Capability Program Executive Offensive Fires (CPE Offensive Fires)

CPE Offensive Fires buys everything the Army shoots at something else: cannon and rocket artillery, long-range precision missiles, hypersonics, and anti-armor munitions. It is one of three CPEs carved out of the old PEO Missiles and Space and the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office when they merged into PAE_Fires.

TypeCapability Program Executive (CPE)
HeadquartersRedstone_Arsenal, Huntsville, AL
Capability Program ExecutiveRobert_Mikesh_Jr (BG, G. Robert J. Mikesh)
Subordinate toPAE_Fires (Redstone_Arsenal, AL), led by Frank_Lozano (LTG); ASAALT for acquisition authority
EstablishedActivated 17 February 2026 at Redstone_Arsenal
PredecessorsPEO_Missiles_and_Space, RCCTO, self-propelled howitzer programs from PEO_Ground_Combat_Systems, and fires-related programs from JPEO_Armaments_and_Ammunition

Mission

Surface-to-surface strike. Development, procurement, and fielding of Army offensive fires: field artillery cannons, rocket and missile artillery, long-range precision fires, hypersonic strike, and anti-armor missiles. The office carries forward the RCCTO practice of prototyping and fielding at speed under Other Transaction Authority and middle-tier acquisition pathways.

No Title 10 section establishes this office by name. Army capability program executives are designated by the Army Acquisition Executive, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology at 10 U.S.C. § 7016(b)(5)(A), acting under the Secretary of the Army’s authority to organize the Department of the Army at 10 U.S.C. § 7013(b)(2), and the portfolio acquisition executive role such an office performs is defined at 10 U.S.C. § 1732, added by Pub. L. 119-60 in December 2025, as explained at Title_10_Structure.

Subordinate Organizations

Project and product offices carried into CPE Offensive Fires from PEO_Missiles_and_Space, RCCTO, and the fires realignments:

Note

PAE_Fires reorganized project offices repeatedly through 2026 as the RCCTO and PEO MS structures merged. Confirm the owning project office in the solicitation before relying on any single office name here.

Program Element families

Procurement rolls up through Missile Procurement, Army. See Program Elements and Appropriations.

Why it matters

This is the Army’s largest concentration of missile production money, and it sits in the middle of the munitions capacity debate. GMLRS, PrSM, and Javelin production rates are congressional-interest items with multiyear procurement and industrial base expansion attached.

The supplier base is narrow at the top and hungry at the bottom. Lockheed_Martin Missiles and Fire Control dominates GMLRS, ATACMS and PrSM, and JAGM; Raytheon shares Javelin through the joint venture and owns SM-6. Beneath them the solid rocket motor, seeker, warhead, and energetics tiers are capacity constrained and actively courting new entrants, solid rocket motors especially.

Hypersonics and Mid-Range Capability are prototype-to-program transitions. They came from RCCTO with OTA-heavy contracting and are now being institutionalized. Transition periods are when integration, test, and sustainment work opens up. In July 2026 the Army replaced a one-year undefinitized contract action in this portfolio with a seven-year one, which is the shape of that institutionalization.

Cannon artillery is unsettled. The Extended Range Cannon Artillery prototype effort ended without a program of record and self-propelled howitzer modernization moved into this portfolio from ground combat systems. Expect solicitations on tube life, autoloaders, propellant, and fire control.

Autonomy is arriving in the fires portfolio. PAE Fires demonstrated one-to-many control of long-range precision munitions at African Lion 2026, an opening for autonomy and C2 software vendors inside a traditionally hardware portfolio.

See Also