipment on the ground as on the satellites in orbit.
In places where those things are scarce, establishing another satellite network can mean adding more equipment that has to be carried, powered and taken care of.
But there are different kinds of value, and a multi-vendor system is only valuable in the broadest sense if the users can switch between networks from the ground.
By publishing a common optical communications standard and making it available to industry, the SDA has helped establish an ecosystem of compatible optical communications terminals.
The goal now is to build on the interoperability that the SDA has already helped to establish in space and extend that flexibility to optical ground networks.
Optical ground stations can be designed so as to accommodate a wide range of optical waveforms without replacing the underlying optical hardware.
This gives operators more freedom to connect with different satellite systems as their needs change.
The U.S. is building a more diverse satellite network; a flexible optical ground network would help it make full use of that investment.
Other Space Force News:
Lockheed’s New PAC-3 Edge Interceptor Aims for Agility
BLUF: The latest iteration of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 family of missile interceptors is designed to bring extreme agility to bear against a diverse array of missile threats.
This missile is capable of being launched from the traditional M903 launcher, containerized launchers that are being sought after domestically and internationally, as well as LM’s new HIMARS FLEX.
The Edge system is longer and features a larger diameter, increasing its range from the current PAC-3 MSE that is fielded.
While the PAC-3 MSE uses a two-pulse solid rocket motor to approach moving targets, the new system has multi-pulse motor designed by Northrop Grumman.
The weapon is designed not only for unprecedented maneuverability but to be easily integrated with both present and future missile defense networks.
The company intends to begin testing the PAC-3 Edge in 2027 and have it ready to deploy by 2031.
“It also goes higher in altitude and has more agility. It has attitude control motors, which are located near the front of the missile and basically divert the missile in flight. This has additional attitude control motors that give it additional agility. It has a third pulse to the motor, so that means the motor will fire three times during its flight, giving it additional agility to kill the target.” Jason Reynolds, VP and GM of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Integrated Air and Missile Defense
NORTHCOM’s Joint Task Force-Gold to Coordinate Cyber Warfare for Golden Dome
BLUF: US Northern Command’s (NORTHCOM) task force (JTF-Gold) for coordinating Golden Dome homeland air and missile defense capabilities across the Joint Force has been newly charged with enabling related cyberwar capabilities.
JTF-Gold was stood up to operationalize Golden Dome for America (GDA) for USNORTHCOM and now sports about 100 personnel.
To that end, JTF-Gold held a large “planning sprint” in February.
The head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) — a position held since April by Lt. Gen. John Rafferty — would be double-hatted as leader of the the task force, and co-located with SMDC at Peterson SFB, Colo.
Related Article: Meet the Task Force Trying to Turn Golden Dome Into Reality
Yes, A Ukrainian Unit Whipped an American Armored Brigade – But Don’t Forget to Read Between the Lines
Francis Ambrogio
BLUF: Multiple news sources reported that an American armored brigade combat team was “smashed” by drone operators from the Ukrainian Army’s 412th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade, known as “Nemesis.”
Some commentators immediately took to the internet to proclaim that this was “proof that NATO warfare is obsolete.
Yes, the Ukrainians performed impressively which makes sense as they have been fighting, and continue to fight, a high-intensity war that is at the cutting edge of military technology and tactics.
Nemesis used its modern tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) against U.S. formations that were not entirely prepared to counter them.
At the same time, it is crucial to keep something in mind: this occurred at one of the U.S. Army’s Combat Training Centers (CTCs), whose entire purpose is to test units in a simulated, largely free-play environment under realistic conditions.
The whole point of pitting an American unit against a living, thinking opponent in a free-play training scenario – in this case, Nemesis – is to force real-time decision making, test systems and processes, and cultivate useful experience.
Thus, the news of Nemesis’s shellacking of an American brigade should, in no way, cause one to sniff at the U.S. Army’s quality. The training event was meant to do exactly what it did.
Western militaries have modernization front of mind and actively engage their Ukrainian counterparts to learn from them. Despite the inertia of bureaucracy and entrenched market actors, the direction of movement is clear.
Ukraine Is Building a Patchwork Antiballistic Defense, One Stopgap at a Time
BLUF: Ukraine is scrambling to secure enough Patriot interceptors to stop Russian ballistic missiles this winter, piecing together allied stockpile transfers, new production agreements and a homegrown interceptor program as quickly as possible.
Ukraine is also bracing for another winter of Russian strikes on its energy grid, a campaign that increasingly relies on jet-powered Shahed drones too fast for most of the cheap interceptor drones Ukraine has used to stop older models.
The faster drones force Ukraine to expend scarce and expensive missiles just as it tries to conserve Patriot ammunition for ballistic threats — the only reliable option against Russia’s even harder-to-stop ballistic missiles.
Civilian casualties in Ukraine have risen monthly throughout most of 2026 with long-range missiles and drones causing 47% of the toll.
Kyiv is assembling a patchwork of antiballistic air defense solutions, each piece on a different clock:
Rounds transferred from allied stocks for this winter
Imported systems and licensed production that will begin to matter over the next several years
Freyja, a Ukrainian-European interceptor still in development.
Freyja is a Ukrainian-designed ballistic interceptor built around Fire Point’s FP-7.X missile, including an interceptor, launcher, radar and C2 network.
It’s priced at ~$1M per round, about one-quarter of the cost of a PAC-3 MSE, and designed to plug into NATO-standard radars and fielded command posts.
“Ukraine is ready not only to produce ballistic missile interceptors for its own needs, but also to strengthen the United States and its allies through joint production.” President Zelenskyy
Lockheed Eyes Fresh PAC-3 Interceptor Production Options for Ukraine, Europe
BLUF: Lockheed Martin is weighing new industry partnerships to produce urgently needed PAC-3 Patriot interceptors in Europe, an avenue that could also help fill Ukraine’s shortfalls including the use of their new more affordable interceptor ACE.
Lockheed announced development of an ACE variant during the summer, billing it as a cheaper option (half the cost of an MSE missile) designed to go against sophisticated missiles.
The new interceptor will make do with a single-pulse motor, compared with a dual-pulse of the MSE interceptor, and utilize a blast fragmentation warhead, versus the direct hit-to-kill mechanics of the MSE missile.
Germany is among the countries where leaders have offered to host PAC-3 production. Raytheon, in partnership with MBDA, already makes the PAC-2 product line in the country.
“From a PAC-3 perspective, we’re absolutely willing to talk to Ukraine. It’s really a matter of what’s their industrial capability, what’s the parts availability, those types of things,” he continued. “It might be something like an ACE, as opposed to an MSE, that we would start with for Ukraine. The first question is, ‘Can we build a factory that’s survivable in a war zone?”
US-Norwegian Startup Heaviside Launches Tyr Loitering Munition
BLUF: Heaviside, a two-year-old US-Norwegian drone startup, has joined the competition for low-cost, expendable drones with its Tyr loitering munition.
Norwegian defense firm Nammo provides Tyr’s anti-tank warheads, which are all derived from the company’s M72 LAW series.
They also provide a test range where Heaviside can not only fly its Tyr prototypes but use live explosives on practice targets.
Tyr has successfully flown to and detonated targets in Norwegian winter weather of 20 degrees below zero.
Tyr is still on the small end for drones, easily portable by a single soldier and weighing in at roughly 15 pounds.
A third of that is warhead with enough explosive power to kill a main battle tank like the Russian T-72 or T-80.
The price is expected to be “way under $100,000” with extensive use of COTS components to keep costs down and supply chains robust.
Germany Changes Course on Plans to Buy MQ-28 Drone Wingman
BLUF: The German Ministry of Defence has formally notified Boeing that it will not be directly procuring the company’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone wingman.
Germany has set a target of 2029 to field them, which would make it the first European country to reach that milestone, but that timeline looks to be in doubt.
Politico stated that Berlin will wait until the early 2030s for the capability to arrive, with aircraft tests starting in 2027. The tests are a chance for other competitors and Boeing to fight to be selected for the CCA acquisition.
A host of other companies are likely to offer their wares, including Germany’s Helsing with its CA-1 Europa which is due to be ready for operations by 2029.
Under a partnership between Airbus and US manufacturer Kratos, the U740-Valkyrie is also set to compete to be Germany’s CCA.
Polish Defense Minister Calls for US Industry to Establish European Facilities
BLUF: Poland’s national defense minister is calling on Europe to develop an “enduring, predictable” alliance with the US, encompassing information exchange, military capabilities and defense industry collaboration.
Relocating production lines and maintenance facilities to Europe, for instance, for Patriot missiles and systems, is crucial for the independence of both the United States and Europe.
At a strategic level, he also declared that Poland is stronger with Washington’s backing.
Taiwan Coast Guard Receives First Batch of V-BAT UAVs From Shield AI
BLUF: Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has taken delivery of the first V-BAT uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) from US defence technology firm Shield AI and its Taiwanese partner, Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC).
The initial arrival marks the start of a scheduled delivery of twelve V-BAT systems over the coming months under the CGA’s “Shipborne UAV” programme.
The CGA selected the V-BAT following a competitive tender in July 2026.
The vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) design allows the aircraft to operate from vessels and remote sites without the need for runways, supporting persistent surveillance, coastal patrol, and law enforcement missions.
Shield AI states that the platform has an endurance of 12+ hours and can launch and recover without assistance from ship decks and other confined locations.
Large UUV Launched in Sweden
BLUF: The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) and the Swedish Armed Forces have successfully developed, built, and launched a demonstrator for a large uncrewed underwater vehicle (LUUV).
The demonstrator is intended to support the development and evaluation of future underwater capabilities and operate alongside existing naval platforms, including submarines.
Its development has used Saab’s software-centric approach and Autonomous Ocean Core, the company’s autonomous control system for surface and underwater vehicles.
North Korea’s 3,000-Ton Submarine Possibly Launched Two Strategic Cruise Missiles in East Sea
BLUF: North Korea has announced the successful test-firing of two types of strategic cruise missiles in the East Sea. The development signals progress in North Korea’s efforts to strengthen its submarine-based military capabilities and expand its nuclear deterrence strategy.
The missiles were launched on October 14. Experts believe the missiles may have been fired from the Hero Kim Kun Ok, a submarine in the 3,000-ton class that North Korea unveiled in September 2023.
Submarine-launched systems are particularly significant because they can introduce additional uncertainty into regional defense calculations.
Their effectiveness, however, depends on factors such as the operational reliability of the submarine, missile performance, communications, navigation and the ability to deploy the weapons under realistic conditions.
Other International News:
Exail Starts Production of Unmanned MCM System for Indonesian Navy
Sweden Formalizes Interim Submarine Training and Sodermanland Lease for Poland
Hellenic Navy Tests Saronic’s Corsair USV Ahead of Major Order
Even by Recent Standards, This Year’s CR Is a Disaster
BLUF: Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections, Congress must immediately pivot to securing stable funding for the military once they are over.
Another year, another temporary funding extension to keep the government running. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. However, at $400M to $1.7B in lost buying power per day, the consequences are.
This year’s continuing resolution is different and even more disruptive, wasteful and damaging than past CRs.
The Pentagon’s financial situation and pending emergency supplemental request.
Temporary funding levels that are significantly below current spending.
A post-midterm election lame duck session of Congress with a huge agenda and limited time.
DoW has a lot of unplanned bills from end-strength overage, operations in the Middle East and Caribbean, National Guard activation, fuel increases, and more.
The current 72-day CR holds spending to the 2026 baseline budget level, which is more than $150B below current spending and $633B below the FY27 request.
All legislative action, including the three funding measures and the annual policy bill for the military, is now waiting for the post-midterm lame duck session which is likely to start on November 9, with only about six weeks until Christmas.
The best-case scenario for this session would be a pre-adjournment bipartisan budget agreement that fully funds defense at the base budget level of $1.1T, plus a measure that includes both supplemental and reconciliation priorities.
The worst case? A year-long CR with no supplemental or reconciliation relief for the military.
Congress must pass an emergency supplemental spending bill, and approve any relevant remaining reprogramming actions to solve immediate cash flow problems.
Congress must approve the full FY27 defense budget request, in any package of regular annual appropriations and reconciliation spending bills that can obtain the votes to land on the president’s desk quickly.
Congress must pass the annual defense policy bill to provide the Pentagon with required authorities and strategic direction that demonstrate Congress knows how to put first things first.
Our Take: We fully agree with Elaine. As we covered in our FY27 Budget Way Ahead post, it is vital for the Department, OMB, and Congress to get aligned ASAP to fund our national security.
Pass Trump’s Defense Budget
BLUF: The President requested a one-time increase in defense spending to $1.5T to allow the Pentagon to make necessary investments in drones, AI and space technologies while blunting real-time threats.
Congress shouldn’t treat FY27 as a routine budget cycle. Defense appropriations have become a political chew toy interrupted by CRs and funding lapses.
Between 1986 and 2026, defense spending fell from >6% of GDP to ~3%.
Rising personnel costs cut weapons procurement by roughly 75%.
The result is a portfolio dominated by “must pay” bills with little room to adapt to battlefield revolutions.
Either we focus on costly upgrades to manned platforms that could lock up funding for decades or we diversify into autonomous technologies and cheaper systems we can field at scale. We can’t afford both.
New money, spent wisely, works. When Congress approved reconciliation funding in 2025, Mr. Hegseth used an acquisition strategy focused on our military’s greatest comparative advantage: front-line troops.
The $1.1B Drone Dominance program, designed to boost domestic production through competition, is a clear example. Congress provided an advance-purchase commitment that encouraged hundreds of companies to compete.
Within a year, the Army and Marines plan to field 200,000 cutting-edge drones at one-tenth of what they cost in 2024.
In the early 1980s, Congress enabled President Reagan to rebuild our military and restore deterrence by funding new capabilities. The defense budget request is 4.4% of GDP, a third less than Reagan’s.
Our Take: West is right that the force cannot fund both locked-in manned upgrades and a scalable autonomous portfolio. The House mark cut Procurement $9.2B below the request and left most of the $350B reconciliation priorities (DAWG, Golden Dome, Space-Based AMTI, munitions, and industrial preparedness) without meaningful base-bill backfill, while protecting several large legacy funding lines. With no Senate mark, no topline agreement, much work is left to get done to pass the FY27 defense budget.
Our full analysis of the request’s status and the potential ways ahead is here, and the line-level House mark heading into conference with recommendations is here.
See our NDAA and budget posts for the latest insights and analysis.
How Technologists Can Deliver on America’s Most Important Missions |
Scott Kupor, Joe Lonsdale, and Emil Michael
AUSA’s Coffee Series | HON Brent Ingraham
A Conversation with Palmer Luckey
AIAA
Army Pathway for Innovation and Tech | COL Daiyaan, Dr. Willis, and Mr. Moore
Smarter Acquisition Enterprise Contracts | Danielle Moyer, Gabe Chiulli, Brendan Burke, Whit Wright
Army CSOs Getting Innovation at Speed | John Jolokai, Danielle Moyer, Tonico Beope, Meagan Metzger
Integrated Autonomy into Warfighting | LTG Mac McCurry, BG Anthony Gibbs, Dr. Alex Miller, MG Pete Johnson, Dr. Jennifer McArdle
Project Flytrap: Accelerating Offensive Maneuver through Data-Centric Kill Web
Outcompeting China Through Technology, Industry, and Allied Power | Sen Dave McCormick
Future of U.S.-UK Defense Cooperation | UK Secretary of Defence Wes Streeting
Advancing the Space Force's Combat Capability | Lt Gen Dennis Bythewood, BGen Todd Benson, BGen Brian Denaro, and Col (Ret) Jennifer Reeves
Building the Arsenal: Speed, Scale, and Affordability
Counter UAS Indo-Pacific
SAE Media • Oct 19-20 • Honolulu, HI
MxD Summit 2026
Digital Manufacturing & Cybersecurity Institute • Oct 20-22 • Chicago, IL
Unmanned Technologies for Earth and Space (UTES)
Oct 26-27 • Sweden
Silicon Valley Space Week
Oct 27-29 • Mountain View, CA
TechNet Indo-pacific
AFCEA • Oct 27-29 • Honolulu, HI
Ironclad Maritime Summit
Oct 27 • Norfolk, VA
Portfolios Not Programs: Transitioning to New Paradigm with Matt and Pete
War U • Oct 28 @ 12 • Webinar
Critical Technologies Industry Day
OASW(CT) • Oct 30 • Alexandria, VA
Defense Conference
PSC • Oct 30 • Crystal City, VA or Virtual
Global MILSATCOM
SAE Media • Nov 2-5 • London, UK
Space+Defense Investor Summit
Teconic x Payload • Nov 3-5 • Beverly Hills, CA
Euronaval 2026
Nov. 3-6 • Paris, France
International Fighter Conference 2026
Nov. 3-5 • Berlin, Germany
AUVSI Defense
Nov 9-10 • Washington DC
Space and Satellites USA
Reuters • Nov 9-10 • Washington DC
Plan the quarter from the events page. It has the full year, so you can lock travel and decide which conferences are worth the pipeline before the calendar fills.
Palmer is 100% right, if we’re going to get the defence capacity we need, the industrial capacity (factories) cannot come only from the defence sector - it needs to come from the wider industrial sector, and multi purpose use factories.