Air Force looking for new systems to defend bases overseas from missile and drone threats

The Air Force has put out a feeler for potential suppliers of ground-based weapon systems to protect its air bases from subsonic cruise missiles and drones after a spate of Iranian attacks battered U.S. bases in the Middle East.

As part of a market research effort, Air Force Materiel Command published a request on the government contracting website SAM.gov last week seeking information from vendors about a ground-based, medium-caliber gun capable of shooting down the types of aerial threats that have proliferated in the wars in Ukraine and Iran.

The request, issued Sept. 3 with responses due Oct. 9, said the government is researching potential industry sources for weapon systems that can fire “affordable munitions” against air and missile threats. Its initial focus is on countering drones as well as cruise missiles that fly slower than the speed of sound, it said.

The request from the command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, came days before a series of strikes this week on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, where sources told CBS News several U.S. aircraft had been damaged.

The strikes struck at least one A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft, also known as a Warthog, severing its wing, CBS reported, citing sources familiar with the damage, but who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. 

Eight F-15s were also lightly damaged and returned to service, the sources said.

No U.S. troops were injured in the latest attacks, but earlier strikes have killed service members and damaged other aircraft since the conflict began with a U.S. bombardment campaign in late February.

An Iranian one-way attack drone that evaded U.S. air defenses in Kuwait struck an operations center at an industrial port, killing six Army Reserve soldiers in March. One soldier was killed days later in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and three more were killed in July at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base.

While the Air Force has historically relied heavily on the Army to provide ground support to defend its assets, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall suggested in 2024 that his service could take over the mission, Breaking Defense reported at the time.

Speaking to an audience at the National Security Innovation Forum in Washington in November 2024, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said that the air defense mission would be a joint responsibility.

“I do believe that every formation that’s out there—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines—you’re going to have to protect yourself against long-range fires . . . against drones,” said George, who had sought to modernize the service in part by drawing on lessons from the drone-dominated Ukraine war before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly asked him to step down from his post in April.

“Everybody’s going to have to figure this out,” George added.

The Air Force’s request for information doesn’t endorse a specific company or product, but says any proposed system would have to operate continuously and offer lower-cost defenses for Air Force assets at overseas locations.

The war with Iran has been draining U.S. stockpiles of costly air defense weapons, raising concerns among lawmakers and experts. Some estimated in July that the military had used up two-thirds of its Patriot interceptor inventory less than six months into the conflict.

Though they can be fired in seconds, the latest Patriot missiles take two years to manufacture and cost about $4 million apiece, the Wall Street Journal reported in June.

By contrast, the Shahed drones used by Iran and Russia cost an estimated $35,000 each, according to a 2025 analysis by the bipartisan think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

After this week’s attack on the air base in Jordan, the U.S. reportedly launched more than 30 Patriot missiles against the incoming Iranian weapons.

In response to video on X purportedly showing the nighttime barrage in the skies over the air base near Azraq, Jordan, the director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project, Tom Karako, said “this hemorrhaging of missile defenses cannot be sustained.”

“Missile defenses buy time to 1) end the threat/finish the job by other means or 2) to reevaluate the objectives. Pick one,” Karako said.

“Going Winchester is unacceptable,” he added, using military slang for running out of ammunition.

The Pentagon has continued to seek solutions to its dwindling stockpiles, including efforts to dramatically boost production of the Patriot interceptors and missiles for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, that it has so far relied on for defense.

The Air Force’s request said it would evaluate weapon systems based on 15 factors, emphasizing that developers would need to integrate various sensors to “ensure reliable target acquisition and tracking across varying weather conditions, environments, and countermeasure scenarios.”

It also calls for balancing munitions performance, the gun’s capabilities and cost so that the interceptor’s speed and effects are maximized without driving the cost of each shoot-down “to unsustainable levels.”

At the same time, the Air Force wants the system to be rapidly deployable, meaning it needs a “lightweight, modular, and transportable footprint that can be swiftly projected into austere theater environments to meet emergent threats.”