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Defense Investment Focus Areas
Projected focus areas for upcoming military technical upgrades.
Primary Sources
US Marine Corps seeks new portable attack drone to strike tanks from 15 ...
The U.S. Marine Corps is accelerating plans to equip frontline units with a new class of portable strike drone built for anti-armor missions. The program, called Organic Precision Fires–Medium (OPF-M), targets a growing battlefield gap: giving small, dispersed Marine teams the ability to hit armored threats at standoff distances without relying on larger platforms. Marine Corps Systems Command has opened industry outreach through a Request for White Paper, with responses due May 26, as it looks to move quickly from concept to fielding. Lightweight anti-armor drone At its core, OPF-M focuses on mobility and reach. The Marine Corps wants a system that can travel roughly 15 miles while remaining light enough for two dismounted Marines to carry. “Marines will employ OPF-M at the tactical level to enable engagement of armored targets beyond the range of direct fire weapons while minimizing collateral damage and exposure to enemy direct and indirect fires during distributed operations,” a Request for White Paper from Marine Corps Systems Command states. The drone must stay airborne for at least 20 minutes before impact. Its payload should destroy armored vehicles or at least disable their movement. The Corps has capped system weight at under 35 pounds, with the ground control unit limited to 20 pounds. These requirements reflect a shift toward expeditionary warfare, where units move fast and operate independently. Autonomy with human oversight The OPF-M design blends automated functions with operator control. The Marine Corps wants automatic target tracking, enabling the drone to follow moving targets on its own. Still, lethal decisions will remain human-controlled. OPF-M “shall be a Man in the Loop system,” the RFW specified. Operators will guide missions using pre-set or updated waypoints. The system will also allow control to transfer between different units during operations. This handoff capability supports wide-area missions without losing continuity. Such features highlight the Corps’ focus on flexible command structures in contested environments. Scalable future capabilities Although OPF-M begins as an anti-tank solution, the Marine Corps is already looking beyond that role. The system could evolve into a multi-mission platform. For example, drones could be equipped for “maritime targets, drones, personnel formations, advanced sensor packages, electromagnetic effects, and other types of payloads,” the document states. Future upgrades may a...
Marines will update land warfare doctrine as they prep for near-peer ...
Marines with Blackfoot Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, close in on an objective during a combat readiness evaluation at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Dec. 14, 2025. U.S. Marine Corps / Sgt. Kyle Chan April 28, 2026 03:30 PM ET Marine Corps China The Marine Corps is halfway through a decade-long project to re-imagine itself for the next generation of warfare, refocusing itself as a seagoing service with Force Design 2030But the Marines aren’t leaving land warfare behind, and will release an updated approach to ground combat in the coming weeks, Col. Erick Clark, director of future operations and plans, said Tuesday during the Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C.Ground Combat Element 2040 follows the service’s latest aviation plan, released in February. The framework will “make sure that we are staying focused on the ground combat element, to make sure that beyond some of the capabilities that were rolled out in Force Design, specifically focused on our Marine littoral regiments and other capabilities that would enhance the [Marine Air-Ground Task Force], we wanted to make sure that we were not losing track of our core capabilities to conduct offensive, defensive, and expeditionary operations within the ground combat element,” said Maj. Gen. Kyle Ellison, who commands 3rd Marine Division, said during a panel previewing the new plan.Experts and recent national defense strategies have identified China as the U.S.’s most likely future opponent, though the Trump administration’s most recent doctrine seeks to cocoon the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere.“When you envision the type of fight we're preparing for, where we face a peer or near-peer adversary in a high-end fight, where all domains are contested—and then in some, the adversary will have an advantage—that's not a battlefield we have fought on, at least since I've been in the Marine Corps,” said Maj. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, who commands 2nd Marine Division.While Force Design 2030 has been all about evolving the Corps past the Global War on Terror, the war in Ukraine has provided concrete lessons for what combat may look like in the next U.S. ground war.“I don't want to have a bias toward that conflict and say that the future will look exactly like that, because it won't, but we would be criminal not to be paying attention to that,” Sullivan said. Like the other services, the Marine Corps is seeking to quickly build up its counter-unmanned syst...
U.S. Marines Evaluate Iron Shield Counter Drone System for Littoral and ...
Elbit America unveils Iron Shield, a counter-drone system designed to defeat swarm attacks targeting U.S. ships and coastal bases.
82nd Airborne soldiers train on drone-countering maneuvers used in ...
Soldiers are training for drone-on-drone combat using Bumblebee drones, which have been used in Ukraine and are being sent to U.S. training centers in the Middle East.
