Raytheon delivers smart bombs to eight NATO partners

Raytheon has been awarded a contract worth up to $708.9 million to produce the next production lot of the Small Diameter Bomb Increment II, commonly known as the StormBreaker, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on April 6, 2026.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, issued the undefinitized contract action — meaning final terms and pricing are still being negotiated — for Lot 12 production of the weapon, along with associated test equipment. Work under the contract will be performed at Raytheon’s facility in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by March 6, 2030. The contract was awarded as a sole-source acquisition, meaning Raytheon is the only qualified supplier for this production run.

The contract covers all-up rounds and containers, test equipment, and spare parts. Funding obligated at the time of award totaled multiple appropriations streams: $128.2 million in fiscal 2026 procurement missile funds, $1.87 million in fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance funds, $5.29 million in fiscal 2025 procurement weapons funds, $31.57 million in fiscal 2026 procurement weapons funds, and $171.56 million in Foreign Military Sales funds. The FMS component of the award covers deliveries to eight allied nations: Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, the Republic of Korea, and Switzerland.

The StormBreaker is a small, smart, precision-guided glide bomb designed to be carried and released by tactical fighter and strike aircraft. Weighing approximately 250 pounds, it is engineered to hit moving targets in poor weather and at night — capabilities that distinguish it from earlier generations of precision-guided munitions that struggled against vehicles or personnel in motion. The weapon achieves that through a tri-mode seeker: it uses millimeter-wave radar, infrared imaging, and semi-active laser guidance, and can switch between those modes autonomously depending on conditions. That flexibility allows it to engage tanks, trucks, ships, and other mobile targets even when cloud cover or smoke would defeat a conventional laser- or GPS-guided weapon.

Because of its small size, a single aircraft can carry significantly more StormBreakers than it could carry larger bombs. An F-15E Strike Eagle, for example, can carry up to 28 of them on a single sortie. That carriage capacity multiplies the number of targets a pilot can engage per mission — a meaningful operational advantage in high-tempo combat operations where sortie rates and ammunition efficiency directly shape outcomes.

The weapon’s standoff capability is another critical feature. It can glide considerable distances after release, allowing the launching aircraft to stay outside the engagement envelopes of many ground-based air defense systems. That standoff reach has grown more operationally relevant as modern air defense networks — fielded by Russia, China, and others — have become increasingly capable of threatening aircraft that must fly closer to their targets.

The eight countries receiving StormBreakers through the FMS component of this contract represent a cross-section of NATO’s most capable air arms plus South Korea, a key Indo-Pacific partner. Finland and Norway, both Nordic NATO members with significant tactical aviation fleets, are among the recipients. Germany, Belgium, Canada, Italy, and Switzerland round out the European contingent, while South Korea’s inclusion reflects the weapon’s relevance beyond the European theater. Equipping allied air forces with a common munition also simplifies coalition operations by enabling interoperability — allied aircraft can carry and employ the same weapons using compatible procedures.

Demand for standoff precision weapons has grown substantially among U.S. allies since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Observing how quickly munitions stockpiles can be depleted in sustained high-intensity combat, NATO members have accelerated procurement across multiple weapon categories. The StormBreaker, with its ability to defeat moving targets in adverse conditions, addresses a specific capability gap that conventional unguided bombs and older precision munitions cannot fill.

Raytheon, now operating as RTX’s Raytheon Missiles and Defense division, has been the sole producer of the StormBreaker since the program’s inception. The Tucson facility is the primary production site for several of the U.S. military’s most widely fielded air-launched precision munitions. The Lot 12 award extends a production line that has already delivered weapons to both U.S. Air Force operational squadrons and partner nations through earlier FMS agreements.

With a completion date set for early 2030, the contract ensures that StormBreaker production remains active well into the latter half of the decade — sustaining supply for U.S. Air Force requirements and meeting the growing demand from allied nations working to expand their precision strike inventories.