Detroit Arsenal Upgrades To 3D Printing Missile Parts, Drones In Record Time

WARREN – Instead of welding tank treads by the thousands, the Detroit Arsenal in Warren is now 3D printing Patriot missile parts in weeks, advancing robotics and strapping virtual reality headsets on Army leadership to simulate how future weapons are being developed.

In World War II, Detroit, Michigan, became the “Arsenal of Democracy,” churning out tanks, jeeps and bombers. Now, 85 years later, Michigan is again pitching itself as America’s factory floor for the future of warfare — except this time, the tools of defense are drones powered by artificial intelligence and made with 3D-printed parts in record time.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Michigan, third from right, and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, second from right, receive a briefing on how the Detroit Arsenal is leading the Army’s advanced manufacturing efforts. (U.S. Army)

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll paid a visit to Detroit on Friday, meeting with a slew of small companies working to break into the defense industry that has historically been reserved for major defense prime contractors.

Driscoll toured the Ground Vehicle Systems Center, or GVSC, with Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, in her home state, along with a bipartisan group of other lawmakers.

“Basically 60% of what an Army soldier drives or shoots comes out of Michigan,” Slotkin told Defense News in an interview Friday. “We are a big producer and manufacturer for the Army and, of course, [the Army’s] transformation initiative went right to the heart of how [Driscoll] sees the force of the future,” she added.

“He saw everything from really cool programs of the future related to drones and tanks and ground vehicles,” Slotkin said of Driscoll’s visit. “He put on some [virtual reality] headsets and looked at one of our growing areas of expertise, which is modeling and simulation,” she noted, which helps to “shorten the string between having an idea and fielding it.”

Michigan is pitching itself as America’s factory floor for the future of warfare. The U.S. Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center opened a new advanced manufacturing commercialization center, in Sterling Heights in 2023.

Additionally, Driscoll toured a venture hub for defense technology in downtown Detroit called Newlab and met with a group of CEOs from participating companies, according to Slotkin.

Newlab, which opened in the city in 2023, supports tech startups in defense and complex industrial and defense sectors, according to the organization.

Newlab Detroit is part of Michigan Central, an expansive innovation district backed by a billion-dollar investment led by Ford Motor Company and other public-private partners.

There, ideas move from pilot programs to manufacturing spaces to produce new defense technology, Slotkin said.

“It’s the perfect marriage of Michiganders having the best manufacturing tradition in the country; fifth- and sixth-generation tradesmen, building precision tools with AI and tech of the future,” Slotkin said. “They’ve launched multimillion-dollar programs right out of downtown Detroit.”

The hub positions Michigan to level up with other states that are at the helm of fostering innovation and connecting smaller, nontraditional businesses with applicable technology to the defense industry, like Texas, where Army Futures Command is headquartered.

Further, efforts like Newlab align with Driscoll’s position that success would be seeing a defense prime contractor being put out of business in the next two years and replaced by work done outside of what he considers the Pentagon’s famously sluggish acquisition system.

Driscoll has testified on the Hill and spoken at public events about innovation he’s seen coming from venture capital firms and tech companies like Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition and others at the forefront of areas like autonomy and AI.

Driscoll’s trip comes as the Army is trying to transform itself. Earlier this spring, the Army secretary released a memo announcing sweeping changes, such as restructuring commands and formations. Dubbed the Army Transformation Initiative, the effort cancels big, billion-dollar programs that no longer align with the Army’s strategy and commits to acquiring innovative technology needed on today’s battlefield as quickly as possible.

Shaking up industry

As part of the Army Transformation Initiative, the service made major decisions that would impact Michigan’s defense industry.

The Army decided to pull the plug on a light tank, for instance, built by General Dynamics Land Systems, headquartered in Sterling Heights. The vehicle, called the M10 Booker, was slated to enter full-rate production and was the first new combat vehicle to enter the force in four decades.

But the Army decided it was not needed even after the service had invested several billion dollars to develop and field the vehicle.

“This concept of sunk cost fallacy, it is a thing that human beings generally struggle with, which is if you’ve invested a lot in the past, and we do this in our personal lives, you get anchored to things that are suboptimal for the future,” Driscoll told Defense News in a June 9 interview at the Pentagon.

The Army’s transformation initiative ends some programs altogether, such as the Robotic Combat Vehicle program. That the program office for ground combat systems manages, such as the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle and the Paladin Improved Management (PIM) howitzer — both produced by BAE Systems. The company’s Sterling Heights facility is focused on land vehicle development and manufacturing.

The service is turning its eye toward lighter, more mobile capability and is going to invest heavily in the Infantry Squad Vehicle, developed by GM Defense in Michigan, to the tune of roughly $300 million. The vehicle was born in record time and has been gaining traction with soldiers in operational exercises globally.

The Army’s transformation initiative includes a roughly 38% reduction in ground system science and technology, to include a lump sum of work at the GVSC, and ends some programs altogether, such as the Robotic Combat Vehicle program.

Yet, the service plans to invest over $200 million in robotics development in its fiscal 2026 budget request to pursue autonomous capability rather than focus on specific vehicle platforms.