{"id":71075,"date":"2025-08-05T17:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T17:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2025\/08\/05\/army-to-grow-air-defense-force-by-30\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:26:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:26:04","slug":"army-to-grow-air-defense-force-by-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2025\/08\/05\/army-to-grow-air-defense-force-by-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Army to grow air defense force by 30%"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. \u2013 The U.S. Army is planning to grow its air and missile defense force by 30%, according to the commander of the service\u2019s Space and Missile Defense Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to adding three Patriot battalions<\/a> equipped with the Lower-Tier Air-and-Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, <\/a>radar, the service will also add five Indirect Fire Protection Capability<\/a> battalions and seven Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems batteries, Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey said Tuesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This force structure increase will take place over the next eight years, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plans align with the Army\u2019s recent push to increase air-and-missile defense capability across the board, as lessons learned in Ukraine <\/a>and in the Middle East continue to reinforce the necessity of the capability. The service also acknowledges a need to develop a more layered defensive structure that can address wide-ranging threats, including swarms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army\u2019s Patriot force has one of the highest operational tempos in the service, and a push to find a way to alleviate the pressure on those units has been ongoing for years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service believes one way to resolve that strain \u2014 in addition to simply growing the Patriot force structure \u2014 is to develop and field systems that can counter some of the proliferating threats on the battlefield, like drone swarms, cruise missiles or rockets, artillery and mortars with other capabilities like IFPC and counter-UAS systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fielding five IFPC battalions aligns with the Army\u2019s plan to develop five Multidomain Task Force, or MDTF, units,<\/a> that will be dedicated to specific combatant commands and be equipped with Long-Range Fires Battalions that will have Mid-Range Capability and Long-Range Hypersonic batteries, as well as IFPC battalions. <\/p>\n\n\n\t