With the acceptance of the 359th — and final — tiltrotor aircraft, the Marine Corps marked the end of the MV-22B Osprey program of record, a milestone that will now shift efforts towards “sustaining and modernizing the fleet for decades to come,” the V-22 Joint Program Office, which manages the Osprey program, said in a statement.

“The MV-22B … fundamentally changed the way the Marine Air-Ground Task Force generates combat power,” Lt. Gen. William Swan, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation, said in the statement. “It provides commanders with decision space that only speed and reach can provide, connecting ships, bases and distributed forces in ways previous generations could only imagine. Today, Marine commanders build operations around the assumption that the MV-22B will be there.”

Though the Navy and Air Force also use variants of the Osprey, the Marine Corps maintains the majority of the fleet.

The Corps intends to keep the Osprey operational through 2055 with efforts that include improving wiring, working towards pro-rotor gear boxes, standardizing the fleet and redesigning parts of the aircraft for better safety.

The aircraft has a history of safety issues and accidents that have led to the deaths of over 60 service members since 2000, according to prior Military Times reporting, and in 2023, the Defense Department grounded the aircraft after eight service members were killed when an Air Force Osprey crashed.

A 2025 government watchdog report found that the services had not appropriately shared information about Osprey issues amongst each other.

The Osprey was developed to reduce the gap between rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft. Since going operational in 2007, the platform has been involved in 114 deployments and flown more than 683,300 hours, according to the program’s office, which also said the Osprey represents three quarters of all Marine Corps rotary wing support.

The Osprey is produced jointly by Bell and Boeing and according to a Wednesday release from the companies, has been involved in various high-profile missions, including the ongoing Venezuela earthquake response, the 2022 earthquake response in Haiti, operations to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips in 2009 after his ship was hijacked by Somali pirates.

The service on June 30 awarded firm-fixed-price Other Transaction Agreements to Ford, GM Defense and BC Customs, the Army confirmed Tuesday. Each company will deliver three Infantry Squad Vehicle-Heavy, or ISV-H, models, with the first expected by March 30, 2027. The six-seat platforms will then be tested with the Army Test and Evaluation Command.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the awards on Monday.

Military Times requested the dollar amounts of the contracts, but the Army did not specify the cost.

In a Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO, published in April, the Army posted that it was looking for vehicles capable of carrying a 4,000-pound payload, towing a 6,500-pound trailer and supporting large power requirements. The service wants its new ISV-H able to export 60 kW of continuous high-voltage DC power — an immense load — so soldiers can operate counter drone systems, electronic warfare, directed energy weapons and more.

The Army also wants the vehicle to be rechargeable — able to replenish its power to 90% within six hours — in conditions ranging from extreme cold that dips to -25 degrees Fahrenheit to intense heat climbing to 130 degrees.

The Army is preparing for autonomous operations, with desired specifications like architecture already in place for “drive-by-wire.” It also wants rotating rear seats and “ergonomic mobile workstations,” as well as rear seating that can be quickly configured — without tools — to hold a litter for evacuations.

The current Infantry Squad Vehicle, built by GM Defense, was designed to quickly move nine soldiers through landscapes that were dangerous or impractical to use other military vehicles.

The Army’s fiscal 2027 budget request, released in April, calls for purchasing an initial 34 ISV-H vehicles at an estimated cost of $463,000 per truck, with a long-term goal to buy 606 vehicles.

In a June Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Jess Tolleson, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, said the ISV-H needs to fill a power-generation shortfall.

“One of the things that we do have a critical capability gap on right now is power generation at that mobile brigade combat team level,” he said.

GM Defense had not responded to a Military Times inquiry at the time of publication but previously said on social media that it was optimizing a Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD truck.

Ford, in a Tuesday statement regarding the contract, said its Super Duty trucks are well suited for military applications but did not provide further details on the specifications. Breaking Defense on Monday reported Ford would be using its F-Series pickup truck.

In a call on Tuesday, BC Customs chief operating officer, Dave Baringer, said the company was uniquely able to create an endlessly modify-able, “purpose-driven, ground-up vehicle.” He also said BC Customs was working in cooperation with Raglan, a company that will handle the electronic infrastructure of the prototypes. Baringer declined to discuss the timeline or contract amount.

The Army’s quest for a vehicle that can produce powerful amounts of energy comes amid its push to field more energy-directed weapons on lighter tactical vehicles.

The service has already operationally tested AeroVironment’s 20-kilowatt LOCUST laser aboard both the Infantry Squad Vehicle and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle through its Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser effort.

And it may accompany fighter jets, but no pilot will ever buckle themselves into a seat in the cockpit of a Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat.

Australia’s flight-ready uncrewed aircraft made its Farnborough International Airshow debut this week, the static display representing what the company this month said was the first collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, to participate in a multinational, joint operational exercise.

The Ghost Bat in June soared alongside crewed aircraft around the Marinas Island Range Complex in the Western Pacific as part of Exercise Valiant Shield 2026. According to Boeing, the CCA participated as F-35A, F-35B and other crewed coalition jets honed tactics.

The aircraft were included with U.S. Pacific Command forces to support the U.S. Air Force’s Experimental Operation Unit.

“Having MQ-28 participate in such a significant military training exercise is a first, and this is just the start of demonstrating how advanced human-machine teaming extends the reach and awareness of crewed platforms and enhances joint force operations,” Steve Parker, the president and chief executive officer of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in a release. “We’ve proven that it’s combat capable.”

The integrated exercise came after the Ghost Bat successfully completed a live fire demonstrating, shooting an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile to destroy a drone.

With a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles, the Ghost Bat was designed to support crewed jets by performing missions like surveillance and electronic warfare.

The aircraft has “length of a trainer and the full wingspan of a modern stealth fighter,” according to Boeing, and it can reach a ceiling of over 40,000 feet.

For years, industry leaders have seen autonomous aircraft as a market primed for potential growth, as experts push for crewed-uncrewed teaming as a key difference maker in beating a near-peer rival like China.

This year, some companies took that a step further, as they prepare for an era of air combat characterized by unmanned aerial systems — like the Ghost Bat.

Betting on the need for future crew to manage drone wingmen — fleets of drones under human command — BAE Systems unveiled a helmet to help pilots manage more data than ever before.

The U.S. Air Force has also introduced incorporating uncrewed aircraft into missions, and in June it awarded CCA contracts to Anduril, for its FQ-44A “Fury,” and General Atomics, for its FQ-42A.

Models of both were on display at the airshow.

But instead of a service member resting a finger on the trigger well in preparation for the next shot, in video footage of the Bullfrog weapons system, a hulking, metal machine tilts the weapon just slightly, refocusing itself.

As the U.S. contends with steep expenses to counter cheap drones, Allen Control Systems, or ACS, announced Monday that the Marine Corps has chosen the Bullfrog autonomous weapon system to integrate into its airborne defenses.

The futuristic apparatus is an AI-enabled weapon system that detects, tracks and then automatically aims firearms against aerial threats like drones. That Marine Corps selected the system under its Ground Based Air Defense, or GBAD, program, which develops and fields capabilities to protect forces from airborne attacks.

The service plans to incorporate the Bullfrog into its Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS), a counter-unmanned aircraft system mounted on two vehicles that relies heavily on electronic warfare.

The system is already in use in the Army and Navy and has been approved by Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagon’s unit established to streamline the acquisition of counter-drone technology.

The Defense Department’s focus on countering drones comes as conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have underscored the increasingly important role of cheap drones on the modern battlefield. The Pentagon has placed a growing emphasis on developing and fielding counter-drone technology that is more scalable and less pricey.

Their prevalence has exposed the economic imbalance of U.S. air defense, as small, relatively inexpensive drones have forced the country to expend expensive interceptor missiles that can cost millions of dollars to make.

The challenge has become especially pronounced during the U.S. war with Iran, where American forces have relied heavily on costly defenses to counter Iran’s Shahed drones, which can cost around $35,000 compared to around $4 million for some interceptors. Experts have warned that the cost of a prolonged war may drastically deplete U.S. interceptor stores.

An ACS press release on the Marine Corps deal linked to the Bullfrog M240, which is compatible with the U.S. military’s belt-fed, fully automatic M240 machine gun. According to the company, the M240 system has a maximum effective range of nearly half a mile and can attack medium and large drones weighing up to 1,320 pounds. Without ammunition, the system weighs 300 pounds.

According to the company, which also has variants that support the M2 machine gun and M320 chain gun, the M240 system has “a cost-per-kill as low as $10.”

Other defense firms are also working to procure more affordable counter-UAS defenses. This week, Lockheed Martin announced a cheaper Patriot interceptor missile that they say will have a price tag of less than half of what other multimillion-dollar interceptors cost.

The PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector, or ACE, will cost less than half of what a PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or MSE, interceptor costs, the defense firm said, and can be used with legacy equipment.

The announcement, which came during London’s 2026 Farnborough Airshow, comes as the U.S. looks to reduce its dependence on expensive interceptors to combat mass-produced munitions, a juxtaposition that has come under increased scrutiny as American forces have blown through the country’s finite interceptor stockpile to combat Iran’s relatively inexpensive drones during Operation Epic Fury.

The PAC-3 interceptors cost an estimated $4 million, far more than the $35,000 typical price tag of an Iranian Shahed drone. Experts warn that the U.S.’ increased interceptor use has raised concerns about whether stockpiles can be replenished quickly enough to sustain a prolonged campaign.

The PAC-3 ACE is designed to combat airbreathing threats — weapons that rely on oxygen for propulsion — cruise missiles and close- and short-range ballistic missiles.

Lockheed Martin said the new interceptor will still be compatible with the Patriot weapon system and Integrated Battle Command System, which enables the company to speed up development, an effort it says will be coordinated jointly with American and European partners.

U.S. forces in the Middle East have leaned heavily on the Patriot system, which uses radar to detect and track an incoming threat, calculate its trajectory and then guide an interceptor towards a predicted collision point, using a hit-to-kill method.

Patriot systems have become integral to Ukraine’s defense against Russia and as Kyiv’s missiles run out, the country pleaded for more interceptors before joining with nine other nations to create Freyja, a Patriot alternative, amid a global shortage of anti-ballistic interceptors.

The U.S. currently relies on a layered missile defense network that includes the Patriot system, the Navy’s Aegis Combat System — armed with SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors — and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.

In April, Lockheed Martin announced that the Navy was preparing to bring PAC-3 MSE interceptors to sea for use by its Aegis system, which uses advanced radars to identify, track and then guide missiles. The company was awarded a multimillion dollar contract but did not specify a dollar amount or timeline in the announcement.

In the same month, the Pentagon also agreed to a $4.7 billion contract with Lockheed Martin to accelerate PAC-3 MSE interceptor production.

At Farnborough Airshow this week in London, BAE Systems unveiled a helmet-mounted prototype it says is intended to explore how future pilots may be able to operate under battlefield conditions they anticipate to be saturated with unprecedented amounts of data.

Called Project Intuity, the demonstrator is intended to help pilots manage input from multiple sources by projecting information onto the helmet’s visor.

“As allies move towards aircraft that act as combat command centers, future operations will demand that pilots process more information from more sources than ever before,” Andrew Macklin-Smith, the company’s product line director for helmet-mounted displays, said in a release.

“Through Project Intuity, we’re addressing that challenge by integrating the technologies to allow pilots to command fleets of drones in the skies,” he added. “This system will achieve that by filtering and presenting the most important information clearly and within the pilot’s natural field of view.”

BAE did not yet say whether the demonstrator is tied to a specific program or provide a timeline for when this technology could enter service but the project comes as the U.S. is experimenting with having pilots command drone wingmen.

During an exercise last summer, Air Force pilots controlled Valkyrie drones during flight and in January, the Navy announced that F-35 pilots had used touchscreen tablets to control uncrewed autonomous drones during training.

“Modern warfare is demanding more from our aviators,” Rear Adm. Todd Evans, commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, said in a release about the Navy’s human-machine teaming milestone. The exercise, he added, gave pilots “the advanced tactics they need to win future battles.”

The U.S. Air Force has for years broached the possibility of integrating drone wingmen — used for reconnaissance, electronic warfare and attacks — alongside fighter jets. The teaming, experts have said, would make the difference in between winning or losing wars against advanced adversaries like China.

In a first this year, the Air Force asked Congress for nearly $1 billion to start procuring Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA, a fleet of jet-powered, semi-autonomous drones fly alongside crewed aircraft like the F-35 and F-22.

The service’s national plan pairs two CCA with each fighter jet, but testing suggests pilots may be able to command higher numbers.

The Air Force logged another CCA milestone recently when it conducted its first-ever live-fire test using the Anduril-made YFQ-44A.

BAE says its prototype is designed with flexible architecture so that novel and emerging components — such as eye tracking capabilities and new optics — can be added or replaced over time. Currently, it combines head tracking and 3D audio cueing.

According to the company, the demonstrator’s visor has twice the display area of current helmet-mounted systems and what it describes as “quad high-definition resolution.” The bigger display is aimed at keeping pilots’ eyes directed at the skies, with information within their field of view, and thus reducing their need to look down at cockpit instruments during flight.

The company said it already has more than 1,000 helmet-mounted displays in use in 10 different countries, but that this is lighter than other models. BAE did not give design specifications, but attributed the drop in heaviness to new materials and better microelectronics, among other things.

Technology tested through prototypes could eventually be integrated into new helmet-mounted systems or added to existing ones.

During May demonstrations at Camp Grayling, Michigan soldiers remotely fired the Autonomous Volcano for the first time before later having it lay two separate minefields without human assistance, Picatinny Arsenal announced Tuesday.

The test represents the Army’s latest move to modernize legacy equipment, systems tactics and munitions with emerging technology. In the combat engineering world, the service is experimenting with using unmanned aerial systems to drop grappling hooks, and it is trying to send drones — instead of humans — into the breach.

The Army has also tested autonomous vehicles for mortar resupply and autonomous boats for information gathering.

The autonomous Volcano variant paired the service’s decades-old M139 Volcano dispenser with a driverless Palletized Load System truck — an upgrade designed to keep combat engineers out of danger. The system also automatically logs locations and uploads it to the Army’s shared battlefield map, or common operating picture.

Soldiers from 4th Engineering Battalion remotely fired inert mine canisters from the dispenser in the demonstration’s first live-fire scenario. Then, the system autonomously and simultaneously emplaced two minefields.

“Autonomous Volcano leverages low-cost modernization to turn a legacy platform into a high-yield autonomous asset — securing asymmetric overmatch and closing a critical area-denial gap,” Col. Vinson Morris, who oversees the Army’s project manager for close combat systems, said in a statement.

The project was developed jointly by the U.S. and United Kingdom, according to the release, with defense contractor Forterra integrating the existing Volcano mine dispenser onto the automatic vehicle.

The Army plans to test the system in a series of realistic battlefield scenarios later this month.

The Army has not given a reason for the leadership change. Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie will serve as acting commander until Donahue’s successor is nominated by the Senate and confirmed by the president, according to the Army.

“I love this team — it has been the honor of a lifetime to be a part of it. I’m proud of what we built and I have absolute confidence in what you will build next,” Donahue said. “So, when people ask me, ‘Hey CD, what was it like to be a part of United States Army Europe and Africa?’ I only have to tell them how proud and unbelievably grateful I am to have been a part of the United States Army’s premier warfighting headquarters.”

The West Point graduate previously lead the XVIII Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2021, he oversaw the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A night vision photo of the general stepping onto the final C-17 out of Kabul became an emblematic image of the decades-long war.

Donahue’s departure comes amid sweeping leadership changes at the Pentagon. Since assuming office, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has removed or replaced at least a dozen senior leaders.

Breaching is so dangerous that the Army assumes a deliberate breach could cost half of the forces assigned to it. Hoping to reduce that toll, Oregon Army National Guard combat engineers recently tested using a heavy-lift drone to deliver an explosive-filled tube through simulated enemy defenses, the Army recently announced.

Soldiers assigned to Bravo Company, 741st Brigade Engineer Battalion, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team sent a live Bangalore torpedo into the Idaho sky amid 25mph gusts of wind. On a range at Orchard Combat Training Center, they maneuvered the drone and detonated the explosives, taking cover before the munition cleared a path through a wire obstacle.

The successful trial represented months of work put in by the unit’s drone working group, which was established by Lt. Col. Eric Zimmerman, the battalion’s commander, to figure out how to clear a wire obstacle with a commercial drone. Though the U.S. Army is pressing to expand drones on the water and testing turning resupply drones into rocket launchers, the group said they did not find another example of the new tactic in the U.S. Army.

Zimmerman pointed to the war in Ukraine, where drones have drastically changed the nature of war, as inspiration for the experiment. “Watching what was going on in Ukraine, and how innovative they are, it inspires you to get better and think bigger,” he said.

The trial comes as units are increasingly looking to drones to take on some of the most perilous battlefield tasks. Earlier this month, soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division used drones to pull grappling hooks and 3D-printed munitions to blast through concertina wire.

The working group looked into commercially available drones that cost between $2,000 and $40,000 before eventually receiving the Mule 28, a 45-pound heavy-lift drone developed by Lorica Technologies for the project.

The Mule 28 uses eight motors and can hoist 200 pounds into the sky with its 28-inch bi-blade propellers. It also has sensors for targeting and artificial intelligence processing. Lorica had around six weeks to develop the airframe for this project. It presently fields three other Mule 28 models.

“The most casualty-producing thing that Army engineers do is the breach,” said 1st Lt. Andrew Lucas, who co-led the working group. “Expect 50% casualties. If you can deliver something to clear the breach with a $40,000 drone, instead of putting Soldiers in harm’s way, that’s worth experimenting with.”

The engineers first used inert training rounds, practicing until the drone could reliably deliver the dummy charges to the target, before flying live explosives.

Soldiers detonated the charge using shock tube connecting them to the Bangalore instead of relying on a wireless detonator to prevent jamming or early initiation.

The future, Lucas said, may be drone breaching capabilities that require little human input.

“We’re not that far technologically from a drone that has an AI processor on it that could identify where concertina wire is,” he said, adding that in theory, soldiers could provide a rough location before the drone autonomously identifies the obstacle, positions itself, and deploys the Bangalore. Because it would happen internally, he said, the possibility of jamming would be nonexistent.

The next Mule 28 prototype, according to Lorica, will aim to integrate AI obstacle identification with the goal of increasingly autonomous breaching.

The U.S. struck Iranian missile, drone and radar sites on Friday, U.S. Central Command said, in what the military described as a response to Iran’s attack on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship sailing the Strait of Hormuz.

The attacks came after Iran struck the M/V Ever Lovely with a one-way attack drone on Thursday, the command announced in a statement, adding that the vessel was leaving the Strait of Hormuz along the coast of Oman when hit.

The military said Iran’s strike violated the already-precarious ceasefire signed between the two countries last week.

The 60-day ceasefire included a 14-point memorandum of understanding that called for the reopening of the strait for commercial ships.