U.S. Air Force Seeks New Ground Launcher to Defend Air Bases Against Drone Swarms and Cruise Missiles.

The U.S. Air Force is seeking a new ground-based launcher to protect air bases from drone swarms and cruise missile attacks, as the service moves to strengthen defenses around aircraft, fuel stocks, command facilities, and other critical infrastructure. The requirement reflects the growing battlefield risk from massed, low-cost aerial threats that can overwhelm traditional base defenses and disrupt air operations.

The planned system is expected to engage unmanned aircraft across Groups 1 through 5 as well as cruise missiles, potentially giving a single defensive architecture the ability to counter threats ranging from small quadcopters to large military drones and fast, low-flying missiles. Such a capability could strengthen layered air defense while reducing the vulnerability of U.S. airpower at forward and distributed bases.

Related Topic: U.S. Air Force Deploys CLWS Laser Weapon in Europe for Layered Counter-Drone Defense

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Phillip Jung, with the 379th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, operates counter-UAS equipment. The U.S. Air Force is seeking a new Ground-Based Launcher to defend air bases against drones and cruise missiles. (Picture source: U.S. Department of War/Defense)

Published on July 17, 2026, RFI FA8612_RFI_C3BM_2026_0002 closes on August 7 at 5:00 p.m. EDT. The solicitation is market research rather than a procurement commitment, but its requirements show the U.S. Air Force is examining how a future launcher could withstand mixed attacks involving different target types and potentially high numbers of simultaneous threats.

The U.S. Air Force asks manufacturers to provide information covering 11 principal areas: munition types, integrated sensors, laser illumination, firing rate across all magazines, total magazine depth, C2 connectivity for sensor-data dissemination and weapon cueing, system price, transportability, manpower requirements, built-in testing, and overall weapon-system characteristics.

Magazine depth may be the most operationally significant requirement. A launcher optimized primarily for cruise-missile defense could depend on sophisticated and relatively expensive interceptors, creating an unfavorable cost exchange if those same weapons must be fired against large numbers of inexpensive Group 1 or Group 2 drones.

That imbalance could become a tactical vulnerability. An adversary could employ relatively inexpensive drones to consume defensive ammunition and complicate sensor and command operations before introducing more capable unmanned aircraft or cruise missiles into the attack.

The RFI does not publicly require a specific interceptor or explicitly mandate multiple ammunition types. However, by requesting information on “munition types” while demanding coverage of threats ranging from Group 1 UAS to cruise missiles, the U.S. Air Force is leaving industry considerable room to propose different approaches.

A multi-munition launcher could provide one solution. Lower-cost effectors could be assigned to small drones, while higher-performance interceptors remain available for Group 4 and Group 5 unmanned aircraft or cruise missiles whose speed, range, and flight profiles impose more demanding engagement requirements.

This approach would reflect broader U.S. efforts to establish layered air defense. The U.S. Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 grew out of a Multi-Mission Launcher concept designed to accommodate different interceptors, demonstrating the operational value of matching different weapons to different aerial threats rather than relying on a single interceptor.

The U.S. Air Force’s request for laser-illumination capability is also noteworthy. Laser designation could support lower-cost guided weapons against some UAS classes, potentially creating an intermediate engagement option between expensive surface-to-air missiles and very short-range counter-drone weapons.

The 70 mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, or APKWS, illustrates this potential cost tier. The laser-guided weapon has demonstrated counter-UAS applications, although the U.S. Air Force RFI does not identify APKWS or any other interceptor as a preferred solution.

Firing rate is closely connected to magazine depth. A launcher defending an air base could face several drones and cruise missiles approaching within a compressed period, meaning the weapon must carry enough interceptors while detecting, assigning, and engaging targets rapidly enough to prevent saturation.

Mixed attacks make this problem more difficult. Small drones may approach slowly and in large numbers, while cruise missiles use higher speeds and low-altitude flight to reduce warning time. Defenders could therefore be forced to classify threats, establish engagement priorities, and select the appropriate effector within seconds.

Mobility adds another constraint. The U.S. Air Force asks industry to provide details on transportability and manpower requirements, reflecting the need to protect forces operating from dispersed locations under concepts such as Agile Combat Employment. A launcher requiring extensive support equipment, transport capacity, or personnel could become difficult to reposition between austere operating locations even if its interceptor performance is strong.

Several important specifications remain undefined publicly. The RFI does not establish a minimum engagement range or altitude, required magazine capacity, reload time, maximum crew size, mandatory deployment footprint, or target unit price. The U.S. Air Force is asking manufacturers to provide these characteristics, allowing the service to assess available industrial solutions before establishing more restrictive requirements.

The U.S. Air Force also has not announced a prototype schedule, procurement quantity, or follow-on solicitation. The RFI explicitly identifies the effort as market research and does not commit the U.S. government to a future acquisition.

Electronic warfare and other non-kinetic defenses could help improve effective magazine depth by defeating some unmanned aircraft without consuming physical interceptors. A layered defensive architecture combining these capabilities with lower-cost guided weapons and higher-performance missiles could reserve the most expensive interceptors for threats that genuinely require them.

The operational implications extend directly to potential high-intensity conflicts with China or Russia, although the RFI itself does not identify either country as the reason for the requirement. Both military environments illustrate why U.S. air bases increasingly require defenses capable of handling different aerial threats without rapidly exhausting their ammunition.

Two U.S. Navy EA-18G Growlers taxi at Kadena Air Base, Japan, during a readiness exercise on May 6, 2025. Protecting forward air bases and high-value aircraft from drone and cruise missile attacks is becoming a critical requirement for U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific. (Picture source: U.S. Department of War/Defense)

In the Indo-Pacific, the challenge is particularly acute because U.S. and allied airfields could become critical targets during a conflict with China. Chinese forces possess extensive conventional missile capabilities, while unmanned aircraft could add another layer to reconnaissance, targeting, and strike operations. Protecting dispersed operating locations while maintaining sufficient interceptor stocks would therefore be essential to sustaining U.S. combat air operations during a prolonged campaign.

Russia’s war against Ukraine provides a different but highly relevant operational example. Russian forces have repeatedly combined one-way attack drones with cruise and ballistic missiles in large-scale strikes, demonstrating how inexpensive unmanned aircraft can be used alongside more capable weapons to complicate air defense, increase interceptor consumption, and force defenders to manage multiple threat types.

These developments make air-base defense increasingly a problem of endurance rather than simply interception probability. Destroying every incoming target during the opening attack provides limited protection if defensive magazines are exhausted before subsequent waves arrive.

For the U.S. Air Force, the stakes are particularly high because aircraft parked on the ground, fuel storage sites, maintenance facilities, command nodes, and runways cannot all be completely dispersed or concealed. An adversary does not necessarily need to destroy large numbers of aircraft to affect an air campaign; damaging fuel infrastructure, disrupting maintenance, or temporarily closing runways can reduce sortie generation.

A future Ground-Based Launcher must consequently contribute to keeping an air base operational through repeated attacks rather than merely defeating isolated targets. Magazine composition could become as important as total magazine size; dozens of inexpensive counter-drone effectors combined with a smaller number of high-performance interceptors may provide substantially greater endurance than a launcher carrying only costly missiles.

This makes the requirement relevant to the U.S. Air Force’s wider [push to improve point defense of forward air bases](/internal-link-us-air-force-point-defense). Dispersed operations can reduce the number of aircraft concentrated at one location, but dispersion also creates more sites requiring protection and increases the importance of launchers that can be transported and operated with limited manpower.

The Ground-Based Launcher requirement therefore appears to address more than the search for another conventional surface-to-air missile launcher. Its combination of Group 1–5 UAS and cruise-missile threats, magazine depth, firing rate, laser illumination, mobility, price, and C2 integration points toward a layered defensive capability intended to remain effective against sustained and diverse aerial attacks.

The central challenge is the economics of saturation. If an adversary can use large numbers of inexpensive drones to force defenders to consume costly or scarce interceptors, even successful engagements can progressively weaken an air base’s defenses.

A launcher able to employ different weapons could change that equation by matching interceptor cost and performance to the threat. Lower-cost effectors could handle small drones, while more capable missiles remain available for cruise missiles and large UAS, with electronic warfare or other non-kinetic systems adding another defensive layer.

For future U.S. operations, particularly from forward and dispersed airfields in the Indo-Pacific or Europe, that endurance could directly affect the ability to generate combat airpower. A launcher capable of continuing to fight through successive drone and cruise-missile attacks would not simply protect an installation; it could help preserve the U.S. Air Force’s ability to launch aircraft and sustain operations after an adversary attempts to suppress its air bases.

Explore More Defense News

• Land Defense News
• Naval Defense News
• Defense Aerospace News

Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.