By Wesley Brown, Arkansas Delta Informer Editor
EAST CAMDEN, Ark. – July 7, 2026 – After debuting the newer Precision Strike Missile system for the first time in combat during Operation Epic Fury in Iran, defense giant Lockheed Martin announced today (July 7) that it is moving production of the aging U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Europe.
During the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum on Tuesday (July 7) in Ankara, Turkey, Lockheed and the German defense conglomerate Rheinmetall announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to co-produce ATACMS missiles for the first time on European soil.
Lockheed and Rheinmetall, both of which have substantial operations at the Highland Industrial Park in East Camden, Ark., stated that the trans-Atlantic deal addresses the immediate demand for locally produced munitions in Europe. The deal also comes as the U.S. Army phases out the use of ATACMS in favor of newer, state-of-the-art Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs).
“This partnership marks a watershed moment for European security and allied industrial cooperation. By combining Lockheed Martin’s unmatched missile expertise with Rheinmetall’s manufacturing excellence, we’ll deliver combat-proven capabilities faster and more efficiently to our allies,” said Jay Pitman, president of Lockheed Martin International.
Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, said the aim of the deal with the American defense giant is to strengthen the defense capabilities of Germany and Europe. “Together with our friends at Lockheed Martin, we are now establishing the industrial base in Germany for modern defense systems, which are in great demand by the armed forces of Europe,” he said.
With backing from both the U.S. and German governments, the agreement marks the next step toward establishing a joint venture to create the first European center of excellence for the manufacturing, integration, and distribution of ATACMS for NATO and allied European forces, officials said.
Rheinmetall’s Unterluess facility—a 125-year-old site with approximately 4,000 employees—serves as a central hub for the company’s weapon systems, ammunition production, and tracked vehicle maintenance. Located in in Lower Saxony, Germany, the site features Europe’s largest private firing range and the recently commissioned “Werk Niedersachsen” artillery plant.
With a new rocket motor factory nearing completion, the Germany-based facility is scheduled to begin manufacturing guided missile components as early as 2027, positioning it as a primary location for the new Lockheed-Rheinmetall ATACMS co-production initiative.
NATO’s “call to action” as President Trump pushes increase defense spending by allies
The announcements by Lockheed and Rheinmetall were part of NATO’s Call to Action to financial institutions and allies to increase private capital investment in defense, security and resilience across the alliance. The deal was announced just hours before President Donald Trump arrived in Turkey for the NATO summit, where the U.S. president is expected to continue voice criticism that U.S. allies in Europe need to quickly increase defense spending and support U.S. war efforts against Iran.
Established in 1949 after World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established by 12 founding countries—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States—to counter the post-war expansion of Soviet Union and ensure collective security for its members
Speaking at the annual defense summit, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stressed that significantly more investment is needed to meet growing demand for defense capabilities. “To keep our defenses strong, we need to sustain and scale our industries and fuel innovation across the defense sector. And for this, we need capital,” he said. He noted that although more private capital is flowing into defense than before, “it’s not nearly enough.”
In addition to the Lockheed-Rheinmetall announcement, NATO launched several major new capability initiatives at the summit, covering space and surveillance, strike capabilities, critical raw materials, and integrated air and missile defense.
Earlier on Tuesday, President Trump, speaking alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expressed disappointment in the alliance for not acknowledging American investment in NATO defense. “Why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and they’re not there for us?” Trump said. “We’ve always been there for them.”
Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy also gave the keynote speech at the defense summit on Tuesday ahead of his scheduled meeting with Trump on Wednesday.
Lockheed ramps up Precision Strike Missile, PAC-3 and THAAD production
For Lockheed, the deal with Rheinmetall comes at a critical juncture, as the U.S. military deployed Precision Strike PrSMs for the first time in combat against Iranian targets during Operation Epic Fury in February, enabling long-range, high-precision, ground-launched strikes.
In 2020, the U.S. Army announced plans to eventually replace the ATACMS and provide U.S. soldiers and allies with a more capable and versatile weapon system to meet the challenges of future conflicts, which led to the development of the PrSM.
The transition from ATACMS to PrSM is part of the Army’s broader modernization effort to equip soldiers with cutting-edge weapon systems that address evolving threats and operational requirements. The PrSM’s advanced features align with the Army’s future operational concepts and strategic priorities, making it a crucial component of force modernization.
“The two major differences between the ATACMs and PrSM today are range and loadout quantities,” U.S. Army spokesman Darrell Ames said in a July 2024 news release. Loadout refers to the amount of missiles a launch container, or pod, can hold. “The PrSM has doubled the loadout capability per pod and has a significantly greater range capability.”
While the ATACMS uses pods that contain a single missile with a maximum range of roughly 300 kilometers (approximately 190 miles), PrSM provides two rounds per launch pod, with maximum ranges exceeding 400 kilometers (nearly 250 miles). Both missile systems are compatible with HIMARS and Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms.
A year ago, the Army granted Milestone C approval for PrSM, signaling readiness for full production and deployment. In March 2025, Lockheed Martin signed a $4.94 billion contract to rapidly transition from prototypes to large-scale manufacturing, with early operational capability missiles already flowing downrange – and production targeting 400 units annually.
U.S. forces strike nearly 14,000 targets in Iran; stretch military’s munitions stockpiles
According to a transcript of a Senate hearing on May 14, Admiral Brad Cooper, the Central Command commander, reported that U.S. forces fired 13,629 strike munitions against more than 13,000 targets in Iran by the time of the most recent ceasefire.
Those munitions, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, were used for group attacks, missile and drone defense – whether launched from land or sea. Overall, total munitions costs for the war in Iran exceeded $26 billion, including between 150-380 PrSM and ATACMs that were used for long-range ground attacks.
“U.S. forces fired many expensive missiles, making munitions the largest component of the war cost estimate. All need replacement, given that prewar inventories were considered inadequate,” Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser with the CSIS Defense and Security Department, wrote in a June 23 research note.
Beyond the war in Iran, the planned ATACMS production line in Germany will also support European allies’ depleted stockpiles of the long-range strike weapon. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, U.S.-supplied ATACMS have increasingly been at the core of Kyiv’s precision strike capabilities against military targets in Russian territory.
“There is significant global demand for ATACMS, and we will continue producing them in Camden … for current contracts while European production will focus solely on future international orders and allow for growth of other production lines in Camden like the Precision Strike Missile,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told the Arkansas Delta Informer.
U.S. munitions production ramping up at Highland Park in East Camden
Since its establishment in 1979, Lockheed Martin’s Camden facility has produced over 700,000 missiles and rockets, employing more than 1,100 people in a 2.2+ million-square-foot facility on 2,427 acres within the sprawling Highland Industrial Park.
Besides the Lockheed-Rheinmetall facility in Germany, the two U.S. allies, along with the other NATO allies, announced plans at the summit to explore establishing a dedicated PAC-3 missile maintenance facility in Europe, a move that could eventually enable overseas production, military experts say.
The proposed facility includes commitments from the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden to strengthen NATO’s integrated air and missile defense readiness by providing in-region maintenance and sustainment capabilities that keep PAC-3 missiles ready, reliable and rapidly deployable against evolving threats.
“Industrial cooperation strengthens the transatlantic defense industrial base and contributes to economic progress and shared security,” said Pitman. “Today, we are accelerating our work with NATO allies and industry partners to expand integrated air and missile defense capacity, strengthen regional sustainment networks and support the rising global demand for these capabilities.”
The PAC-3 maintenance facility deal comes as demand for the advanced missile interceptor grows worldwide, driven by its combat-proven performance. In January, a landmark framework agreement was established with the U.S. Department of War to triple production capacity for PAC-3 MSE.
In April, the U.S. government awarded Lockheed Martin a $4.7 billion contract to accelerate PAC-3 MSE production this year. In 2024, Lockheed’s PAC-3 team in Camden significantly increased production and set a new record high in missile output, delivering more than 500 PAC-3 MSEs.
According to Mac Bergmann, director for CSIS’s Europe, Russia and Eurasia program, since the U.S.-Israeli strike campaign against Iran began on Feb. 28, “the scale of interceptor consumption has been staggering,” particularly for three key munitions types: anti-ballistic missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors; ship-based surface-to-air SM-3 missiles; and mobile, land-based, surface-to-air PAC-3 MSE missiles.
“Annual production rates indicate that interceptors will be hard to come by when the smoke clears and U.S. allies seek to replenish stockpiles. Patriot interceptors in particular were already in critically short supply; according to the New York Times, just 620 of the most advanced Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors were delivered to militaries in 2025, while Kyiv has received only about 600 during four years of war,” Bergmann wrote in a March 23 research note.
The proposed PAC-3 Missile Maintenance Facility will support the growing community of NATO allies operating PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) and Cost Reduction Initiative (CRI) interceptors. Lockheed Martin said it will draw on decades of experience in missile production, sustainment, engineering, and supply-chain management to support the development of the proposed facility and the allied nations that depend on PAC-3 capabilities.
With plans now for a new maintenance facility, there is increasing speculation that the U.S. will produce PAC-3 missiles beyond U.S. borders, like the newly announced ATACMs facility in Germany. In late May, L3Harris Technologies announced that it had issued a purchase order to Wojskowe Zaklady Elektroniczne S.A. (WZE), a Polish government defense firm, to produce Attitude Control Motors (ACMs) as a certified supplier for PAC-3 missiles.
L3Harris, a key subcontractor for Lockheed Martin, said it has been working closely with WZE to stand up in-country missile component production for Poland’s Wisla air defense system. The purchase order follows installation of specialized equipment at a new WZE production facility in Zielonka, Poland, and extensive U.S.-based training at L3Harris’ solid rocket motor production campus in Camden, where the rocket motor maker employs over 1,200 workers.
In addition to recent deals that will increase PrSM and PAC-3 production at the Highland Industrial Park in south Arkansas, the Pentagon also recently awarded Lockheed Martin a seven-year undefinitized contract worth up to $35 billion to quadruple production of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors.
The award finalizes a framework agreement first announced in January and is expected to support production work at the defense contractor’s Munitions Acceleration Center in Calhoun County.
In late February, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited the Highland Industrial Park in East Camden as part of his nationwide “Arsenal of Freedom” tour. During the Pentagon’s chief visit to Arkansas, his planned stops included meetings with General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon officials, three of the so-called “big five” defense contractors that receive the largest share of the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion annual budget.
Other large defense contractors at the 18,780-acre defense-focused industrial Park with 5,408,686 square feet of industrial and warehousing facilities include American Rheinmetall Defense, L3 Harris, Esterline Defense Group, and Raytheon-Rafael Area Production System, a $1.25 billion joint venture dedicated to producing and integrating Israel’s Iron Dome air defense systems in the U.S.
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