The US Army Opened Five Ranges to Uncontracted Industry. Explosives Safety Approval Did Not Move With Them

The United States Army opened five test ranges to companies without a defence contract on 7 August 2026, targeting a 30 day booking against a typical 12 to 18 month wait. The five sites are Dugway Proving Ground, West Cibola Range at Yuma, Camp Shelby, Camp Grayling, and a Multidomain Training Area in Morocco.

Technical Summary

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll announced the arrangement on Friday 7 August 2026 at Camp Grayling, Michigan, one of the five sites. The scope covers drones, counter unmanned aircraft systems, long range missiles, low cost air defence interceptors and other weapons, and it is open to firms holding no military contract. Four sites are in the continental United States: Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; West Cibola Range within Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona; Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center, Mississippi; and Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center, Michigan. The fifth is the Multidomain Training Area within the Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center in Morocco. Bookings run through a portal at testrange.army.mil, with one named Army point of contact per company, against a stated target of 30 days from request to access where the typical wait is 12 to 18 months. The first event runs the week of 13 September 2026 at Camp Grayling, replicating Ukrainian electronic warfare conditions, and the Army intends to repeat the cycle quarterly.

For WOME (Weapons, Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives) practitioners the significant point is what the announcement does not cover. Range access is scheduling, not certification. Any test article with an energetic filling, whether rocket motor, warhead, self destruct charge or initiation train, requires an interim hazard classification assigning a hazard division (HD) and compatibility group (CG) before it can lawfully move to or be stored on a Department of Defense installation. That classification rests on UN Manual of Tests and Criteria Series 6 evidence, the domestic transport leg is classified under 49 CFR, and siting is governed by quantity distance criteria in DESR 6055.09 Change 2 with Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board approval. No open source reporting states that those timelines were compressed alongside the booking timeline.

The Army is aiming to place a company on a range within 30 days of a booking request, against a typical wait of 12 to 18 months. The instrumented safety and classification approvals that gate an energetic test article were not part of that commitment. ISC assessment, based on Stars and Stripes reporting, 7 August 2026

Analysis of Effects

The announcement sits inside a wider stockpile argument. CNN reported in the week to 7 August 2026 that the United States had expended close to 80 per cent of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptor stockpile and roughly half its Patriot interceptors since the Iran conflict began on 28 February 2026, citing sources familiar with an inventory assessment. The Center for Strategic and International Studies raised comparable concerns on 27 July 2026. A June 2026 supplemental request of 87.6 billion dollars, carrying 21 billion for munitions, remains stalled in Congress. Range access adds no production capacity. It compresses the test and evaluation segment of the path to fielding, and for an energetic item that segment is rarely the binding constraint.

The instrumentation heritage of the five sites is uneven, and that shapes what can realistically be tested where. Yuma is the established long range artillery and aviation test site with the telemetry, high speed imagery and arena instrumentation to match. Dugway carries a large restricted airspace footprint. Camp Grayling and Camp Shelby are National Guard manoeuvre areas with far less munitions test pedigree, which suggests their offer is weighted toward airspace, electronic warfare and system level counter drone trials rather than energetic arena work such as fragment velocity or sympathetic detonation testing. The Morocco site introduces an overseas jurisdiction, and with it export control questions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations for any firm shipping a prototype energetic item or its technical data abroad.

Personnel and Safety Considerations

The practical constraint on a first time entrant is classification and packaging, not calendar space. A prototype interceptor or warhead must be assigned a hazard division and compatibility group, packaged to a tested UN design, and given a transport classification before it moves. On the installation it attracts quantity distance arcs derived from its net explosive quantity (NEQ), measured to the nearest public traffic route and inhabited building distance, and those arcs constrain where and when it may be stored and fired. Firms without prior Department of Defense experience routinely underestimate this sequence, and a 30 day booking will not shorten it. Range safety staff remain the gatekeeper for any article with an energetic filling.

Data Gaps

Five items remain unresolved in open sources. No cost recovery or fee model has been published for commercial users. No statement addresses whether interim hazard classification or explosives safety siting approvals are compressed alongside the 30 day booking target. No net explosive quantity ceiling is published for any of the five sites. The legal, liability and export control framework governing the Morocco Multidomain Training Area is not described. Finally, it is not stated whether test data generated on a range remains releasable to the company or is retained by the Army.

Corrections & updates welcome. If you hold open-source data that refines or corrects any parameter in this article, please contact [email protected] citing the specific claim and your source. Verified corrections will be incorporated and credited in the revision history. AI-assisted technical assessment based on open-source material. Not a formal intelligence product.