Our last two issues covered AUSA 2026 — how the Army is reorganizing itself, and the hardware it is fielding. This issue is about the part that matters most to a business: how you get in. The Army and the Department of War have spent the year building faster on-ramps for industry — competitions that field a solution in weeks rather than years, free help to get procurement-ready, and an industrial-base push that is reshoring supply chains, some of it in the Chattahoochee Valley. Here is the map, and how a local firm can use it.
This Week’s Lead
The Fast Lane Into Army Procurement
The Army’s clearest answer to “how do I sell something to the Army without waiting years” now has a name: Accelerated Capability Events, run by the Global-Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate (G-TEAD). Director COL Christopher Hill, Sr., described the aim at AUSA as moving from “years-long” timelines to capability delivered in “months and sometimes weeks.” The process is unusually legible for government: a commanding general hands G-TEAD a “problem set”; if no existing program already solves it, G-TEAD goes to industry and typically gets 150 to 250 responses, narrows them to 15 vendors for a Soldier-led demonstration, and awards five contracts. Those five get Soldier and Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) feedback and 45 days to incorporate it before an operational assessment. The requesting command then — in Hill’s words — “gets 51% of the vote” on the winner, G-TEAD makes the first purchase, and a transition decision follows on whether to scale. ACEs are meant to run quarterly, with embedded teams in the service component commands and advance notice of coming requests; the next is slated with U.S. Army Europe and Africa in November (DefenseScoop).
What that looks like for a company is best told through one that has done it. The FD-1, a drone interceptor from Mountain Horse Solutions (part of Global Ordnance), won first prize in the Army’s xTech Counter Strike competition in late 2025, cleared an ATEC technical review, and — on October 8 — drew its second order from G-TEAD under an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA). Built to knock down Group 1–3 drones at a price that fixes the “cost-exchange” problem — cheap drones met by expensive interceptors — seen in Ukraine and the Middle East, it is a one-Soldier, set-up-in-minutes system with a human authorizing every shot (Defence Blog). Neither quantity nor dollar value was disclosed, and the company’s “already fielded” and production claims are its own — but the path it traveled, from a competition to a repeat Army order in under a year, is the template.
The Free Front Door
Free Help to Win Government Contracts
If the fast lane sounds daunting, the on-ramp to it costs nothing. The Georgia APEX Accelerator, a Georgia Tech program that has been “helping businesses win government contracts since 1985,” offers Georgia companies no-cost one-on-one counseling, procurement training (virtual and in person), and networking with government and industry — funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the Department of War. The path in is three steps: attend an “Introduction to Government Contracting” session, complete a new-client application, and schedule a counselor (GT APEX Accelerator).
The Industrial Base
Onshoring the Supply Chain — and the Local Opening
The industrial-base story we started at AUSA deepened this month. Hanwha Defense USA — maker of the K9 howitzer the Army just designated the XM1776 — laid out a plan to replicate Korea’s “war footing” industrial capacity in America, building U.S. production rather than exporting from Korea. CEO Michael Coulter pointed to a $2 billion-plus advanced-manufacturing campus planned at the Army’s Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas and the company’s 2024 purchase of Philly Shipyard. The XM1776 is already about 40–50% American-made, he said; full adoption would require entirely U.S. production — which is where regional suppliers come in. At AUSA, Hanwha held a supplier day with more than 70 American firms to work out which components still need a domestic source (DefenseScoop).
The demand signal is getting cleaner, too. The Army this month fielded TACTMIS — the Total Army Combat and Training Munitions Information System — replacing the retiring TAMIS as its official source for munitions requirements and expenditure reporting. Built on a commercial low-code platform for more than 10,000 users, it is designed to feed, among other things, “defense industrial base requests”: a more legible picture of what the Army needs and when, aimed squarely at the munitions and components makers the SWPC is trying to grow (Military Times).
At the Simulation Center
Measuring What Training Teaches
Two smaller items for the modeling-and-simulation community — our own backyard. At Fort Leavenworth, the Combined Arms Center’s Training Innovation Facility is evaluating Virtuix’s “Omni One,” an AI-driven full-body simulation system built around an omnidirectional treadmill, as it gathers Soldier feedback to shape requirements for larger training buys — a single evaluation unit, per the company, not a program of record. And Armaments Research Company won a $4.7 million OTA to integrate its AI-enabled weapon sensors into the Army’s live collective training, turning a trainer’s subjective read into objective, real-time data on “the same sensor you fight with.”
Close to Home
Who Does What in Columbus Economic Development — and the $19.7M Ask
The region put a number on its own strategy this month. At an October 16 event, the Regional Prosperity Initiative priced the implementation of Columbus Ahead — the five-year, 2026–2030 plan built on jobs, talent, and place — at $19.7 million, to be raised from a mix of grants, public funding, and corporate and individual donations. Board chair Pace Halter called fundraising “in the infancy stage” but said the target is reachable. The money maps to nine goals in three buckets: jobs and a vibrant economy ($8.3 million, including a $10 million local-startup-capital target led by StartUP Columbus and MidTown Inc.), talent ($5.5 million), and place ($5.9 million, including a 61-mile trail network via Dragonfly Trails). Progress will be tracked publicly at columbusahead.com/dashboard (Columbus Ledger-Enquirer).
WSG Insights
From the Willis Strategy Group Desk
A recurring feature spotlighting our own analysis of the ideas shaping defense, experimentation, and leadership. This week’s pick is chosen on purpose — the clearest historical case of exactly what this issue is about: getting a novel capability from idea to the field fast enough to matter.
The Dam Busters (James Holland), reviewed
Every item in this issue is a bet that the Army can move a new idea from concept into Soldiers’ hands in months, not years. In 1943 the Royal Air Force did precisely that. Barnes Wallis’s “bouncing bomb” was a radical, purpose-built answer to a single hard problem — breaching the Ruhr’s dams — designed, tested, and fielded at a sprint against institutional skepticism, then flown on Operation Chastise by 617 Squadron, a unit stood up for the mission. It is the original accelerated capability event: a named problem, an unconventional solution, rapid iteration, and an operational test under fire.
Chastise proved that a motivated team can compress the innovation timeline dramatically when the problem is clear and the authority is real — the same wager behind G-TEAD’s competitions and the autonomy build-out in this issue. But it also proved the harder half: the raid was a tactical and engineering triumph whose strategic payoff was debated for decades, and it cost dearly in aircrew. Speed gets you to the field; it does not, by itself, tell you the capability was worth it. That is why the Army’s stated test — not the demonstration, but the operational effect, and whether every dollar buys down cost-per-kill or risk-to-force — is the right one, and why measuring the result (see this issue’s note from the simulation center) matters as much as fielding fast.
Read it →By Audience
What This Week Means for You
01 For Business Owners & Small Business
- Start free: the Georgia APEX Accelerator (no-cost counseling and procurement training) is the first call. Pair it with the SWPC’s 90% “Made in America” loan guarantee and SBIR/STTR.
- Build to a problem set: G-TEAD’s Accelerated Capability Events buy from whoever proves a named problem fastest in front of Soldiers. Watch the RFIs, and be ready to iterate on feedback in 45 days.
- The Opelika opening: Hanwha’s 70-plus-supplier push around XM1776 production is a local supply-chain door. “Which components still need a U.S. source” is the question to bring.
02 For Investors
- Counter-UAS stays a durable demand line (FD-1 and the JIOP interest areas), now with an affordability thesis — the cost-per-kill math, not just the kill.
- Industrial-base reshoring is real money with milestones (Pine Bluff $2B, Philly Shipyard); watch the regional supplier build-out and Project Ruby’s data-center plan.
- Mind funded vs. aspirational: G-TEAD awards and TACTMIS are live; HDUSA’s full U.S. production and the Omni One / ARC items are early-stage.
03 For Government & Community Leaders
- Columbus Ahead now has a $19.7M number and a public dashboard — the regional economic-development map is worth knowing cold, and the $10M startup-capital goal is a defense-adjacent opportunity.
- The on-ramps — APEX, G-TEAD’s ACE, the JIOP industry days — are economic development. Helping local firms navigate them is how national defense dollars land in the Chattahoochee Valley.
On the Calendar
Dates to Watch
Small-business resources: GT APEX Accelerator · SBA Smaller War Plants Commission · SBIR/STTR: SBIR.gov · DoD SBIR/STTR (DSIP).
Talk to Willis Strategy Group
Trying to find the right on-ramp — a G-TEAD competition, the Opelika supplier coalition, APEX counseling, or positioning for the autonomy build-out?
Contact WSGThe Defense Dispatch summarizes publicly reported information for general awareness and is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Figures, dates, and program details reflect sources available at publication; several items are early-stage, industry-stated, or aspirational rather than funded programs of record, and are subject to change. Verify against the primary source before acting.