Elodie Collins 
- The Army has increased its RDT&E budget for M-SHORAD from $296 million in FY26 to $460.9 million in FY27
- The funding will support the integration of new capabilities into the air defense system
- Join defense leaders at the 2026 Army Summit to discuss counter-UAS capabilities and other warfighting technologies the Army is prioritizing
The U.S. Army’s is making major investments in capabilities to protect American assets and forces from aerial threats, and a major component of its air defense strategy is the Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense system, also known as M-SHORAD.
For fiscal year 2027, the Army is earmarking $460.9 million of its $19 billion research, development, testing and engineering funding for M-SHORAD, almost doubling the $296 million budget the service allotted for the program in FY26, Breaking Defense reported.
Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Army Summit on June 18 to hear directly from service leaders how the Army intends to invest its FY27 RDT&E budget in advanced warfighting capabilities, such as M-SHORAD. Marc Andersen, assistant secretary of the Army for financial management and comptroller, will deliver a keynote at the event. Get your tickets here!
How Will the Army Spend Its $461M M-SHORAD Budget?
The Army’s proposed $460.9 million RDT&E budget for M-SHORAD will be divided across three efforts:
- $215.1 million to replace Stinger missiles with Next Generation Short Range Interceptor, or NGSRI
- $94.8 million to upgrade the directed energy variant of the M-SHORAD to address counter-rotary wing and Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar, or CRAM, threats
- $108.1 million to integrate short-range air defense capability for Joint Forcible Entry and Mobile Brigade Combat Team forces
Why Is the Army Developing M-SHORAD?
According to a document from the Congressional Research Service, the Army divested its SHORAD air defense units in the 2000s to free up personnel to carry out missions deemed by the military as more critical at the time. After 2005, the service cut down its SHORAD capabilities to two battalions of active component and CRAM batteries and seven Army National Guard battalions.
However, increasing threats to U.S. ground forces and the proliferation of unmanned aerial systems in conflicts in Ukraine and Iran pushed the Army to revitalize its air defense assets and strengthen its capability to protect maneuver forces.
The M-SHORAD is intended to track and shoot down various threats, including Group 1 to 3 UAS, rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, artillery, mortars and rockets.
The 2026 Army Summit on June 18 will have a dedicated panel on air defense systems featuring Rodney Davis, the service’s capability program executive for aviation; Mike Tomlinson, vice president of Army aviation, missiles and fires at SAIC; and other Army and industry leaders. Join the conversation — register today!
M-SHORAD Increments
The Army is pursuing a multi-increment development of M-SHORAD to strengthen its air defense capabilities.
Increment 1
M-SHORAD Increment 1 is equipped with FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missiles, an XM914 30-millimeter automatic cannon and an M-240 7.62-millimeter machine gun. The system uses an M-1265A1 Stryker Double V Hull as its chassis.
In 2024, the Army christened M-SHORAD Increment 1 the SGT Stout in honor of Sgt. Mitchell Stout, a Medal of Honor recipient who was killed in combat during the Vietnam War.
The Army has fielded SGT Stout systems at Fort Sill in Ohio, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina and in Germany. Plans are in place for future fielding with the Florida Army National Guard in FY28 and the Ohio ARNG in FY29.
Increment 2
M-SHORAD Increment 2 focused on delivering directed energy to defeat airborne threats. Known as DE M-SHORAD, the system will incorporate a 50-kilowatt laser to a vehicle as its primary armament.
Raytheon was awarded a $123 million contract to develop the laser weapon for the system in 2021. The Army received the first two DE M-SHORAD prototypes in 2023 and, in the same year, conducted a live-fire test of the system at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where it took down Groups 1 to 3 UAS targets out of the sky, Defense News reported.
A DE M-SHORAD prototype was inducted into the Fort Sill Museum at the Air Defense Artillery Training Support Facility in Oklahoma in 2025.
Increment 3
M-SHORAD Increment 3 builds on the Increment 1 system, but with the NGSRI instead of the legacy FIM-92 Stinger, which has been in use since the 1980s. According to Army Recognition, the Stinger’s single-mode infrared guidance, 4,800-meter maximum range and 3-kilogram warhead limits its capability to defeat modern, maneuvering threats.
NGSRI, which is being developed by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, is expected to address the Stringer’s limitation by equipping the new interceptor with multi-mode seekers and an extended engagement range.
A Government Accountability Office report published in June 2025 revealed that the Army plans to transition M-SHORAD Increment 3 to production in 2028, although the congressional watchdog found at the time that the weapon system has seven immature critical technologies that may derail the program’s projected timeline.
Increment 4
The Army initially planned to develop three variants of M-SHORAD, but the service introduced a fourth increment in 2024 via a request for information for a capability that will support dismounted manuever. According to the RFI posted on SAM.gov, the Army wants a platform with Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control capability, transportable on a C-130 aircraft, sling load-capable, and integratable onto a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, an Infantry Squad Vehicle or a robotic vehicle.
Brig. Gen. Frank Lozano, program executive officer for missiles and space, explained to DefenseScoop in 2024 that previous increments of M-SHORAD are “not optimized” for light divisions, such as the 101st Airborne Division.
“And so the increment four RFI is really to try to start to understand what type of SHORAD capability, leveraging what we’ve already done with the SGT Stout, what kind of SHORAD capability do we need to evolve to for those lighter forces to make them effective, but also as agile as they need to be on tomorrow’s battlefield?” he stated.
More recently, the Army issued another RFI for a Self-Loading Equipment Dock, also known as SLED, or a pallet-based system for Increment 4 of the M-SHORAD. The SLED or pallet will be fitted with multiple kinetic and non-kinetic defenses and can be installed on any vehicle.
Col. Marc Pelini, military deputy for the fires future capability directorate at Army Transformation and Training Command, revealed at an October 2025 event covered by DefenseScoop, that Increment 4’s sled concept would provide forces with more flexibility.
“So think of like a pallet or a sled that I could put in the back of any vehicle — whether it’s an ISV, a Humvee, a JLTV, or even a technical vehicle like a Toyota truck — and I can have that self-contained capability that allows the maneuver commander to have a menu of options,” shared Pelini.
The Army plans to achieve initial operational capability for Increment 4 by FY29.
What’s on the Agenda at the 2026 Army Summit?
The Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Army Summit will explore the most pressing challenges that the Army is currently facing, especially as it accelerates efforts to modernize critical systems and meet evolving battlefield requirements.
During the June 18 summit, Army decision-makers and industry innovators will participate in panels such as:
- From Pilot to Production: Accelerating Commercial Capabilities at Scale
- Tech Stack After Next: What’s Still Needed to Enable a Hyperconnected Battlefield
- Emerging Technologies at Scale: Reconfigurable Air Defense and Cost-Effective Fires
- Future of the Tactical Edge
- From Data to Decision: How AI Is Transforming the Army Today
- Continuous Modernization Incorporating Wireless Spectrum, SD-WAN, Open Ecosystems, and Cybersecurity
The 2026 Army Summit also offers insightful keynote speeches from the officials overseeing the delivery of critical warfighter capabilities and plenty of opportunities to network with the leading figures from across the defense industrial base. Sign up today!
