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AllAfrica
19-07-2025
- Business
- AllAfrica
US banking on cheap missiles to narrow China war gap
The US is betting on a new wave of cheap cruise missiles to win a high-tech war of attrition against China. This month, US defense contractor L3Harris Technologies revealed the 'Red Wolf' and 'Green Wolf' missiles, offering affordable, long-range strike capabilities for the US military amid rising tensions with China in the Pacific, Reuters reported. The systems support the US Department of Defense's (DoD) 'affordable mass' strategy, shaped by recent conflicts in Ukraine and Israel that underscored the need for large stockpiles of deployable munitions. Both multi-role missiles exceed a 200-nautical-mile range and can engage moving naval targets. Red Wolf focuses on precision strikes, whereas Green Wolf is designed for electronic warfare and intelligence collection. Production is underway in Ashburn, Virginia, with initial low-rate manufacturing progressing toward full-scale output. L3Harris anticipates pricing around US$300,000 per unit and aims to produce roughly 1,000 annually. Having completed over 40 successful test flights, the systems mark a strategic pivot as Lockheed Martin and RTX currently dominate the long-range missile market. The Red and Green Wolf systems join a growing list of weapons marketed under the affordable mass concept, including Anduril's Barracuda and Lockheed Martin's Common Multi-Mission Truck (CMMT), which embody competing visions of low-cost, mass-producible cruise missiles designed to saturate peer adversaries. Anduril's Barracuda—available in three scalable configurations—emphasizes rapid production using commercial components, modular payloads and autonomous teaming enabled by its Lattice software. Designed for flexibility across air, sea and land launches, it has entered a US Air Force/Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) prototype effort. In contrast, Lockheed's CMMT, or 'Comet,' is a modular, non-stealthy missile priced at $150,000 and optimized for global assembly and palletized mass launch from cargo aircraft. Barracuda emphasizes software-defined autonomy and flexible mission roles, while CMMT focuses on industrial-scale modularity and global assembly for cost-effective mass deployment. As the US military turns to low-cost cruise missiles like Barracuda, CMMT and the Red and Green Wolf to achieve affordable mass, a critical question looms: can these cheaper weapons deliver sufficient firepower, scale and survivability to offset industrial shortfalls and support sustained combat in a high-intensity war with China? According to the US DoD's 2024 China Military Power Report (CMPR), China possesses the world's largest navy by battle force, exceeding 370 ships and submarines, including over 140 major surface combatants. Mark Gunzinger argues in a November 2021 article for Air & Space Forces Magazine that the US suffers from a shortage of precision-guided munitions (PGMs), rooted in outdated assumptions favoring short wars, which he argues limits its ability to sustain combat against China. Seth Jones writes in a January 2023 report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the US defense industrial base remains optimized for peacetime and lacks resilient supply chains. Jones warns that this situation leaves the US unprepared for a protracted conflict, such as a Taiwan contingency against China, where early depletion of high-end munitions could prove disastrous. He stresses that in a potential US-China war over Taiwan, the US could expend up to 5,000 high-end, multi-million-dollar long-range missiles—including the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), Harpoon anti-ship missile and Tomahawk cruise missile—within the first three weeks of conflict. While ramping up production of lower-end PGMs could, to some extent, alleviate shortages, Evan Montgomery and others argue in a June 2024 article for War on the Rocks that cheap, mass-produced PGMs often lack the performance—stealth, speed, range and penetrating power—needed to generate lasting strategic effects. Drawing on recent case studies, they point out that Israel's neutralization of Iran's April 2024 drone swarm using $20,000-$50,000 Shahed loitering munitions contrasts sharply with Ukraine's selective use of advanced, multi-million-dollar munitions such as Storm Shadow and the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). They note the latter precision strikes forced costly Russian Black Sea Fleet redeployments and disrupted operations. Montgomery and others conclude that low-cost swarms may struggle to inflict meaningful attrition, particularly if autonomy and swarming technologies remain immature or economically unscalable. Given the capability gap between high-end PGMs like the $3.2 million per unit LRASM and more affordable systems such as the Red Wolf, Stacey Pettyjohn and others argue in a January 2025 article for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) that the US must urgently implement a high-low PGM mix to deter China. They argue that China's People's Liberation Army's (PLA) rapid expansion and increasingly coercive maneuvers have outpaced the US's Indo-Pacific posture, exposing a strategic mismatch in both capability and scale. They point out that while high-end weapons are critical for penetrating advanced defenses and executing high-value missions, they are constrained by cost, availability and replenishment lag. Conversely, they state low-cost autonomous systems can be produced more rapidly and in greater numbers to bolster mass and sustain combat effectiveness over time, though they lack the capability of high-end systems. However, Pettyjohn and others caution that the US DoD's risk-averse acquisition culture and absence of a clear operational concept integrating both tiers exacerbate these challenges. Explaining the roots of this problem, Shands Pickett and Zach Beecher write in a June 2025 article for War on the Rocks that a widening rift between traditional prime contractors and non-traditional tech entrants is fracturing the US defense-industrial base. Pickett and Beecher note that primes, known for delivering large-scale, complex systems, are criticized for being slow, risk-averse and too focused on legacy programs. In contrast, they state that non-traditionalists bring agility and innovation, rapidly developing capabilities using commercial best practices. Yet Pickett and Beecher note that these firms often struggle with integration into mission systems and scaling for full-rate production. They liken this incompatibility to clashing software languages, resulting in technical debt, mission gaps and an industrial ecosystem fragmented and ill-suited to modern threats. While low-cost missiles can help close the gap in munitions volume, their strategic value hinges on effective integration, operational clarity and industrial readiness. Without structural reforms to US acquisition practices and production infrastructure, affordable mass may fall short of delivering meaningful deterrence in a high-end conflict with China.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Wolf Pack' Of Modular Mini Cruise Missiles Unveiled By L3Harris
L3Harris has formally rolled out its modular Wolf family of 'launched effects vehicles,' which includes the Red Wolf, configured for long-range precision strikes against targets on land or at sea, and the Green Wolf fitted with an electronic warfare payload. Both could be launched from air, ground, and maritime platforms. L3Harris is one of three companies this week to highlight work on weapons in this general category. This points to something of an industrial arms race to create modular, relatively cheap, and small systems that increasingly blur the line between uncrewed aerial systems, especially longer-range kamikaze drones, and cruise missiles, as well as decoys. The development of the Wolf family traces back to 2020, according to a press release L3Harris put out yesterday. More than 40 test flights have been conducted to date. The existence of Red Wolf first emerged publicly at the U.S. Army's Experimentation Demonstration Gateway Event in 2021 (EDGE 21), with Aviation Week reporting at the time that it had originated from a secret project run by the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO). The U.S. military has already been testing and evaluating versions of Red Wolf for years now, including as a path toward a new long-range strike capability for U.S. Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters. The wait is over. Introducing Red Wolf ᵀᴹ and Green Wolf ᵀᴹ, the first vehicles in our expanding pack of launched effects systems. — L3Harris (@L3HarrisTech) July 17, 2025 'Our launched effects 'wolf pack' provides U.S. military branches – regardless of platform – with a significant advantage in closing long-range kill chains, defeating adversarial threats in challenging environments and protecting assets,' Ed Zoiss, president of the Space and Airborne Systems at L3Harris, said in an accompanying statement. 'The Red Wolf and Green Wolf are lethal, modular, affordable, and ready to hunt.' Renderings of Red Wolf L3Harris released yesterday show a missile-like design with pop-out main wings and horizontal stabilizers at the tail end. It also has two vertical fins. There are a pair of intakes blended at the rear of the body to feed air to the small turbojet that powers the design. The design also has a prominent chine line that wraps around the front end and extends along the sides of the body, as well as a shovel-like shape to its nose. Both of these features are indicative of air vehicle designs with at least a degree of low-observability (stealthiness). In terms of performance, 'their endurance has been proven in flight testing, demonstrating high subsonic speeds – 200+ nautical mile range at low altitudes and 60+ minutes duration,' an L3Harris product card says. 'Modeling data proves greater speed, range, and duration capabilities.' Further details about Red Wolf and Green Wolf, including what kind of guidance package the strike configuration uses, remain limited. The renderings show a design that is also prominently different from pictures of the Red Wolf that have previously emerged. The air vehicles seen in the earlier imagery all have four fixed tail fins. At least one also has a single flush-mounted air intake for its turbojet. The design of the body looks to have remained largely consistent. I think I saw a picture of Red Wolf at PC-C4 — 笑脸男人 (@lfx160219) May 2, 2025 'For awareness, we have several derivatives of the baseline [design] that have flown and provide for a variety of ranges, payloads and capabilities,' L3Harris had told TWZ in February. As noted, the U.S. Marine Corps has already been actively testing Red Wolf as part of its Long Range Attack Missile (LRAM) project, the core goal of which is to demonstrate a new long-range strike capability for its AH-1Z attack helicopters. The LRAM effort has been targeting a range of at least 150 nautical miles (just over 170 miles or nearly 278 kilometers), which is exponentially greater than that of the AGM-114 Hellfires and AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM) that Marine Vipers can fire now. Though longer-range versions of the Hellfire and JAGM are in development, existing variants of both missiles have maximum ranges of under 10 miles. LRAM is feeding into a program of record called Precision Attack Strike Missile (PASM), which could consider other options beyond Red Wolf. The Marines have also said LRAM/PASM could lead to further air-launched capabilities for the AH-1Z and other Marine aircraft. Broadly speaking, this highlights how Red Wolf, as well as similar munitions, will allow platforms previously capable only of conducting direct attacks to launch standoff strikes, something that will only become more and more important in the face of expanding air defense threats. 'The opportunity that LRAM provides is the modularity that can come with it. So kinetic [and] non-kinetic capabilities,' Marine Col. Scott Shadforth said during a presentation at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition in May. 'And then we can certainly get into an open debate of, is it a weapon? Is it an air-launched effect? Is it a UAS [uncrewed aerial system; drone]? How are we defining those capabilities?' Shadforth is head of Naval Air Systems Command's (NAVAIR) Expeditionary and Maritime Aviation-Advanced Development Team (XMA-ADT). The newly announced Green Wolf electronic warfare configuration would fit well with his mention of future non-kinetic possibilities. We also know that the U.S. Army has previously conducted a test involving a Red Wolf configured for communications signal relay. That service has also eyed the MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone as a launch platform in the past. As part of yesterday's announcement, L3Harris has released its own graphics depicting notional scenarios involving air, ground, and sea-launched Red Wolves and Green Wolves, as well as a potential future decoy variant, all working together. Green Wolves could be used to help locate targets, especially hostile air defense assets, by zeroing in on their signal emissions, while also working to clear a path for Red Wolves to actually strike them. Decoys could be used to further confuse and overwhelm defenders, too. Variants of the Wolf family could be layered in with additional types of munitions and other capabilities, as well. L3Harris is targeting a unit price of approximately $300,000 for members of the Wolf family once production reaches the full expected rate of around 1,000 per year. The unit cost of a much shorter-ranged JAGM is also in the $300,000 range. For further comparison, the price tag of a single stealthy AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), a much larger and longer-ranged traditional air-launched land attack cruise missile in U.S. service today, is in the $1.5 million range. The cost and production goals reflect immense interest, especially from the U.S. military, in new standoff precision strike munitions that are also relatively cheap and readily producible. All of this is being driven heavily by planning to ensure that the U.S. military has sufficient munition stockpiles ahead of any potential high-end fight in the Pacific against China, and the ability to sustain those inventories in the event the conflict becomes protracted. Lessons learned from recent U.S. operations in and around the Middle East, as well as from ongoing support to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, have put additional emphasis on new lower-cost capabilities that can be produced at scale. Many other countries outside of the United States have been arriving at the same conclusions when it comes to future precision munitions developments. With all this in mind, it is important to note that L3Harris is hardly the only company responding to this demand signal, which is also notably attracting a growing number of non-traditional firms outside of the established defense industry. On Wednesday, Anduril revealed new details about testing to date of its Barracuda-100M air vehicle, which is in a roughly similar class, form and function-wise, to the Red Wolf and Green Wolf. Anduril unveiled the Barracuda family, which also includes larger and longer-ranged 250 and 500 models, last year. The U.S. Army has been testing Barracuda-100M as part of a demonstration effort called High-Speed Maneuverable Missile (HSMM), which focused primarily on the development of a new Precision Target Acquisition Seeker (PTAS) capability. 'The Government developed PTAS payload is being developed to allow for passive, autonomous tracking of identified targets,' Anduril said in a press release. 'It uses video feedback to correlate and seek a previously identified target image using a Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) camera within the seeker.' In testing so far, Anduril has been air-launching Barracuda-100M from an L-29 light jet, but the company plans to conduct a series of ground-launched demonstrations later this year. A full end-to-end live-fire test is expected to come next year. Successful flight test of Barracuda-100M for the @USArmy's High Speed Maneuverable Missile high-G maneuvers, speeds over 500 knots, and 10x the range of the Hellfire missile. — Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) July 16, 2025 The Army does not currently have a formal plan to operationalize the results of the HSMM program, but there are active discussions about potential paths forward, according to Anduril. Barracuda-100M, along with the other members of the Barracuda family, could be of interest to other customers. 'You can envision … where the Barracuda 100 wants to live. So, in that Hellfire form factor is kind of the displacement,' Steve Milano, senior director for Advanced Effects at Anduril, told TWZ and other outlets during a press call earlier this week. 'Anytime that there's a need for extended range capability for roughly the same cost point you're going to have Barracuda 100 playing in that space. So both from a … mobile surface launch capability, as well as rotary wing and fixed wing aircraft.' Lockheed Martin put out new details about ongoing work on its family of Common Multi-Mission Truck (CMMT, pronounced 'comet') air vehicles on Wednesday, as well. The CMMT first broke cover in 2022, and is an evolution of a low-cost air vehicle concept the company had been working on before that called Speed Racer, which you can read more about here. The CMMT family now includes a CMMT-D version designed to be dropped via the Rapid Dragon palletized munition system and a CMMT-X type intended to be launched via a typical pylon on an aircraft. Rapid Dragon is a U.S. Air Force program intended to allow the service to bolster its standoff strike capacity by transforming cargo aircraft like the C-130 Hercules or C-17 Globemaster III into additional launch platforms. 'In May, a team from Orlando, Florida traveled to the Tillamook UAS Test Range on the Oregon coast to test CMMT-D, a compact cruise missile designed to deploy from air mobility aircraft like the C-130,' according to Lockheed Martin's press release earlier this week. 'They dropped a CMMT-D test missile from a Rapid Dragon pallet, which was carried by a helicopter to an altitude of 14,500 feet to simulate a parachute descent. The CMMT-D deployed its wings and entered an unpowered glide following a safe release.' 'In June, a CMMT team from Palmdale, California, traveled to the Pendleton UAS Range in Oregon to test CMMT-X, a smaller variant of the CMMT family,' the release added. 'They mounted CMMT-X to the pylon of a test aircraft and took to the skies for CMMT's first pylon launch from an airborne aircraft. The vehicle safely separated from the launch craft, deployed its wings and lit its engine to initiate powered flight.' 'Using model-based engineering, the team rapidly evolved SPEED RACER into CMMT-X, rewriting software to meet U.S. Air Force weapon open systems architecture standards and ground testing to ensure airworthiness, all within a record time of just seven months,' the release also noted. L3Harris Red Wolf and Green Wolf, Anduril's Barracuda family, and Lockheed Martin's CMMTs, and the U.S. military programs they are being developed around, represent just a portion of the low-cost precision munition projects known to be going on now in the United States. The previously secretive nature of the Wolf family underscores the likelihood of even more work being done in the classified realm. Now that Red Wolf, along with Green Wolf, are fully out in the open, even more details about that particular family of launched effects vehicles may begin to emerge. Contact the author: joe@
Business Wire
17-07-2025
- Automotive
- Business Wire
L3Harris Introduces Launched Effects Vehicles to Increase US Multi-Domain Superiority
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) today debuted a pack of launched effects vehicles, demonstrating the company's ability to respond to the U.S. Department of Defense's urgent need for advanced, capable and affordable munitions it can employ across services and domains. Red Wolf TM and Green Wolf TM are the first in L3Harris' expanding family of multi-role vehicles that can easily integrate and launch from air, ground or maritime-based platforms. Red Wolf is a kinetic platform for long-range precision strikes, while Green Wolf is an electronic warfare platform equipped with electronic attack and detect, identify, locate and report capabilities. Both vehicles are flexible, modular and feature advanced software for in-flight collaboration and re-targeting. They also support swarming capability of autonomous aircraft. 'Our launched effects 'wolf pack' provides U.S. military branches – regardless of platform – with a significant advantage in closing long-range kill chains, defeating adversarial threats in challenging environments and protecting assets,' said Ed Zoiss, President, Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris. 'The Red Wolf and Green Wolf are lethal, modular, affordable and ready to hunt.' L3Harris designed, developed and built the vehicles over the past five years and completed more than 40 flights with them. The platforms can be recoverable, providing flexibility to develop and integrate different payloads. The company will build dozens of systems as part of low-rate initial production by the end of 2025, supported by infrastructure expansions and automation enhancements. About L3Harris Technologies L3Harris Technologies is the Trusted Disruptor in the defense industry. With customers' mission-critical needs always in mind, our employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security. Visit for more information.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Rosamond Gifford Zoo welcomes Red Wolf pups, Humboldt penguin chicks
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Just another reason to go to the zoo — new animals to see! The Rosamond Gifford Zoo will now have eight new faces in the near future: Six Red Wolf puppies — four females and two males — and two Humboldt Penguin chicks. The Red Wolf pups were born in May at the Matthews Auto Group Red Wolf Preserve to mother, Evie, and father, Sage. The Humboldt chicks, named Domingo and Ramon, were hatched in April at the Penguin Coast habitat by father Peru and mother Cuatro. 'Baby animals are always exciting, but these new arrivals represent hope for their respective species,' said Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon. 'The wild red wolf population is in dire straits, so every birth is crucial to their survival. Likewise, we are very excited about the Humboldt penguin chicks and look forward to introducing them to the public soon.' There are fewer than 20 Red Wolves in the wild. The birth of these pups is a contribution to a dwindling population. As defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Red Wolves are critically endangered, meaning that the species is facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. They are the most critically endangered canine species in the world. According to the zoo, they have hatched over 50 Humboldt penguin chicks — A significant contribution to ongoing Humboldt penguin conservation efforts. The species is currently listed as vulnerable to extinction. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Marine AH-1Z Attack Helicopter's Mystery Missiles Identified
Previously unknown munitions seen loaded on the stub wings of a U.S. Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter in a picture released earlier this year have been identified. They are members of L3Harris' modular Red Wolf family of 'launched effects,' which can be configured as weapons, as well as for non-kinetic roles, including as communication relay nodes. At present, the Marines primarily see Red Wolf as a path to giving its AH-1Zs an all-new standoff strike capability against targets on land and at sea that could help ensure the relevance of the helicopters in future high-end fights. Marine Col. Scott Shadforth named Red Wolf as the munition his service is now working under its Long Range Attack Missile (LRAM) project during a presentation at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition earlier today, at which TWZ was in attendance. Shadforth is currently head of Naval Air Systems Command's (NAVAIR) Expeditionary and Maritime Aviation-Advanced Development Team (XMA-ADT). He also provided additional details about LRAM, which he described as a 'defense innovator accelerator' effort feeding into a larger program of record called the Precision Attack Strike Missile (PASM). In February, NAVAIR released the aforementioned image of the Red Wolf-toting AH-1Z, seen at the top of this story and below, at which time the munitions were identified only as 'a new Long Range Precision Fire (LRPF) capability.' L3Harris had also quietly identified Red Wolf directly as the munition seen in the picture in a release earlier this month. A Marine AH-1Z has conducted at least one successful test launch of a Red Wolf. 'So, the current [LRAM] effort that ADT is working on right now is based on L3Harris' Red Wolf,' Shadforth said at Modern Day Marine in direct response to a question from TWZ's Howard Altman. 'So generally speaking, range-wise, you're looking at low triple-digit range capacity on it and double-digit time of flight.' Shadforth did not specify any units of measure, but the Marines have talked about a maximum range of at least 150 nautical miles (just over 170 miles or nearly 278 kilometers) for LRAM/PASM in the past. Assuming 'double-digit time of flight' here is measured in minutes, this would mean Red Wolf has a subsonic cruising speed. Other details about the Red Wolf family, and the specific version that the Marines are experimenting with now, remain limited. Red Wolf was originally developed in secret for the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), and it first emerged publicly at the U.S. Army's Experimentation Demonstration Gateway Event in 2021 (EDGE 21). Aviation Week reported at the time that the Red Wolf demonstrated at EDGE 21 was a six-foot-long design powered by an unspecified German-made turbojet and capable of being launched by an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone, but no pictures were released. However, 'for awareness, we have several derivatives of the baseline that have flown and provide for a variety of ranges, payloads and capabilities,' L3Harris told TWZ in Febraury when asked for more details about what was seen in the picture NAVAIR had released. 'For awareness, L3Harris has developed a family of products to address long-range precision fire requirements for manned and unmanned platforms that will address a variety of customer demands.' At that time, the company had declined to name what it had supplied to the Marine Corps. The XMA-ADT has also drawn a connection between LRAM and an unspecified Air Force munition in the past, but Col. Shadforth said today he was personally unaware of that. 'The most important aspect is that we're now giving VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] platforms significant standoff [capability] that they've never had before, being able to deliver precision fires more or less over the horizon,' Col. Shadforth said today. As TWZ has noted in previous reporting on LRAM/PASM, a munition with a maximum range of around 170 miles would dramatically extend the reach of Marine AH-1s. The missiles available to those helicopters now, AGM-114 Hellfires and AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM), have maximum ranges of under 10 miles. Hellfires and JAGMs with tripled and doubled ranges, respectively, have been tested, but that still falls far short of what the Marines are aiming for with LRAM/PASM. Shadforth also highlighted broader implications of the LRAM effort and the follow-on PASM program of record, including employing something like Red Wolf in roles beyond that of an air-launched munition. Interestingly, the Red Wolf demonstrated at EDGE 21 was employed not as a munition, but as a signal relay, according to Aviation Week. 'The opportunity that LRAM provides is the modularity that can come with it. So kinetic [and] non-kinetic capabilities,' Shadforth said. 'And then we can certainly get into an open debate of, is it a weapon? Is it an air-launched effect? Is it a UAS [uncrewed aerial system; drone]? How are we defining those capabilities?' In recent years, the Marine Corps has already been experimenting with handing off control of long-range loitering munitions between aerial platforms, as well as forces at sea and on the ground, to prosecute targets at extended ranges. Red Wolf 'launched effects' configured as communications relay nodes could help further extend connectivity for Marine forces, including into more contested environments, and without putting a crewed platform at greater risk. They could also provide other non-kinetic effects like electronic warfare jamming. 'Being able to apply that capability, not necessarily having to break into the hard structure of the air vehicle, but putting it all on tablet, and controlling being tablet-based means,' is another important aspect of the LRAM effort, according to Shadforth. In February, NAVAIR had noted the use of the Marine Air-Ground Tablet (MAGTAB) as part of the testing of the then-unidentified munitions on the AH-1Z. The use of a MAGTAB-based control system, in turn, could open pathways to more rapid integration of additional munitions and other capabilities onto the AH-1 and other Marine aircraft. Tablet-based control systems have been used in Ukraine to help add Western precision munitions to the arsenals of that country's Soviet-era combat jets. They have also been employed in Turkey as part of the integration of locally developed weapons onto U.S.-made F-16 Viper fighters. Overall, what we know about LRAM/PASM continues to align with what Marine Col. Nathan Marvel told TWZ in an interview back in 2023, where he laid out a case for the continued relevance of the AH-1Z, as well as the UH-1Y, especially in the context of a potential future major fight against China in the Pacific. At that time, Marvel was in charge of Marine Aircraft Group 39 (MAG-39) based at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton in California. He went on to become head of the Rapid Capabilities Office and Science and Technology Directorate within the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL). 'I was a bit frustrated about the conversation they were having about what the next fight looks like. It was about a fight with a peer competitor and the distances we had over water with China and that H-1s were not going to be there,' Marvel said in 2023. 'I was like yes they are. Not only are we going to be there but we are going to be right beside the Marines in the field because that's what we do.' 'Coming back to that interoperability, it's multiple pathways and multiple waveforms. I don't think we say kill chains anymore, because it's not a linkage of nodes, it's a linkage of webs,' he added. 'We may very well be an enabler where you're pushing data through us via voice and or data and we may very well be the end of that kill web or that kill chain enabler as well. We may tell someone where something is so they can go kill it or we maintain custody or someone may tell us where something is so we can go kill it like we have traditionally done. Interoperability is a huge focus for us.' 'We are going to be able to carry a Potpourri of weapons. It would not be unheard of to hang some exquisite fixed-wing fighter weapons on the wing-stub of a cobra and bring that to a fight,' Marvel continued. 'It may be a loitering weapon or maybe an exquisite pod that does only certain things that we're used to seeing on fixed-wing aircraft and bring that to the fight and put that down at the rotor wing level to enable the battlespace commander and the maneuver element commander to do things that they may or may not have thought they could do before. So that's kind of where we are with capabilities buildup.' Whether or not Red Wolf is what the Marines ultimately pick for the PASM program of record remains to be seen. 'Right now, we're focused on the Red Wolf as part of the [LRAM] project that we're working on right now. However, we're very open-minded and always keep our ears to the ground to anything else that might be a viable solution down the road,' Col. Shadforth noted today. Long-range 'launched effects' and small cruise missiles are a rapidly expanding and often overlapping area of weapons development, and there are likely to be a growing array of options that might also meet the Marines' PASM needs. In the meantime, L3Harris' Red Wolf is at least helping the Marines lay the groundwork for integrating an important new standoff strike weapon onto its AH-1Zs, and one that could open the door to additional capabilities down the line. Howard Altman contributed to this story. Contact the author: joe@
