The U.S. Army is planning an inaugural test of Lockheed Martin’s Long Range Fires (LRF) launcher in a live fire exercise in the Philippines during Balikatan 2026, led by the U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), according to new documents published by the service. RCCTO previously developed and tested the Mid-Range Capability launcher, formerly known as Typhon, with support from the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO).
Lockheed Martin’s LRF launcher is based on the Oshkosh Defense ROGUE-Fires unmanned JLTV platform. It is armed with a single-cell strike-length Mark 41 VLS cell for Tomahawk cruise missiles. The U.S. Marine Corps stood up its first LRF battery in 2023 in California with the intention of procuring over 50 launchers. A similar vehicle fielded in the U.S. Marine Corps, the ROGUE-Fires NMESIS, was recently deployed to Japan for Resolute Dragon 2025.
LRF was ultimately cancelled by the U.S. Marine Corps in the FY2026 budget, citing concerns with mobility in austere environments compared to existing launchers like HIMARS and ROGUE-Fires NMESIS. For the U.S. Marine Corps, LRF was not mobile enough to meet their needs given the need for extreme mobility and agility in the contested air, sea, and space domain that the force would operate in during a war with China.
But for the U.S. Army, LRF is a step up in mobility and dispersion compared to its current tractor-trailer based Mid-Range Capability (MRC) launchers which struggled with mobility during its maiden deployment to the Philippines.
The U.S. Army currently fields maritime strike Tomahawks and SM-6 Block IA anti-ship missiles with their MRC batteries, operating in the mid-range between the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) and Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW). PrSM may be integrated on the ROGUE-Fires chassis as well, adding to a common family of launcher vehicles operated by the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army.
The U.S. Army has already expressed interest in a follow-on launcher that is more mobile than the current MRC launcher fielded by the force’s Multi Domain Task Forces. A panel discussion at the 2024 Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference discussing the MRC’s deployment mentioned a potential successor to MRC that would ideally be more mobile than the current setup, citing the setbacks faced during its Philippines deployment.
LRF would provide the U.S. Army’s MDTFs with highly mobile Tomahawk launchers that can be reloaded in the field and operated remotely with the standard ROGUE-Fires control capability which is receiving new software and hardware enhancements for remote operation in FY 2026. Some of the planned upgrades include M-Code GPS receivers, one-to-many fire control software improvements, and one-to-many Leader/Follower software improvements.
The LRF launcher currently only operates with Tomahawk missiles, though it operates with the same VLS dimensions as MRC, so integration with SM-6 is a possibility. Naval News has reached out to the U.S. Army for further comment on LRF’s potential future in the force.
