Accelerate Defense Modernization through Strategic Sourcing
Discover cutting-edge solutions from leading global suppliersWith the full agenda for the Loitering Munitions Conference 2026 now confirmed, attention is turning to the speakers and sessions that will define the event when it returns to London from 17-19 November.
Following sold-out previous editions, the three-day summit will again convene the international loitering munitions community at a moment of rapid change in precision strike.
The conference arrives amid a broad shift in doctrine, with loitering munitions now treated as standard-issue capability rather than niche assets. More than 350 delegates from over 30 nations are expected, and the agenda reflects the questions occupying defense planners: how to absorb hard-learned battlefield lessons, break industrial production bottlenecks, and adapt NATO doctrine to a class of weapon evolving faster than traditional acquisition can accommodate. Running beneath it all is a lingering proposition for defense ministries: whether to prioritize sophistication or mass.
New for 2026
New for 2026, the conference opens with a dedicated Focus Day on Launched Effects, one of the fastest growing areas of modern warfare. Focus Day sessions will examine operational employment, integration from air, land and maritime platforms, and the concepts of employment, force design, command and control, and interoperability that connect launched effects to existing loitering munition and precision fires capabilities.
Opening the Launched Effects Focus Day is Lieutenant Colonel Hunter Gray, Product Manager for Launched Effects within CPE Aviation, US Army. His presentation, From Requirement to Battlefield Capability: Advancing the Army’s Launched Effects Enterprise, will examine how the US Army is translating operational requirements into scalable capabilities that broaden reconnaissance, targeting and precision strike options for the force. With the US Army recently moving to accelerate fielding through new prototyping efforts, his session offers a timely read on how one of the world’s largest militaries is approaching the capability at scale.
The day draws heavily on operational and technical expertise. Alongside Lieutenant Colonel Gray, Colonel Jan Mazal of the Czech Army will discuss combining uncrewed ground vehicles, loitering munitions and launched effects to enhance lethality, Professor Mark Voskuijl of the Netherlands Defence Academy will address the modelling and simulation of air-launched effects, and a specialist from the NATO Munitions Safety Information Analysis Center will examine the safety challenges the category presents. For delegates tracking where launched effects are heading, it is a technically grounded starting point.
Across the remaining two days, delegates will hear from senior leaders responsible for capability development, procurement, testing and operational deployment. Norbert Blumenthal’s session offers one of the clearest windows into European industrial strategy. As Chief of Division for Land and Naval Armament and Federal Holdings at the German Federal Ministry of Defense, he sits at the center of one of Europe’s most closely watched procurement efforts.
His session, Innovative Ammunition Stock Management: An Approach to LMS as a Service, addresses a challenge now central to European defense planning, which is how to build and sustain resilient industrial capacity for loitering munitions. Blumenthal will cover short innovation cycles within long-term planning, supply chain design and value-preserving storage. As European governments rearm, the tension between sophistication and mass runs directly through his subject, offering an audience tracking sovereign and NATO-wide capability a view of how a major power intends to keep pace without exhausting its resources.
Frontline Perspectives from Ukraine
The 2026 agenda’s Ukrainian representation, introduced when the program was announced, runs deeper than almost any comparable event, convening practitioners with direct, current experience of employing loitering munitions in combat.
The panel discussion Loitering Munitions During the War in Ukraine will bring operators and capability developers together to discuss operational lessons learned, adapting to rapid iteration cycles, and building enough manufacturing capacity to sustain delivery to the front lines. Confirmed contributors include Colonel (Ret.) Vadym Slyusar of the Central Research Institute of Armaments and Military Equipment, Myroslav Popovych of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, and senior representatives from the National Guard of Ukraine, among them the Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment and the 12th Special Forces Brigade.
Ukrainian speakers feature throughout the wider programme too. Colonel (Ret.) Slyusar will detail the development of launched effects tactics, techniques and procedures, while Major Volodymyr Kuzminskyi of the Unmanned Systems Forces Command describes his command’s use of launched effects in conflict, including the “mothership” concept for delivering them from the air. Staff Sergeant Yevgen Kuchma, of the same command’s UAV development cell, will update delegates on the past year, including progress on integrating autonomy to sustain performance beyond line of sight and in environments contested by electronic warfare. Together, these sessions give the audience an unusually direct line to the battlefield now defining the field.
Shape the Future of Loitering Munitions
Across all three days, the throughline is the drive toward capabilities that are effective, affordable and available in the numbers modern conflict demands. Beyond the sessions above, the agenda spans a British Army perspective on air manoeuvre from Brigadier Ed Cartwright, one-way effectors in the Royal Marines Commando Force, case studies from Hungary and Norway, US updates on autonomous robotic capabilities and special operations strike systems, and the procurement reforms needed to sustain capability over the long term.
Alongside the conference programme, a host of leading exhibitors and sponsors will be on hand to showcase the latest loitering munitions technology. Attendees will have the chance to see cutting-edge systems up close and speak directly with the companies developing them.
As loitering munitions and launched effects move from novelty to necessity, the 2026 conference offers the global community a forum to compare programmes, benchmark against international peers and connect directly with the decision-makers driving the field forward. By bringing military operators, program managers, researchers and industry together in London, the event invites its audience to help shape the future of loitering munitions.
Early bird registration is open until 4 September 2026. Visit the Loitering Munitions conference event page for the full event agenda and to secure your place.
