U.S. Army Europe Typhon Battery Fires First Tomahawk Cruise Missile in Live-Fire Test

A newly fielded U.S. Army Typhon missile battery assigned to Multi-Domain Command Europe conducted its first live-fire of a Tomahawk cruise missile at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, on September 28, 2026, marking the third Typhon launch within the continental United States. Built by Lockheed Martin $LMT, the truck-mounted Typhon launcher fires Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and SM-6 missiles originally developed for U.S. Navy warships, allowing ground commanders to strike targets more than 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away without relying on naval strike requests. The Mid-Range Capability Battery of 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment—activated in November 2025 as one of four such U.S. Army batteries—completed a five-week training program with the U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin field service representatives ahead of the launch, alongside the service's broader modernization push as the US Army seeks CAML-Lite autonomous missile launcher prototypes. The live-fire follows a July 2024 announcement by Washington and Berlin that the United States would begin episodic deployments of long-range fires to Germany in 2026, following earlier Typhon deployments to the Philippines in April 2024 and Japan in 2025. "We get that range for that combatant commander to give them options and capabilities where they really haven't had it before from the land force." — Lt. Col. Derek Bartlett, Commander of 3-12 Field Artillery.