The fifth vessel ordered at the end of March will be delivered in 2032, the French Armed Forces Ministry said in a statement late Thursday. France ordered the fourth vessel in the class in December, and both units will be built at Naval Group’s site in Lorient in western France, according to the company.

“The Ministry of the Armed Forces renews its confidence in us to complete the series of defense and intervention frigates,” Naval Group Chief Executive Officer Pierre Éric Pommellet said in a statement. “We are thus fully mobilized to provide the French Navy with the means to achieve naval superiority, in the service of France’s sovereignty.”

Delivery of the last FDI will complete France’s program for a fleet of 15 first-rate frigates, a number that French Navy commander Adm. Nicolas Vaujour has said was dictated by budgetary constraints. Vaujour has maintained his force needs 18 frigates for a “coherent format,” and some lawmakers have been calling to increase the latest FDI order to eight vessels.

The program for the five FDI frigates was budgeted at €4.28 billion ($4.9 billion), according to France’s 2019 accounts. The fifth vessel will be handed over three years later than the original 2029 schedule, in part due to industrial difficulties for the first unit, the Covid-19 pandemic, delays with weapon integration, and reallocation of production slots to accommodate an order by Greece.

The first frigate in the class, the Amiral Ronarc’h, was delivered in October, and is currently on a long-term deployment. The frigate joined the carrier strike group around the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the north Atlantic in February to test its radars, electronic warfare suite and combat system in a tactical environment.

Naval Group said the FDI can handle rough seas, with the crew of Amiral Ronarc’h “able to observe its aptitude” during trials in Sea State 6 in the Atlantic Ocean. That sea state corresponds to “very rough” conditions with waves of 4 to 6 meters, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

With a length of 122 meters and displacement of around 4,500 tons, the FDI is smaller than new-generation frigates being built or planned in the U.K., Spain, Italy and Germany. The FDIs are designed for high-intensity combat, armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles, Aster air-defense missiles, MU90 torpedoes and a 76 mm cannon, and equipped with a Thales Sea Fire radar with four fixed panels.

Naval Group’s FDI is in competition for a Swedish order for four frigates, with a decision expected in coming months. France has touted its ability to supply a fully equipped and armed frigate in 2030, the target set by the Swedish government for first deliveries, with Naval Group saying in October the yard is able to produce two FDI frigates a year.

Norway in August last year picked the United Kingdom’s Type 26 frigate, primarily manufactured by BAE Systems, over the smaller French design.

Greece in November exercised an option for a fourth FDI frigate, on top of three vessels previously ordered, and in March sent the frigate Kimon, its first vessel in the class, to Cyprus.

While the first two French vessels in the class will be equipped with 16 vertical launch cells due to previously made budget decisions, numbers three to five are to be equipped with 32 cells, similar to the configuration for Greece. The first two frigates will be upgraded to double the number of launch cells at a later stage, according to the government.

France describes the frigate as fully digital, equipped with “significant computer power” to process the information gathered by the vessel’s onboard sensors, as well as a redundant data center.

The NYSE Arca Defense index, which includes 34 small and large-cap U.S. companies, fell nearly 8% in March, compared with the broader S&P 500’s 5% drop. In contrast, it had gained about 12% in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

The sluggish performance, strategists said, signaled investors were unwinding positions after a strong run this year and does not reflect fading demand or doubts about longer-term defense spending.

“A lot of conflict premium was in their valuations,” said David Bianco, Americas chief investment officer at German asset manager DWS.

“We saw gold and oil and defense rally, part of the reason was messages from the administration, when Trump was sending the armada to the Middle East. Nobody knew anything, but they saw chances of a conflict.”

Bianco said he began reducing his “overweight” position on defense stocks before the Middle East conflict began.

There were signs well before the U.S.-Israeli bombing began in late February that Washington was preparing for a confrontation with Tehran.

Reuters reported in the weeks leading up to the war that the U.S. was building up forces in the Middle East and preparing for a weeks-long operation if diplomacy failed.

Similarly, the European defense sector fell 11% in March, marking its biggest monthly loss since the pandemic amid a broad selloff on worries of a potential energy shock due to the war. Defense shares had rallied for weeks as European governments announced sweeping rearmament plans following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget for 2027, well above the $901 billion approved for 2026, but uncertainty remains over whether Congress will pass such an increase.

“Nothing that has happened so far suggests that a $1.5 trillion 2027 defense budget could be exceeded. For these reasons, one should not expect upside to come from the current conflict,” Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned said in a recent note.

The defense index has surged more than 150% between 2020 and 2025, leaving the sector at historically elevated valuations.

The S&P 500 Aerospace & Defense sub-index trades at about 32 times 12-month forward earnings, well above the broader S&P 500’s multiple of roughly 20 times, according to LSEG data.

Earnings expectations muted despite war

Market reaction has also been subdued to the Pentagon’s attempts to boost production to replenish depleted missile and ammunition stockpiles.

Any revenue gains will take time to materialize as long production cycles and capacity constraints limit how quickly output can ramp up, analysts say.

Expectations for 2026 earnings growth hovered around 12% at the end of March versus about 15% at the start of 2026 for General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris and RTX, according to Tajinder Dhillon, head of earnings and equity research at LSEG Data & Analytics.

“The conflict would need to last longer, or expand materially, for (earnings) estimates to move higher,” said Sameer Samana, head of global equities at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

Supply constraints, policy pressure

Beyond valuations, investors pointed to limited production flexibility.

Richard Safran, senior analyst and managing director of aerospace and defense at Seaport Research Partners, said funding of defense firms gets diverted to immediate operational needs rather than modernization or development needs during conflicts.

The Trump administration is also pressuring defense firms to prioritize production over shareholder payouts, exacerbating uncertainty around capital returns.

The sector’s medium-term outlook depends heavily on U.S. budget decisions, with key spending details expected on April 21, Bloomberg News reported.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur confirmed last week that an agreement had been reached with an unnamed manufacturer to construct a large-caliber ammunition plant at the Põhja-Kiviõli defense industry park, with the investor committing at least €300 million ($346 million) to the project. The plant will produce short-, medium- and long-range munitions.

According to Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR, the company is Swedish. That narrows the field significantly: The main company in question would likely be BAE Systems’ subfirm Bofors, a storied Swedish artillery and ammunition producer. Bofors was split around the turn of the century between its artillery branch, which ultimately went to BAE, and the missile section, which went to Saab.

When contacted by ERR, BAE Systems spokesperson Matthew Knowles declined to confirm or deny the company’s involvement, saying only that Estonia is an important partner to the company and directing questions to the government.

Pevkur said the company had been promised confidentiality until contracts are formally signed, which is expected to happen in mid-April. He confirmed the firm is neither South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace nor the U.S. giant Lockheed Martin.

The planned factory at Põhja-Kiviõli is one piece of a broader and rapidly expanding Estonian defense industry effort. The Ermistu defense industry park in Pärnumaa is already set to host four companies − including U.K.-linked Odin Defence and Estonian explosives maker Nitrotol − with production expected to begin as early as 2027. Separately, Tallinn has set up a state-owned company, Hexest AS, to produce RDX explosives, a key component in 155mm shell filling, with that facility expected to be in action by 2028.

The push is a consequence of both Russia’s war in Ukraine and the persistent ammunition shortages that have exposed the risks of over-reliance on a handful of producers. Estonia, which borders Russia and has among the highest defense spending as a share of GDP in NATO, is betting that sovereign production capacity is worth the price tag.

Though the Department of Defense does not divulge the precise number of Tomahawks in the U.S. arsenal, the CSIS analysis estimates the U.S. still has around 3,000. It is a highly advanced weapon; in addition to its impressive 1,000-mile range and precision, it can also be controlled via satellite and can find a target while in flight.

As Cancian told Military Times, the concern from some in the Pentagon about burning through the Tomahawk stockpile is less about what will happen in Operation Epic Fury, and more about U.S. security commitments in other parts of the world — namely as a counter to China.

The below interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Military Times: Let’s talk first about what the Tomahawk does — how it’s launched, the mechanics of its use in this conflict and why it’s so important.

Mark Cancian: Tomahawk is a ship-launched ground attack missile. It’s very long range and very accurate. It’s been around for a long time, but it’s been upgraded continuously over time, and now the Block V is the current version. Its long range and accuracy have always been its great strength. Plus, the fact that it can be launched from sea means that you can move ships around and launch it. You don’t have to have aircraft coming from the United States, and you don’t have to have a base in the region.

They’re very flexible, and the fact that they’re long range means that if the opposition has some defensive capabilities, [U.S. forces] can stay out of those defensive capabilities. That’s why it was used in the early stages of Epic Fury, until the United States and Israel had beaten down what was left of the Iranian air defense system.

Once we established air superiority, the number of Tomahawks fired declined. It didn’t go to zero, but it came down because they’re so expensive and scarce that if we can use shorter range munition, then we’ll use that because those are much cheaper. To give you a little sense about that, a Tomahawk costs something like $3.5 million apiece and has a range of 1,000 miles, depending on the version.

A JDAM, which is a guidance kit put on a dumb bomb, has a range of maybe 20 miles, but cost $80,000 and has the same explosive effect and the same accuracy. So if you can use a JDAM, much better, but that means you have to get close.

MT: What does this do for weapons capabilities in other theaters, especially those with U.S. involvement?

Cancian: This is the key concern with the inventories because we have enough of everything, including Tomahawks and Patriots and THAADs to fight the current conflict, that is, Epic Fury. The problem is the effect on other theaters like Ukraine and the Western Pacific, a conflict against China. And strategists are very worried that depletion of inventories will weaken our ability to deter or to fight a conflict there.

MT: What role does the Tomahawk play in deterrence?

Cancian: With China particularly focused on Taiwan it’s very helpful because China has a tremendous number of missiles. We want to stand back as far as we can, but still be able to shoot in against any Chinese invasion force or any Chinese force that has established itself on Taiwan.

I should note that there’s what’s called a maritime strike Tomahawk, which is the relatively new version that could hit ships. The original version could only hit ground targets, but this other version can hit ships and [in the event of a] Chinese invasion of Taiwan, that would be very helpful.

MT: What is the level of damage that this munition can do? And where have we seen that in Operation Epic Fury?

Cancian: It does a lot of damage — it has a 1,000-pound warhead. The drones that we’ve used and that the Iranians have used, they have warheads that are between 50 and 100 pounds. So it’s somewhere between 10 to 20 times the effect of a drone. Whatever it hits, it’s going to cause a lot more destruction.

MT: How long will it take for the U.S. to recuperate its stockpile, and what does that entail?

Cancian: The Department of Defense has been talking with [defense contractors] for several years to get production rates up. It began in the Biden administration. It’s continued in the Trump administration. Hegseth has been going on this Arsenal of Freedom tour, plant to plant, to talk to workers and management about speeding up production. Bottom line, I think currently, to replace the 850 to 1,000 that we’ve expended, you’re talking two or three years.

MT: If we’re firing fewer Tomahawks how does that shift the strategy?

Cancian: It doesn’t shift the strategy. But what it does mean is that we don’t have to use these very expensive and scarce missiles as much, but can use the much less expensive short range munitions. That means we can keep the fighting going much longer, in fact, essentially indefinitely. And although we put a big dent in the inventories, you know, we’re not going to go down to zero Patriot and Tomahawks.

MT: There’s also been a very significant use of the Patriot system in the Gulf. Do you have concerns there about our ability to protect U.S. installations, or to assist our allies with those kinds of defenses?

Cancian: Right now, we have enough Patriots to defend in the Gulf against the Iranian ballistic missile attacks, and that’s what the Patriots do. They’re not used against drones. We estimated there were about 4,000 [Patriot missiles] at the beginning of the war. We’ve maybe used 1,000 now, so we’ve used a quarter, which is, on the one hand a lot. On the other hand, that means you still have three-quarters left.

But again, you have this strategic problem, and you have the same problem about rebuilding the inventories. We’re producing [about] 600 Patriots a year. About half of those go to the United States, and half go to allies, and that’s going to continue. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some discussions about maybe reallocating some of that production to other countries, shifting people around in the queue so that maybe the Gulf states would get up to the front, and maybe some others would be moved back.

The contract framework, which will be spread across seven years, will match Lockheed Martin’s push to surge production on the PAC-3 MSE all-up round.

Lockheed in January announced a seven-year framework agreement to increase annual PAC-3 interceptor production from approximately 600 to 2,000.

“This agreement paves the way for us to scale rapidly to deliver increasingly sophisticated seekers,” Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, said in a release announcing the deal. “In 2025, we increased deliveries by over 30% and we’re excited for the opportunity to grow our highly skilled workforce.”

Work on the seekers is expected to begin immediately, the company announced, and will be completed at Boeing’s facility in Huntsville, Alabama.

Boeing’s PAC-3 seekers work by identifying, tracking and knocking out a range of threats, from ballistic missiles and hypersonics to hostile air platforms.

Once the seeker identifies the target, the highly maneuverable interceptor, which uses a two-pulse solid rocket motor, engages and eliminates threats via direct body-to-body contact.

Wednesday’s announcement, meanwhile, comes as the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptors against cheap munitions, particularly those deployed by Iran during Operation Epic Fury, has come under increased scrutiny.

Iran’s stockpile of unmanned Shahed drones is immense, with the Islamic Republic reportedly producing 10,000 per month. Contrast the $35,000 average cost of an Iranian Shahed drone with an estimated $4 million price tag of a PAC-3, and the cost exchange, if engaged, is 114-1 in favor of Iran.

In spite of the lopsided cost, the Pentagon last week also announced a deal with BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin to quadruple production of infrared seekers for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptor.

That seeker deal aligns with a contract agreement in January between the Pentagon and Lockheed to quadruple the company’s annual production of THAAD interceptors from 96 to 400.

“To build a true Arsenal of Freedom, we must strengthen every link in the chain,” Michael Duffey, under secretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said in a Wednesday release. “This agreement with Boeing is a direct reflection that speed, volume and a resilient supply chain are paramount. We are moving beyond the old model and forging direct partnerships with critical suppliers to ensure the entire defense industrial base is postured to expand production and deliver the decisive capabilities our warfighters need at speed and scale.”

Armin Papperger made the remarks on Ukraine in an interview with The Atlantic, published March 27, conducted at Rheinmetall’s Unterlüß factory. Discussing Ukrainian drone manufacturers − including companies such as Fire Point and Skyfall, named by the interviewer − Papperger said the producers were “Ukrainian housewives” and described the work as “playing with Lego.”

“This is not the technology of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics or Rheinmetall,” he said.

The backlash was swift and came from multiple directions. Within 48 hours, Rheinmetall’s own corporate communications published a statement saying the company “deeply respects the enormous efforts of the Ukrainian people in self-defense against Russian aggression” and called the Ukrainian “innovative strength and fighting spirit” a “source of inspiration.”

Papperger has been the company’s CEO since 2013.

Rheinmetall runs multiple joint ventures in Ukraine and has staked much of its rearmament narrative on being a trusted partner of Kyiv.

The Ukrainian drone industry, while heavily reliant on Chinese components, has developed battlefield capabilities, from one-way attack FPVs to long-range strike drones, that have demonstrably shaped the course of the war in ways no Western prime contractor has replicated at comparable speed or cost.

In October, Papperger had already called into question the importance of drones in the war in Ukraine, telling Handelsblatt, a German business publication, that modern wars are still fought primarily with tanks and missiles. “There are a lot of these narratives circulating right now that claim future wars will be fought exclusively with drones. I think that’s nonsense,” he was quoted as saying.

The timing of his latest remarks collided with unflattering news on Rheinmetall’s home turf. According to German news magazine Stern, reporting on March 31 based on sources in Bundeswehr and parliamentary circles, the Defense Ministry expects delivery of the first serial Skyranger 30 systems with a delay of at least 16 months. That pushes initial deliveries to 2027 at the earliest. The fully developed version would not reach the Bundeswehr until 2029, according to Stern.

Rheinmetall, when asked, said the delay amounts to five months.

The Skyranger 30 is a 30mm air-defense and counter-drone cannon mounted on a Boxer armored vehicle. Stern reported that the delay stems from technical problems integrating key turret components and a failure to incorporate a guided missile originally included in the system’s specification. Under contract terms reviewed by the magazine, Rheinmetall could face a penalty of up to €25 million ($29 million). Neither Rheinmetall nor the Defense Ministry confirmed this number, with the ministry citing trade secrets.

Rheinmetall had proposed an interim solution: a reduced-capability, truck-mounted variant, quoted at approximately €300 million ($348 million). Stern reported that both the ministry and the army rejected the offer after a shooting test deemed unsatisfactory.

Rheinmetall’s stock price remains around 15 times higher than it was before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Bundeswehr is urgently rebuilding its short-range air defense capacity, largely gutted after the Cold War, at a moment when the war in Ukraine has made drone threats the most pressing tactical challenge on the European continent. Germany has framed its rearmament as a matter of strategic urgency, and Rheinmetall has been the central industrial beneficiary of that program.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Papperger’s comments “strange” earlier this week, the Associated Press reported.

“If every Ukrainian housewife can really produce drones, then every Ukrainian housewife could also be the CEO of Rheinmetall,” he told reporters via voicemail on WhatsApp, AP reported. “I congratulate our defense-industrial complex on being at such a high level.”

The U.S. Navy spent at least six months resurrecting a high-energy laser weapon that previously graced the bow of a warship for a new military exercise last year, the service recently revealed.

The Navy’s Directed Energy Systems Integration Laboratory, or DESIL, a Naval Base Ventura County, California, facility that evaluates laser weapons in a maritime environment, “ramped up efforts to restore critical functions” to the service’s “one-of-a-kind” 150 kW Solid State Laser Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) demonstrator starting in early March 2025, according to recently published ‘year in review’ bulletin from Naval Sea Systems Command.

Initiated in 2012 and officially known as the Laser Weapon System Demonstrator Mk 2 Mod 0, the SSL-TM demonstrator was originally installed aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Portland in 2019.

The system, described as the successor to the 30 kW AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System — also known as the XN-1 LaWS — that was mounted on the Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Ponce in 2014, was designed to “provide a new capability to the Fleet to address known capability gaps against asymmetric threats,” such as now-ubiquitous aerial drones and small boats laden with explosives, as well as “inform future acquisition strategies, system designs integration architectures and fielding plans for laser weapon systems,” according to Navy budget documents.

The SSL-TM demonstrator appears to have performed as advertised. The system successfully destroyed a drone target during at-sea testing in the Gulf of Aden in May 2020 — an engagement that yielded one of the most vivid representations of a real-world laser weapon in action to date — and neutralized a small surface target during additional testing in December 2021.

But while prime contractor Northrop Grumman had specifically designed the SSL-TM demonstrator for installation “with minimal modification or additional costs” aboard the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the service initiated the system’s deinstallation from the Portland in fiscal year 2023 after spending nearly $50 million on the effort, the budget documents say. The Defense Department’s final report on the initiative has not yet been made public.

Following the deinstallation, the SSL-TM demonstrator was presumably mothballed until the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering requested the laser weapon “play a role” in the Pentagon’s new Crimson Dragon military exercise the following September, the NAVSEA bulletin says.

Described as a weeklong, multi-unit DESIL test event, Crimson Dragon convened 20 defense contractors “in a simulated combat environment” to test the effectiveness of their drones, counter-drone systems and sensors “in scenarios that simulated military base defense, long-range fires and integrated [ballistic missile defense],” according to the bulletin.

The SSL-TM demonstrator successfully shot down four drone targets during the exercise, the bulletin says.

While it’s unclear which scenarios the SSL-TM demonstrator participated in during Crimson Dragon, an annual assessment of U.S. military weapon systems from the Pentagon’s Director, Operational Test & Evaluation released on March 16 states that part of the exercise “focused on the sea point of departure defense venues against all-domain maritime air-and-sea threats,” which suggests the system may have provided air defense for a simulated port or staging area where troops and equipment embark onto ships.

But beyond these brief mentions in recent U.S. military publications, no additional information is available regarding the current status of the SSL-TM demonstrator, its performance during Crimson Dragon and the Navy’s future plans for the system. NAVSEA, OUSD(R&E) and the Office of Naval Research did not respond to requests for more details from Laser Wars.

Without more context, it’s difficult to infer where the return of the SSL-TM demonstrator fits into the U.S. military’s expanding directed energy ambitions.

The Pentagon has not indicated whether OUSD(R&E)’s request was driven by the urgency of real-world threats — the demonstrator was first tested in the very waters where Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen had spent more than a year targeting U.S. warships and commercial shipping — or simply an opportunistic use of a capable system sitting in storage.

But the system’s restoration for Crimson Dragon potentially points to a broader challenge: despite years of testing and high-profile demonstrations, relatively few high-energy laser weapons are actually available for the kind of realistic, large-scale exercises needed to refine tactics and validate how these weapons are used in combat.

Indeed, it’s not like the Pentagon has bunch of spare laser weapons floating around to play with.

The U.S. Army’s four 50 kW Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) systems have been completely demilitarized, while the service’s Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) systems are preoccupied downing drones on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Marine Corps returned its five Compact Laser Weapon System (CLaWS) to Boeing. The Navy’s AN/SEQ-4 Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) laser weapons are all installed aboard active warships at sea; meanwhile, the service’s 60 kW High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system has had a challenging year on its own.

As a result, it appears that previously retired prototypes that might otherwise remain museum pieces are being called back into service to keep the U.S. military’s counter-drone experimentation moving forward.

The Pentagon may be racing to field laser weapons at scale, but for now it’s still relying on yesterday’s prototypes to figure out how they’ll actually fight tomorrow’s wars.

In an effort to export Ukrainian systems and know-how, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criss-crossed the Gulf region this weekend to hash out deals with countries that have been targeted by waves of Iranian drone attacks this month.

“Ukraine is sharing expertise that is not available in the Middle East,” Zelenskyy told Reuters in an interview last week. “Expertise is not a drone, but a skill, a strategy, a system where a drone is one part of the defense.”

Indeed, Ukraine has signed framework cooperation deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in recent days, and has said one is in the works with the United Arab Emirates. Zelenskyy has stressed that arms sales must be decided at the government level, warning businesses against engaging with clients directly.

Ukraine’s drone sector is chomping at the bit.

“Everybody is sitting and waiting,” said Oleg Rogynskyy, CEO of UForce, a UK-headquartered Ukrainian military tech company which says its Magura sea drone has been the subject of intense commercial interest from the Middle East.

Several industry figures said the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran had underlined the potency of attack drones in modern warfare and exposed many countries’ vulnerabilities to their threat.

The conflict, some added, presented Ukraine with a unique opportunity to jumpstart exports and create a world-leading industry that could provide the backbone for post-war reconstruction and prosperity.

Wild Hornets and SkyFall, two other top Ukrainian interceptor drone makers, said they too had received inquiries from Middle Eastern countries but like UForce were not directly negotiating contracts before getting a green light from Kyiv.

Anastasiia Mishkina, executive director at Tech Force in UA, an association of nearly 100 Ukrainian defense companies, said some members had asked the government for permission to export and were waiting for a response.

“There is a risk of losing the moment because the international market does not wait,” she said.

The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it risked moving too slowly on defense cooperation at a time of opportunity.

SEA DRONES MOUNTED WITH INTERCEPTORS

Ukraine has developed its technology and expertise over years of countering Russia’s drone attacks - a threat that Gulf states now face from Iran’s relatively cheap Shahed drones.

Hundreds of Russian drones are often fired at Ukraine in a single night, spurring an innovation race with the military and private firms developing interceptor drones to bring enemy craft down before they hit their targets.

These interceptors cost a few thousand dollars each, although they do not always succeed and Russia is constantly coming up with ways to get past them.

Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, a manufacturers’ association, estimated that Ukraine could export about $2 billion worth of weapons as a whole this year, excluding joint production ventures with allies.

He predicted that in a best-case scenario, annual defense exports could reach as much as $10 billion in five years.

Ukraine produced 40,000 interceptor drones in January, according to the government, which has made it clear the country will not export any weapons it needs to defend itself. Zelenskyy says that provided enough financing, Ukraine has the capacity to up its production to 2,000 interceptor drones a day and would only need 1,000 for itself, leaving plenty for export.

Rogynskyy, the UForce CEO, said the Magura sea drone produced by his company had obvious allure in the Gulf.

Ukraine initially used sea drones to attack and harry Russian warships in the Black Sea as an asymmetrical weapon to take on the dominant naval force. They have since become more sophisticated, with Rogynskyy saying they could be mounted with interceptor drones to combat aerial drones over water.

Ukraine’s military, he added, was already using the Magura off its southern coast to intercept Russian drones that pour into the port city of Odesa from across the Black Sea at night.

“It’s fully live, it’s tested,” he said.

Rogynskyy said stations equipped with Maguras carrying interceptors could be sited along the Gulf’s shoreline, operating on software that reduced the need for many personnel.

‘BETTER TO LEARN LATE THAN TOO LATE’

Zelenskyy has previously berated an unnamed Ukrainian-American company for selling interceptor drones without the government’s involvement.

That, he said, had ultimately tainted Ukraine’s reputation because the soldiers needed to train the clients to use the drones had not been available as that could only happen with government backing.

Halyna Yanchenko, a lawmaker close to Ukrainian defense manufacturers, told Reuters the government had moved very slowly to open up weapons exports, and manufacturers were still in dire need of capital to grow their operations.

She said state policy governing how weapons exports would function was still being formed. Like Mishkina at Tech Force in UA, she believed there was a major risk that Ukraine could miss the moment provided by the Iran war if it did not move quickly.

Even if agreements are struck, officials and drone operators said it could take months to set up drone-based air defenses and provide training.

Taras Tymochko, head of the interceptor drone program at Come Back Alive, a charitable foundation that has bought tens of thousands of interceptor drones for Ukraine’s military, said the sophisticated systems required a range of specialisms, from pilot training, combat experience and the know-how to safely arming warheads and fix technical malfunctions.

More important still, he said, was installing, configuring and correctly positioning radars to detect and track incoming drones and then to coordinate that work across different units.

He predicted the learning curve would be quicker for the Gulf states than for Ukraine, which had to forge ahead on its own while fighting for its survival.

“I’m confident that within a few months, some Gulf countries could form their own interceptor units and, a little later, begin demonstrating results,” Tymochko said.

“Unfortunately, in today’s reality, that time does not exist. But it is better to learn late than too late.”

In the announcement, Brian Hoffman, chief engineer of NSWC Crane’s Man-Portable Weapons, explained that the ammo works much like a shotshell in that it disperses a cluster of projectiles, but it’s designed to be fired from a service rifle or machine gun instead of a shotgun.

“The intent with our ammunition was to simply give operators a better chance of killing drones with cost-effective products that can be used in existing weapons,” Hoffman said in the release. “If you aren’t the world’s best shot or don’t have a lot of experience engaging aerial targets, your odds go up immediately with DKC.”

The cartridge’s design, coupled with the range and velocity of typical centerfire rifle ammo, increases the probability of “hit and kill” against drones, Hoffman said.

In a recent demonstration at Indiana’s Camp Atterbury, DKC achieved a 92% success rate.

Hoffman explained that the DKC product line is “already mature” and applicable for not just killing drones but also “home defense, personal protection and hunting.”

And if it sounds like he’s pitching the product line, that’s because he is. The other part of NSWC Crane’s announcement is that it’s looking for partners to manufacture DKC ammo.

The tech link

Hoffman explained that the Navy typically relies on the Army for small-caliber ammunition under the Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition directive. However, it procures ammo through government contracts with industry partners if not supported by the SMCA.

For that reason, NSWC Crane’s announcement was also featured on TechLink, a Defense Department-funded organization run by Montana State University that helps businesses license technology from federal laboratories.

Using the website, manufacturers can license and commercialize products, like DKC ammo, which have been fully developed and patented by the federal government. The intent behind the project is to help veterans, the military and small businesses.

As small drones are now seen as a common weapon on the battlefield, military and other agency leaders project needing millions of DKC rounds, Hoffman said.

“Ongoing conflicts abroad and operational requirements along the U.S. southern border highlight the immediate utility of DKC and its enhanced yet cost-effective capabilities,” he said in the release.

Exactly who is going to manufacture the ammo has not yet been announced. However, Hoffman added that NSWC Crane recently hosted a DKC-licensing event attended by several U.S. ammo makers, and they received even more interest because of the announcement.

Still, Hoffman said DKC ammo production will evolve in the not-too-distant future.

“Given projected requirements, meeting total DKC quantities will likely involve a combination of (Government‑Owned, Contractor‑Operated) production and licensed industry partners operating in parallel,” he said.

This development marks a key shift in the country’s defense strategy. Japan committed to acquiring 400 Tomahawks last year to equip its eight Aegis destroyers as part of a larger standoff capability, which includes fielding upgraded Type 12 missiles in the southwest and deploying hyper velocity gliding projectile systems across the country.

The existing missile defense network may not be fully capable of responding to threats, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters in a briefing on Friday.

“To prevent missiles flying through the missile defense network and to prevent further armed attacks, it is necessary to … have the ability to counterattack. Stand-off missiles can also be used for this counterattack ability,” Koizumi said.

Japan sprinkles fresh missiles across its islands to fend off would-be attackers

The destroyer’s launcher modification marks a landmark milestone in the country’s efforts to rapidly deploy stand-off capabilities and bolster deterrence measures, he added.

Stand-off weaponry describes a class of ams with ranges so long that operators can fire them from a safe distance, without fearing countermeasures capable of reaching them.

The defense ministry introduced stand-off capabilities in 2017, and it formed the core of the security strategy shift in 2020, which later expanded to additional policy documents, including a detailed buildup plan in the country’s southwest in 2022.

The Tomahawk cruise missiles can be launched from ships or submarines with a range of over 1,600km. The Japanese variant can be rerouted during flight, and advanced versions are capable of hitting moving targets.

The refitted JS Chokai can load and fire both the Block IV and V variants of the cruise missiles.

JS Chokai arrived at Naval Base San Diego, California, in October 2025 for renovations and crew training with the U.S. Third Fleet. Live-fire training is scheduled for August, before JS Chokai returns to its home port in Sasebo Naval Base in the southwestern Kyushu Island in September.

Japan is moving toward a “denial and limited strike” model by fast-tracking the implementation of its 2022 strategy, maritime security expert Benjamin Blandin told Defense News. Blandin is a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan.

“Japan is operationalizing a long overdue counterstrike capability, shifting from strict homeland defense to semi-regional deterrence by being able to strike ground and naval targets at up to 1000 km,” Blandin said.

Japan’s existing defense force, including its stand-off missile capability, is the “minimum necessary for self-defense,” Koizumi said, adding that these would only be used “in the event of an armed attack from another country … and it does not pose a threat to other countries.”

Analysts have raised worries that the U.S. Tomahawk stockpile may be strained after reports indicated that over 800 missiles were used in four weeks during Operation Epic Fury against Iran, and this might impact missile orders for allies, including Japan.

Blandin said Japan’s Tomahawk orders are unlikely to be affected immediately, but prolonged military campaigns in the Middle East could cause minor to moderate setbacks.

American manufacturer RTX, in a Feb. 4 press release, said it had signed five agreements with the U.S. Department of Defense to boost production and expedite deliveries of Land Attack and Maritime Strike variants of the Tomahawk cruise missiles, with annual production expected to increase to more than 1,000.

“No major impact expected in regards to Iran, as deliveries will not take place all at once but probably over the course of a few years,” Blandin said. “In any case, the U.S. will likely prioritize Japan as a key Indo-Pacific ally.”

The idea is to move all basic training fully onto Ukrainian soil, while keeping more specialized courses abroad, Yevhen Mezhivikin, deputy chief of the General Staff’s Main Directorate of Doctrine and Training, told Militarnyi last week.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Adm. Pierre Vandier, explained the logic during his first visit to Ukraine last weekend, calling Ukraine’s warfighting adaptation “one of the strongest lessons” for the alliance back in February and acknowledging that Russia is outpacing NATO in absorbing those same lessons, per Ukrinform.

“Russia is very good at adapting, really, better than we are today,” Vandier said. “So we need to put oil in all the gears.”

The role reversal is already in motion.

Despite Russia launching a massive spring offensive this week, Ukraine has clawed back more territory in its counteroffensive than at any point since 2023. It’s also knocked out an estimated 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity with long-range strikes on its export terminals — and still had enough experts and drones to send 228 drone specialists to the Middle East to help allies intercept Iranian Shaheds that have attacked over a dozen countries.

In an interview last month, Deputy Minister of Defense Lt. Col. Yurii Myronenko, who was appointed on Wednesday as the Defense Ministry’s inspector general and who previously led the team behind the DELTA battlefield situational-awareness system, had already seen what was coming.

Ukraine needs “powerful partners” in NATO, he said, but it also has something to trade back, including “technological exchanges,” and the ability to make decisions “very close to the front line.”

Allied governments have been pushing for this reversal, too.

Britain was “the first country to propose moving all training to Ukraine and concentrating efforts on specific centers,” Mezhivikin had said.

This month, Kyiv sent a cadre of military advisers to Germany to teach drone warfare, counter-UAS tactics and electronic warfare integration — subjects NATO armies have studied in doctrine but never tested under persistent combat conditions. Germany is the first NATO member to formally invite Ukrainian trainers into its own army’s schools.

“We have high expectations,” Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding, head of the German army, told Reuters. “The Ukrainian military is currently the only one in the world with frontline experience against Russia.”

Overseas training “has not been cancelled,” military spokesperson Dmytro Lykhovii clarified three days after the original statement. It is simply scaling down, he said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Courses abroad will be “clustered and optimized,” Lykhovii said, with a short list of partner nations specializing in specific lanes. Weapons and equipment courses, commander-leader education and senior NCO training all continue outside Ukraine.

But the volume of troops sent abroad for basic training has “noticeably decreased over the past two years,” Lykhovii told RBC-Ukraine.

Basic training will continue to run in three EU countries with support from four NATO states through 2026, he said — down from the 18 EU member states that hosted Ukrainian brigade-level training of all types through late 2025, per RBC-Ukraine.

The shift has been twelve years in the making. Ukraine is now the one doing the teaching, exporting hard-won expertise in drone warfare, counter-UAS and electronic warfare to allied armies that have studied these subjects in doctrine but never tested them under fire.

Ukraine’s DELTA system — the battlefield operating picture its units use to fuse feeds, track activity and pass targeting data — has entered NATO’s own training exercises.

The Defense Ministry said DELTA served as the primary command platform for the Ukrainian “red team” during NATO’s REPMUS 2025 unmanned-systems exercise in Portugal, where the team won all five scenarios, coordinating more than 100 drones across maritime, air, ground and underwater domains, and simulating the destruction of a NATO frigate whose detection systems failed to spot the incoming Magura V7 naval drones in time.

And in Estonia, a small Ukrainian drone team playing opposing force during Exercise Hedgehog 2025 used drones and rapid-targeting analysis to render a mechanized NATO unit combat-ineffective in half a day, destroying 17 armored vehicles and roughly 30 additional targets, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The timeline for training across allied forces is tight. Western intelligence assessments put a possible large-scale Russian offensive against NATO as early as 2029.

“That’s almost the day after tomorrow,” he told Reuters. “We have no time — the enemy doesn’t wait for us to declare we’re ready.”

That’s why Ukraine keeps pushing the alliance forward and offering up its experience to help, officials say.

“Having very powerful partners from NATO countries,” Myronenko said, “we will all have a very good chance to always be ahead of the Russians.

So, the service is looking for sled- or pallet-mounted weapons that can be hauled by light manned and unmanned vehicles during joint forced entry, or JFE, operations such as airborne assaults, according to an Army Request for Information.

The goal is to provide “air defense capability to support dismounted maneuver, JFE (C-130 transportable, air droppable, and sling load capable) and light mounted maneuver operations that are C-130 transportable and more robust than JFE solutions,” according to the RFI, which has a deadline of April 6.

The RFI for the project, called Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense Increment 4, is broadly similar to one published in 2024. However, the earlier RFI only asked for some kind of system that could be mounted on platforms such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

The 2026 RFI specifies the solution the Army has settled on: a Self-Loading Equipment Dock or pallet fitted with multiple kinetic and nonkinetic defenses. The SLED or pallet will be mounted on a variety of vehicles, including the Infantry Squad Vehicle and the unmanned Robotic Combat Vehicle.

M-SHORAD Increment 4 is the lightweight part of a multitrack Army effort to develop short-range air defense systems mobile enough to accompany maneuver forces, and protect them against drones and aircraft. Increment 1 mounts missiles and a cannon on a Stryker armored vehicle, the now-canceled Increment 2 featured a laser-armed Stryker and Increment 3 will upgrade Increment 1 to include the Next Generation Short Range Interceptor missile and the XM1223 30mm cannon.

Increment 4 will target Groups 1 to 3 drones (small to medium UAVs), as well as fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters providing close air support to enemy troops. Potential kinetic weapons include the Stinger/Next Generation Short Range Interceptor; Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System; XM914 30mm cannon; and .50-caliber and 7.62mm machine guns. These will be joined by electronic warfare gear and active and passive sensors.

The Army envisions an air defense system that can either be operated while mounted on a vehicle, or dismounted. However, the system shouldn’t require full integration into the transport vehicle.

“The SLED may be carried by the vehicle, but it must maintain independent functionality,” the RFI noted. “Vehicles must be returned to complete functionality after removal of the SLED.”

The service acknowledges that this is a lot of payload to mount on a small, light platform. The Army “understands the constrained Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) on these vehicles and intends to explore systems with this RFI which are compatible with multiple/various vehicles,” the RFI said. “Solutions should incorporate modular design for subsystems and leverage Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) in hardware and software to maximize use of highly constrained SWaP resources.”

The Army is aiming for a system that can fielded in the 2027 to 2029 timeframe. To hasten development, the Army will “leverage existing programs of record and other high-TRL [Technology Readiness Level] components for the initial capability with intent to compete future capabilities in this reconfigurable system,” the RFI said.

The company will lift its overall missile output by 40% this year, a “very significant” increase, Béranger said at a press conference here on Thursday to present MBDA’s annual results. The firm will double the size of its five-year investment plan to help ramp up production.

The destruction wrought by missiles and drones in wars in Ukraine and the Middle East has created a sense of urgency in Europe to build up air defenses, after decades of lackluster investment that saw countries such as Denmark and Belgium abandon the capability altogether. MBDA’s missiles have seen use in both the Ukrainian conflict and in the Middle East.

“We see a very high demand for our products,” Béranger said. “MBDA products are delivering on their mission, they are doing what they are expected to do, they are reliable. And because of this, we are each day receiving a lot of demands.”

MBDA’s Aster family of missiles is used in the SAMP/T air-defense system, the only European alternative to the American Patriot system, as well as for high-end air defense by the French, Italian and British navies. The missile maker had already targeted an Aster production increase of 50% between 2022 and the end of 2025.

Europe can’t rely on US for air-defense missiles, top EU official says

Order intake for MBDA stood at €13.2 billion ($15.2 billion) in 2025, compared with €13.8 billion a year earlier. The order backlog at the end of December climbed to a record €44.4 billion euros, from €37 billion a year earlier. Sales jumped to €5.8 billion from €4.9 billion.

Europe accounted for 70% of MBDA’s order intake in 2025, a “very clear indicator” of the ramp up of demand in the region, according to the CEO. With Europe “massively rearming,” MBDA is expanding its European presence and creating new sites, he said.

MBDA produces a broad range of air-defense and strike missiles, including Mistral ground-based air-defense interceptors, the Meteor air-to-air missile, the SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow cruise missile and Exocet anti-ship weapon. The company says it already doubled missile production between 2023 and the end of 2025.

Germany moves to field a miniature anti-drone missile

The CEO said MBDA’s integrated European model, with businesses in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany, allows the company to play a major role in both national defense programs as well as European cooperative initiatives. MBDA is owned by Airbus and the U.K.’s BAE Systems with a 37.5% stake each, with Italy’s Leonardo owning the remaining 25%.

To finance the growth, MBDA increased its investment plan for 2026-2030 to €5 billion from a planned €2.5 billion for the 2025-2029 period, according to Béranger. The company also plans to hire 2,800 additional workers in 2026.

“We are focusing very much on increasing our production, on increasing our capabilities, which means that we are investing a lot,” Béranger said. “For us the key question as an industrialist is where to size the production tool. Historically, MBDA has not been structured to produce in mass.”

The company’s MICA ground-to-air and air-to-air missile has been in high demand, and it’s one of the products where MBDA invested last year to increase production, though demand “has suddenly surged much beyond what we had anticipated.”

The French Air Force has been using MICA missiles to shoot down dozens of Shahed drones in defense of the United Arab Emirates, raising concerns about depleting stockpiles for the munition, Le Figaro reported earlier this month.

Meanwhile on Aster, MBDA has dedicated some specialized machinery to the model to boost output, whereas low production rates of the past meant those machines would be used to make several missile models.

“With the current surge in demand, we are specializing machines on the products which are in very high demand,” Béranger said. “We have done it with Aster. It’s almost totally done. We still have some machines that we have ordered which are not with us yet, but will come very soon.”

The company is also expanding capacity in its supply chain as well as in-house, and creation of a second Aster assembly line in Italy is in progress, according to Béranger. MBDA currently assembles the air-defense missile on a production line in France.

Béranger declined to say whether increased production will mean lower per-unit prices, saying that’s being discussed with customers, and that MBDA’s investments in production capacity will need to be reimbursed.

The company is seeing interest from Gulf countries for the SAMP/T system made by Eurosam, a consortium between MBDA and Thales, according to Béranger. He declined to identify the countries, saying there are direct contacts with MBDA as well as between governments.

The MBDA-led, French-British development of a stealthy cruise missile and a high-supersonic strike missile within the Stratus program has completed the assessment phase, with the next step being development. Italy has joined as a partner for the Stratus LO, the stealthy missile, Béranger said.

Within the Hydis2 consortium project led by MBDA to develop a hypersonic interceptor, the 19 partners have selected two potential concepts, which will be narrowed to one concept by the end of the year, according to Béranger.

MBDA is working with Airbus and Spain’s Sener on remote drone carriers as part of the troubled French-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System, which is at risk of breakdown due to infighting between Airbus and Dassault Aviation over the next-generation fighter at the heart of the project.

Béranger said the remote-carrier partners are working together “very well,” with a lot of progress on development, and he expressed hope the cooperation continues no matter what happens to FCAS.

The company is talking with potential partners in Europe “beyond the usual countries of MBDA” about mass producing some of its designs, according to Béranger. MBDA has been expanding into massed weapons with the development of a relatively low-cost, one-way effector, similar to the Shahed drones used by Russia and Iran.

Agreements made with Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Honeywell Aerospace will rapidly accelerate production of a wide array of missile components, including ballistic interceptors.

“Through this agreement, we are actively building the Arsenal of Freedom with speed and urgency,” Michael Duffey, Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, said in a release. “By empowering industry to invest in the factory floor, we are building a decisive and enduring advantage for our warfighters to outpace any potential adversary.”

Lockheed will quadruple production levels of the Precision Strike Missile, which was used for the first time in combat against Iranian targets in Operation Epic Fury.

“Lockheed Martin delivers the advanced precision fires capabilities the warfighter needs, including the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), which expands deep-strike capability,” said Jim Taiclet, Chairman, President and CEO of Lockheed Martin, in a statement.

The company will also work with BAE Systems to ramp up output of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptor, or THAAD. BAE Systems announced that annual THAAD production rates will also quadruple.

Honeywell will rapidly increase production of critical missile components. These include navigation systems, electronic warfare mediums used on fighter jets and Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air, or AMRAAM, missiles, and the Assure actuator, which controls and maneuvers missiles in flight.

Jim Currier, president and CEO of Honeywell Aerospace, said in a statement that the company “is proud to embrace the challenge and meet this urgent need.”

All missile systems and components being surged have critical bearing on U.S. ability to defeat aerial threats, including one-way attack drones. The THAAD interceptor is designed to take down aerial threats including intermediate and short-range ballistic missiles flying at up to 17,000 miles an hour.

The PrsM features enhanced GPS capabilities, can hit targets from about 250 miles away and is compatible with both the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, launcher as well as the M270A2 Multiple Launch Rocket System, or MLRS, commonly used by European allies.

Lockheed recently tested a new version of the PrSM designed to strike moving targets at sea.

The seeker deal aligns with a contract agreement in January between the Pentagon and Lockheed to quadruple the company’s annual production of THAAD interceptors from 96 to 400.

“This new multiyear agreement provides a long-term demand signal that gives us the confidence to further invest in expanding our capacity,” Tom Arseneault, president and CEO of BAE Systems, said in a release Wednesday. “We remain focused on rapidly delivering superior technology at scale to help our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage.”

BAE’s THAAD seeker uses advanced sensors to find and lock onto incoming threats, including ballistic missiles traveling up to 17,000 miles per hour, according to company specifications.

Once locked on, the THAAD interceptor can take out threats both inside and beyond the atmosphere using a non-explosive, hit-to-kill impact.

Like Lockheed’s deal, the contract for BAE’s infrared seekers is set for seven years. Lockheed also announced a separate seven-year deal in January to increase annual production of its PAC-3 interceptors from 600 to 2,000 across the next seven years.

The deals come as the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptors against cheap munitions, particularly those used by Iran during Operation Epic Fury, has come under increased scrutiny.

Iran has no shortage of unmanned Shahed drones — reportedly producing 10,000 per month, according to Reuters. Contrast the $35,000 average cost of an Iranian Shahed drone with an estimated $4 million price tag of a PAC-3, and the cost exchange is 114-1 in favor of Iran.

But with deals in place to quadruple THAAD production, it’s clear the Pentagon views the systems as vital pieces in the defense architecture.

“Securing our supply chain is just as critical as our partnership with the prime contractors,” Michael Duffey, under secretary of defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, said Wednesday. “This agreement with BAE Systems sends a clear, stable, long-term demand signal. We are providing the certainty our partners need to invest, expand and hire. This is how we place the industrial base on a wartime footing.”

BAE Systems’ work on the THAAD seeker will be completed at the company’s facilities in Nashua, New Hampshire, and Endicott, New York.

The Grizzly system incorporates design elements of Lockheed’s M299 missile launchers, which can be configured three ways and can be used to shoot both the Hellfire and Joint Air-to-Ground Missile. Hellfire missiles can track targets autonomously and are used by the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and international partners over 15 platforms across air, land and sea domains.

“Our first live fire tests come just six months after the program began research and development, through internal Lockheed Martin investment, demonstrating our focus on quickly delivering a mobile and versatile launcher capability to defeat evolving threats,” Randy Crites, vice president of Lockheed Martin Advanced Programs, said in a statement.

Built out of low-cost commercially available materials, the containerized launcher can be easily lifted and transported by a wide variety of commercial freight and transport equipment, including trucks, aircraft and ships.

The development comes as the Navy is seeking the development of containerized payloads, which can potentially be placed on unmanned surface vessels to increase firepower and flexibility at sea.

The government has until March 31 to sign the order, after which the firm price proposal expires and Raytheon will very likely attribute the production slot to another buyer, Defence Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius wrote in a letter to parliament dated Monday.

That would mean joining the back of the order queue and taking into account “significant price increases,” the minister said.

The Netherlands had counted on extending the price proposal to give parliament sufficient time to discuss a supplementary budget.

However, demand for Patriot systems has increased because of the war in the Middle East, and Raytheon indicated in mid-March it was not going to be able to extend the option, according to Yeşilgöz-Zegerius.

“The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East underscore the importance of robust air defense,” Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said. “This is also what NATO is asking us to prioritize. That is why the government intends to proceed very soon with signing the contract for the Patriot.”

The deadline for signing means the order can’t await parliamentary approval of a supplementary budget, according to the minister.

Raytheon is the only manufacturer of the missile-based air-defense system, with a fire unit typically consisting of a radar, launchers and command and control stations.

The Netherlands has been a loyal Patriot user, being one of first European countries to adopt the system in 1987, and as of 2022 had three fire units, with components for a fourth system in reserve.

The Netherlands in January 2025 ordered Patriot components that included a radar unit and a number of launchers in a $529 million contract to replace parts donated to Ukraine, with all ordered components expected to be delivered in the course of 2029.

The additional Patriot system will represent an “important step” for the Netherlands towards meeting NATO requirements for integrated air and missile defense, according to the Dutch defense minister.

The Netherlands also plans to order additional wheeled Boxer RCT-30 infantry fighting vehicles, which are equipped with an unmanned turret with 30mm cannon, for €570 million. The Dutch in October agreed to buy 72 of the vehicles, part of a combined order with Germany for a total of 222 vehicles valued at €4.7 billion, and with delivery set to start in late 2027.

The additional armored vehicles will strengthen the Dutch Medium Infantry Brigade, another NATO priority, Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said.

The option for more vehicles at the same price and delivery time as the initial batch expires May 31, in which case joining the international order queue will likely push back delivery to 2032, according to the minister.

While the government didn’t say how many additional Boxer RCT-30s it intends to order, a calculated per-unit price based on last year’s purchase would suggest around 27 extra infantry fighting vehicles.

The service received the aircraft, designated H-60Mx, and said the Black Hawk variant will begin rigorous testing of its ability to operate with a reduced crew or autonomously.

According to a March 20 Army release, the helicopter uses autonomy software developed under a Defense Department program to enable flight with minimal human input.

The Army said the aircraft is modified with “fly-by-wire” controls, which replace mechanical systems with electronic ones that allow computer-assisted flight. The system allows onboard computers to interpret pilot inputs and adjust flight controls in real time, making the aircraft more stable and easier to handle in difficult conditions.

“Functioning like a highly advanced digital co-pilot, the system can manage the most complex tasks of flight, from takeoff to landing,” the statement reads. “This allows the helicopter to perform missions completely on its own or with a remote crew supervising from a secure ground station, offering unprecedented flexibility.”

The technology behind H-60Mx traces back to a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program known as Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System, or ALIAS, which began more than a decade ago to develop automation kits for aircraft already in use. The program was intended to create a removable autonomy kit that could be installed on existing aircraft to reduce crew workload so pilots could focus on other critical tasks.

Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary that manufactures the Black Hawk, worked with the Army to integrate the autonomy system onto the aircraft, the company said in a release.

In the coming months, Army test pilots and engineers will put the helicopter’s autonomy systems through rigorous testing, the Army said, to see how effectively the technology can be controlled from the ground and how successfully the systems perform in complex scenarios.

The Army said that this aircraft represents the start of a potentially larger initiative, as it is the serves as the “primary testbed” for the Strategic Autonomy Flight Enabler program, or SAFE, which seeks to create an autonomy kit that could be put into any of the Army’s Black Hawks.

The Army said it is working with Texas A&M University’s George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex, which is also using ALIAS technology, to study how autonomous aircraft can be used for combatting wildfires, among other things.

The Army has tested autonomous technology in a Black Hawk before. In a 2025 training exercise, a U.S. Army National Guardsman used a touchscreen tablet to operate an Optionally Piloted Vehicle Black Hawk. The Guardsman transported a 2,900-pound water buffalo slingload, according to previous Military Times reporting.

Lockheed Martin announced the first autonomous Black Hawk flight in 2022, when the aircraft finished a 30-minute mission without a human in the cockpit.

The push towards autonomy goes beyond helicopters. Defense technology firm Shield AI in 2025 unveiled an autonomous vertical takeoff fighter jet, called X-BAT, that is designed to operate without runways.

Autonomy has also become a touchpoint of military innovation outside of aviation, with developments ranging from unmanned vehicles for mortar supply to autonomous drones to clean up chemical and biological weapons.

The two nations are seeking a comprehensive suite of commercial systems that can detect and destroy a variety of undersea robots, including unmanned underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles and semisubmersibles.

“Current solutions are fragmented, expensive, and limited in number,” warned the solicitation. The primary focus of the Robotic Exclusion and Engagement Framework, or REEF, project is to protect “ports and harbors from underwater threats of varying size and sophistication, while the broader goal is to protect all U.S. critical waterways.”

DIU envisions using off-the-shelf sensors, edge processing, active and passive sensors, sensor fusion, decoys and other technologies to create a stand-alone solution that can be quickly deployed as needed. This can include fixed systems such as moored buoys and buried cables, or mobile systems such as USVs, UUVs, UAVs and drifting buoys.

Sensors should be able to utilize artificial intelligence to discriminate between hostile undersea drones, versus nonthreats such as marine life, cargo ships and fishing vessels.

“The system must provide sufficient detection-to-response time for human in-the-loop decision-making such that underwater threats can be safely interdicted or neutralized,” the solicitation noted.

The system will employ kinetic and nonkinetic approaches to stop drones. Nonkinetic methods can include rapidly deployable nets, bubble curtains and synthetic barriers. Kinetic defenses can include kinetic payloads, acoustic directed energy and physical coupling devices.

Preference will be given to nonkinetic solutions, the solicitation said.

REEF will emphasize decoys to protect waterways and critical infrastructure. “Capabilities to confuse adversarial underwater craft are of high interest. These can be low-cost attritable systems or more technologically advanced systems that use signals to act as a decoy to prevent the successful completion of the adversary’s mission,” according to the solicitation.

REEF should require little training to operate, and use AI to provide users with suggestions. It must be compatible with existing U.S. command-and-control systems and common operating pictures.

Cooperation with the U.K. will be eased by a 2024 Department of Commerce interim final rule that allows some controlled items to be shared with Britain. British companies are eligible for export control relief under General Export Authorization No. 001.

The U.S. Army hasn’t even officially taken delivery of its most powerful high-energy laser weapon yet, but the service is already walking away from it in pursuit of a newer model.

In a new Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published on March 9, Army officials revealed that the service no longer plans on transitioning its 300 kilowatt Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser system, or IFPC-HEL, dubbed “Valkyrie,” to a program of record after years in development.

This move effectively ends its current effort to build a laser weapon powerful enough to defend U.S. troops against cruise missiles as well as drones and munitions.

As recently as this past January, the Army planned to transition the truck-mounted IFPC-HEL — developed as a successor to the 100 kW High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator (HEL-TVD) and earlier 10 kW High Energy Laser Mobile Test Truck (HELMTT) — to a program of record in fiscal year 2025 following successful testing.

The service previously awarded Lockheed Martin an Other Transaction Authority agreement worth up to $220.8 million in July 2023 to develop four IFPC-HEL prototypes following the September 2022 delivery of a 300 kW demonstrator under the U.S. Defense Department’s High Energy Laser Scaling Initiative (HELSI).

According to the new CRS report, however, Army officials said the IFPC-HEL contract has since been reduced to a single prototype, which is currently undergoing “final lab testing” at a Lockheed facility in New Jersey ahead of subsequent developmental testing at the service’s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah this summer.

According to officials, that prototype won’t end up in the service’s hands until at least September, after which it will “be divested as a fielding candidate and used to inform the Joint Laser Warfighting System,” according to the CRS report.

In this context, the “Joint Laser Warfighting System” likely means the Pentagon’s Joint Laser Weapon System (JLWS), a new collaboration between the Army and U.S. Navy initiated “in support of DoD’s overarching Golden Dome for America strategy” to develop a laser weapon to “provide an Air Defense capability against cruise missile threats,” according to the Army’s fiscal year 2026 budget request.

The JLWS “represents the next step in the evolution of counter-cruise missile laser weapons,” the budget documents say.

The Army did not respond to a request for comment from Laser Wars.

While the Pentagon is accelerating the development and fielding of laser weapons at scale across the U.S. military primarily in response to the ever-expanding threat of low-cost weaponized drones, fast and maneuverable land-attack cruise missiles remain one of the most persistent and dangerous threats facing U.S. and allied forces abroad, from Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine to Iranian-supplied weapons used across the Middle East.

This danger looms over the homeland as well; the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency stated in 2025 that cruise missiles launched from Russian aircraft or Chinese naval assets represent a significant gap in America’s current domestic missile defenses.

Laser weapons like those envisioned for IFPC-HEL may struggle in a counter-cruise missile role. Unlike most drones, cruise missiles are designed to survive significant atmospheric friction as they speed towards their targets, often with hardened nose cones and reinforced casings that require sustained energy to defeat.

Because cruise missiles move at hundreds of miles an hour, maintaining a stable beam on a single vulnerable point over an extended range for several seconds in order to inflict catastrophic damage is significant challenge.

Even small disruptions in target tracking or beam quality can break the engagement, limiting the effectiveness of even the most powerful existing systems.One possible solution to this problem lies in pulsed laser technology, which delivers energy in high-intensity femtosecond-long bursts rather than a sustained beam like the popular continuous wave systems.

By concentrating energy into these ultra-short pulses, these systems can achieve higher peak power and potentially damage or disrupt targets without requiring prolonged dwell time on a single point.

IFPC-HEL wasn’t the U.S. military’s only counter-cruise missile efforts in the works. The Navy is still pursuing its 300 kW High Energy Laser Counter-ASCM Program (HELCAP), while the Office of Naval Research is exploring an even more powerful 400 kW system through its SONGBOW project.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s HELSI initiative is targeting megawatt-class lasers capable of engaging not just cruise missiles, but ballistic and hypersonic threats, with the department awarding nLight a contract in 2023 to develop a suitable system over three years.

According to a recent report in Aviation Week, nLight is “on track” to demonstrate that system for defense officials this year, with a successful outcome likely solidifying potential plans to incorporate laser weapons into the Golden Dome’s layered defense architecture.

It’s unclear from the CRS report why the Army chose to abandon IFPC-HEL. However, the decision mirrors its earlier move to drop the Stryker-mounted 50 kW Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) laser weapon in favor of the upcoming Enduring High Energy Laser system, which may become the service’s first official directed energy program of record.

In that case, hands-on soldier assessments conducted in the Middle East in 2024 revealed that “results from the lab environment and test ranges were very different from the tactical environment,” according to a separate CRS update published March 10.

If a 50 kW system designed for drones like DE M-SHOARD struggles to perform outside of controlled conditions, scaling that technology up to 300 kW cruise missile defense may prove even more challenging.

The need for laser weapons capable of countering cruise missiles is clear, and the political and institutional will to develop them appears strong. But if the Army’s decision to move on from IFPC-HEL is any indication, the technology may not yet be ready for one of the most demanding missions in modern air defense.

The vessel, identified as an AEGIR-W variant, came aground on a beach in the Yüceler neighborhood of Ünye district in Ordu province. Locals discovered the craft and informed the authorities.

According to a statement issued by the Ordu Governorate, Turkish Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialists conducted a technical inspection of the vesselon March 21.

The examination determined that the craft remained operationally active and was carrying a warhead. Given the assessed risk, authorities made the decision to tow the vessel approximately four kilometers from the shoreline and destroy it in a controlled detonation.

Görseller üzerinden yapılan incelemelerde, bahsi geçen İDA'nın, AEGIR ailesinin AEGIR-W adlı üyesi olduğu görülüyor.

Yaklaşık 10 metre uzunluğundaki AEGIR-W, azami 900 kilometre menzile sahip ve 25+ knot sürate ulaşabiliyor. Otonom olarak görev icra edebilen İDA'nın faydalı yük… https://t.co/Uqdb24Z73G pic.twitter.com/jZ3DjBbdx0

— SavunmaSanayiST.com (@SavunmaSanayiST) March 21, 2026

The AEGIR-W is a long-endurance unmanned surface vessel designed for operations in high-threat maritime environments. The platform measures under ten meters in length, is constructed from high-density polyethylene, and is powered by a diesel combustion engine.

It is capable of reaching speeds in excess of 25 knots and carries a maximum payload of 300 kilograms across a range of 500 nautical miles at cruise speed. The vessel can operate either fully autonomously or under direct human operator control, depending on mission requirements.

According to Sierra Nevada Corporation’s product documentation, the AEGIR family — which also includes the AEGIR-F stealth variant and the longer-range AEGIR-H — is designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, offensive operations, and autonomous resupply tasks.

The Black Sea has become an increasingly active theater for unmanned maritime systems since the start of Russia’s full-scale Ukraine invasion in February 2022.

This is the fifth time an out-of-control naval surface drone has been found on Turkish shores since September 2025. In previous cases the vessels were Ukrainian Magura-family craft. This is the first time that a foreign-made system has been confirmed present in the region.

The 18-ton vehicle, dubbed the MK1, was developed in less than a year and is envisioned as a multi-role platform incorporating lessons the companies have drawn from the war in Ukraine.

Company officials told Defense News the project took shape after they identified a market gap in the European market: an intermediate segment between light vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles.

“In Finland, we already have two combat vehicle suppliers, Sisu and Patria, whose offers range between 10-15 and 24 tons – we wanted to create something in the middle, to widen the portfolio of vehicles coming from Finland,” Viktor Ekman, the CEO of Scata, told Defense News in March 19 interview.

Ekman said he considers his company to be an “add-on” to those two firms, rather than a competitor.

The new vehicle is designed to perform a variety of missions, including reconnaissance, troop transport for up to 10 soldiers, anti-drone operations and short-range air defense.

In the counter-drone category, the manufacturer is still assessing weaponry options, including interceptor drones that would be launched from the roof or from the inside of the vehicle to intercept incoming unmanned craft, Ekman said.

Enginneers have placed special emphasis on hardening the top side of the Mk1, given how combat vehicles have been significantly damaged in Ukraine by first-person-view drones.

For Ukrainian forces, cheap and short-term solutions to this issue have included metal cages or mesh, which cause an early detonation of explosive charges.

The Finnish-made combat vehicle is slated to be on display at the Eurosatory arms fair in Paris, which runs June 15-19.

Ekman said the company is in discussions with Finland and Sweden as potential launch customers.

The testing, which involved the variant of the future advanced reconnaissance vehicle, or ARV, equipped with a 30mm autocannon, took place in January and February at Camp Pendleton, California, according to a recent Marine Corps news release.

Prototypes by two designers, Textron Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems, underwent the water entry, swim and firing drills ahead of an upcoming competition period set to end with a down-select to one company around 2030.

In an exclusive interview with Military Times this month, Phil Skuta, GDLS’s director of Strategy and Business Development for the Marine Corps and Navy, described some of the challenges the new vehicle must overcome, including high-speed water entry and firing the autocannon on the water, both of which can involve weathering large and unpredictable waves.

He also described a new feature GDLS is asking the Marine Corps to evaluate: an “autotrim function” that would allow the ARV’s crew to outsource some of the work of driving the vessel in the water.

“You can set the course, the azimuth that you want to follow, and the vehicle will automatically stay on that course,” Skuta said. “So, we’re starting to build in a level of automation so that, while they’re doing, say, a long water-borne movement, that’s just one less thing the crew has to think about.

“They can think about the other activities involved in not only operating the vehicle but most importantly focusing on the enemy, so they don’t have to focus so much on, ‘Am I going in the correct direction? And is the vehicle being stable in the water?’”

Skuta said the function was somewhat similar to an aircraft autopilot function, but also like cruise control and automated lane-keeping in a ground vehicle.

“If you’re out of the lane, you might get a little buzz, so to speak,” he said. That’s more what this is right now — the first step.”

That’s particularly useful, from GDLS’ perspective, because the ARV’s swim system, separately from the ground automotive system, is piloted via a “small joystick” by a driver looking at internal screens, underscoring what a chore it is to do manual course corrections. The feature could also help the vehicle adapt to the increasingly automated future, Skuta said.

“We’re demonstrating by [incorporating] the automated trim course and azimuth function that we can eventually, in anticipation of future requirements, put more automation into the system, as well as robotic controls,” he said.

The ARV is expected to come in three variants: in addition to the ARV-30 autocannon platform there will be a Command, Control, Communications and Computers/Unmanned Aircraft Systems model, or C4/UAS, which has previously undergone testing; and a logistics variant, which will be featured in upcoming swim tests, Skuta said.

Textron and GDLS are both set to contract with the Marine Corps as soon as this fiscal quarter for 16 additional prototypes that will enable testing in coming years ahead of the final down-select.

Textron’s vehicle, which it calls the Cottonmouth, has six wheels compared to GDLS’ eight.

During the recent evolution, Skuta said, shoreside testing included a bilge pump demonstration, in which the ARV-30 was flooded with water, triggering safety sensors that automatically pump it out “like a water fountain.”

Water safety has been an increased focus since a July 2020 assault amphibious vehicle sinking off the coast of Pendleton, resulting in the deaths of nine service members. A malfunctioning bilge pump was found to have contributed to the tragedy.

Once in the water, the new vehicle was put through its paces on a five-kilometer swim course to test its maneuverability and stopping distance in calm conditions.

“You’re just kind of pivoting in the water to show the characteristics of how you can do very tight maneuvering in water spaces,” Skuta said. “And you know, that’s pretty important, because the Marines will find themselves crossing rivers and water obstacles while they’re in combat zones. And they need to have a good appreciation for how tight a turning radius the vehicle has in the water.”

Crews also practiced moving the turret around as if preparing for live fire on the water, which affects the vehicle’s center of gravity, he said.

“In a river-crossing scenario, [if the] enemy presents themselves on the far shoreline the Marines would fire from the vehicle in the water,” Skuta said. “So, that gives a good indication of how the turret and the fire control system will stabilize on a target while they’re in that water environment.”

Another tested skill, high-speed water entry, made for one of the “more fun” events to observe, he said.

The ARV-30 entered the water at progressively higher speeds, topping out at 25 miles per hour and sending a massive water plume into the air.

Notably, for all the testing with GDLS and Textron, Marines from the amphibious vehicles community were able to observe and monitor testing, Skuta said.

While the Marine Corps has not released any specific feedback from the demos, he said the onsite response from the Marines was encouraging.

“A lot of smiles, a lot of thumbs up from what they saw,” Skuta said.

Amid cornfields and horse farms 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Columbus, Ohio, the defense tech start-up is expecting its $1 billion Arsenal-1 autonomous systems manufacturing campus to employ more than 4,000 people over the next decade, starting with roughly 250 by the end of this year, officials said on Thursday.

Anduril is one of a new but growing group of small defense firms hoping to win lucrative Pentagon contracts for next-generation weapons. The Trump administration hopes the newer firms will help upend weapons manufacturing by delivering cutting-edge technology more quickly and at a lower cost.

Matt Grimm, Anduril’s co-founder and chief operating officer, said its approach to manufacturing differs fundamentally from traditional defense contractors.

Rather than designing products first and worrying about production later, the company bakes manufacturability in from Day 1 — choosing commercial materials such as aluminum over titanium, using composite techniques borrowed from the recreational boat industry and selecting a commercial business jet engine for the Fury program specifically because of its well-established supply chain and maintenance ecosystem.

Production of the company’s Fury autonomous aircraft will be the first to launch at the facility. The Fury is Anduril’s entrant for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program — part of an Air Force plan for a next-generation family of systems, an effort to equip crewed fighter jets and other planes with an uncrewed platform that would fly alongside the human pilots.

“From the very first prototype, we’ve been working with our engineers on every single build, thinking, how do we design it for production?” Grimm said.

Anduril said its Roadrunner interceptor, Barracuda cruise missile family and a classified program were all expected to be produced at the new factory by year-end.

The company said it is already operating production facilities in Mississippi, Australia, Rhode Island, Colorado, Atlanta, North Carolina and Southern California.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Ohio; Editing by Chris Sanders, Rod Nickel)

“Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Special Tactics (ST) units currently lack a purpose-built First-Person View (FPV) unmanned capability,” warned the RFI, which is due April 17. “This deficit restricts the force’s ability to employ FPV systems in specialized mission sets and limits the development of standardized Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) essential for modern, high-intensity conflict.”

The service is looking for a drone with a range of at least 10 kilometers, and ideally more than 20 kilometers. It would be armed with a fragmentation warhead of 1.5 to 3 kilograms. Flight time should be 15 to 30 minutes.

Guidance would be via GPS, and include the ability to function in GPS-denied environments.

“This system needs to integrate Global Positioning System (GPS), 4G/LTE/5G cellular connectivity, true frequency hopping between bands, and an optional repeater to extend operational range to over 20 kilometers,” the RFI said.

The initial weight limit is no more than 30 pounds, including two drones and a ground control system, all of which would be hauled by two operators with backpacks. The final goal is a 10-pound system that can be carried by a single operator.

The drones should be ready for launch under three minutes, with an ideal setup time of less than a minute. The controller device would use the Android Team Awareness Kit UAS interface.

The attack drones will equip “specialized individuals” within AFSOC Special Tactics Teams, which normally comprise combat controllers, pararescuemen, Tactical Air Control specialists and special tactics officers. These teams perform missions such as coordinating close air support and assisting airfield seizure operations.

But armed with kamikaze drones that can hit targets 12 miles away, Special Tactics Teams will have their own strike capability to assist capturing objectives, or defending those that have been captured. The drones will enable integration of first-person attack drones “into core mission sets, including Global Access, Precision Strike, and Personnel Recovery,” the Air Force noted.

With drones dominating the battlefield in Ukraine and elsewhere, the U.S. special operations community is devoting a great deal of attention to UAVs. This includes small missiles that can be launched from drones, and drones that can be used inside caves. SOCOM also wants to teach some of its personnel to build and repair drones.