AFSOC Havoc Spear Missile Debuts in Combat Strikes in Africa
Air Force Special Operations Command has confirmed that its newest precision-strike weapon, the AGM-190A Havoc Spear, was fired in actual combat for the first time this spring, striking two ground targets in Africa from the ramp of an AC-130J gunship. The command's Sept. 14 announcement closed the loop on nearly four years of low-profile missile development. AFSOC said the weapon successfully met requirements to become an available weapons system for broader real-world use across special operations and conventional aircraft.
According to AFSOC, two AGM-190As were fired at two different ground targets during the spring engagement, launched from an AC-130J gunship within U.S. Africa Command's area of responsibility. Officials declined to describe the targets or identify the adversary struck — secrecy consistent with AFRICOM's low-visibility counterterrorism missions across the Sahel, Somalia and the wider continent.
"We work every day to disrupt the networks that have made Africa the epicenter of global terrorism," said Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of U.S. Africa Command, in AFSOC's release. "These successful operational assessments prove we will continue to bring the unique capabilities only the U.S. can provide." AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Mike Conley added that the missile's range "expands standoff options, giving commanders a versatile tool to neutralize threats without putting platforms or personnel in immediate danger."
The missile has a longer history than its combat debut suggests. Leidos began developing the weapon, originally called Black Arrow, as a scaled-down descendant of its 200-pound-class GBU-69 Small Glide Munition, and the program dates back to 2021, well before it carried a formal Air Force designation. SOCOM and AFSOC signed a cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA, with Leidos in 2022 to accelerate the weapon outside standard acquisition channels — the same arrangement AFSOC leaders credited for getting a functioning missile into combat only four years later.
By outside trackers' count, the spring AFRICOM strikes were the third known round of live testing: captive-carry trials in December 2023 and guided flight tests in November 2024 preceded it, and Leidos secured the AGM-190A designation only in February 2026 — months before the missile's first shot at a real target. Havoc Spear is a subsonic, roughly 200-pound weapon with a demonstrated standoff range beyond 400 nautical miles, powered by a small turbojet engine — the TJ150, built by RTX's Pratt & Whitney division — that lets it fly well outside the range of most short-range air defenses. It launches from a rail tube off a gunship's rear ramp, drops clear of the aircraft and ignites its motor before terminal guidance; AFSOC hasn't disclosed the seeker used in Africa, though photo analysis of the nose has suggested a possible electro-optical or infrared sensor.
AFSOC has been open about wanting the AC-130J launch to be only a starting point. "Our ultimate goal is to try to get this on every type of SOF platform, as well as conventional platform possible, in multiple launch modes," said Col. Robert Johnston, the command's director of strategic plans, programs and requirements — pointing toward wing pylons and palletized drops from cargo aircraft alongside the current ramp-launch method.
Leidos has a $27.2 million contract, awarded in July, for a first low-rate-production batch of about 45 missiles, arriving next fall; AFSOC puts the current unit cost at roughly $600,000, driven up by the small batch size. Executives are targeting $200,000–$350,000 at full-rate production, helped by Huntsville, Alabama capacity Leidos says can reach 15,000 missiles a year. A separate, non-combat test also fired an AGM-190A at the Utah Test and Training Range in March, a reminder that Havoc Spear's test and combat use have run on parallel tracks. Leidos promoted the announcement through its own corporate account, **sharing a link to the official Air Force release** [6] rather than posting bespoke combat footage; the operational test video AFSOC released was hosted on the Defense Department's DVIDS platform, not natively on X.
AFSOC has also floated folding Havoc Spear into the Air Force's Family of Affordable Mass Missiles program, a service-wide push to buy thousands of low-cost cruise missiles a year; budget documents show the Air Force planning up to 28,000 FAMM-family weapons over five years. Leidos calls Havoc Spear a "close cousin" of a containerized munition it is separately building for the Pentagon, suggesting the same airframe could eventually go to sea or ground launchers too.
Havoc Spear's significance may lie less in the two strikes themselves than in how AFSOC chose to develop and unveil the weapon. Routing the program through a CRADA rather than a standard program of record let the command field a combat-capable missile in roughly four years, then publicize the strikes as a showcase for that acquisition model, complete with reporters' roundtables and released test footage — a deliberate signal to Congress and industry that SOCOM and AFSOC want more of this approach as they compete for scarce munitions dollars against larger programs.
The push for a sub-$350,000 cruise missile also reflects a broader Pentagon anxiety about "combat mass" — the worry that expensive, precision-guided munitions cannot be produced or replaced fast enough in a prolonged fight. A weapon cheap enough to be expended by the thousands fits that anxiety directly. Whether Havoc Spear hits its promised price point at scale, and whether the Air Force folds it into FAMM rather than a competing low-cost line, remain open questions.
For now, Havoc Spear remains a niche weapon fielded only on AC-130J gunships in one combatant command's area. AFSOC's own language — describing the strikes as occurring "in a test configuration" even while calling them the missile's combat debut — suggests the command still sees the system as unfinished business. The coming year, as the first production batch arrives and AFSOC pushes for wider platform integration, will show whether Havoc Spear becomes a standard part of the special operations arsenal or remains a proof of concept for building cheaper weapons faster.
