Task Force Falcon Strike will utilize one-way attack drones composed of unmanned systems from above, on and below the sea, managed by U.S. military support staff and regional partners, according to a Thursday release.

The move to launch this unit follows CENTCOM’s establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike in December 2025, a Middle East-based task force equipped with one-way attack drones as the military strived to integrate drone technology across the services.

“Task Force Falcon Strike will expand on Scorpion Strike’s success given the tremendous innovation happening among our regional allies and partners,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in the release. “Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon.”

Scorpion Strike was the first to launch an aerial attack drone from a U.S. Navy warship last December, the month of its announcement. The unit also deployed one-way unmanned aerial systems during Operation Epic Fury and during strikes on Iranian port facilities in July with unmanned attack vessels at sea, the statement highlights.

CENTCOM began consulting with and officially inviting regional partners to join Falcon Strike, aiming to expand attack-drone capabilities across the Middle East into a “unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent.”

“The United States military has a lot of strong partnerships and friends in the region,” Cooper said. “We are collectively stronger when we integrate and deploy new capabilities together.”

The release did not specify which regional partners CENTCOM is working with on the unit.

Personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command Central, located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, will lead Falcon Strike’s staff of U.S. and regional representatives after it launched Scorpion Strike, the release states.

The announcement comes as the U.S. continues its war with Iran, which has depleted the U.S. munitions stockpile and caused military leaders to weigh the possibility of developing cheaper anti-drone technology at a faster pace.

The training commenced with a three-day event at Twentynine Palms, California, where Marines from the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions learned how to shoot down small unmanned aerial systems, or sUASs, with rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers, according to a recent release.

Capt. Faith Richardson, a platoon commander with the Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group, said in the release that they aimed to give Marines “a realistic look at the threat.”

For the exercise, TTECG created counter-sUAS lanes where Marines engaged simulated enemy drones from distances as close as 20 meters, or around 65 feet. Controlled by members of TTECG, nicknamed “Coyotes,” the drones reach speeds at over 90 miles per hour.

“The intent of the C-sUAS lanes was to build the confidence of our Marines to target sUAS and complete the mission,” Richardson added.

Inside the lane, Marines practiced using an assortment of weapons, including the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, the M1014 shotgun, and M32A1 and M320 grenade launchers as well as electronic anti-drone weapons.

In addition to the live-fire training, the event included house clearing and patrol exercises, which tested and evaluated Marines on their ability to deny, detect and defeat sUAS.

Richardson explained that by the end, participants developed the basic skillset to apply the C-sUAS mindset to all subsequent service-level training events.

While the U.S. military has long used large aircraft drones in combat, it has rapidly accelerated the use and experimentation of small commercial drones over the past couple of years.

In December 2025, the Pentagon launched the Drone Dominance program to invest $1.1 billion into the U.S. drone market. The goal is increasing the quality of the technology while decreasing price per unit.

The program was largely influenced by the war in Ukraine, where drones have become a dominating force on the battlefield. Combatants have used inexpensive commercial drones to destroy billions of dollars worth of Russian equipment, and 90% of Russian casualties are from drone attacks.

Adopting the spirit of Drone Dominance, the Marine Corps has been quickly developing its own drone capabilities.

In the past month, the service established the Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group, or MCRIG. The group serves to integrate, standardize and institutionalize training for sUASs and C-sUASs across the total force.

The service also began stockpiling anti-drone ammo, which Marines can load into an M4 or M27 without any modification. However, unlike standard 5.56mm ammo, the anti-drone’s projectile fragments as it flies down range, so it functions similarly to a shot shell.

For intercepting medium to large attack drones, the Marine Corps inked a deal with Allen Control Systems for the Bullfrog M240, which it plans to use to aid air defense. The AI-enabled machine gun is designed to detect, track and automatically fire at aerial threats.

Moving forward, the Marine Corps said it will continue the service level training at Twentynine Palms to ensure Marines have the basic skillset to operate in areas where sUAS may be present. In turn, those who complete the training can share it with their home units.

Soldiers with the 2nd Infantry Division/ROK-U.S. Combined Division trained alongside Marines to outfit Neros Archer Strike first-person-view, or FPV, drones with C4 explosives to attack targets at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in South Korea.

It was the division’s first time using live ordnance with the system.

The training represents part of the military’s broader push to place attack drones directly in the hands of smaller units, giving them the ability to strike targets without relying on assets at higher echelons. Both the Marine Corps and the Army have created specialized units and groups dedicated to the small sky-fliers that have changed the course of modern warfare.

“At my level, the modernization with drones is allowing for on-the-ground troops to, rather than call in company-level or battalion-level assets, within their platoon or squad-sized element, be able to support long-range fires up to 20 kilometers,” said Pfc. Gavin Zerrull, a military intelligence systems maintainer and integrator who participated in the training.

Zerrull is also an FPV coach and operator with Talon Technologies, the “innovation arm” of the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, according to the Army’s early August release. The effort assesses unmanned aircraft systems for one-way strike missions, intelligence collection, surveillance and cargo delivery.

The Neros Archer Strike drones are made for long-range missions. As seen in photos released by the Army, the drone is small enough to be carried in one hand, with spindly, spider-like legs and antennas.

According to Zerrull, the platform has already been used in the war between Russia and Ukraine, where drones dominate the battlefield.

“What makes this different from a typical drone training event is the fact that we’re working with live ordnance and using a platform that has actively been tested in real-world situations in Ukraine,” he said.

Although Congress authorized CMP to sell surplus weapons — and has sold 1911 handguns and M1 Garands in the past — this is the first time it will sell the historic M14.

Jerry O’Keefe, CMP’s chairman and chief executive officer, explained that the challenge was that the rifles were originally serialized as fully automatic firearms.

Although civilians can legally own machine guns, federal law requires both buyers and sellers to adhere to strict regulatory policies.

“We’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort thinking through every step in this process, working with our partners to get everybody in agreement,” O’Keefe said.

He explained that they worked closely with their federal partners and walked them “through every step in the conversion process” to show how they will make the M14s “permanently and irreversibly semi-automatic.”

The federal government created CMP in 1903 to promote marksmanship training among civilians, and in 1996, Congress privatized the organization and gave it authority to sell surplus military firearms.

According to a 2019 Government Accountability Office report, the Army has transferred more than 700,000 rifles and handguns to CMP, which has generated about $196.8 million in revenue from their sale.

While CMP initially announced that the M14s could be available as early as this year, O’Keefe clarified that the first sales will most likely occur in early 2027.

“We expected the demand for this to be extraordinary and frankly, the feedback on all the different forums and websites and YouTubes has even exceeded what we expected,” he said. “So we now know that we’re going to have to spend a few months building up a pretty large inventory of converted guns before we go to first sale.”

The M14 has a complicated military history but remains popular among firearms enthusiasts. Chambered in 7.62mm, it was developed from the M1 Garand and replaced the World War II-era rifle as the standard U.S. service rifle around 1957.

The M14 was intended to serve as an all-purpose infantry weapon. Its select-fire option was part of an effort to consolidate several weapons used by American troops into a single platform.

Ian McCollum, a firearms historian and host of the YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons, explained that the military wanted to combine the capabilities of the M1 carbine, M1 Garand, M3 Grease Gun and M1918A2 BAR into a single weapon.

That effort produced the M14 Infantry Rifle, as well as the M15 Light Machine Gun, which was essentially an M14 equipped with a bipod and pistol grip.

The M14, however, had a short service life. Springfield Armory — the historic military arsenal, not the current manufacturer that produces modernized M14s — designed the rifle but was not equipped for the kind of mass production the military ultimately demanded.

Once other manufacturers got involved, though, they made parts of inconsistent quality, which led to inconsistencies in the rifle’s overall performance.

The military ultimately bought about 1.38 million M14s before ending the program in 1964. The rifle entered combat during the Vietnam War, but its size and materials made it ill-suited for the dense jungle environment compared to the M16, which began replacing it in 1967.

“Tromping through a jungle, you are better off with something a little bit shorter than an M14, so ultimately, the M14 would end up being the U.S. service rifle with the shortest active service life of anything that the U.S. has ever issued,” McCollum said.

Many of the remaining M14s were subsequently destroyed, sold overseas or transferred to foreign militaries, according to McCollum. They also briefly made an appearance during the Global War on Terror. M14 variants were used in Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily as designated marksman and sniper rifles.

That makes CMP’s planned sale particularly notable for enthusiasts who have long viewed the M14 as an iconic American service rifle.

Brian C. Sheetz, the editor-in-chief of the American Rifleman, called it “one of the best general-purpose rifle choices for uncertain times” because it “offers a level of utility and capability — all in an understated package — not commonly encountered in many more modern firearms.”

When the surplus M14s finally go on sale, O’Keefe said they will cost around $2,000 apiece, and buyers should be able to purchase up to two rifles at a time.

The contract, awarded through the Office of Naval Research, will result in the delivery early next year of a High-power Microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability (HAVOC) system that can autonomously identify drone targets to be dropped from the sky with an electromagnetic pulse.

The award follows prototype testing of the similar Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm (ExDECS) weapon prototype that Epirus delivered to the Corps for testing last year under a $5.5 million contract.

Compared with ExDECS, the HAVOC system will have three times the power, improved ruggedness and range and autonomous capabilities intended to simplify decision-making for human operators, the company said.

“We’ve tripled the power density nearly in this system. So think of it, from a laser point of view that a lot of people are familiar with, like going from a 50-kilowatt to 150-kilowatt type laser in the same size package. So that directly kind of contributes to lethality, range, these types of things,” Epirus CEO Andy Lowery told Defense News in an interview. “We’ve also very much increased the reliability of the system and its suitability for various types of weather, types of different locations, dust, and all of that, where the Marines are dragging this thing around.”

Lowery called the increase in the weapon’s effective range “significant,” though he said he couldn’t give specifics.

Epirus says its microwave energy beams, powered by gallium nitride transistors, deliver a precise “force field” blow of interference that can take out swarms of drones with minimal collateral damage.

“We’re specifically useful with defending critical points that just have zero fail – cannot get hit – or defending mobile formations,” Lowery said, “Which is a lot of times what the Marines are looking for when they’re [operating] their expeditionary units.”

The HAVOC system will be delivered with a universal sled mount “for seamless integration across the Marine Corps’ manned and unmanned ground vehicle fleets,” according to an Epirus announcement.

The counter-drone advances the Marine Corps is making parallel the work of the Army, which signed a $66 million deal with Epirus in 2023 for the Leonidas counter-drone weapon prototype. Since receiving the first Leonidas system in late 2023 for testing, the service has deployed the systems to the Middle East and Pacific on an experimental basis. Last year, the Army inked a nearly $44 million contract for delivery of two of the systems. Shortly after, Epirus announced the system had downed 49 aerial drones in a single pulse during a live-fire demonstration.

Testing and evaluation with the Army, particularly in deployed environments, helped develop the requirements for the ruggedized and mobile HAVOC system, Lowery said.

“We realized sort of where the system was strong and where it needed to be improved, and so we’ve incorporated all of that learning into this second generation and getting it into a production-ready state,” he said. “We went through some monsoons, actually, and one of our systems was found to have a little bit of a leak in it … some of those monsoons were like dunking it underwater. So we improved upon the waterproofing and the dust-proofing.”

The Marine Corps is likely to build HAVOC into its existing expeditionary drone defense infrastructure following rigorous testing. The service is now fielding the Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS), a counter-drone weapons package mounted on two lightweight all-terrain vehicles that can be transported via helicopter or MV-22 Osprey.

“No single system’s a panacea, and neither are we,” Lowery said. “But we provide the goalie kind of thing before the final puck gets in the net, where you’ve had leakers or you have overwhelmed your other systems through quantity, mass, swarms. And we’re the final line of defense against those types of threats.”

The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.

The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.

The long-range munitions are an important part of the military’s arsenal, allowing accurate strikes from a safe distance. U.S.-supplied ATACMS have played a key role in the war in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russia. The PrSM is a newer, more advanced generation that will replace the ATACMS, which have a shorter range.

Analysts say such weapons — which cost over $1 million each — would also be important in any conflict with China.

The sources declined to say how many of each munition the U.S. had left.

President Donald Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Israel in February, predicting that the conflict would last a short time.

But as the war drags on, the three people familiar with the matter expressed worry that the falling missile supplies could limit the U.S. ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China.

A fourth person familiar with the matter said that while Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East — has nearly used up the land-based missiles it had before the war began, it has been able to reload from U.S. military supplies elsewhere in the world.

The sources interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the U.S. had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”

“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.

Analysts agree that certain munitions, including artillery shells and several types of missiles, are being produced at record levels but caution that supplies might far short of what is needed for a prolonged war.

Lockheed Martin, which makes the ATACMs and PrSMs, along with the anti-ballistic missile THAAD system, did not immediately respond to questions about Trump’s statements or about supply levels.

Raytheon, which makes Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors, two important U.S. weapons, also did not immediately respond.

Responding to a request for comment, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said: “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing. We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”

The supply figures have circulated inside the federal government over the last week during tense conversations inside the Trump administration about how much longer the U.S. can continue striking Iran without drawing down the stockpile to levels that would limit the military’s ability to respond to crises elsewhere.

WARNINGS OVER WEAPONS SUPPLIES

One of the sources said the drawdown of the ATACMS and PrSM stockpiles reflected a decision by the Trump administration to avoid riskier ways of attacking Iranian targets, such as by using piloted aircraft to drop bombs.

Because these weapons allow the military to attack targets from a distance, analysts say they would be valuable in a war against an adversary with strong air defenses, such as China.

They have been used to strike targets inside Iran, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

According to the report, PrSM stockpiles were low to start with, since it is a relatively new munition, but the U.S. military has ordered a large number of them for 2027. The Army has said that ATACMS are being phased out and that production is shifting to the newer PrSM missiles.

Military leaders have for weeks warned the president that stockpiles of defensive weapons — including Patriot interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles — were dwindling, said two of the sources.

Last week, several media outlets reported Trump had decided not to launch another massive offensive inside Iran in part because his military advisers had warned about the U.S. stockpile.

A U.S. official disputed those accounts, saying Trump chose not to move forward with another attack because of pressure from Gulf states.

The Middle East conflict has sparked intense debate about Trump’s authority to prosecute hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. No request for a declaration of war or an authorization to use military force has been submitted to Congress.

DEFENSIVE WEAPON STOCKS ARE ALSO DIMINISHED

Last week, CSIS published a report estimating that between February and July about 65% of Patriot interceptors had been expended and that the number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors in U.S. stockpiles was at least 38% lower than at the start of the war.

Patriots and THAADs are systems that detect and destroy incoming missiles and are among the most effective in the country’s arsenal.

While Reuters has not seen the supply figures, those numbers match internal U.S. data, two of the sources said.

The U.S. also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are generally launched from ships, since the start of the war, one of the sources said.

Reuters could not independently verify that number.

The Tomahawk is a Navy weapon, launched from destroyers, cruisers and submarines, and has long served as the sea service’s principal means of striking heavily defended targets without risking pilots.

Raytheon, a unit of RTX, has reached a tentative multi-year agreement with the Pentagon aimed at boosting Tomahawk production, alongside increases in other munitions, as Washington races to rebuild stockpiles.

When compared to a rifle, though, a shotgun is less capable on the battlefield because it holds less ammunition, has a significantly shorter range and delivers more noticeable recoil. It also poses logistical hurdles. Someone has to carry it along with ammo that’s incompatible with other squad weapons.

In a nutshell, that’s how anti-drone ammo was born. Connor Schnepf, co-founder of the Arizona-based company Drone Round, explained that about a year ago, he and his partner were already making targets in the defense space when they learned that shotguns weren’t really working to address the military’s drone problem.

“It kind of sparked the idea with one of our other business partners. He was like, ‘Hey, we make ammo. Let’s make a rifle cartridge that almost simulates a shotgun that you can use in a regular battle rifle to shoot down drones,’” he said in an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix.

A small unmanned aerial system, or UAS, equipped with an explosive device can be used to destroy major infrastructure and expensive equipment. In turn, traditional counter measures prove either to be ineffective or too expensive to deploy. Therefore, the U.S. military is prioritizing inexpensive yet practical solutions.

Although Drone Round isn’t the only company making anti-drone ammo, the Marine Corps said in a notice of intent filed in June that its 5.56 L Variant is the only kinetic munition currently available in the commercial and defense marketplace that meets the service’s minimum standards for immediate counter-drone defense.

“Specifically, this round is the only solution offering ‘drop-in’ compatibility that requires no physical modifications, specialized upper receivers, or distinct weapon platforms to be operable in current-issue Marine Corps 5.56mm weapons,” the announcement said, referring to the M27 and M4A1.

Last week, the service confirmed with Task & Purpose that it has already bought 400,000 rounds from the company and plans to buy another 1 million in the next fiscal year.

Justin Lawrence, the company’s other co-founder, explained that the L Variant functions like a standard 5.56mm cartridge, but it has multiple projectiles.

“It’s essentially five bullets coming out of one trigger pull. Basically, what the real technology and advantage is sticking with the one caliber in a rifle platform, your soldier [or] warfighter is already carrying,” he said. “So you don’t have to change to a 12 gauge because these FPV drones move very fast and it’s something you need to have very quickly.”

From a logistical standpoint, a single magazine loaded with anti-drone ammo replaces an entire weapon system or expensive countermeasure.

Schnepf added that although they came up with the idea about almost a year ago, they didn’t have the ability to scale production, so they partnered with the Idaho-based Freedom Munitions. He said together, they now produce millions of rounds per month.

“The capability truly fills a gap in what we call counter UAS or counter unmanned aerial systems, so it is a needed solution … It’s like, you know, we brought water to a desert and they can’t keep enough of it because it’s so needed.”

SOFWERX, in collaboration the Marine Forces Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, is hosting an event in mid-September to develop ways to replace manual steps for documenting serialized inventory with digital and automated tools.

The July 27 announcement said the event’s purpose is “to design a secure, zero-signature automated armory that relies exclusively on optical recognition and computer vision.”

But here’s the catch: the tools cannot use RFID — the most common technology for tracking inventory — or active Bluetooth or radiating digital transmitters.

“Instead, this event challenges industry partners to develop a passive, image-based inventory system where weapons, gear, and serial numbers are automatically tracked, verified, and logged simply by taking a digital photo or scanning an optical image as items enter or exit the facility,” the invitation said.

It explained that the current process requires a person to manually inventory weapons using handwritten forms, resulting in repetitive data entry and multiple independent records.

“These processes are labor intensive, susceptible to human error, and consume significant man-hours while increasing accountability risk,” it said.

While eliminating “slow, legacy paper-based workflows and human-error bottlenecks,” the desired application would guarantee “absolute property accountability without exposing our facilities to electronic detection.”

Around 2010, the U.S. military began using RFID tags as a practical and simple way to keep track of weapons, but later discovered the technology can pose a major security concern.

An RFID tag, like the ones used by the military, consists of a microchip and a small antenna and does not require a battery. It is programmed with a unique ID signal that can only be activated by a reader.

Once a tag is read by a reader, that reader can be used to continue to track the weapon or clone the ID signal, creating a security risk.

Companies interested in attending the event must submit a request by Aug. 16. While the initial meeting will begins Sept. 17, additional events are planned throughout the year and and will conclude in December.

Two former U.S. warships, the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu and the cruiser USS Mobile Bay, were sent below the seas off the coast of Hawaii during a live sinking exercise, or SINKEX, event on July 17.

On July 24, the Navy released footage of the sinking, including video of the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft uncrewed surface vessel targeting the USS Peleliu. On July 29, however, it released b-roll from inside the ship as it was pummeled by two UGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles, fired from Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Columbia.

Cameras placed inside and around the vessel show the warship shudder as the powerful blasts rip at its innards.

The sinking of the Peleliu and Mobile Bay was the third SINKEX event in recent weeks. The former USS Juneau was sent to the ocean floor during the June 22-July 1 Valiant Shield exercise off the coast of the Mariana Islands Range Complex.

Commissioned in May 1980, the USS Peleliu was the first ship to deploy Marines to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit commanded by then-Marine Brig. Gen. James Mattis under Task Force 58.

That same task force went on to capture John Walker Lindh in November 2001. Lindh, an American citizen-turned-enemy-combatant, later confessed to being a member of Al-Qaeda while aboard Peleliu.

During 35 years of service, the ship, dubbed the “Iron Nickel,” steamed more than a million miles before its decommissioning in March 2015.

After decades of relying on the U.S.-made Patriot interceptor system and its hit-to-kill PAC-3 munition as the most proven air defense against ballistic missiles, three new tracks are now leveraging international cooperation and a dire global need to develop and manufacture cheaper interceptor platforms.

Some officials, meanwhile, are hoping the sense of urgency leads to the fielding of the first new prototypes by the end of 2026 — years faster than today’s Patriots can be made.

It’s an ambitious ask.

The missile defense world has long described the mechanics behind anti-ballistic defense as akin to hitting a bullet out of the sky with another bullet, multiplied in difficulty by the number of simultaneous air threats coming in — a stark reminder of the mass air raids seen today in Iran and Ukraine that stretch air defenses to the breaking point.

Today’s anti-ballistic momentum began with U.S. President Donald Trump’s seemingly off-the-cuff comment at the NATO summit in Ankara earlier this month, when he pledged to grant Ukraine permission to produce Patriot missiles for the first time.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ‘em enough,” Trump said, adding that the companies that make the system’s components, primarily Lockheed Martin, had not yet been consulted on the plan.

Five days later, Ukraine and nine European countries launched a coalition in Paris to field Freyja, an entirely new anti-ballistic system centered on a Ukrainian interceptor priced at roughly one-fifth of a Patriot round.

A week after that, Lockheed Martin unveiled a cheaper, faster-to-produce Patriot missile of its own. And on Wednesday, the company announced the Pentagon had awarded it another $53.86 billion for PAC-3 production, bringing its multiyear deal up to $58.62 billion and aiming to triple production capacity by the end of 2030.

The new anti-ballistics arms race has manifested largely as a result of the munitions shortage created by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, during which American forces have fired at least 1,060 to 1,430 Patriots at roughly $3.9 million apiece, draining an estimated two-thirds of America’s pre-war Patriot inventory, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The diminished stockpile is compounded by the ongoing war in Ukraine, where ballistic missiles are the only threat Kyiv still needs help taking down and the one munition it has completely run out of.

With three new anti-ballistic tracks opened in July alone, NATO and its allies are aiming to shore up air defenses as quickly as possible.

Here is where the primary Patriot interceptor stands, and how the three new alternative pathways in the arms race stack up.

The standard: The Patriot interceptor

The Patriot, the U.S.-made gold standard of ground-based air defense, pairs a radar, a command post and launchers with two families of interceptor missiles, each fielded in several variants.

Lockheed Martin builds the PAC-3 MSE, the hit-to-kill round that rams ballistic missiles out of the sky, while Raytheon, which also makes the Patriot’s radars and ground systems, builds the older PAC-2 GEM-T, a round that explodes near its target and works best against aircraft and cruise missiles.

The MSE is the only Western munition that has reliably killed Russian ballistic missiles — from Iskanders to modified S-300s — in Ukrainian service. It has even downed the air-launched Kinzhal, which flies at hypersonic speeds.

That record is why the Pentagon on Wednesday awarded Lockheed a multiyear deal now worth up to $58.62 billion to triple production capacity by the end of 2030. Today, each round costs roughly $3.9 million.

“This is a once-in-a-generation moment, and we are moving with wartime urgency to deliver the Arsenal of Freedom,” Lockheed chairman and CEO Jim Taiclet said in a statement.

The grant: Ukrainian PAC-3s under US license

Trump’s pledge in Turkey would make Ukraine only the second country outside the U.S. licensed to build Patriot missiles, after Japan, which has produced them under license for decades.

Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are only now standing up a joint production line. Berlin is negotiating a license of its own and Germany’s existing GEM-T work runs through a joint venture with Raytheon rather than a national license, according to The Associated Press.

The license under discussion for Kyiv would likely cover the missiles — rather than complete batteries — and could mean final assembly from imported component kits instead of production from scratch, the AP reported.

Poland has offered to host the joint production on its territory for safety and security reasons, according to Polish news agency PAP.

“It is about securing this production, so that this production takes place in a safe location,” Polish Deputy Defense Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said in Washington on July 23.

Zelenskyy said he met with Lockheed Martin representatives while visiting the U.S. for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral on July 28, posting on Telegram that “Our teams are already working on specific solutions to move to joint production as soon as possible.”

The cost of the licensed PAC-3, meanwhile, would stay the same at close $4 million per round.

Yehor Chernev, deputy chairman of the Rada’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, estimates Ukraine needs at least 18 to 24 months to launch a first pilot production line, “followed by more time to complete the first weapons,” per The Associated Press.

Zelenskyy is pushing for even faster joint production.

“We expect that by the end of 2026, our Ukrainian team will have the technical capability to produce U.S. missiles,” he said on July 15.

The analogue: Freyja

Freyja is a full Patriot-style anti-ballistic system that includes an interceptor, launcher, radar and command-and-control network.

The system, designed by Kyiv startup Fire Point, is built around its FP-7.X interceptor missile and various capabilities supplied by European partners.

Zelenskyy called Freyja “an analogue of Patriot, but a system for more mass production and a cheaper system.”

His comments came as he formally launched the Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition in Paris on July 13 alongside nine other countries, including Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The FP-7.X flew for the first time in early June and is built to kill ballistic targets at roughly 15 miles up using a high-explosive fragmentation warhead rather than the PAC-3’s hit-to-kill collision — which may come in later versions — at a target price of approximately $700,000 per interceptor, or roughly one-fifth the price of a PAC-3.

The company says it will build three interceptors a day starting in August. Zelenskyy wants the system up and running within 12 months, and the coalition is targeting its first real ballistic intercept for the end of 2027.

“We have an ambitious goal: to have an MVP ready by the first half of next year,” Davyd Aloian, deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Reuters on July 27. “That is a prototype that can already demonstrate its first practical results.”

The Lockheed cost-cutter: PAC-3 ACE

Lockheed unveiled the PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector, or ACE, at the Farnborough International Airshow on July 20.

Built on the PAC-3’s fire-control system and fully linked to the Patriot and the Integrated Battle Command System that allied air defenders already run, it is designed to counter airbreathing threats — meaning weapons that rely on oxygen for propulsion — along with cruise missiles and close- and short-range ballistic missiles, a tier below the high-end targets the MSE was built to counter.

“American and allied warfighters need a solution that is battle-tested and budget-smart, and PAC-3 ACE delivers exactly that by building on the unrivaled performance of the PAC-3 MSE,” Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said in the announcement.

Lockheed says it will develop and produce the round jointly with American and European industry partners.

International manufacturing is also under consideration, with the munition’s first flight expected in early 2028.

The company advertises ACE at less than half the price of an MSE, or roughly $2 million a round, without disclosing an exact figure.