The White House has urged Congress not to include an increase in funding for the Navy’s F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter aircraft program, stating that doing so may risk delaying the Air Force’s F-47 future fighter effort.
As the House has begun floor consideration of its $831.5 billion defense appropriations bill, the Trump administration has also detailed concerns with the legislation’s support for the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft that had been targeted for a cut and for not fully funding requested security assistance for Taiwan.
Artist rendering of F-47 NGAD. (Image: U.S. Air Force)
“The administration greatly appreciates the committee’s overall topline amount. However, there are areas where the committee has a significantly different alignment of those resources, notably in the operation and maintenance, procurement and military personnel accounts,” the White House wrote in a statement of administration policy.
House appropriators, who advanced the proposal out of committee in June, have noted the defense bill was crafted without having received full budget request details from the administration (Defense Daily, June 13).
The defense appropriations legislation includes $3.2 billion for the Air Force’s F-47 program and $972 million for the Navy’s F/A-XX development effort.
The Navy’s FY ‘26 budget requested only $74 million for the F/A-XX program “to complete the design of that aircraft,” with a senior defense official previously explaining that the funding level keeps options open while maintaining minimal development dollars to allow industry to prioritize the Air Force’s F-47 fighter program (Defense Daily, June 27).
“The administration appreciates the committee’s commitment to fielding timely sixth generation fighter aircraft. However, the administration strongly supports reevaluating the F/A-XX program due to industrial base concerns of two sixth-generation programs occurring simultaneously,” the White House has said. “Awarding the F/A-XX contract as written is likely to delay the higher-priority F-47 program, with low likelihood of improving the timeline to field a Navy sixth generation fighter.”
The Air Force has selectedBoeing [BA] to build the future F-47 fighter aircraft, which will replace the F-22, with the service having requested $900 million in the reconciliation bill and another nearly $2.6 billion in its FY ‘26 budget request to continue development efforts (Defense Daily, March 21).
The White House has also voiced concern with House appropriators’ decision to rebuke the Air Force’s plan to cancel the Boeing E-7 as a successor to the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) (Defense Daily, June 12).
“The Administration supports cancelling the E-7 due to the platform’s significant cost—$2.6 billion for the first two planes; survivability concerns in a peer conflict; and DoD’s significant investments in space-based targeting and beyond line-of-sight communications, which would subsume a large portion of the E-7 mission,” the White House writes.
The House’s defense spending bill includes $500 million to continue the E-7 while it also supports $1.2 billion for four Northrop Grumman [NOC] E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes, which the White House noting it “views those [E-2D] aircraft as cost-effective risk mitigations related to its decision to cancel the E-7 program.”
The Trump administration also writes that it “appreciates” the House defense spending bill’s inclusion of $500 million for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, while it “strongly urges” Congress to consider fulfilling the full $1 billion request.
“This funding assistance is critical to enabling DoD’s efforts to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities,” the White House writes.
Advanced manufacturer Hadrian on Thursday said it raised $260 million in a new funding round that will be used for a new production facility in Arizona, and a new corporate, and research and development headquarters, furthering the company’s goal of expanding and improving America’s defense and overall industrial base.
The 270,000 square foot production facility and software hub, estimated to cost $200 million, in Mesa, Ariz., and the future 400,000 square foot headquarters—for which a search is underway—are slated to be operational by January 2026. This will be Factory 3.
Hadrian currently has a 100,000 square foot factory in Torrance, Calif.
The factories-as-a-service model is aimed at defense prime contractors and other industries to help them scale production to meet parts, assembly, or full product demand for new or existing programs.
“With its ‘Factories-as-a-Service’ model, Hadrian can rapidly scale production across key Department of Defense areas such as munitions, shipbuilding, and other high-priority programs,” the California-based company said.
Hadrian is also standing up a new division, Hadrian Maritime, to focus on advanced manufacturing for shipbuilding and naval defense. Soon, the company will announce more production initiatives in the areas of munitions, missile systems, and uncrewed aerial systems, it said.
“Over the next year, Hadrian plans to announce and scale four to five additional facilities, each focused on accelerating production in high-demand defense sectors and supporting priority DoD initiatives,” the company said.
Hadrian bills its factories as powered by artificial intelligence. Opus is the company’s proprietary software platform for production autonomy.
Anduril Industries two years ago announced a partnership with Hadrian to leverage the manufacturer’s ability to produce parts and components in less lead time to help it scale production of its autonomous systems (Defense Daily, June 15, 2023). That partnership continues, an Anduril spokesperson told Defense Daily.
The Series C round was led by existing investors Founders Fund and Lux Capital, and a factory expansion loan arranged by Morgan Stanley.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s fiscal 2026 bill would provide nearly $756 million for the U.S. Air Force AGM-181 Long Range Standoff (LRSO) nuclear-tipped cruise missile by RTX [RTX]–$149 million more than requested by the Air Force, including $141 million to accelerate the program and $8 million for “conventional variant advance planning.”
The Air Force has targeted a Milestone C production decision for LRSO in fiscal 2027 and has said that it wants LRSO to be operational in the early 2030s.
The B-52H is to get a new rotary launcher for LRSO, and eventually the Air Force wants LRSO to fly aboard the Northrop Grumman [NOC] B-21 Raider stealth bomber.
The Air Force’s 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale AFB, La., is to be the lead wing for acceptance of LRSO, possibly in the next five years, but that timeline and the fielding of LRSO may move to the right due to the simultaneous B-52H modernization efforts–the Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) to replace the plane’s eight Pratt & Whitney [RTX] TF33-PW-103 engines with more powerful Rolls-Royce F130s and the Radar Modernization Program (RMP) to replace the bomber’s Northrop Grumman APQ-166 with an active electronically scanned array radar based on RTX’s APG-79 (Defense Daily, June 19).
The F130 may allow the B-52H to fly from the U.S. to Australia, for example, without refueling.
The B-52s with CERP and RMP will be the “new” B-52Js.
Last year, U.S. Strategic Command said that it was considering requirements to accelerate and increase the planned buy of 1,087 LRSOs.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is refurbishing the W80-4 warhead, through a life extension program, to tip the LRSO.
According to NNSA’s fiscal 2025 stockpile stewardship and management plan, fiscal 2027 is to mark the first production unit of the W80-4.
The Army has officially awarded Epirus a $43.6 million deal to deliver an upgraded version of its high-power microwave drone defeat system, with the company’s CEO confirming it’s looking to pick a location by the end of the summer to potentially expand its production capacity.
Epirus will deliver two Integrated Fires Protection Capability High-Power Microwave (IFPC-HPM) Generation II (GEN II) systems under the new deal, which follows successful testing of the initial GEN I prototypes, with CEO Andy Lowery expressing confidence the Army is likely to continue moving toward transitioning the effort into a program of record.
Epirus’ Leonidas high power microwave counter-drone system. Photo: Epirus
“Our first IFPC-HPM prototypes were put through the ringer and emerged from sophisticated testing with favorable outcomes. The second generation of our energy-based HPM platform and the next increment of IFPC-HPM will be even more powerful, more mission capable and more impressive all around,” Lowery said in a statement on Thursday. “Drones are everywhere. We’ve seen drone incursions over U.S. bases, incursions over our southern border and swarm attacks are defining overseas conflicts. Epirus is prepared to answer the Army’s call and rapidly produce at scale to help solve the asymmetric drone threat with our HPM technology.”
The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office first awarded Epirus a $66 million deal in January 2023 to build four prototype IFPC-HPM systems, with the first prototype delivered in November 2023 and the final system in March 2024.
Epirus’ Leonidas technology is designed to use microwave energy to defeat small and large numbers of unmanned aircraft systems relatively inexpensively compared to kinetic solutions.
In a briefing with reporters, Lowery described IFPC-HPM as getting after “weaponized electromagnetic interference” with the ability to provide a “field” of effect to take down many UAS rather than just targeting single systems.
“What we found is electromagnetic interference can be smart. It can be intelligent. It can figure out ways into hardened areas, if you get the carrier frequency right, if you get the pulses right. If you get everything dialed in just right, you can even penetrate what you would think to be a hardened, non-susceptible drone,” Lowery said.
After successfully completing engineering and development testing with the IFPC-HPM GEN I system in April 2024 and validating its effectiveness against drone swarms, the Army has deployed the platforms to the Middle East for base protection and provided it to the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force for testing at an exercise in the Philippines (Defense Daily, May 15 2024).
Lowery said the Army was “extremely happy” with the IFPC-HPM GEN I deployments to U.S. Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command, and noted the service plans to continue operationally assessing the four initial prototypes as it formulates plans for a potential program of record.
“The discussion really isn’t with the Army…whether they want to move forward. The question now becomes, what do we move forward with?” Lowery told reporters. “Based upon my 20 years of experience in aerospace and defense, the vibe I’m getting is they’re going to move forward, at this point, it’s just [figuring out] how.”
Lowery said the build of the first two GEN II systems is expected to be completed this summer and that they have been reengineered “from the ground up, with Epirus adding the work incorporated soldier feedback from the testing and operational assessments to date.
Around 80 percent of the 150,000 parts in the GEN II, of which 15,000 are “build to print” and 135,000 are commercial off-the-shelf components, have been changed from the IFPC-HPM GEN I, according to Lowery.
The IFPC-HPM GEN II is expected to cost “between $10 million-20 million,” Lowery said, while adding that the anticipated operations and sustainment costs are “way cheaper than a directed energy system.”
“We think Leonidas is a very reasonable cost. We didn’t build this with exquisite parts and gold plated apertures,” Lowery told reporters.
The upgraded IFPC-HPM GEN II will “more than double the maximum effective range of GEN I systems, increase power by a projected 30 percent and feature the inclusion of high-density batteries for prolonged operating times and decreased external power requirements, extra-long pulse widths for maximizing energy output for target defeat, high-duty burst mode for faster multi-target engagement, advanced waveform and polarization techniques for increased lethality against a broader set of targets of interest and soldier usability enhancements,” according to Epirus.
While Lowery said he couldn’t discuss specific ranges associated with IFPC-HPM, he noted Epirus expects GEN II to offer a 2.5x increase in range capability within a package that’s the same size as a GEN I system.
“We’re not talking 50 yards or something like that. I mean, we’re out there hundreds of hundreds of yards and, in some cases, kilometers with the GEN I [system],” Lowery said.
The Army’s plan is to test the IFPC-HPM GEN II at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California around October, according to Lowery, and will include assessing the updated range capability.
“It is critical that we do well and that we meet everyone’s expectations in this upcoming event,” Lowery said. “We’re going to do a few tests that really determine, kind of stochastically, what the low end range is going to be for the harder drones to hit for us.”
Lowery said that right now Epirus could “easily” build 20 IFPC-HPM systems a year at its 100,000 square foot facility in Torrance, California, and could potentially push that up to 30 systems “if we worked really hard and around the clock at it.”
As Epirus looks toward the Army’s interest in a program of record, Lowery noted the company is “looking heavily” into production expansion options in Oklahoma, to include Lawton, Durant, and a “couple other locations more near Oklahoma City.”
“So we’re scouting and I think, by the end of the summer, we’ll have picked a location,” Lowery told reporters. “And then it depends, a little bit, on the Army. Look, I can build 20 systems [but] I don’t have any orders for 20 systems yet. Wait until I’m sure that I’m going to get over a 20 system order per year capacity out there in two years or three years time and then snap the line, put the shovel in the dirt or lease a building and start renovating it.”
Epirus has already established a simulation lab at the FISTA Innovation Park in Lawton, Oklahoma, with plans for a soft opening in August and a hard opening in December, Lowery noted.
“Lawton is very, very much in a heavy recruiting mode to tell us to say, ‘Hey, let’s just do your volume manufacturing [here]. We’ve got it all figured out. We could plug you right in here,’” Lowery said.
In March, Epirus announced it had raised $250 million in a new funding round that will be put toward dramatically increasing production of its Leonidas platform, creating a plan to “safely and conservatively” build 100 systems in the U.S. annually based on projected demand in three or four years (Defense Daily, March 5).
Lowery noted General Dynamics [GD] is a “major investor” in Epirus and there are plans to showcase the Leonidas technology on a GD mobility platform at the Association of the United States Army’s conference this October in Washington, D.C., with an aim to start integrating the technology on mobile solutions next January.
“It’s born to be mobile. I hate looking at it on the trailer. I don’t want to see my antenna on a trailer. I want to see it on either a [GD] TRX [tracked robotic vehicle] or like a wheeled robotic vehicle,” Lowery said. “This is going to be a massive target. It should be mobile. It’s a shoot-and-scoot system.”
The Leonidas technology is also receiving interest from the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard as well the Air Force for “point defense,” the Navy for a containerized version and the Marine Corps for a potential aerial variant that could be integrated on drones, according to Lowery.
Australia and Japan have also expressed interest in Leonidas, with Epirus planning a demo for the latter in late August, Lowery said.
The Senate Armed Services Committee released bill language for its version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would set the spending cap for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at $26.87 billion.
That is over $400 million more than the House Armed Services Committee authorized in its version of the NDAA that advanced out of committee 55-2 late Tuesday.
For fiscal 2025, the NNSA received $25.3 billion, and in the 2026 energy and water appropriations bill released by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which advanced out of the subcommittee on Monday and will be marked up by the full committee Thursday, the NNSA would receive $25.3 billion as well.
The Senate did a closed markup of the NDAA late last week and reported passing the bill out of committee July 11. Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) filed the bill and released its language on Wednesday.
“This year’s National Defense Authorization Act represents a strong, bipartisan commitment to ensuring our military remains focused on its core mission: defending the United States against the growing threats we face around the world,” Reed said in a statement, citing “strategic competition with China and Russia” as one of the threats.
According to the bill’s text, the Senate would authorize $21.8 billion for weapons activities. That is $1.8 billion more than the White House’s budget request, and about $1.3 billion more than the House would authorize in its version of the NDAA.
The Senate would set the spending cap for defense nuclear nonproliferation at $2.2 billion, about half a billion more than the White House requested and the House would authorize.
The spending limit for naval reactors would be $2.2 billion, about $200 million more than the House would authorize and $100 million less than the White House requested.
The bill has a $878.7 billion topline for DoD and $35.2 billion for Department of Energy programs. On July 11, senior congressional officials told reporters the $32 billiontopline increase included adding about $8.5 billion for shipbuilding.
The Senate’s NDAA also authorizes the procurement of five Columbia-class submarines and $2.02 billion for another Virginia-class submarine, which is $1.2 billion more than the White House’s 2026 request. It also authorized a $2 billion increase for “restoration of full funding” of continued development work for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.
The boost brings SASC’s total authorization for Sentinel up to $4.65 billion, according to the bill text, and SASC also included a provision setting a date for the Northrop Grumman [NOC]-built system to reachinitial operational capability by fiscal 2033.
The annual NDAA, which is not an appropriations bill, sets policy and spending limits for defense agencies, including the NNSA, which is part of DoE. This year, the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery (SPEED) Act, meant for expediting acquisition reform in the Department of Defense, would act as a “shell” for both the House and Senate NDAAs, meaning combine the two bills, according to senior congressional officials in a virtual press briefing last week.
L3Harris Technologies [LHX] is set to break ground an expansion of its large solid rocket motor (LSRM) facilities in Arkansas the company said provide a six-fold increase in production capacity.
The investment in Camden, Ark., amounts to nearly $200 million with Arkansas businesses, and additional investments on tooling and equipment with vendors outside the sate–almost all of it internally funded–and is part of nearly $500 million in ongoing investments L3Harris is making across its SRM operations, the company said on Thursday.
Groundbreaking is planned for later this year and production at the new facilities is expected to begin in 2027. The new 110 acre campus will add more than 20 buildings that make up more than 130,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space to produce rocket motors for missile defense targets, interceptors, and hypersonic vehicles. The new facilities will support processes such as casting, curing, testing, and more.
“The facilities will leverage program agnostic equipment that will allow L3Harris to rapidly change production based on current demand and quickly adapt to evolving customer needs,” the company said in a release.
L3Harris currently produces more than 100,000 SRMs annually at its Camden operations that include 2,000 acres for manufacturing energetics with about 1,300 employees. The company says the SRMs it makes in Arkansas range from palm-size motors to large ones, which consist of motors 27 inches in diameter and greater.
The pending LSRM expansion in Camden is a response to the Trump administration’s new Golden Dome homeland missile defense effort, and increasing demand for SRMs of all sizes as the U.S. moves forward to deepen its magazines of missiles and munitions should the nation get involved in a protracted conflict like the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War that has gone on for more than three years with no end in sight.
“Large solid rocket motors are essential to our nation’s missile and strategic defense, and as the ‘trusted disruptor,’ we are strengthening our ability to produce these systems rapidly and at scale, which is essential for current demand and the Golden Dome missile defense shield,” Christopher Kubasik, chairman and CEO of L3Harris, said in a statement.
In May, L3Harris broke ground in Orange, Va., to begin an expansion of small and medium SRM production facilities with a focus on the Javelin anti-armor missile (Defense Daily
, May 22). Production of the SRMs for Javelins will eventually shift from Camden to Central Virginia.
The expansion in Virginia is largely being funded from a portion of the $215.6 million in funding the Defense Department provided the company in 2023 under the Defense Production Act to strengthen the industrial base.
Germany’s Airbus Defence and Space said on Wednesday that it will collaborate with California’s Kratos Defense and Security Solutions [KTOS] to field Kratos’ XQ-58A Valkyrie drone with an Airbus mission system for the German Air Force by 2029.
Kratos recently announced that it is offering a conventional takeoff and landing Valkyrie, originally developed as a rocket-aided rail take-off drone (Defense Daily, May 8).
In 2020, as part of the U.S. Air Force’s Skyborg Vanguard program–a predecessor to the service’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, the Air Force Research Laboratory began testing the Valkyrie.
“A flight-proven UCCA (uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft),” the Valkyrie is “a low observable, rail-launched drone with a maximum take-off weight of three tons” and “designed to deliver kinetic and non-kinetic effects, either in autonomous missions or employed with teaming capable fighter jets,” Airbus and Kratos said on Wednesday. “The prototype has been in development for years and is able to travel 3,000 miles at an altitude of up to 45,000 ft.”
Mike Schoellhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, said in the Kratos/Airbus statement on Wednesday that, “in the given disruptive geopolitical context, our customers have expressed an urgent demand for both attritable and non-attritable Collaborative Combat Aircraft.”
Former U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall kicked off the CCA program in 2022. The first test CCAs by General Atomics and Anduril Industries may fly this year.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to discuss U.S.-German modernization efforts in NATO.
Last week, Hegseth ordered the military services to accelerate the buy of Group 1 and Group 2 small drones to field them widely by the end of next year (Defense Daily, July 10). Under the order, commanding colonels and Navy captains are to favor U.S.-made equipment in the procurement, testing, and training of Group 1 and 2 unmanned aircraft systems.
Hegseth’s order, contained in a memo, says that DoD “will invest in unmanned aerial systems such as one-way attack capabilities and loitering munitions consistent with the force planning construct in the 2025 Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance.”
Yet, such one-way attack drones and loitering munitions are not discussed in depth elsewhere in the memo, and the memo contains a seemingly contradictory statement that says “I authorize General and Flag officers and SES equivalents to exercise my authority in Section 1823(b)(2) of the NDAA for FY 2024 to procure covered UAS systems for the sole purposes of conducting counterterrorism or counterintelligence activities, protective missions, or for electronic warfare, information warfare operations, cybersecurity, or development of UAS, or counter-UAS technology.”
That statement makes no mention of an authorization for DoD to buy one-way attack drones for use in contested operations, for example against China. “Conducting counterterrorism” does not fit the latter scenario.
On Friday, the Pentagon declined to answer follow up questions on the above discrepancies.
On Wednesday, Hegseth and Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael held a press conference outside the Pentagon to highlight Hegseth’s low-cost drone initiative. Hegseth and Michael toured 18 displays there by American builders, DoD said.
One of those displays was the XQ-58A, which, at 2,500 pounds dry weight, is far heavier than Group 1 and 2 drones.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Thomas Bussiere, the seventh head of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) since its founding in 2009, would become the second AFGSC commander to ascend to Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, if approved by the Senate.
Retired Air Force Gen. Stephen Wilson was the third AFGSC head as a three-star between October 2013 and July 2015. Wilson got his fourth star in July 2016 and served as Air Force Vice Chief of Staff from then until November 2020.
Founded to improve nuclear weapons handling after incidents in 2007 and 2008, AFGSC, based at Barksdale AFB, La., is the service component of U.S. Strategic Command and helps shepherd a number of top tier Air Force programs, including the Northrop Grumman [NOC] LGM-35A Sentinel future ICBM, the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the RTX [RTX] AGM-181 Long Range Standoff nuclear cruise missile to fly aboard the B-21, and modernization of the U.S.’ 74 Boeing [BA] B-52H bombers.
The lead wing for LRSO is to be Barksdale’s 2nd Bomb Wing (Defense Daily, June 19).
In addition to the Bussiere nomination, the White House has also picked Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton to become the next Vice Chief of Space Operations. Since July, 2023, Bratton has served as the U.S. Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements.
In May, Bratton said that a doubling of the Space Force budget is warranted, especially given the service’s new space warfighting mission, and that such a doubling would not account for areas like Golden Dome, cislunar missions, or satellite refueling.
The Space Force “costed out” OSD’s Defense Planning Guidance requirements on the Space Force, according to Bratton.
“To do all the things that the department is telling the Space Force they expect us to do, it about doubles our budget,” he said. “That’s an over time thing, though quite honestly they’re asking us to do it today. I think we’ve laid out a pretty good case with a lot of space superiority. The warfighting stuff is new kit that didn’t exist, and we’ve tried to stop doing some of the old stuff and been told pretty directly you will keep doing missile warning/SATCOM/positioning, navigation, and timing. You have to keep doing these old missions. This new mission requires new money.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s $32 billion topline increase in its defense policy bill includes authorizing billions more for the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer (DDG-51),
Virginia-class submarine and future intercontinental ballistic missile programs.
After unveiling high-level details of its version of the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act last week, bill text filed on Wednesday shed more light on how SASC allocated boosts to specific programs.
U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee posture hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., March 16, 2023. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. John Wright)
“This year’s National Defense Authorization Act represents a strong, bipartisan commitment to ensuring our military remains focused on its core mission: defending the United States against the growing threats we face around the world. From strategic competition with China and Russia to emerging dangers in cyberspace and space, this bill equips our forces to meet today’s challenges with strength and resolve,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the SASC ranking member, said in a statement.
SASC advanced its version of the FY ‘26 NDAA out of committee last week, with its bill supporting an $878.7 billion topline for DoD and $35.2 billion for Department of Energy programs.
At the time, senior congressional officials told reporters the $32 billion topline increase included adding about $8.5 billion for shipbuilding, $6 billion more for munitions, about “a couple billion dollars” to each of the service’s unfunded priorities lists, adding 10 additional F-35As above the administration’s request and $2 billion more for military construction (Defense Daily, July 11).
The largest increase in SASC’s NDAA is for the Navy’s DDG-51 program, authorizing a nearly $8 billion increase above the discretionary spending request of about $10.8 million. Much of the requested destroyer funding was allocated in the reconciliation bill that Congress recently passed, which covered $5.4 billion for two DDG-51s.
The DDG-51 increase includes $924.4 million for “wage and quality of life enhancements for conventional surface shipbuilding, private ship repair, and public shipyards” and $450 million to support the “large surface combatant shipyard infrastructure and industrial base,” according to the bill text.
SASC also included a $1.2 billion increase for the Virginia-class submarine program, authorizing a total amount of just over $2 billion.
The House Armed Services Committee, which did not adopt a topline boost to its NDAA, added a similar measure from Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) to authorize a $1 billion increase for the Virginia-class submarine by making reductions to about two dozen Navy procurement and research development accounts (Defense Daily, July 16).
For the Sentinel ICBM program, SASC authorized a $2 billion increase for “restoration of full funding” of continued development work.
The boost brings SASC’s total authorization for Sentinel up to $4.65 billion, according to the bill text.
SASC also included a provision setting a date for the Northrop Grumman [NOC]-built to reach initial operational capability by FY ‘33 (Defense Daily, July 16).
Additional increases include adding $989 million to support the 10 additional F-35As and authorizing another $552 million to support four more CH-53K heavy-lift helicopters.
While the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the next defense policy bill backs the Army’s intended plan to wind down its Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, the panel has included a $168 million increase for the Marine Corps to procure 224 more vehicles.
SASC’s fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act backs most of the Army’s proposed cuts as part of its new transformation initiative, according to bill text released Wednesday, while directing the service to submit another tactical wheeled vehicle (TWV) strategy that details its future plans.
A Joint Light Tactical Vehicle displays its overall capabilities during a live demonstration at the School of Infantry West, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Feb. 27, 2019. The JLTV consists of multiple platforms capable of completing a variety of missions while providing increased protection and mobility for personnel across the Marine Corps. (Official Marine Corps video by Sgt. Timothy R. Smithers/Released)
A senior congressional official told reporters last week that the TWV provision included in the SASC NDAA markup, which calls for a new strategy to be submitted with the FY ‘27 budget request, is intended to “sort of force some communication with” Congress on their future fleet plan.
The proposed program cuts outlined in the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) were detailed about six months after the first TWV strategy was submitted to Congress, the official noted, adding it “pretty much upended anything” in the original plan.
“We were surprised as anyone was on the JLTV and Humvee decisions they made,” the senior congressional official said.
SASC’s FY ‘26 NDAA was approved by the committee last week, with the panel adopting a $32.1 billion topline boost that supports adding about $8.5 billion more for shipbuilding, $6 billion for munitions, billions more each of the service’s unfunded priorities lists, adding 10 additional F-35As above the administration’s request and $2 billion more for military construction (Defense Daily, July 11).
The Army awarded AM General a potential 10-year, multi-billion dollar deal just over two years ago to build the new JLTV A2 and take over as prime contractor from Oshkosh Defense [OSK]. AM General has said it remained on track to support the Army’s plan to begin fielding the JLTV A2 in mid-2026 (Defense Daily, Feb. 9 2023).
As part of its new transformation initiative, the Army has detailed plans to cut “obsolete” programs such as the JLTV, Humvee, AH-64D Apache, the M10 Booker and Gray Eagle UAS, and potentially ending development of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), Future Tactical UAS (FTUAS), and the Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV).
Following the Army’s planned cancellation, Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said the Marine Corps would have to “buy less” JLTVs without an increase in its budget and that the average per unit cost for the vehicle “will go up” (Defense Daily, June 24).
The Marine Corps has requested $81.9 million for JLTV, while the service clarifies in a budget document that it does not plan to procure new vehicles in FY ‘26 citing “contract delays caused by a backlog in vehicle deliveries” (Defense Daily, July 7).
The House Armed Services Committee, which approved its version of the NDAA on Tuesday, aligns with SASC and backs the Army’s planned JLTV cut but does not include the increase for the Marine Corps (Defense Daily, July 14).
Meanwhile, House appropriators, who will ultimately set final spending levels, rebuked many of the Army’s planned cuts in its FY ‘26 defense bill, including more funding for JLTVs, Gray Eagles and Humvee upgrades as well as continuing development of ITEP and FTUAS (Defense Daily, June 12).
SASC’s version of the NDAA does add $19 million for the Army to procure six more RCV prototypes.
