The Army is opening key military test ranges to private companies, giving American innovators direct access to facilities built to replicate the brutal conditions of modern combat. The initiative targets faster development of drones, counter drone systems, long range fires and affordable interceptors.

Under the new policy, companies may request access even if they have no existing government contract or formal partnership. That change could help promising technology escape the bureaucratic swamp that too often keeps useful equipment stuck in presentations instead of proving itself in the field.

The Army is making four ranges in the United States and one overseas available through the program. Those sites are Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, West Cibola Range in Arizona, Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi, Camp Grayling in Michigan and the Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center in Morocco.

Each location offers different environments and testing capabilities, allowing the Army to match private proposals with the most appropriate site. Companies can submit requests through an online portal that also lists range parameters and available testing options.

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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said the service intends to eliminate needless obstacles between innovators and realistic military testing. “A company with a good idea shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and a program of record just to prove their equipment works,” Driscoll said.

“So we fixed that,” Driscoll continued. “One front door, testrange.army.mil, a real person to walk you in, and on the other side, everything the modern battlefield demands: contested airspace, degraded signals and the space to test at real scale.”

That is a direct answer to a procurement culture that has often rewarded paperwork endurance rather than battlefield performance. Instead of requiring a small company to navigate a maze of offices and attorneys, the Army is offering a clearer path to demonstrate whether a system actually works.

The effort arrives as the War Department pushes broad reforms designed to accelerate the acquisition of drones and counter drone equipment. Modern battlefields have shown that inexpensive unmanned aircraft can threaten troops, vehicles, installations and critical infrastructure without requiring an adversary to risk a pilot.

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The War Department also created Joint Interagency Task Force 401 to streamline counter drone operations and acquisition across the federal government. The task force recently launched an online marketplace intended to connect military requirements with systems capable of detecting, tracking and defeating hostile drones.

The pressure to move faster has increased amid concerns about American interceptor inventories following the country’s war with Iran. Reports have claimed that the United States used roughly two thirds of the Patriot missile interceptors it possessed before the conflict, raising serious questions about replenishment and production capacity.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth disputed a CNN report claiming military commanders had warned that American interceptor stockpiles were critically depleted. Even so, the War Department is pressing weapons manufacturers to accelerate production of critical munitions because slogans and studies will not refill launchers.

Companies using the new portal can request access to a range, although the Army cannot promise a specific testing location or schedule. Officials will evaluate each proposal and determine which site can safely and effectively support the requested trial.

Camp Grayling will play a particularly important role for drone developers because it is preparing to host an “electromagnetic unreliability test event” for private industry beginning in September. The event is expected to return quarterly and will recreate electronic warfare conditions observed during Russia’s continuing war against Ukraine.

Those conditions matter because drones that perform perfectly in a clean commercial environment can fail quickly when navigation signals are jammed, communications are disrupted or airspace is contested. Camp Grayling will give companies an opportunity to discover those weaknesses before American troops encounter them during actual combat.

Other facilities will support different priorities. Dugway Proving Ground can accommodate long range fires testing, while West Cibola Range is currently limited to drone and counter drone evaluations, giving the Army specialized venues instead of forcing every technology into the same testing template.

The U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command is leading the initiative with support from the Mississippi National Guard, the Michigan National Guard and U.S. Africa Command. Their cooperation should provide private industry with realistic test opportunities while giving military evaluators an earlier look at potentially useful systems.

Opening these ranges will not solve every acquisition problem, but it attacks one of the most obvious ones: innovators need somewhere to prove their claims under military conditions. If the Army keeps the process focused on performance instead of paperwork, American troops could receive better weapons faster and taxpayers might finally see fewer good ideas buried under red tape.

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