Introduced by members of the committee’s bipartisan Foreign Arms Sales Task Force set up to investigate and help resolve existing acquisition hurdles, the six bills include provisions to incentivize domestic capabilities and munitions manufacturing, and expand other nations’ options to adopt American-made defense articles.

“We have to make sure the process that’s put in place is effective, it has the right level of accountability and that it delivers,” the task force’s chairman, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told DefenseScoop in an interview on Wednesday.

Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) refer to two methods the U.S. applies to sell and provide equipment, technology and services to other nations. FMS is a government-to-government process where the U.S. serves as an intermediary between a foreign country and a U.S. defense contractor, while DCS involves direct contracts between other nations and American vendors, with the U.S. government overseeing export controls and licensing. 

In the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and separate conflicts in the Middle East that emerged after Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, countries’ interest in buying U.S. weapons has grown substantially. 

According to data from the State Department, the U.S. transferred assets with a total value of $117.9 billion via the FMS system in fiscal 2024, which represented a 45.7% boost from the previous fiscal year — and at the time marked the highest-ever amount of sales and assistance America provided to foreign nations in the span of one year.

However, experts have raised increasing concerns in recent years about bureaucratic and modernization issues that increasingly plague these procurement processes, like lengthy requirements leading to delivery delays, complexities that result in a lack of oversight and transparency, and other obstacles that ultimately impact U.S. competitiveness.

“Unfortunately, what’s happening now is that our allies — we expect them to fight with us. And what happens is they pay for weapon systems upfront, but by the time that they get them, the weapon systems are going to be obsolete in many cases, because the battlefield is changing so rapidly. Particularly with [unmanned aerial vehicles] and autonomous weaponry and missile systems, by the time we get the equipment to them, it’s oftentimes obsolete,” Zinke said.

The U.S. industrial base for military hardware depends heavily on foreign military sales, he noted.

In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the government to essentially overhaul its current approach to transferring defense software and hardware. 

A few weeks before that, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., launched the FMS Task Force and named Zinke and Ranking Member Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., to lead it.

To shape the creation of their six new proposals, the task force heard from international partners, defense industry stakeholders, and U.S. government officials from multiple agencies to gain feedback on where there are needs for reform.

The overarching vision, Zinke said, was for the “working group to actually address how to restructure foreign military sales so it meets [the president’s] goals.”

According to a fact sheet viewed by DefenseScoop, the six task force-led measures that moved forward in Tuesday’s markup include: 

• Streamlining Foreign Military Sales Act — introduced by Zinke, and Rep. James Panetta, D-Calif.; would raise the Congressional Notification value thresholds to levels requested by the Trump Administration’s April mandate
• AUKUS Reform for Military Optimization and Review (ARMOR) Act — introduced by Dean and Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif.; seeks to “address a variety of impediments” to trilateral security partnership’s Pillar II implementation 
• ITAR Licensing Reform Act — introduced by Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash.; would codify the prioritization requirement in Trump’s directive by requiring the State Department to establish a list of priority partners and end users for DCS and creating a time-bound process for issuing such licenses. 
• Made-In-America Defense Act — introduced by Rep. Sheri Biggs, R-S.C.; would codify the FMS-only list review requirement in Trump’s order and direct the Departments of State and Defense to conduct an annual review of that list
• Missile Technology Control Review Act — introduced by Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas; would amend the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to allow for expedited defense trade with nations that the president determines to be eligible for an exemption
• Abraham Accords Defense Against Terror Act — introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; would reduce bureaucratic hurdles for regional partners that commit to fighting the threat posed by Iran and its proxies by creating an expedited formal review process for defense sales to these partners

When asked if he’s confident all of the proposals will pass through the full Senate, Zinke said “I think they’re necessary.”

He added that the task force has also been working closely with federal departments and human rights organizations to confront the potential for misuse, as the current process has been criticized for being difficult to monitor U.S. military equipment and associated civilian casualties.

“I think you need to make sure you have the authorities in place to do it. That means the decision process has to take in consideration things like the Leahy Act, child trafficking and child soldiers. There’s a lot of things in law that need to be, on a sale, absolutely adhered to,” Zinke told DefenseScoop.

After serving as a Navy SEAL from 1986 to 2008, he went on to become the first-ever SEAL elected to the House of Representatives — and the first to occupy a position in the Cabinet, when he was tapped as secretary of interior during the first Trump administration.

Drawing from his experiences as a Naval Special Warfare Officer, the congressman said he understands “how important currency is on the battlefield, and the currency is the best technology, because sometimes six months makes a difference.”

“What I saw [as a SEAL] was a system that was multiple departments with different objectives, unable to communicate with each other. That resulted in our allies paying for equipment upfront, oftentimes receiving obsolete equipment, but that equipment is most assuredly always late. With peacetime, you could take it out of the stockpile, right, because, you’re not shooting that much,” Zinke said, suggesting the U.S. supply chain is not presently equipped for wartime demands.

With that tenure, plus his time as a businessman, Zinke said he felt uniquely positioned to steer the FMS Task Force. He noted he has “excellent relationships” with Trump, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Congress should step up and do our part, making sure that there’s still transparency and oversight, because that’s Article One. And I think we can shake it up a little and present our recommendations to Hegseth and Rubio — which we’re doing — and then pass a series of bills to make sure that we update and get the authorities where necessary in order to, again, deliver on what we’re promising,” Zinke told DefenseScoop. 

The post Inside the congressional Foreign Arms Sales Task Force’s effort to spearhead reform appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The next-gen aircraft program, known as F/A-XX, has encountered funding shortfalls which are expected to slow down the initiative. The Navy delayed around $1 billion for the project in fiscal 2025 due to spending caps imposed by the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act. The Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal 2026 includes just $74 million in R&D funds for the effort — far less than the $454 million the service received in FY’25 and nearly $900 million less than the Navy had previously planned to spend in FY’26, according to budget documents.

As part of advance policy questions submitted to the nominee ahead of his confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Caudle was asked how the Navy would be able to maintain air superiority without fielding a next-gen fighter on its original timeline.

“Nothing in the Joint Force projects combat power from the sea as a Carrier Strike Group, which at the heart has a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN). To maintain this striking power, the CVN must have an air wing that is comprised of the most advanced strike fighters. Therefore, the ability to maintain air superiority against peer competitors will be put at risk if the Navy is unable to field a 6th Generation strike fighter on a relevant timeline. Without a replacement for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and E/A-18G Growler, the Navy will be forced to retrofit 4th generation aircraft and increase procurement of 5th generation aircraft to attempt to compete with the new 6th generation aircraft that the threat is already flying,” Caudle wrote in his response.

Defense Department officials are especially concerned about China’s military advancements, which include developing next-gen fighter aircraft that the U.S. Navy might have to go up against someday.

“The Navy’s ongoing efforts to maintain technological superiority will ensure our ability to challenge any adversary. Deterring and denying China will require an ‘All Hands on Deck’ approach from the Joint Force including the massing of lethal fires from the sea, which comes from carrier strike groups with the latest and most capable strike fighters,” Caudle told lawmakers

“The Navy has a validated requirement for carrier-based 6th generation aircraft, and it is critical that we field that capability as quickly as possible to give our warfighters the capabilities they need to win against a myriad of emerging threats,” he wrote.

Last month, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told lawmakers that he believes the requirement for a platform like the F/A-XX is “still valid.”

“As we look at the threat picture out in the Pacific, the requirements themselves I think are still valid. I think it comes down to a question that many of the folks on the committee have talked about, and that’s the ability [for industry] to produce at a particular time. And I’ll defer to my civilian leaders on the timing and synchronization [of] that program. But we do need, you know, capability that is mobile, whether it’s F/A-XX or others, that enable us to win on the battlefield to the future,” Caine said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

However, the Pentagon is prioritizing the development of the Air Force’s sixth-gen fighter, the F-47, to the tune of planning to spend $3.5 billion on the program in fiscal 2026. DOD officials have said they’re willing to slow down the Navy program due to concerns about the ability of the defense industrial base to handle two sixth-gen fighter programs simultaneously.

Trump in March announced the award of the prime contract for the F-47 to Boeing, but the prime contractor for F/A-XX still hasn’t been selected.

Navy officials have said the F/A-XX is expected to be extra stealthy, have significantly longer range than the fighter jets that are currently in the fleet, and incorporate AI capabilities.

Caudle noted that the service also plans to develop highly autonomous drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) to complement sixth-gen fighters and other Naval aviation platforms. He suggested the drones would be “multi-role capable.”

“It is too early to predict the exact mix of manned and unmanned aircraft. However, as autonomous systems demonstrate increasing capability and warfighting effectiveness, we intend to iterate to deploy the most effective combination of manned and unmanned aircraft to maximize the lethality, combat effectiveness, and range of the naval aviation combat power,” Caudle told lawmakers.

Trump nominated Caudle for the CNO role last month. In February, the president fired then-CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti without explanation. Adm. James Kilby has been serving as acting chief of naval operations.

Caudle, who is currently serving as commander of Fleet Forces Command, wasn’t a controversial pick for the top job and his nomination is expected to be confirmed by the Senate.

The post CNO nominee Adm. Caudle warns F/A-XX delays could jeopardize Navy’s air superiority appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The 30,000-pound GBU-57, also known as the MOP, played a key role in Operation Midnight Hammer last month. Air Force B-2 stealth bombers dropped 12 MOP bombs on two different ventilation shafts at Fordow. Another two were used against the Natanz site.

The technology is designed to be capable of attacking underground targets. It can reportedly hit locations hundreds of feet below ground level.

“MOP is a large, GPS-guided, penetrating weapon with the ability to attack deeply-buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels. The warhead case is made from a special high‑performance steel alloy and its design allows for a large explosive payload while maintaining the integrity of the penetrator case during impact,” according to an Air Force description of the system.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency was heavily involved in testing, modeling and simulation of the system for many years prior to Midnight Hammer, in partnership with the Air Force.

“What we do try to do is test [technologies] in what we call a ‘threat representative environment.’ And in this case, we built a test site to test the munitions against, in collaboration with the Air Force and DTRA’s test organization, to try to ascertain the effects that the MOP would have in certain environments. We’ve continued to do tests over time to then determine what those effects are, and then we use that information to support our modeling and simulation programs. Those models that we’ve built include the weapons effects that we saw during all of the testing events, and include a number of other factors that our experts have brought to bear. That model is also part of that targeting and weaponeering support that we talked about [with regard to Midnight Hammer]. So in addition to the threat representative testing that we did, where we were able to see how does the MOP act in certain situations and certain geographies and architectures, if you will, we also then use that information to support our further modeling and simulation to lead to our best targeting analysis to support those decision makers,” a senior defense official told reporters Thursday during a background call.

U.S. intelligence agencies are still working to complete a final battle damage assessment to better understand the impact of last month’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

“We don’t conduct the BDA here, but we eagerly anticipate the intelligence community completing BDA on this so that we can assess the models vice what actually happened according to their analysis, and then take a look at how accurate the projections were, so we can use information there to improve our modeling output and our targeting decision support packages that we put together. We also will be able to assess whether or not the weapon performed as planned, according to the BDA,” the senior defense official said.

“Then that information may go into future iterations of the technology,” they added. “We will take this information and determine did things work the way that we wanted them to, in which case, how can we continue to improve upon it? Or did things not work exactly as planned, and how can we fix that so that in the future our next-generation capabilities work that much better? We don’t have that information yet, but we look forward to receiving it so that it can inform our next investments in this arena.”

Notably, MOP fuzes can be programmed.

The bomb is “comprised of steel, explosive and a fuze, programmed bespokely [for] each weapon to achieve a particular effect inside the target. Each weapon had a unique desired impact, angle, arrival, final heading and a fuze setting. The fuze is effectively what tells the bomb when to function. A longer delay in a fuze, the deeper the weapon will penetrate and drive into the target,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told reporters last month during a press briefing about Midnight Hammer.

The Air Force is pursuing a MOP modification program to integrate a “smart fuze” capability into the weapon. The so-called Large Penetrator Smart Fuze is intended to provide “increased probability of kill” against hard and deeply buried targets “by mitigating the risk of target intelligence uncertainty,” according to a report from the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation.

On Thursday’s call, the senior defense official declined to say whether the MOPs used in Midnight Hammer were equipped with the smart fuze capability.

The post Battle damage assessment from Iran strikes could lead to improvements in MOP bomb technology appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Via its commercial solutions opening contracting mechanism, DIU is trying to find solutions that meet the U.S. military’s need for undersea kamikaze drones and UUVs that can be launched from submarines.

To address the first challenge, the organization is looking for hunter-killer systems that can be deployed from a government-provided platform or pier.

“The host vessels can either be surface or housed subsurface and most likely be uncrewed. The vehicle must be able to deliver a payload with the speed and endurance necessary to hone in and interdict a static or moving target,” per the solicitation for low-cost “undersea effectors.”

The Defense Department is aiming to acquire systems that are about 12.75 inches in diameter, 120 inches in length, and less than or equal to 800 pounds while equipped with government-furnished payloads.

To address the second challenge, DIU is also on the hunt for UUVs that can be launched and recovered via a torpedo tube without the need for drivers.

“The Vehicle should operate for at least 2 days and/or 120 nautical miles while operating with a payload,” officials wrote. “The proposed UUV should be able to support multiple communication pathways to the host submarine. Tethered options will be considered. Accurate long-range navigation systems limiting the need for GPS, transponders, or bottom lock is preferred.”

The system must not be more than 21 inches in diameter and 256 inches in length, according to the solicitation.

DIU noted that the DOD has a critical need for “affordable small and medium” UUVs that can perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and expeditionary missions.

“Current and legacy systems are designed to be multi-mission, exquisite systems requiring long production timelines, significant training, reconfiguration prior to mission, and technical experts to process data. However, there are situations where a single use, mission specific UUV can be more desirable to the end user in the kinetic, ISR, and expeditionary domains,” officials wrote.

DIU has played a major role in the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, which aims to add thousands of low-cost uncrewed systems and counter-drone platforms to the U.S. military’s arsenal. The solicitation released Wednesday didn’t explicitly say whether it was tied to Replicator efforts, but it appears to be focused on those types of technologies.

Industry responses to the solicitation are due July 24.

The DOD is looking to award other transaction agreements.

“Companies are advised that any prototype OT agreement awarded in response to this [effort] … may result in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of further competitive procedures. The follow-on production contract or transaction will be available for use by one or more organizations in the Department of Defense and, as a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the prototype OT,” officials wrote.

The post U.S. military is on the hunt for killer UUVs appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Nearly $20 million would go to air vehicle development and about $15 million to mission systems development and integration. The rest of the funding would be allotted for systems engineering, control segment development and integration, and development support.

Officials noted that the spending plan for 2026 increased since the last budget submission.

The project, known as MUX TACAIR increment 1, will leverage previous work that the Corps has done for its Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer-Portfolio (PAACK-P), which received funding in previous years under the Pentagon’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve initiative.

“We are experimenting with unmanned aircraft like the XQ-58 Valkyrie working alongside crewed platforms such as the F-35. Recent tests validated their ability to conduct electronic warfare, execute autonomous tasks, and support Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) missions — all of which improve the survivability and effectiveness of manned Marine aviation in high-threat environments,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith told members of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee in written testimony last month, adding that investments in collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs) and other technologies will reduce risk to personnel and increase the speed and accuracy of decision making.

The Marines want highly autonomous next-generation drones to serve as robotic wingmen that could take on high-tech foes such as China in places like the Indo-Pacific.

MUX TACAIR, or Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) unmanned aerial system expeditionary tactical aircraft, would be expected to support “mass buildup of a Joint Force against a peer/near-peer adversary,” according to budget documents, which noted that they could play a significant role in electronic warfare and reconnaissance missions.

“Project efforts focus on operations from austere Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations (EABO) airfields in support of Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) and/or Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) operations serving as the Stand in Force (SiF) for a Joint Force, providing lethal and flexible support to support from the land and sea. This project increases MAGTF lethality, capacity and interoperability in the reconnaissance and electronic warfare mission areas, complementing existing and future TACAIR capabilities and enhancing combat reach into the INDOPACOM Area of Responsibility (AoR), or wherever enhanced, stand-off lethality is needed by the Joint Force,” officials wrote in budget justification documents to support the fiscal 2026 funding request for research, development, test and evaluation.

The Marines plan to award up to three other transaction authority agreements to contractors before the start of the next fiscal year to support the program.

Prototyping and experimentation efforts slated for 2026 include expeditionary air vehicle components and subsystems focused on launch and recovery, conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) capability, electronic warfare subsystem and payload enhancements, interoperability via communications and datalinks, mission systems computing, command and control (C2) integration architecture interoperability, and open architecture applications, according to officials.

Demonstration of prototyping activities, including mission system integration and minimum viable product (MVP) flight tests teamed with crewed aircraft, “will maximize collaborative evaluation environments, which enable developmental and operational evaluation of prototypes and tactics development” by Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Four (UX-24) and Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One (VMX-1)) during fleet exercises as well as weapons and tactics instructor courses hosted by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1), according to budget documents.

Officials noted that the Corps plans to use a “spiral approach” to capability insertion for the program.

“MUX TACAIR Increment I will rapidly accelerate the time between development and fielding, ensuring rapid and relevant capability delivery of a Minimum Viable Product … to the warfighter,” per the budget documents. “Each spiral will have an associated MVP that is operationally relevant and balances schedule and technical complexity. The requirements within each MVP spiral will detail a minimum set of threshold capabilities required for training and tactics development with a unit of employment (e.g., fleet squadron).”

Development spirals will include enhancements in areas such as command and control, electronic warfare, mission computers and datalinks, according to officials.

Efforts in fiscal 2026 are expected to support an acquisition decision memorandum for Middle Tier of Acquisition rapid prototyping entry.

The Marines aren’t the only U.S. military service pursuing CCAs. The Air Force plans to spend $807 million in fiscal 2026 on its program.

Budget documents noted that the Marines will be “maximizing alignment” with Air Force and Department of the Navy CCA efforts “to reduce duplication and enhance interoperability through the use of compatible C2 implementations, mission systems, and common control architecture.”

The post Marine Corps requests more funding for collaborative combat aircraft development appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Navy officials revealed earlier this year that the sea service would be expanding operational tests and other deployments of small unmanned vessels around Naval Base Ventura County and the Ventura and Channel Islands harbors between April and August.

“An incident occurred at approximately 3:28 p.m. [local time] on June 23 within the Channel Islands Harbor Marina involving the overturning of a support boat by an unmanned vehicle that was being towed out of the harbor,” a spokesperson from Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) said. 

The area is considered somewhat of a hotspot for Navy-supporting autonomous technology development and demonstrations. It includes controlled and cornered off locations designed for the secure demonstration and refinement of uncrewed vessels of different types and sizes. 

Granted anonymity to speak freely, a source familiar with the June 23 incident raised concerns that the captain of the support boat appeared to be in danger after the towboat was overturned by the maritime drone.  

The NAVWAR spokesperson told DefenseScoop that the operator involved declined medical attention after they were recovered by the emergency responders.

“A preliminary investigation indicated that the unmanned vehicle received an inadvertent command that turned the engine on, causing the towed vehicle to accelerate past and capsize the support boat. As a result, the training activity immediately held a safety stand-down with all members of the activity and is implementing additional safety procedures,” the spokesperson said.

They did not respond to follow-up questions regarding whether the “inadvertent command” that resulted in the flip came from a human or technical malfunction.

NAVWAR spokespersons also declined to confirm if the drone involved was a Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC, which sources initially suggested. The Navy recently unveiled plans to boost production of the 16-foot GARC — an unmanned surface vessel built by BlackSea Technologies, formerly known as Maritime Applied Physics Corp.

A spokesperson from BlackSea acknowledged DefenseScoop’s inquiry last week, but did not respond to questions regarding whether it was a GARC that flipped the tugboat.

The post Navy experiment cut short after unmanned vessel flipped a support boat appeared first on DefenseScoop.

LASSO — which was a new-start program in the previous budget — is now part of the service’s Launched Effects family of systems and has been realigned under that line item in the 2026 budget.

Drone maker AeroVironment has been manufacturing Switchblade systems for the initiative. The Switchblade 600 carries high-precision optics and an anti-armor warhead. It has upwards of 40 minutes of loitering endurance, a range of 40-plus kilometers, and a “sprint speed” of 185 kilometers per hour, according to a product description from the vendor. The all-up round weighs 65 pounds.

The request for additional loitering munitions — also known as kamikaze drones or one-way attack drones because they’re designed to destroy their targets by crashing into them — in 2026 comes as officials are undertaking a new Army Transformation Initiative to modernize the force for future high-tech combat. The service is moving to divest of capabilities that are outdated and put more money into other equipment.

“The Army Transformation Initiative, or ATI, as we’ve coined it, is a strategic shift. We’re reinvesting resources to ensure our future dominance as part of the joint force,” a senior Army officials told reporters Thursday at the Pentagon during a background briefing about the budget. “We made some tough choices to shed outdated systems and programs that no longer meet our demands of the modern battlefield,” including divesting from legacy anti-tank missiles, they noted.

Kamikaze drones have played a major role in the Ukraine-Russia war, and U.S. military leaders are taking lessons from that conflict as the seek to modernize their forces.

The Army is aiming to deliver five brigade combat teams-worth of loitering munitions in fiscal 2026. The budget request includes about $68 million for 98 fire control units, 294 all-up rounds and other program elements under LASSO. Nearly $13 million in reconciliation funding would procure an additional 19 LASSO production systems.

“Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs) lack adequate proportional organic capabilities at echelon to apply immediate, point, long range, and direct fire effects to destroy tanks, light armored vehicles, hardened targets, defilade, and personnel targets, while producing minimal collateral damage in complex terrain in all environmental conditions,” officials wrote in budget justification documents.

Army leadership wants to give troops new kamikaze drones to fill that capability gap.

The man-portable LASSO is a day/night capable, lightweight, unmanned aerial anti-tank weapon that includes an all-up round and fire control system, according to an Army description of the technology.

“The LASSO range requirement is to fly less than or equal to 20km (straight line with auxiliary antenna) with a flight endurance that enables the Soldier to make multiple orbits within the IBCT typically assigned battlespace, to acquire and attack targets within and beyond current crew served and small arms fire. The range/endurance enables the unit to utilize reach back capability and maximize standoff. Unlike existing direct and indirect fire weapon systems, LASSO’s discreet payload and unique capability delivers Soldiers the ability to abort against targets in a dynamic situation (e.g., use of human shields) or prosecute targets that would have been deemed non-viable in past due to the higher collateral damage associated with alternative munitions,” according to budget documents. Follow-on increments are expected to support capabilities for company and below echelons, focusing on increased range, enhanced lethality and advanced payload options.

Officials noted that the program is aligned with ATI and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s directive for Army transformation and acquisition reform.

It’s also intended to support the Army’s transforming-in-contact initiative — an effort spearheaded by Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George with a particular focus on unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and electronic warfare capabilities — and expand prepositioned stocks in the Indo-Pacific region, where the U.S. military is concerned about a potential future conflict with China.

The LASSO program will use other transaction authority for contracting, which is intended to cut through bureaucratic red tape and help the military field new technologies faster than traditional acquisition processes. Officials also intend to award up to four hardware contracts to modernize the industrial base and generate domestic ammunition stockpiles, according to budget documents.

The post Army’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal aims to equip infantry brigades with more kamikaze drones appeared first on DefenseScoop.

While available documents did not detail how many ARRW missiles the Air Force intends to buy, the request officially transitions the hypersonic weapon from its troubled development and testing phase and into formal procurement and production. The move comes after the Air Force considered cancelling the program last year after it completed its rapid prototyping effort in August 2024.

Made by prime contractor Lockheed Martin, ARRW is one of the two types of hypersonic weapons the Air Force’s is pursuing — the other being the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), under development by RTX-subsidiary Raytheon.

ARRW is a boost-glide missile that can be launched from larger aircraft such as the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, and like all hypersonics can fly at speeds of Mach 5 or faster and maneuver during flight.

The fate of ARRW has been up in the air since March 2024 when the Air Force announced it didn’t include any funds to procure the missiles in its budget request for fiscal 2025. The decision was not a surprise, as the program faced a series of setbacks during its development phase — including at least one failed all-up-round flight test that occurred in 2023.

At the time, Air Force leadership said they would pause the ARRW program to analyze the data gathered during its flight test campaign, while also shifting focus to the development of HACM.

But news that ARRW was no longer on the chopping block was first hinted at by Gen. David Allvin, the service’s chief of staff, earlier this month during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“I will tell you that we are developing — and you’ll see in the budget submission, assuming it’s what we put forward — two different programs. One is a larger form factor that is more strategic [and] long range that we have already tested several times — it’s called ARRW. The other is HACM,” Allvin told lawmakers June 5.

The Air Force first awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $480 million to design and develop ARRW. Since then, the service has spent roughly $1.4 billion in research-and-development funds on the hypersonic weapon.

As for HACM, the Air Force is requesting $802.8 million in fiscal 2026 to continue the missile’s development, according to budget documents. The service received $466.7 million in FY’25 appropriations, and the increase in funds for this year are likely due to the program entering its flight test phase in the near future.

The Air Force intends to conduct five flight tests for HACM — two less than the service originally planned for — before the program begins rapid fielding efforts in fiscal 2027. The reduction in tests was caused by delays in nailing down the weapon’s hardware design, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. 

Development of hypersonic missiles is considered a top priority for the Defense Department, especially as adversaries continue to advance their own weapons. Overall, the DOD is requesting over $3.9 billion in FY’26 across a number of programs at different stages of development, a defense official told reporters Thursday during a briefing at the Pentagon.

Along with the Air Force’s programs, those funds would also contribute to fielding the first operational battery of the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) — also known as Dark Eagle — by the end of FY’25 and continued development of the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system.

The post Air Force revives ARRW hypersonic missile with procurement plans for fiscal 2026 appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The 30,000-pound GBU-57 bombs, also known as MOPs, used in this assault were designed to attack deep underground targets in locations that are hundreds of feet below ground level. 

Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed reporters at the Pentagon Thursday regarding the military’s planning and execution of the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which marked the first-ever operational employment of the MOP weapon.

Early testing of the MOP began roughly two decades ago under a technology demonstration effort led by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency before being transitioned to the Air Force. Super computers were used for modeling and simulation during the development of the weapon, Caine noted during Thursday’s briefing. The chairman said he met yesterday with two DTRA officers who “spent their life’s work” enabling and demonstrating the complex bombs.

The U.S. used these so-called bunker-buster bombs on two nuclear facilities — in Fordow and Natanz — last weekend. Caine noted that the U.S. targeted ventilation shafts at Iran’s nuclear facility in Fordow.

The MOP is “comprised of steel, explosive and a fuze programmed bespokely [for] each weapon to achieve a particular effect inside the target. Each weapon had a unique desired impact, angle, arrival, final heading and a fuze setting. The fuze is effectively what tells the bomb when to function. A longer delay in a fuze, the deeper the weapon will penetrate and drive into the target,” he explained.

The U.S. military decided to strike two of the ventilation shafts at Fordow as the primary points of entry into the underground facility. In the days preceding the attack, the Iranians attempted to cover the shafts with concrete to try to thwart an attack, according to Caine.

“I won’t share the specific dimensions of the concrete cap. But you should know that we know what the dimensions of those concrete caps were. The planners had to account for this. They accounted for everything. The cap was forcibly removed by the first weapon and the main shaft was uncovered. Weapons two, three, four  [and] five were tasked to enter the main shaft, move down into the complex at greater than 1000 feet per second and explode in the mission space,” he said. “There were six on each side. Weapons number six was designed as a flex weapon to allow us to cover if one of the preceding jets or one of the preceding weapons did not work.”

Two additional MOPs were used on Natanz. A total of 14 were dropped during Midnight Hammer.

During a previous briefing on Sunday, Caine said that early battle damage assessments suggested that the “massive ordnance penetrator” bombs dropped by U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bombers severely damaged Iran’s nuclear arsenal.

​​On Thursday, he said all of the MOPs used against Fordow went exactly where they were intended to go. 

“A bomb has three effects that causes damage: blast, fragmentation and overpressure. In this case, the primary kill mechanism in the mission space was a mix of overpressure and blast ripping through the open tunnels and destroying critical hardware. The majority of the damage we assess, based on our extensive modeling, was a blast layer combined with the impulse extending from the shock,” he told reporters.

Hegseth criticized recent reporting about an intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency in the wake of the attacks that suggested the airstrikes might not have damaged Iran’s nuclear program as much as senior Trump administration officials have claimed. Hegseth told reporters that there was “low confidence in this particular report.” 

Caine said the intelligence community is in charge of the battle damage assessments.

“But here’s what we know following the attacks and the strikes on Fordow. First, that the weapons were built, tested and loaded properly. Two, the weapons were released on speed and on parameters. Three, the weapons all guided to their intended targets and to their intended aim points. Four, the weapons function as designed, meaning they exploded. We know this through other means, intelligence means that we have,” Caine said. “We were visibly able to see them. And we know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function, and the pilot stated, quote, ‘this was the brightest explosion that I’ve ever seen. It literally looked like daylight’” even though the attacks occurred in darkness.

The post Joint Chiefs chairman supplies new details about MOP bomb attack on Iranian nuclear sites appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The comments by Vice Adm. Brad Cooper — the current deputy commander of Centcom, who’s been nominated for the top job and promotion to four-star — came just a couple of days after U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure that featured the first-ever combat employment of “massive ordnance penetrator” bombs.

The Air Force dropped 14 of the so-called MOP weapons from B-2 Spirit stealth bombers during the mission, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer.

It’s unclear how many MOPs or other so-called bunker-buster weapons the Pentagon still has in its arsenal in the wake of the operation. The Defense Department typically does not publicly disclose specific numbers for its munition stockpiles.

“As we’ve seen throughout the region, groups are going underground, [such as] Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis,” Cooper told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing Tuesday. “This is a serious issue that we will have to look at in the future.”

Nation-state and non-state actors have built bunkers, tunnels and other underground facilities to make their personnel and systems more difficult to locate and target.

“I think in the Central Command, and I think we would have to anticipate in the future, globally, you’re going to see threats begin to go underground, whether we’re talking about Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Iranians, other adversaries are clearly watching and see where they can gain advantage. In my current capacity, I have visited on multiple occasions the subterranean commando unit in Israel that goes after this problem set. I think, as we look to the future, and if confirmed, I think we need to focus on two areas — sensors and munitions. And if confirmed, I would advocate for both of those,” Cooper said.

Lawmakers and Pentagon officials in recent years have been beating the drum about the need to increase U.S. production of a variety of munitions and other systems as observers have watched forces expend large numbers of missiles and drones in places like Ukraine and the Middle East.

Cooper on Tuesday said he welcomed ideas like the FORGED Act and other measures that could help the Defense Department cut through red tape and bring new technologies into its arsenal.

Another concern raised by lawmakers during the hearing was the growing threat posed by adversaries’ unmanned aerial systems. American troops have come under attack from enemy drones in recent years, including at Tower 22 in Jordan. The weapons have also played a huge role in the Ukraine-Russia war and the recent Israel-Iran war.

Counter-drone capabilities are in high demand, especially in places like the Centcom region.

“I do agree that the nature and the character of warfare is changing before our very eyes, and this is why I think the important work of this committee, whether it’s the FORGED Act or anything associated with it, where you can accelerate the delivery of counter-UAS systems or other warfighting tools into the hands of the warfighters, forward — those are all value added and needed imminently,” Cooper said.

“If I look back specifically toward the Tower 22 incident in the ensuing now 17 or 18 months, we’ve made considerable improvements across the board — layered defense, employing both kinetic capability and non-kinetic capability. We really are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were before. Having said that, I would never be satisfied that we have the maximum readiness. I’ll never be satisfied that we have enough to protect our men and women in uniform. And if confirmed, I would focus on this every single day,” he added.

During his previous assignment as commander of Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet, Cooper oversaw Task Force 59, which focuses on combining AI, uncrewed systems — including commercially owned platforms — and other digital and communications tools to boost the command’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in the Middle East.

In written responses to lawmakers’ advance policy questions ahead of his confirmation hearing, Cooper said that, if confirmed as Centcom commander, he would launch new initiatives to advance U.S. military “overmatch” through the employment of cutting-edge technologies, including AI-enabled unmanned platforms and digital integration.

“In my own experience, having commanded the Navy’s first unmanned and artificial intelligence task force, I’m very familiar with the capabilities that exist in America’s elite tech sector. I believe that we need to leverage that tech sector to maximum capability and deliver capability in the very near term, because we could do more,” he told lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing.

Cooper’s selection to command Centcom is unlikely to face major political opposition in the Senate, and his nomination is expected to be confirmed.

The post Centcom leader highlights need for more tech that can target underground sites appeared first on DefenseScoop.