Rusty Dagger Cruise Missile Scores Direct Hit in Live-Fire Test

A New Class of Affordable Standoff Weapon

The U.S. Air Force has released details of a successful live-fire test of the Rusty Dagger, one of two new Extended Range Attack Munitions being developed under a crash program that could reshape the economics of cruise missile warfare. The test, conducted on January 21, 2026, at the Eglin Air Force Base range in Florida, saw the air-launched weapon fly to its target and detonate its warhead, meeting all key objectives.

Zone 5 Technologies, the defense contractor behind Rusty Dagger, announced that the Air Force demonstration featured the company's weapon as part of the ERAM effort, a program designed to produce low-cost, mass-producible cruise missiles that can be manufactured at a fraction of the price of existing standoff weapons like the AGM-158 JASSM.

Specifications and Capabilities

ERAM is understood to have a range between 150 and 280 miles, placing it firmly in the standoff category where launch aircraft remain outside the reach of most short-range air defense systems. The weapon is in the 500-pound class and carries a blast and fragmentation warhead with at least some degree of penetrating capability, making it effective against hardened targets as well as soft-skinned vehicles and field positions.

The emphasis on low cost and mass producibility is the defining characteristic of the program. While the Air Force has not disclosed unit prices, the entire ERAM initiative is built around the premise that modern conflicts demand munitions that can be produced in the thousands without breaking defense budgets. The lessons from Ukraine, where both sides have consumed vast quantities of precision munitions at unsustainable rates, have made this requirement urgent.

The Live-Fire Test

During the January 21 trial at Eglin, the project team met all key objectives, including successful full detonation of the warhead on target. While specific details about the flight profile, altitude, and guidance systems remain classified, the successful warhead detonation confirms that Rusty Dagger has progressed beyond the flight-test phase into weapons integration testing.

Ukraine Bound

Rusty Dagger is not just a research program. It is headed for combat. Ukraine has been cleared to purchase up to 3,550 ERAM missiles, and delivery of the first batch totaling 840 missiles is scheduled for October 2026. For the Ukrainian Air Force, which has struggled with limited supplies of Western standoff weapons while facing heavily defended Russian positions, a mass-producible cruise missile could be transformative.

The weapon would give Ukraine the ability to strike behind Russian lines at a tempo that current munition supplies cannot sustain. Each Rusty Dagger that costs a fraction of a JASSM allows Ukraine to conduct the same mission while preserving its limited supply of more expensive weapons for the highest-value targets.

Implications for U.S. Air Force Doctrine

The ERAM program has implications far beyond Ukraine. The U.S. Air Force has long recognized that its existing standoff weapons inventory is insufficient for a major conflict against a peer adversary. JASSMs are effective but expensive and slow to produce. A low-cost complement that can be manufactured in large quantities would allow the Air Force to saturate enemy air defenses through sheer volume rather than relying exclusively on stealth and precision.

The Broader Munitions Revolution

Rusty Dagger is part of a wider trend toward affordable, mass-producible weapons systems driven by the realities of modern warfare. The drone revolution demonstrated that quantity has a quality all its own, and that lesson is now being applied to cruise missiles, loitering munitions, and other categories of precision-guided weapons.

For the defense industrial base, the shift toward mass production at low cost represents a fundamental change in how weapons programs are structured. Traditional defense procurement optimizes for capability at the expense of cost and production speed. ERAM inverts those priorities, accepting modest capability trade-offs in exchange for dramatic improvements in affordability and manufacturing throughput.

The successful Rusty Dagger test marks a milestone in this transition. If the program delivers on its promise of low-cost cruise missiles in meaningful quantities by late 2026, it will validate a procurement model that the Pentagon has been trying to implement for years but has rarely achieved in practice.