A combined Navy and Air Force program is seeking to build a smaller version of a ubiquitous air-to-air missile that could give advanced aircraft, such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, greater magazine depth in a high-end fight.
Air Force munitions
The Air Force’s fiscal 2027 budget request would invest $15 billion in its munitions portfolio, with $10.8 billion earmarked for weapons purchases and another $4.3 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation of new arms.
The Pentagon's research labs are ramping up their search for munitions that can be mass-produced—an effort likely to be buoyed by billions of dollars in the department's new fiscal 2027 budget request and tens of billions in the upcoming years. While the topline information shared ...
In a pair of major contracts announced July 31, the Pentagon awarded a combined $7.8 billion for new missiles, including JASSM and AMRAAM.
Lockheed Martin has revealed a second version of its Common Multi-Mission Truck vehicle, and both types have recently been tested successfully, the company said.
Thanks to reconciliation, the fiscal 2026 Air Force budget would get a surge of munitions procurement, but it's not yet clear if the production increase will be sustained. The Air Force revealed the secret AIM-260 air-to-air missile's funding for the first time.
The Navy recently launched four AGM-158C-3 Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles at once, in what’s being billed as a “graduation exercise for the latest configuration” of the stealth LRASM. The event follows closely the Air Force beginning multiyear procurement of the joint-service missile.
After a long period in which munitions were almost an afterthought and sacrificed to pay for other priorities, the Air Force needs to focus on them in order to have the right “package” of capabilities for future conflicts, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown ...
The Air Force plans to get production of the classified AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile underway this year and will equip its new Collaborative Combat Aircraft with the weapon, senior USAF leaders said at a Senate Armed Services Hearing.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, thinks there will be continuing bipartisan support for increased munitions procurement and boosting the defense industrial base generally. But that partnership could be challenged by a push to "punish" non-defense spending, he warned.
In need of faster and greater surge weapons production capacity, the Air Force is looking to new technologies for new munitions, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. said. More weapons capacity may mean less efficiency, he acknowledged.
The Air Force’s munitions roadmap is meant to take a comprehensive view of service weapons needs, focused on the next five years but taking a longer view, as well. Modularity may be a hallmark of the future weapons inventory, the service’s munitions PEO said.