army

A slightly shorter and lighter-weight carbine version of the U.S. Army’s new 6.8x51mm M7 service rifle has now gotten its own designation: XM8. This choice of moniker is somewhat interesting, given that the service previously applied this designation to an abortive modular family of firearms designed to ape the looks of the guns in the 1997 movie Starship Troopers. The M7 had faced some significant criticisms of its own previously over its weight, ergonomics, and other aspects of the design, which the Army and manufacturer Sig pushed back strenuously against. At the same time, the design has continued to evolve and has been fielded more widely, as evidenced by the carbine version.

The Soldier Systems blog was the first to report on the new XM8 designation for the carbine variant of the M7 earlier this month. The Army subsequently confirmed this to Task & Purpose.

The Army chose what is now designated the M7 as its standard service rifle back in 2022. That year, the service chose Sig as the winner of its Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) competition. The NGSW also includes a new 6.8x51mm light machine gun from Sig, designated the M250, as well as a suite of accompanying ammunition types for both guns. The NGSW ‘system’ also includes computerized XM157 optics, which the Army is procuring separately from Vortex Optics.

What Is the New Army XM-7 Rifle Like? | GOARMY

“The XM8 is just over 32 inches long overall, compared to 37 inches for the M7, with a barrel length dropped from 13 to 11 inches and its suppressor from 7 to 6 inches,” according to Task & Purpose, citing Sig Sauer’s product manager for rifles and suppressors Joshua Shoemaker. “Without the suppressor, the XM8 weighs 7.33 pounds while the M7 weighs 8.36 pounds. The carbine’s suppressor shaves down to 1.31 pounds from the M7’s 1.46 pounds.”

“The carbine also comes with a fixed stock after soldiers said they preferred it to the M7’s folding stock,” Task & Purpose‘s piece adds. “The carbine also has a softer butt pad and a more rigid handguard for optics and other mounted equipment.”

The XM8 builds on what the Army had originally referred to as the product-improved or PIE version of the M7. This is one of two lighter-weight versions of the rifle that Sig had on display at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual symposium last September, both of which are seen in the picture at the top of this story.

“There’s basically two combined efforts going on within the M7,” Jason St. John, senior director of strategic products for the Defense Strategies Group at Sig Sauer, told TWZ at that time. “We have a carbine version, and then we have a lightened, improved version of the M7. And so when you look at the standard M7 that’s been issued to the troops, the overall weight of the firearm was 8.3 pounds. Now, the improved M7 is 7.6 pounds, and the carbine version weighs 7.3 pounds. So we’re getting closer and closer to [a] rifle weight system similar to the M4.”

The carbine variation Sig had previously presented then had a 10-inch barrel. Past reports have said that the PIE M7 had a 10.5-inch barrel. The baseline M7 has a 13.5-inch barrel. The 5.56x45mm M4A1 has a 14.5-inch barrel and weighs 8.63 pounds (including a sling and loaded magazine), according to the Army. It should be noted that optics and other accessories add appreciable weight to any firearm. The XM157 is heavier, as well as physically larger, than the types the Army has historically issued with M4A1s.

In terms of how the PIE M7 was lightened, “there’s the upper receiver, we’ve redesigned and taken some weight out of it. We’ve lessened the barrel profile slightly to get some weight out of it,” Sig’s St. John had also told us. “We’ve done some lightening efforts within the operating system, as well as remove the folding stock hinge. By removing that hinge, we save some weight.”

The XM8’s configuration could well evolve further as early testing by operational Army units gets underway, which Task & Purpose says could happen as soon as October.

Regardless, as noted, this is not the first XM8 ‘carbine’ the Army has tried to adopt. For a time in the early 2000s, the service looked set to replace all of its existing M16 rifles and M4 carbines with a new family of 5.56x45mm rifles and carbines known collectively as the XM8, developed by famed German gunmaker Heckler & Koch.

The previous XM8 had evolved from an earlier and more ambitious Army small arms program that envisioned future soldiers carrying a single weapon that combined a compact 5.56mm gun with a highly computerized 20mm grenade launcher firing programmable ammunition. That gun, called the XM29 Objective Infantry Combat Weapon, was beset by technical and other issues. In 2004, the Army decided to pursue the rifle and grenade launcher components as separate programs. The grenade launcher evolved into a 25mm design designated the XM25 and eventually nicknamed “the Punisher.”

XM29 OICW (Objective Individual Combat Weapon) Prototype

The standalone XM8 family was based on Heckler & Koch’s G36, which the German armed forces had adopted as its standard infantry rifle in the late 1990s. However, U.S. Army officials specifically asked if the gun could be made to look “more Starship Troopers,” in reference to the 1997 film, which is a very loose adaptation of the 1959 Robert Heinlein science fiction novel of the same name, according to firearms researcher Ian McCollum, who runs the website ForgottenWeapons.com. As a result, the XM8 evolved to have a much sleeker and futuristic-looking appearance externally.

STARSHIP TROOPERS [1997]– Official Trailer (HD) | Get the 25th Anniversary 4K Ultra HD SteelBook Now

Testing of the XM8 proceeded relatively well by all accounts. Versions of guns also gained a foothold in popular culture, appearing in several video games in the 2000s. Replicas were also featured in the movies Children of Men and District 13: Ultimatum.

In the end, though, a future Army with soldiers carrying “Starship Troopers” rifles was not to be. The program was cancelled in 2005. Continually evolving requirements and domestic U.S. political factors, together with broad questions about whether the cost, not to mention the time and effort, of adopting a new standard infantry weapon was justified by the reliability and improvements the XM8 was expected to offer over the existing M16/M4 family, were key factors.

Work on the XM25 grenade launcher continued for more than another decade before that program was axed, as well. The Army is now pursuing a new futuristic grenade launcher through a program called the Precision Grenadier System (PGS).

In the late 2000s, elements of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) and the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) evaluated the XM8. The Royal Malaysian Navy’s Pasukan Khas Laut naval special warfare unit, or PAKSAL, subsequently adopted multiple variants of the gun, but on a very limited level. The extent to which those guns remain in sevice today is unclear. There are no other known users anywhere else globally. You can read more about the full story of Heckler & Koch’s XM8 here.

Rare Unicorn Gun – H&K XM8 Compact PDW

The Army’s selection and fielding of the M7 have not been entirely smooth, either. As mentioned, the rifle has been the subject of criticism in the past. Army Capt. Braden Trent drew particular attention with a presentation that slammed the rifle at the annual Modern Day Marine conference last year. That assessment was based on the findings of a report written while he was a student at the Expeditionary Warfare School, which is part of the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. Both the Army and Sig had vehemently disputed his claims, as you can read more about here.

It still remains to be seen how widespread the adoption of any variation on the M7, including the XM8 carbine, might be across the rest of the U.S. military. In February, the U.S. Marine Corps notably told Task & Purpose that the service had no intention currently of adopting a version of the Army’s new 6.8mm rifle, and would instead stick with its 5.56x45mm M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR).

“We will continue to monitor development of the M7 [Next Generation Squad Weapon rifle] to inform future requirements,” a Marine Corps spokesperson told that outlet.

In the meantime, at least some Army soldiers now look to be in line to finally carry XM8 carbines, but not the “Starship Trooper” rifles they were once promised.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

With fielding of the Army’s highly anticipated MV-75 Future Long Range Assault tiltrotor aircraft not set to begin until next year under an incredibly aggressive schedule, the service is already building plans for the aircraft into training for mid-grade officers and putting soldiers through recently installed full-size simulators, officials said Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, Gen. David Hodne, head of U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command, said that while some soldiers with special operations backgrounds had already experienced V-22 Osprey operations through work with other services, the Army Aviation Center of Excellence (AVCOE) was working to further socialize what the service is promoting as a radically different capability.

“[AVCOE Commander Maj. Gen. Claire Gill is] already introducing MV-75 planning factors into the Captains Career Course,” Hodne said, referring to a 21-week professional training program designed for officers with between four and seven years of service and split between general leadership principles and technical proficiency. “[You have] twice the range, twice the speed. So getting officers talking about that capability is the start.”

Army officials took delivery of two MV-75 FLRAA “virtual prototypes (VPs)” in June and July of last year at Redstone Arsenal and Fort Rucker, Alabama. Based on digital twins of the aircraft, the simulators highlight “the transformational power of digital engineering,” Brig. Gen. David Phillips, Program Executive Officer for Army Aviation, said last year.

“The VP replicates the cockpit design, mission software, and flight dynamics models of the MV-75; it allows RTC XPs to continue developing tiltrotor experience to prepare for future flight test activities,” Army officials said in a February release. “Additionally, the RTC team actively uses the VP to expose aviators to tiltrotor unique considerations, whether in the context of training and tactics development, Special User Evaluations (SUEs) or VIP demonstrations.”

With Gill at the helm for MV-75 integration, Mohan said the simulators will be a valuable familiarization tool.

“In terms of developing the right instructor base that can integrate this capability, he already has the capability to start that, with one of the simulators that’s already at Fort Rucker,” Mohan said.

Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army, described these early-delivery digital prototypes as critical to the service’s modernized fielding approach.

“That allows soldiers to get in, start the training, do a lot of the stuff up front, figure out all of the procedures and how they will execute the mission, right?” he said. “A lot of the stuff is being done now ahead of the first flight even occurring.”

Additional training on advanced composites is also beginning, according to Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, head of U.S. Army Materiel Command, so soldiers can become proficient at skin and structural repair, “as well as all the digital engineering that goes into the integration end of a truly digitally engineered platform.”

During the roundtable, Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal pushed back on a reporter’s question about the service having to contend with the reputation of tiltrotor aircraft for “catching fire and falling out of the sky” as it sought to make its new tiltrotor a keystone for future Army aviation operations. The question referred to the V-22 Osprey, which entered service in 2007 and has sustained multiple deadly mishaps unique to its design, such as the ability of the prop-rotors to churn up brownout conditions during landing; “vortex ring state,” a condition in which the Osprey faces rapid descent into its own downwash; and most recently, a gearbox issue linked to a fatal 2022 crash that led to widespread flight restrictions.

But the Army has maintained that MV-75 is entirely a different aircraft and that the “1980s technology” that bedeviled the Osprey is nowhere to be found in the new Valor.

“I think we have to be very careful about making sweeping statements about tiltrotor technology, and especially when you look at what [manufacturers] Bell-Textron and the Army are doing, because it is the most advanced manufacturing and digital backbone that exists,” Obadal said. “So General Electric creates the digital backbone for all of the intercontinental airliners that Boeing makes, the 777 [and] 787, and they’re applying that experience and technology to our MV-75.”

The MV-75 design has the rotors rotate between forward and vertical flight modes independent of the engine nacelles, rather than the entire nacelles rotating, which occurs on the V-22, “dramatically reduces the technical complexity” of the plane, he said, while the digital systems and controls give it cutting-edge reliability.

“From a technical perspective, it’s far more advanced than anything that exists in the military inventory, because of its fly-by-wire systems and its digital backbone,” Obadal said.

Regarding cultural comfort-building with a tiltrotor aircraft given the V-22’s mixed reputation, Obadal said it was a nonissue.

“When I talk to [soldiers] about it, they say they want to fly it, and so do I,” he said.

In January, the Army confirmed to The War Zone that it planned to accelerate its timeline for the MV-75 by multiple years, fielding the first planes in 2027 versus 2031. The impetus came from Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, who emphasized that the service needed the MV-75’s speed and range “very quickly,” especially due to the operational demands of the vast Pacific, and couldn’t wait until the next decade to integrate it.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

Short-range kamikaze drones operated by an Iran-backed militia appear to have successfully targeted a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and a critical air defense radar at an American base in Iraq. This is the first known example of a successful attack of this kind on a U.S. military aircraft. It’s also not the first time we have seen evidence of these kinds of drones zipping over the same installation in recent weeks.

The incidents underscore the reality of the threat posed by small drones in the Middle East, where a wide variety of nefarious players have already employed these systems for surveillance and attacks against U.S. forces on multiple occasions, for years now. It is also a preview of what the U.S. could end up facing on its own homefront as it grapples with constant and sometimes highly perplexing drone incursions over sensitive bases and facilities. Even since the war began, there have been very alarming drone incursions over one of America’s most important bases that houses nuclear weapons and B-52 bombers that carry them. You can read all about these developments here.

One of the videos that began circulating yesterday, filmed from a first-person view (FPV) drone, shows a pair of Black Hawk helicopters sitting in a compound, protected only by a low blast wall. The video feed cuts out just before detonation, on or close to the main rotor, but the assumption is that one of these helicopters (at least) was struck.

The location has been identified as the Victory Base Complex (VBC), a cluster of U.S. military installations surrounding Baghdad International Airport close to the Iraqi capital.

As for the helicopter, this appears to be a medical evacuation (medevac) configured HH-60M, emphasized by the video editing, in which it seems the prominent identification panels marked with red crosses have been obscured.

Whether the helicopter was damaged or even destroyed by the drone is unclear at this point, but most significant is the fact that such a target was able to be engaged by a relatively simple, low-cost threat. The same goes for the second video, where the extent of the damage is much clearer.

The target in this case is a container-based AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar, a system used to alert and cue short-range air defense (SHORAD) weapons, including the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). The radar is in operating mode, its antenna clearly rotating.

A video showing a U.S. Army AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar in action with the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade:

Sentinel Radar

This footage includes the perspective from another drone, which confirms that the radar was hit, after which it is seen burning.

While it’s clear that more than one drone was in the vicinity of the radar during the attack, there have also been unconfirmed reports that the militia used some kind of swarming tactics, or at least multiple kamikaze drones to perpetrate this attack, with some degree of coordination.

Reportedly, the attacks on the Black Hawk and Sentinel radar occurred yesterday. In both cases, it is apparent that there is no degradation in the video feeds as they drop very low over the ground, even behind structures. This might be the result of the drones having been launched very close to their targets, or that they used fiber-optic control links. Both those scenarios are alarming, but a fiber-optic FPV drone would explain why passive sensor systems would not have detected them as they approached the base.

The drone strikes are notable for a number of other reasons.

First, there is no sign of air defenses attempting to engage the incoming drones.

Of course, a response to the drones in the form of electronic warfare and cyber warfare, or other ‘soft-kill’ options, is a possibility. In regards to other counter-drone capabilities, there is no indication that the limited number of directed-energy weapons the U.S. has were deployed to this facility, while surface-to-air interceptors are not generally suitable for engaging such small drones. Other options would include gun-based systems, as well as drone-based systems, like the Coyote, and the laser-rocket-slinging VAMPIRE. On the other hand, we also know there is a chronic scarcity of many of these systems.

Video footage shows Block 2+ Coyote drones engaging drones in an undated demonstration:

Raytheon Missiles & Defense proves counter-UAS effectiveness against enemy drones

It should also be noted that, for all their relative simplicity and low cost, FPV drones are very hard to spot and target, especially when they are moving quickly at very low level. In many cases, they will evade detection by traditional radars, while even microwave radars, tailored for counter-drone work, can provide sporadic coverage at very low altitude.

The apparent vulnerability of the Victory Base Complex is all the more surprising since this is not the first time that the same installation has been targeted by FPV drones.

Earlier this month, videos emerged showing drones purportedly belonging to the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group.

There have been suggestions that all of these various videos may have been recorded during the same (complex) attack, although the latest footage appears to come from a separate attack on a different date.

Thirdly, the threat posed by drones of this kind, while proliferating significantly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has been recognized long before that.

Last year, we reported on how U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had created a new task force specifically to counter the growing threats posed by small drones at home and abroad.

“There’s no doubt that the threats we face today from hostile drones grow by the day,” Hegseth stated at the time. “Emerging technologies — we see it in battlefields, in far-flung places, and we see it on our own border in small unmanned aerial systems. [These drones] target and bring harm on all warfighters, our people, our bases, and frankly, the sovereignty of our national airspace.”

Hegseth said the Pentagon “must focus on speed over process” when it came to new counter-drone efforts. 

Clearly, the U.S. military desperately needs a more potent counter-drone plan after years of incidents in which its assets at home and overseas have faced small drone incursions, many of which were of publicly unknown origin. TWZ was the first to report about drones flying over Langley Air Force Base in December 2023, as well as incursions last year over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Picatinny Arsenal, and many others in the U.S., and four bases in England. And these are just the tip of the iceberg: drone swarms have also harassed U.S. Navy ships off the coast of California, and other drones have been detected flying over nuclear energy plants and other sensitive areas, such as military training areas and airports.

Once in a conflict zone, the threat posed by small drones is even more glaring.

While there have been various regulatory barriers that have prevented the fielding of more robust drone defense of key installations and assets in the United States, this is not such a problem in Iraq, and especially in the course of a regional conflict.

It is notable, too, that there have been reports that some type of quadcopter-type drones may have been used for surveillance ahead of the Iranian strike on a U.S. logistics operations center in Kuwait on March 1. That attack led to the deaths of six U.S. service members, and more were wounded.

The incidents also underscore the very real risk faced by military infrastructure in the United States, a point that TWZ has repeatedly raised in the past. In particular, near-field attacks like these pose a huge threat and one that is hard to stop. Compared to a combat theater, something like this could be far more successful at home, where there are fewer defenses and more limited surveillance. As in Iraq, aircraft parked on the ground and radars are highly vulnerable, and the same threat even extends to traditional air defenses.

Operation Spiderweb, a Ukrainian drone attack that targeted multiple bomber bases deep in Russia, showed the world something that we had predicted for years.

On June 1, the Security Service of Ukraine carried out a brilliant operation— on enemy territory, targeting only military objectives, specifically the equipment used to strike Ukraine. Russia suffered significant losses.

In total, 117 drones were used in the operation – with a… pic.twitter.com/PeD1lTx9Nw

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 2, 2025

We have reached out to U.S. Central Command for more information about exactly what happened at the Victory Base Complex, and what kind of defensive measures are in place there.

As we wait for more details to emerge, to paint a fuller picture of these attacks on American assets in Iraq, it is clear that there are still questions to be asked about the resilience of the U.S. military in the face of kamikaze drones and similar threats.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The Army’s revamped system for getting gear and weapons to the fight faster has already been put to work in support of the war the U.S. is waging on Iran, a service leader said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., Brig. Gen. David Phillips, deputy portfolio acquisition executive for Maneuver Air, revealed the Army was trying to innovate in real time as the conflict approaches the end of its first month.

“As I look back on the past 30 days in Operation Epic Fury, we had some immediate requests from the field in the first week,” Phillips said. “Those immediate requests in the field returned on a requirements document with the [Army Future Capabilities Directorate] and [Army Transformation and Training Command] in about 48 hours, who turned on a contract in about 72 hours. And I can say that we’ve had soldiers out training and testing the capabilities they’re going to deploy with in real time in the past 10 days. So we’ve got industry fully engaged.”

Phillips did not go into detail on what capabilities were sourced or needs identified in that short timeframe. Notably, the Pentagon has shown willingness to deploy new tech to the fight from day one, debuting the Low Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a reverse-engineered American version of the Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, in the initial barrages.

On Tuesday, the Army formally announced the creation of an “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Marketplace” in partnership with Amazon Web Services and the Army Enterprise Cloud Management Agency that purports to be a “digital one-stop shop” for procuring drones fast for Army units and their allies.

Phillips urged defense industry members, as well as academics and units currently in the field, to tell leaders what was working in the fight and what needed to change.

“We want your engagements. We want your feedback at PAE Expanded Maneuver Air, and we want to have you as a part of our team. Because we know we don’t bend the metal, we don’t really go out and talk to the sub-tier suppliers as much as you all do, but we need this to be a team sport,” Phillips said. 

In a panel discussion helmed by Phillips, Army leaders who have worked with Ukraine and with mobile brigade combat teams within the 101st Airborne Division did exactly that, discussing needs and vulnerabilities with rare candor. 

Col. Burr Miller, a former innovation advisor with the Army-led Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, warned that U.S. systems were sometimes not strong enough to sustain attacks on position, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities. These are technologies that aid in navigation, like GPS, that are absolutely essential to modern warfighting. 

“The PNT environment is incredibly corrosive,” Miller said, adding that he had observed many U.S. systems that “did not survive first contact” with a Russian adversary. “… In the same kind of tenor, we do not test a representative environment in the United States; nowhere can we test what the representative environment is … That’s not only a government responsibility, vendors; that’s your responsibility.”

What Miller did find effective, but said he hadn’t seen much Army action on, was fiber-optic drones, which were largely impervious to electronic warfare defenses and, when moving fast to a target, were hard to bring down with a kinetic kill shot.

“The Russians and the Ukrainians use mass,” he said. “We have forgotten how to fight mass.”

Leaders with the 101st Airborne added concrete numbers to the picture. For a company to attack and defeat an enemy platoon, it had to be able to take down 20 attack drones per day; accordingly, a brigade needed to be able to take out 200, or 1,000 per week, said Col. Ryan Bell, commander of the 101st’s 3rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team. For that reason, he added, the Army was beginning to issue roughly 30 reusable drones to each company training at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., allowing them to simulate the mass they’d need to be competitive in a fight.

“We need drones that are good enough to work, but not exquisite,” Bell said. “We have to get them fast. They have to be cheap enough that they compete with artillery and economies of scale; that’s the challenge. I’m shooting 1,000 of these a day. I am looking at these munitions like they are artillery racks, and I have to resupply them like artillery racks, and that is a change in how we’ve been treating them.”

Bell said his units are also working to combine effects – for example, using Starlink-connected ground intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance robots for all-weather sensing to determine when best to employ AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munitions. 

A company commander, he said, might have his unit modify Skydio reconnaissance quadcopter drones to execute a breach before sending in ground robots.

“And he can also protect his rifleman, if he has to modify the [drone] to deliver a breaching charge, an aerial breaching charge,” Bell said. “And then using two ground robots as a tertiary mechanism with 28 pounds of C4 to open up the breach before that first rifle squad makes contact.”

Col. Duke Reim, commander of the 101st’s 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, also described innovating in training by pairing the Army’s small medium-range reconnaissance (MRR) drones with loitering munitions in operations to shrink down the time lag between scouting a target and raining steel down on it.

“The battlefield today doesn’t have time for eventually, and what we’re doing now by pairing these systems is quickening the pace at a rate that we’ve never seen before,” he said. “Our enemy is adapting. They can move quicker, they can hide and, heaven forbid, they can shoot just as fast as we can. So we’ve got to be able to take this initiative and continue to evolutionize it.”

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir issued a stark warning to the country’s cabinet this week: unless urgent measures are taken, the Israeli army is on the brink of collapse.

According to a report by Israel’s Channel 13 on Thursday, Zamir told ministers that he was “raising 10 red flags”, urging the government to move quickly on long-delayed legislation to alleviate the strain on its “exhausted” military.

The army has been overseeing what rights groups and the United Nations have determined is a genocide in Gaza, the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank and numerous incursions into Lebanon and Syria.

Addressing ministers, Zamir stressed the need for a “conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service”, adding that without these measures, “before long, the [Israeli military] will not be ready for its routine missions and the reserve system will not last”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since said that plans will be made to extend mandatory military service. However, this is not the first time the alarm has been raised that the military is straining under the pressure of repeated operations, which have seen it involved in the killings of tens of thousands of civilians across the Middle East.

The first came as early as June 2024, just eight months into the genocidal war on Gaza, when France24 reported on shortfalls in troop numbers, exhaustion and a lack of supplies.

That situation has only worsened since.

So, how large was the army before October 2023, how active has it been and how has the current era of unprecedented regional aggression sapped the military’s reserves? Here is what we know.

How suited is the Israeli army to its country’s forever wars?

Not very.

Launched in 1948, the idea of an Israeli military made up of a relatively small standing army backed by a large reserve corps of mobilised citizenry was the plan from the outset in order to instil a narrative of social cohesion, national identity and shared responsibility within the new country’s populace. Reservists would move between civilian life and military service to achieve this.

Before the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Israel’s standing army numbered just 100,000. This was immediately bolstered by calling up 300,000 reservists, pulling Israel’s “citizen soldiers” from their jobs and families to take part in the bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.

Ultimately, this means that the majority of troops serving are reservists rather than career soldiers.

Where are Israeli troops now?

On March 1, the day after US-Israeli strikes on Iran began, Israel announced the mobilisation of another 100,000 reserve soldiers.

That was in addition to 50,000 reservists currently on duty as a result of the Gaza war.

At the time, military sources said the additional troops would bolster existing positions along the border with Lebanon, its frontier and occupied positions within Syria, as well as in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

Additionally, Israel’s Home Front Command called up 20,000 reservists, primarily for search and rescue operations, with reinforcements also deployed to the Israeli Air Force, Navy and Intelligence Directorate.

Israel has since deployed “thousands” of those troops to take part in its invasion of southern Lebanon, which it resumed in response to rocket fire from Iranian ally Hezbollah on March 3.

Addressing the same security cabinet meeting as Zamir, Central Command chief Major General Avi Bluth told ministers that government policies in the occupied West Bank were also placing increasing pressure on the military’s already stretched manpower.

According to the report, Bluth told ministers that over the past year, the government has approved the construction of multiple illegal settlements in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in the West Bank as part of a wider operation characterised by rights groups and more than 20 countries as Israel’s “effective annexation” of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Bluth added: “This is your policy, but it requires security and a full protection package, because the reality on the ground has completely changed – and that requires manpower.”

Are Israeli troops exhausted?

According to many of the army’s own members, particularly reservists, they are.

Speaking to the Ynet News outlet, which is typically supportive of Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party, one reservist told the newspaper in December of his decision not to report for duty.

“We have battles to fight at home,” he said, explaining his decision. “There are guys on the team who were fired from their jobs, others whose families are barely staying afloat, or who have been dragging out their studies for a very long time. This is a problem, a complexity that is hard to describe.”

Resentment of the apparent exemption offered to members of Israel’s ultra-religious Haredim community, whose refusal to enlist for service is often overlooked by politicians, is also growing, Israeli media reports.

Responding to Zamir’s comments to the security cabinet, Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, took to Twitter to address the government directly.

“The government must stop the cowardice, immediately halt all budgets to the Haredi draft dodgers,” he said of the extensive social benefits many in Israel’s ultra religious community rely upon. “Send the military police after the deserters, draft the Haredim without hesitation,” he said.

“The warning has been given. It’s on your heads. It’s in your hands. You cannot continue to abandon Israel’s security, in wartime, for petty politics.”

The Army’s Rhode Island-sized test range in Utah’s high desert has long carefully policed access and entry privileges. But as the service takes notes from industry on how to innovate faster and move more efficiently, access to Dugway Proving Ground, and other Army test ranges, are becoming an easier ticket.

“We want you on our ranges,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Gaydon, commanding general of Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), told a military and industry audience Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Ala.

“Ranges are national treasures, and we need industry to iterate in our program offices, to be able to iterate and learn how, on these ranges, to do things you can’t do elsewhere.”

For years, Gaydon said, the Army evaluated range access requests with a priority structure of one to five, in which industry was five – the lowest priority. This effectively “blocked industry off the ranges,” he said, as did a permissions process that required him to personally approve visits.

“I looked at that for my first couple months in command, but about a year ago, we completely changed that,” he said. “Approval authority is at the tester or commander level – as long as you have a nexus to defense. If you have a car company wanting to use a track out there that has nothing to do with defense, I’ll still [have to] approve that.”

In December, ATEC announced another change it billed as an effort to “combine speed with rigor” to get new tools into the hands of soldiers faster. An overhauled safety release process waived an array of paperwork red tape for troops testing out “non-type-classified systems,” or commercial and prototype gear, on Army ranges. Particularly as the service accelerates drone and anti-drone weapons testing, emphasizing low-cost and commercial solutions, this has become a headache.

During three large Army experimentation events in Germany, Hawaii and Texas, ATEC officials had to issue nearly three dozen safety release forms for unmanned aerial systems, UAS payloads, and counter-UAS weapons, officials said in a release.

The new process allows for group safety releases for systems already on the military’s cleared UAS “blue list,” as well as higher-echelon release authority to extend permissions beyond individual requesting units. It also extends some safety release expiration dates and waives evaluation for systems previously deemed low-risk.

Col. Joseph Alexander, commander of the Army’s Redstone Test Center in Huntsville, highlighted recent efforts to build a UAS test range as an extension of the “UAS test operations campus,” or UTOC, that opened there years before. 

Test personnel, he said, “came to use and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got more space. We need to go faster, because that’s the accelerated testing, to be able to deliver capability.”

The range, he said, aims to bring UAS testing needs “within 48 hours” for “some of those smaller, maybe time-sensitive missions.”

As the service announced in February, Redstone will also be home to a Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) test facility ahead of the fielding of the Army’s MV-75 tiltrotor aircraft, set to begin as soon as next year. This will include a $59 million radio frequency test space and a nearly 13,000-square-foot anechoic, or echoless, chamber for precision instrumentation assessment.

“You should be able to put weapons systems purpose-built for FLRAA [in there],” Alexander said.

While leaders are reducing barriers to range testing, the Army is pinning greater and greater hopes on its live-virtual-constructive evaluation environments. Gaydon said ATEC’s “bumper sticker” is a strategy to reduce live testing by 30% as they front-load digital engineering and model-based testing and development.

“Yesterday, I was in a FLRAA virtual prototype,” he said of the two Alabama-based MV-75 simulators manufacturer Bell-Textron delivered to the Army last year. “We can’t quite use that to test. We can use it to prepare test pilots to fly FLRAA. But that’s another example … that will certainly drive down the amount of live testing if we get it right with digital engineering.”

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

At least six people on board a Qatari military helicopter have been killed in a crash in the Gulf state’s waters after a “technical malfunction”, the government said.

Seven people were on board, with Qatar’s interior ministry on Sunday saying operations continue ‌to find the last missing person.

“A Qatari helicopter had a technical malfunction during a routine duty, which led to its crash in the regional waters of the State,” the country’s defence ministry earlier said in a statement on X.

More to come…

Israeli air strikes target army camps in response to alleged attacks on the Druze community in Suwayda on Thursday.

Israel’s military has said it struck Syrian army camps overnight in response to what it claimed were attacks against the Druze community in the south of the country.

“This was in response to yesterday’s events, in which Druze civilians were attacked in the [Suwayda] area,” the Israeli military said in a post on Telegram on Friday.

“The [Israeli military] will not allow harm to come to Druze in Syria and will continue to act for their protection.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reported on Thursday that fighting broke out between government forces and fighters from local tribes against opposing Druze factions in the western countryside of Suwayda.

The fighting began after mortar shells fell on areas under the control of Druze factions.

The shelling later hit residential neighbourhoods in the city of Suwayda, sowing panic and fear among residents, the Syrian Observatory said.

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency did not acknowledge the fighting in Suwayda or the Israeli attack.

Violence first erupted in Suwayda on July 13 between Bedouin tribal fighters and Druze groups.

Government forces were sent in to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Israel had already pushed deeper into Syrian territory following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, occupying the buffer zone and saying the 1974 deal with Syria had collapsed.

The latest flare-up between the neighbouring countries comes as war roils the Middle East after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

In a speech delivered after the Eid al-Fitr prayers on Friday in Damascus, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said he is working to keep Syria out of any conflict.

“It is important to remember that Syria has always been an arena of conflict and strife during the past 15 years and before that, but today it is in harmony with all neighbouring countries regionally and internationally,” he said.

He added that Syria stood “in full solidarity with the Arab states”.