L3Harris Pitches Cruise Missiles for SOCOM’s Air Tractor
•February 10, 2026
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Why It Matters
Adding affordable cruise missiles transforms the low‑cost OA-1K into a viable stand‑off strike asset, extending AFSOC’s reach without expensive new aircraft. This capability supports SOCOM’s shift toward modular, survivable solutions in contested environments.
Key Takeaways
- •L3Harris integrates Red Wolf on OA-1K Skyraider II.
- •Red Wolf offers 200‑nm range, loitering or cruise capability.
- •SOCOM reduces OA-1K fleet but seeks modular weapon options.
- •Cruise missiles turn crop‑duster into stand‑off strike platform.
- •AFSOC explores low‑cost missiles for MQ‑9 and gunships.
Pulse Analysis
The Armed Overwatch program was born from a need for a rugged, inexpensive aircraft that could support counter‑insurgency missions in remote theaters. The Air Tractor‑derived OA-1K Skyraider II, acquired by U.S. Special Operations Command, fits that bill with its simple airframe and ability to operate from unprepared strips. L3Harris’s recent integration of its Red Wolf missile onto the Skyraider demonstrates how a legacy platform can be upgraded with modern precision weapons. By leveraging an existing fleet, SOCOM avoids the cost and time of procuring a new dedicated strike aircraft.
Red Wolf is a versatile munition that can loiter for surveillance or launch as a small cruise missile, reaching up to 200 nautical miles while delivering a kinetic payload. Its design allows rapid swapping with the electronic‑attack Green Wolf, creating a family of “launched effects vehicles” that can be tailored to mission requirements. Although its range falls short of the 400‑600‑mile envelope envisioned for future OA‑1K missions, it still offers a significant stand‑off capability compared with traditional gun‑mounted ordnance. The system’s plug‑and‑play architecture mirrors recent tests of Leidos’s Black Arrow on AC‑130 platforms, underscoring a broader move toward low‑cost, modular strike solutions.
The strategic payoff is clear: a modestly priced crop‑duster equipped with Red Wolf can strike targets from a safe distance, freeing higher‑performance aircraft for more contested objectives. As SOCOM trims its OA‑1K order from an original 75 airframes to just six, each remaining aircraft must deliver maximum utility, and stand‑off missiles provide that leverage. In the Indo‑Pacific, where dispersed islands demand austere basing, the OA‑1K’s ability to operate from short, rough runways combined with long‑range munitions could reshape force‑projection concepts. Success of the Red Wolf integration may spur further adoption of similar low‑cost weapons across MQ‑9 drones and cargo aircraft, reinforcing a trend toward adaptable, survivable firepower.
L3Harris Pitches Cruise Missiles for SOCOM’s Air Tractor
When U.S. Special Operations Command and the Air Force first developed requirements for its Armed Overwatch program, planners envisioned a rugged, lightweight, low-cost combat scout aircraft capable of supporting counterinsurgency missions.
Now that they’ve acquired OA-1K Skyraider II, however, the command and its prime contractor are looking to up-arm their modified Air Tractor cropduster to carry low-cost cruise missiles.
L3Harris announced Feb. 9 that it recently integrated the Skyraider II to carry its new Red Wolf munition, one in a family of systems L3Harris unveiled last summer dubbed “launched effects vehicles.”
Red Wolf can operate as either a loitering munition or a small cruise missile, fly as far as 200 nautical miles, and deliver precision kinetic strikes. It can also be paired with L3Harris’ Green Wolf, a similar missile packed with an electronic attack payload.
L3Harris revealed few details, but touted the Skyraider II-Red Wolf experiment as demonstrating both systems’ “modularity and ease of integration for evolving mission requirements.”
Air Force Special Operations Command is looking at the concept and eyeing other low-cost missiles from other suppliers, as well. A year ago, in March 2025, AFSOC worked with Leidos to test launch its Black Arrow small cruise missile from an AC-130 gunship. AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Michael Conley told reporters just a month later that the idea held promise for the OA-1K, as well: “If you could use a gunship, or an MQ-9, or an OA-1K that had a small cruise missile that could go 400, 500, or 600 miles and hit a target, that seems like a capability that a combat commander could use.”
The L3Harris Red Wolf doesn’t match that range, but it does fit the profile otherwise.
Conley spoke of the idea again at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, talking up “long-range standoff mission munitions” for the OA-1K among other aircraft.
Adapting such a weapon for the OA-1K gives a boost to both AFSOC and the aircraft. Originally conceived in the 2010s when AFSOC was focused on countering violent extremism in the Middle East, the rise of drones, loitering munitions, and other technologies employed widely now in combat in the Middle East and Ukraine have altered the battlespace and mission requirements.
Indeed, no sooner had AFSOC acquired the aircraft than some started to talk of its no longer being “relevant” or “survivable” in higher-threat environments. Beginning in fiscal 2025, SOCOM slashed its planned buy from 15 to 12 aircraft, and in 2026, SOCOM cut further, from 12 to six airframes.
But the command has never waivered from its planned fleet of 75 aircraft and Conley predicted that AFSOC would make good use of the plane, even in the vast Indo-Pacific.
“Once we get the aircraft and we start flying it, our crew members and our maintainers will figure out novel ways that it will be relevant in the future fight as well as the current one,” Conley said in 2024.
The OA-1K’s rugged simplicity could prove useful for landing and taking off from rough expeditionary airfields and unprepared airstrips on Pacific islands, for example, and the ability to fire longer-range munitions could enable it to contribute to destroying smaller targets so that larger, more capable aircraft can focus on greater threats. Cruise missiles would, in effect, turn a close-in platform into a stand-off weapon system.
AFSOC has also experimented with arming its fleet of uncrewed MQ-9 Reaper drones as “motherships” for smaller drones and using cargo aircraft to deliver cruise missiles by means of dropping a pallet of weapons out its rear hatch, then launching the cruise missiles from the pallet.
The post L3Harris Pitches Cruise Missiles for SOCOM’s Air Tractor appeared first on Air & Space Forces Magazine.
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