(a) Tailored pathways
Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Army Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fires (the Portolio Acquisition Executive ), shall tailor and employ existing acquisition pathways to accelerate the development, testing, evaluation, and procurement of non‑traditional intermediate‑range fires capabilities, including affordable intermediate‑range one‑way attack munitions.
(b) Elements
(1) In general
The pathways tailored under subsection (a) shall enable rapid development, testing, evaluation, and procurement of intermediate‑range, affordable, attritable, and autonomous fires capabilities outside of traditional, legacy munitions.
(2) Capabilities
The characteristics of the capabilities referred to in paragraph (1) may include—
operational ranges relevant to combatant command requirements;
low-cost munitions and the associated deployment and launch system, payloads, autonomy software, and associated support;
autonomy solutions and collaborative mission software enabling resilience to operate in denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited communications and Global Positioning System-denied environments;
interoperability and iterative characteristics that enable incremental development and field-swappable payloads and support competition for upgrades, sustainment, and follow-on production;
ability for deployment and operations with minimal specialized infrastructure, including in austere environments.
a deployment system capacity, power needs, and integration with existing logistics and fires platforms;
demonstrated producibility and scalable manufacturing, including identification of achievable monthly and annual production rates and the constraints to scaling; and
commercial off‑the‑shelf components and manufacturing processes to reduce cost and enable production at scale.
(3) Authorities
To the greatest extent practicable, the pathways tailored under subsection (a) shall leverage existing, alternative acquisition authorities and pathways, such as other transaction authority, rapid prototyping and rapid fielding pathways, middle tier acquisition pathways, and any new or modified acquisition methods available to the Army and identified by the Portfolio Acquisition Executive.
(4) Integration
The Secretary shall ensure integration across stakeholders and may formalize partnerships between and among the Army, the Defense Innovation Unit, and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to accelerate capability integration.
(5) Mitigation of risks
The Secretary shall identify and mitigate long‑lead risks, including test range access, airworthiness and safety certification processes, and supply-chain constraints associated with intermediate‑range attritable munitions.
(6) Transition considerations
The Secretary shall consider funding and resource needs, requirements, and opportunities to transition evolving prototypes into programs of record or enduring portfolio elements, including strategies for transitioning from research, development, test, and evaluation to procurement.
(7) Co-production arrangements
The Secretary may consider co-production arrangements with trusted allies and partners to establish secondary production lines, subject to applicable technology security and foreign disclosure requirements and provided that such arrangements do not undermine required rights and deliverables for modular system interfaces and government integration.
(8) Autonomous or semi-autonomous weapon systems
The Secretary shall ensure that any autonomous or semi-autonomous weapon system is developed, verified, validated, tested, and fielded consistent with Department of Defense policy on autonomy in weapon systems, including appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force, rigorous verification and validation, and realistic developmental and operational test and evaluation.
(9) Software
The Secretary shall consider establishing software test and digital engineering infrastructure approaches based on commercial best practices that software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure to enable continuous validation of autonomy and mission software and integration.
(c) Portfolio alignment
The Secretary shall determine whether such capabilities are best pursued as—
a new start program within the fires portfolio;
an expansion or modification of an existing effort; or
an Army‑wide cross‑portfolio initiative under the authority of the Portolio Acquisition Executive.
(d) Coordination with joint force requirements
Pathways tailored under this section shall align with joint force operational needs for intermediate‑range fires, including complementary employment with existing capabilities such as hypersonic systems, cruise missiles, and other precision fires.
(e) Briefing
Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall provide a briefing to the congressional defense committees detailing—
the acquisition pathways tailored under this section;
the capabilities prioritized;
anticipated timelines for prototype demonstration and initial limited operational capability; and
a recommended funding profile for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.
(f) Definition
In this section, the term intermediate-range means having a range between 3,000 and 5,500 kilometers.