Oshkosh Unveils Ground-Based Tomahawk Launcher at AUSA 2025

Oshkosh Defense revealed its Family of Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicles (FMAV) at AUSA 2025, presenting a potential new mobile launch platform for Tomahawk cruise missiles, MLRS Family of Munitions (MFOM) such as GMLRS and PrSM, and Switchblade 600 loitering attack drones. The unveiling highlights a growing focus on mobility, modularity, and autonomy in long-range precision fires.

FMAV: A Modular and Multi-Mission Vehicle Family

The FMAV is designed as a family of vehicles ranging from light to extreme variants. The X-MAV heavy variant was showcased carrying a four-missile Tomahawk launch module, mounted on a hydraulically elevated platform. Smaller M-MAV and L-MAV variants are optimized for precision rockets like GMLRS, PrSM, and loitering munitions such as the Switchblade 600. The modular approach allows commanders to swap mission payloads rather than entire vehicles, enhancing operational flexibility.

Ground-Based Tomahawk: Extending Deep Strike

Traditionally sea- or air-launched, the Tomahawk cruise missile is a long-range precision strike weapon with ranges of hundreds to over a thousand kilometers, carrying a roughly 1,000 lb conventional warhead. Oshkosh’s FMAV demo showed four Tomahawks per vehicle, offering rapid mobility and the ability to operate in dispersed formations while reducing crew exposure. This land-based capability could redefine how long-range strike is deployed on modern battlefields.

Compatibility with Other Munitions

Oshkosh’s FMAV is not limited to Tomahawks. The medium and light variants can field:

• GMLRS: 227-mm guided rockets with ranges up to 70 km and unitary warheads (~90–100 kg).

• PrSM: The next-generation Precision Strike Missile, capable of targeting ranges in the low hundreds of kilometers.

• Switchblade 600: One-way loitering attack drones with 40+ minutes endurance, designed for precision anti-armor strikes.

This flexibility allows the FMAV family to serve multiple operational roles using the same vehicle chassis.

Technical considerations

Adapting Tomahawk-class missiles to a road-mobile launcher requires more than mechanical mounting. Canisters must be ruggedized for vibration, shock, dust and moisture while maintaining environmental control and safe-storage conditions. Fire-control, mission planning and secure datalinks need rework to operate reliably in ground networks with different line-of-sight and contested communications environments. Equally important are certified safety and arming procedures, electrical and cooling interfaces, and comprehensive testing to validate launch sequencing, EMI resilience and mechanical durability before operational use.

Tactical advantages

FMAVs bring practical operational benefits by combining mobility, modularity and optional autonomy. Road-mobile launchers that can disperse, relocate quickly and operate with reduced crew exposure make targeting and interdiction harder for an opponent and allow commanders to present multiple, redundant strike options across a theatre. The approach supports faster tempo and flexible tasking — logistics or support vehicles could be reconfigured as temporary shooters — but it also requires new training, revisions to command-and-control practices, and investments in electronic-warfare and defensive measures to protect the nodes.

Policy and export implications

Putting long-range strike effects on wheeled platforms elevates policy and export considerations. Existing export controls, alliance rules and international agreements that govern long-range weapons would shape decisions on qualification, transfer and oversight. Deploying such capability on land changes strategic signaling in crises and raises questions about basing, authorization to fire and escalation management; governments will need clear legal and procedural safeguards before wider adoption or export.

Oshkosh’s FMAV concept points to a practical path toward more distributed, reconfigurable strike capability: modular vehicles that can host cruise missiles, precision rockets or loitering munitions. The idea is technically achievable but depends on substantial integration work, rigorous testing, revised doctrine and deliberate policy choices. If implemented, it would make precision-strike forces more flexible and dispersed, while also requiring stronger protections, new training and careful international coordination.