{ "archive_path": "archive/1789164443.65314", "base_url": "www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor", "basename": "one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-11 22:07", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.twz.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor.html" }, "domain": "www.twz.com", "extension": "", "hash": "1SNE9C9Q5GRP8XQFCHMP", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.twz.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-11T22:13:44.250176+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-11T22:13:43.722017+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-11T22:13:45.174166+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-11T22:13:44.258716+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:27.083123+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:22.879775+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpx1ri70b8", "https://www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:22.865901+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Lockheed Martin and a team made up of Boeing and Anduril are now facing off head-to-head to supply a new middle-tier surface-to-air missile to the U.S. Army. The service wants a second interceptor for its new Enduring Shield system, which can already fire AIM-9X Sidewinders, to expand its capabilities, especially against incoming cruise missiles.\n\n\n\nBoeing and Anduril announced their offering had been selected to move ahead to the next phase of the competition to develop what is formally called the Integrated Fires Protection Capability Increment 2 (IFPC Inc 2) Second Interceptor on Wednesday. The Army subsequently confirmed to Breaking Defense that Lockheed Martin advanced to phase 2 of this program. Rafael Systems Global Sustainment, a U.S. subsidiary of Israeli defense contractor Rafael, had also been in the running, but was not down-selected.\n\n\n\nThe Army\u2019s search for a second interceptor for Enduring Shield traces back to at least 2023. The system, developed by Leidos\u2019 subsidiary Dynetics, is entering operational service now paired with the AIM-9X. It is designed to provide short-to-medium range defense against a variety of aerial threats, including drones. The Army has not had any kind of mid-range air defense capability since it retired its Hawk surface-to-air missile systems in the 1990s.\n\n\n\nA US Army Enduring Shield launcher seen deployed in South Korea. USAF Pfc. Sang Woo Choi\n\n\n\nA model of the missile Boeing and Anduril have put forward was only shown publicly for the first time earlier this year. Boeing says it is a clean-sheet design and it uses a solid-fuel rocket motor provided by Anduril. \n\n\n\nA model of the Boeing/Anduril interceptor seen on display at the 2026 Space & Missile Defense Symposium in August of this year. Jamie Hunter \n\n\n\nIn its announcement about the Army\u2019s down-selection, Boeing shared a previously unreleased rendering of the design, which notably had two sets of fins toward the tail end of the body. The model that has been shown so far only has one set of fins at the very rear of the body. Whether the rendering reflects a newer or older version of the design is unclear. What is seen in the rendering may also be an additional booster rocket motor not seen on the model, which could be necessary for ground-launched applications. \n\n\n\nThe rendering that Boeing released this week as part of the announcement of its selection to proceed in the IFPC Inc Second Interceptor competition. Boeing \n\n\n\nBoeing has also said that the new interceptor is being developed with an emphasis on lower cost and producibility. Modularity and open-architecture systems to enable \u201cfaster, lower-cost upgrades by allowing seeker, avionics or software blocks to be swapped without redesigning the entire weapon\u201d have also been particular focus areas, according to the company.\n\n\n\nOther details about the missile\u2019s design and capabilities, including how it is guided, remain limited.\n\n\n\n\u201cOur scalable production approach is designed to provide a reliable, affordable layer of defense against a range of aerial threats to protect the warfighter with practical, dependable capability when it matters most,\u201d Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, had said in a statement earlier this week.\n\n\n\nLockheed Martin first showed a rendering of its design last year, but has also shared relatively specific details about it since then. For what has been seen so far, it is visually reminiscent, at least in broad strokes, of a compact air-to-air missile concept called Cuda, which the company previously promoted for a time in the 2010s.\n\n\n\nA rendering depicting Lockheed Martin\u2019s proposed interceptor being fired from Enduring Shield launchers. Lockheed Martin \n\n\n\nThe design is \u201cnot new,\u201d Chris Murphy, senior manager of Business Development for Integrated Air and Missile Defense Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin\u2019s Missiles and Fire Control division, confirmed to TWZ in October 2025. \n\n\n\n\u201cThere are technologies that we already have that we\u2019re leveraging,\u201d Murphy added at the time. \u201cBut the requirements for the missile are such that they\u2019re going to be new technologies, and there\u2019s going to be some level of development in order to get those integrated.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cSo you know that our [PAC-3] MSE missile [for the Patriot surface-to-air missile system] is a hit-to-kill system, right? We have great confidence in that technology,\u201d he also said when asked specifically about whether the interceptor would have a traditional warhead. \u201cWe also work [on] blast-frag[mentation warheads] on other programs. So we will look at everything. That\u2019s part of the trade space the Army has asked us to look at.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) is generally presented as a hit-to-kill weapon, meaning that it is designed to destroy its target through sheer force of impact. However, it is actually something of a hybrid design that includes a high-explosive \u201clethality enhancer\u201d charge to increase its chance of scoring a hit, something you can learn more about here.\n\n\n\nA breakdown of the PAC-3 MSE\u2019s key features, including the \u201clethality enhancer.\u201d Lockheed Martin \n\n\n\nFor its part, the Army has talked in the past about wanting its second interceptor for Enduring Shield to offer roughly comparable capabilities to the AIM-120D Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), but in the same form factor as the AIM-9X. A key driving factor behind the size requirement is retaining magazine depth. The system\u2019s existing palletized launchers can currently be loaded with up to 18 Sidewinders in individual canisters. \n\n\n\nMagazine depth, together with more flexibility to engage different threats in different envelopes, is exactly in line with the stated purpose of the Enduring Shield system. The ongoing conflict with Iran, as well as other recent crises in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, have underscored the threats posed by large-scale complex barrages that blend together long-range one-way-attack drones and cruise missiles. Ballistic missiles are also a very worrisome part of the equation, though Enduring Shield is not capable of engaging them. We will come back to this in a moment.\n\n\n\n\u201cI do want to highlight a couple of things that I think are very critical gaps that we have. I don\u2019t think \u2013 I cannot add anything to the emphasis on magazine depth for currently fielded systems, or for the need for cheaper and [a] wide-ranging mix of interceptors,\u201d Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, head of the Army\u2019s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), told TWZ and other attendees in a keynote address at the 2026 Space & Missile Defense Symposium last month. \u201cThat couldn\u2019t be made more loud and clear from the highest levels of our government.\u201d\n\n\n\nAt that time, Rafferty also stressed the need to further expand the Army\u2019s ability to provide multi-layered air and missile defense capabilities. Enduring Shield, as the Army\u2019s first middle-tier air defense system in decades, is already a key component of that broader effort. \n\n\n\nThe Army also more specifically sees Enduring Shield as central to reducing over-reliance on its Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. The immense strain on the service\u2019s Patriot force and its inadequacy to meet existing operational demands are well established at this point, and have only been reinforced by the latest conflict with Iran. The Army is notably in the process of establishing its first new Patriot battalion in years, on Guam, which will actually be a composite unit also equipped with Enduring Shield. Pairing the two systems together helps free up Patriot batteries to engage higher-tier threats, especially ballistic missiles, which may themselves be targeting air defenders directly. \n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\tThe PATRIOT Missile in Action\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\nAdditional efforts are underway now to further expand the Army\u2019s array of available lower- and higher-end air and missile defense interceptors, as well as new and improved sensors and networks to go with them. This will only help further distribute capability and capacity, giving air defenders more operational space to employ systems when and where they are likely to be most effective.\n\n\n\nThere is still a question of whether the Army will actually start receiving new interceptors for Enduring Shield. A major issue that has emerged in recent years is being able to produce key munitions in a timely manner to bolster stocks ahead of conflicts and keep them replenished during sustained operations. To use the example of the Army\u2019s Patriot units again, strain there has been further exacerbated by massive expenditures of interceptors in the course of operations in the Middle East in recent years, as well as demand emanating from Ukraine. There have been a succession of reports in recent months about stockpiles of Patriot interceptors, as well as other critical munitions, becoming ever more critically low. The Pentagon has been working with several companies to dramatically step up production of munitions, including existing and new designs, but it will still take time for those agreements to translate into physical results.\n\n\n\nThe Army has now at least moved to the next phase of the competition for a second interceptor for the Enduring Shield system, demand for which is already growing.\n\n\n\nContact the author: joe@twz.com" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:20.968917+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:20.961694+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "One Of These Missiles Is Set To Be The Army's Next Mid-Tier Anti-Air Interceptor", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:20.916815+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--backup-converted", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--warc-file=/data/archive/1789164443.65314/warc/1789164825", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "https://www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-11T22:14:20.905186+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-11T22:13:45.183318+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "One Of These Missiles Is Set To Be The Army's Next Mid-Tier Anti-Air Interceptor", "warc": null, "wget": "www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1789164443.65314", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-11T22:14:22.879775+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-11T22:13:43.722017+00:00", "path": "/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "9954c22f-a408-49f3-a3fe-765e2ce84d29", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1789164443-import.txt" ], "tags": ",war-wiki,pool,war_movement", "tags_str": "war-wiki,pool,war_movement", "timestamp": "1789164443.65314", "title": "One Of These Missiles Is Set To Be The Army's Next Mid-Tier Anti-Air Interceptor", "updated": "2026-09-11T22:13:43.721874+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-11 22:13", "url": "https://www.twz.com/land/one-of-these-missiles-is-set-to-be-the-armys-next-mid-tier-anti-air-interceptor" }