US Army’s Europe Strike Unit Just Leveled Up to 1,000-Mile Tomahawk Strikes

A US Army artillery unit built around long-range operations in the European theater has fired a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile from a Typhon launcher for the first time, marking a major jump in the unit’s strike reach, Task & Purpose reported on October 19.

Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment conducted the launch on September 28 at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California.

The Army disclosed the test only this past week, nearly a year after the battalion was formally established.

The launch capped part of a five-week training program intended to familiarize troops with the Typhon system, officially known as the Mid-Range Capability.

Typhon can launch two weapons originally fielded by the US Navy—the SM-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. With Tomahawk, Army units can strike targets at ranges of roughly 1,000 miles, dramatically beyond the approximately 186-mile maximum reach of the M142 HIMARS systems also operated by the battalion.

Lt. Col. Derek Bartlett, the battalion commander, said Typhon allows soldiers to “get that range for that combatant commander to give them options and capabilities where they really haven’t had it before from the land force.”

The capability gives Army commanders access to much deeper strikes without necessarily having to rely on aircraft, ships, or other elements of the joint force.

The battalion belongs to the Germany-based 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force and is intended to support US operations in Europe. Its planned deployment to Europe this year was canceled in May amid a broader reduction in Army movements to the continent, though Washington and NATO had previously described such rotations as “episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities.”

The 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment was formally activated in late 2025, although plans to equip and potentially deploy the unit to Europe had been in development before then.

Multi-Domain Task Forces are designed to operate within reach of adversary forces and rapidly disrupt their surveillance, targeting, and command systems through a combination of cyber operations, electronic warfare, and long-range precision strikes.

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Multi-Domain Command-Europe describes the battalion as US Army Europe and Africa’s “primary kinetic long-range precision fires unit,” saying it “extends US operational reach and lethality, reinforces commitments to NATO allies, and contributes to deterrence and regional stability.”

The September test is especially notable because it marks the first Tomahawk launch from Typhon by an Army unit specifically focused on Europe, even though the missile was fired on US soil.

The Army has already deployed Typhon systems in the Indo-Pacific, including to the Philippines and Japan. The latest launch now demonstrates that the service’s Europe-focused long-range fires force is training with the same capability—one that pushes Army land-based strike range from hundreds of miles to roughly a thousand.

Earlier, the US Navy approved the purchase of 837 new seekers for the Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST)—the anti-ship Block Va variant of the Tomahawk family—a move that will make the cruise missile markedly smarter at detecting and re-engaging moving maritime targets.

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