AUSA 2025: Oshkosh X-MAV Mobile Tomahawk Launcher Highlights Future Options for Ukraine.

Oshkosh Defense unveiled the X-MAV, an Extreme Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle configured to carry four Tomahawk cruise missiles, at AUSA 2025 in Washington, D.C. The appearance comes as U.S. policymakers publicly debate supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, a shift that would expand Kyiv’s deep-strike reach while complicating escalation management with Russia.

During AUSA 2025 in Washington, Oshkosh Defense unveiled the X-MAV, an autonomous-capable heavy launcher configured with four Tomahawk missiles, introducing a highly mobile land-based deep-strike option to the Army’s modernization roadmap. The reveal coincides with U.S. consideration of supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine, a step that would let Kyiv threaten distant logistics and command hubs while sharpening escalation dynamics with Russia. Anchored to priorities for long-range precision fires and the CAML-H concept, X-MAV blends off-road survivability, integrated power and a payload-agnostic architecture built for contested terrain. Its debut reframes the cruise-missile conversation around mobility and dispersion, shifting emphasis from containerized launchers to purpose-built platforms that can hide, fire and reposition quickly.

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The unveiling of Oshkosh’s X-MAV at AUSA reframes land-based cruise missile employment as a question of mobility and survivability, not just range. As Washington and Kyiv move from rhetoric to technical planning on Tomahawks, the appearance of a production-oriented, autonomy-ready launcher strengthens the Army’s CAML-H trajectory and offers a credible pathway for allies who need deep-strike options that can keep moving under threat (Picture source: Army Recognition Group)

Oshkosh’s X-MAV (Extreme Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle) is the heaviest member of the company’s new Family of Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicles (FMAV), a lineup designed to answer Army modernization priorities for long-range precision fires, resilient formations, and scalable autonomy. The X-MAV is presented as a purpose-built launcher with a robust off-road chassis, integrated onboard power, and an open, payload-agnostic architecture sized for the heaviest missiles in service. In Washington, it appears for the first time publicly with a four-round Tomahawk loadout, mirroring the Army’s current Typhon battery capacity, while promising markedly greater cross-country mobility than trailer-borne solutions fielded to date.

The timing is consequential. On Oct. 10, Ukrainian officials said Kyiv and Washington are engaged in “detailed and active” technical coordination on a potential Tomahawk transfer, now drilling into missile blocks, canisterization, ground fire-control architecture, targeting procedures, and candidate launch platforms after years of categorical refusals. Those working-level tracks anchor a broader round of meetings in Washington this week; the White House has not publicly ruled out the option, while Moscow warns it will harden air defenses if deliveries proceed. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has underscored that any Tomahawks would be employed strictly against military targets, an assurance aimed at managing escalation risk while enabling deep-range strikes against command, logistics, and air-defense nodes.

Technically, the X-MAV aligns with the Army’s emerging Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher, Heavy (CAML-H), a 15-ton-class launcher concept intended to fire Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) among other heavy interceptors. The Army has highlighted autonomous reload and payload flexibility as defining features for CAML-H, and industry has been shaping bids around that requirement since the summer. Oshkosh’s approach, production-based vehicle, autonomy-ready control stack, and missile-agnostic architecture, maps cleanly to that brief.

For context, the U.S. Army has already proved a land-launched Tomahawk with the Mid-Range Capability (MRC) “Typhon” system, which mounts four Mk 41–derived strike-length cells inside a 40-foot container and has conducted live SM-6 and Tomahawk firings, followed by deployments to the Indo-Pacific. Critics, however, note that Typhon’s tractor-plus-container format is not optimized for off-road mobility in austere European terrain. Oshkosh is clearly targeting that gap: a purpose-built, armored, all-terrain launcher that keeps a four-missile load while reducing signature, improving dispersion options, and easing moves across soft ground.

On the missile side, Tomahawk Block IV/V remains a long-range, subsonic cruise missile family with a typical reach around 900 nautical miles (about 1,600 km), in-flight retargeting via two-way datalink, loiter capability, and terrain-following guidance. The latest Block V refresh modernizes navigation and communications; the Block Va Maritime Strike Tomahawk adds a seeker for moving-ship targets; Block Vb introduces a multi-effects warhead for hardened land targets. Whether fired from a ship, a submarine, or a land launcher, the core missile is fundamentally the same; land launch requires adapted canisters/boosters and a ground fire-control architecture rather than a shipboard VLS, but the endgame performance and mission profiles remain comparable.

Operationally, Tomahawk has decades of combat use across multiple theaters, but its land-based chapter is recent. The Army activated Typhon batteries beginning in 2024, subsequently forward-deploying elements in the Pacific and underscoring a doctrinal shift toward distributed, cross-domain fires from shore. X-MAV’s debut folds a similar effect into a more mobile, armored vehicle form factor intended for contested land environments where dispersion, deception, and rapid displacement drive survivability.

The value proposition for X-MAV is therefore rooted in mobility and autonomy. Compared with containerized systems, a high-mobility, purpose-built launcher promises faster off-road repositioning, more options for defilade or civilian-infrastructure masking, and simpler transition between hide sites and launch points. Autonomy-ready controls and power architecture further ease integration of remote or optionally crewed modes, increase endurance for silent watch with sensors/communications, and simplify autonomous reload concepts the Army is prioritizing in CAML-H. Against peer air defenses, the ability to “shoot and scoot” across broken terrain can be as decisive as missile range.

Strategically, a mobile, land-based Tomahawk launcher matters because it complicates an opponent’s targeting calculus while extending land force strike reach deep into theater, bridging the range gap between Army PrSM and hypersonic systems. In a European scenario, a platform like X-MAV could disperse into forested or urban peripheries, cue off theater ISR, and generate long-range salvos without depending on fixed airbases or naval deck space. For Ukraine, should a transfer proceed, the combination of Tomahawk-class range with high-mobility launchers would allow Kyiv to threaten command hubs, logistics yards, air defense nodes, and fuel infrastructure far behind the front, while minimizing launcher exposure time. Russia has already warned it would respond by reinforcing air defenses; Ukrainian leadership has emphasized exclusively military targeting to manage escalation risk.

Viewed against near-peers, the X-MAV paired with Tomahawk fills a gap that containerized or air-launched solutions don’t. ATACMS and PrSM deliver fast ballistic effects but at shorter reach (roughly 300 km for ATACMS and 500+ km for early PrSM increments), while Storm Shadow/SCALP is an aircraft-dependent cruise option with substantially less standoff than Tomahawk. The Army’s Typhon brings a similar four-round Tomahawk salvo but in a tractor-and-container format best suited to paved routes and prepared sites. By contrast, an armored, off-road launcher carrying four Tomahawks marries deep-strike range (on the order of 1,500–1,600 km) with cross-country mobility, enabling dispersion into forested or urban peripheries, shorter setup times, tighter signature control, and true “shoot-and-scoot” in soft terrain. In effect, it blends the Navy’s magazine depth with the Army’s maneuver tempo, projecting long-range cruise firepower into places a 40-foot container struggles to reach.

The unveiling of Oshkosh’s X-MAV at AUSA reframes land-based cruise missile employment as a question of mobility and survivability, not just range. As Washington and Kyiv move from rhetoric to technical planning on Tomahawks, the appearance of a production-oriented, autonomy-ready launcher strengthens the Army’s CAML-H trajectory and offers a credible pathway for allies who need deep-strike options that can keep moving under threat. If policy aligns with capability, the next iteration of long-range strikes may roll on tires, not sails.

Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.