US Air Force Plans Missile and Drone Defense Guns for Foreign Bases
The US Air Force is seeking industry proposals for ground-based, medium-caliber gun systems to enhance the missile and drone defense capabilities of its overseas installations.
A request for information published by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center said that the project requires weapons firing affordable munitions to neutralize incoming subsonic cruise missiles as well as unmanned aerial systems across Groups 1 through 5.
Each technology should also be built with a lightweight, modular, and transportable architecture capable of rapid deployment to harsh environments.
Washington emphasized that the resulting solutions “must optimize Munition Performance versus Munition Cost and Gun Capability.”
The approach is expected to maximize the interceptor’s mobility and terminal effects “without driving the cost-per-engagement to unsustainable levels or exceeding the physical constraints of the host platform.”
Vendors must meet 15 metrics, including salvo probability of kill, magazine depth, command-and-control integration, and organic sensor capabilities such as radar, electro-optical, infrared, or radio-frequency tracking.
While the military did not specify a caliber, current standard military medium-caliber weapons range from 20mm to 50mm.
Potential commercial options include those similar to Rheinmetall’s Skyranger 35mm and Northrop Grumman’s 50mm technologies, according to sources.
Interested partners are invited to submit responses until early October.
Cutting Dependence, Strategic Backdrop
The move marks a shift for the US Air Force, which historically relied on US Army weaponry for ground-based air defense.
It also reflects Washington’s broader effort to address vulnerabilities exposed by recent Middle East conflicts, where using expensive interceptors to negate low-cost attack drone fleets proved unsustainable.
To fund these efforts, the air force requested approximately $1.4 billion in its fiscal year 2027 budget under its Air Base Air Defense Systems initiative, a larger plan to field a multi-layered shield throughout its forward-operating airfields, dispersed air bases, and critical aviation infrastructure against air and missile strikes.
