September 8, 2026: The 2026 RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) naval exercises involved forces from 30 nations, including 30,000 personnel, 31 surface ships, five submarines, and more than 190 aircraft. The forces carried out more than 500 naval exercise events and 2,400 aircraft sorties. Participants handled nearly 5,000 training scenarios. The 2026 RIMPAC operations took place in and around the Hawaiian Islands. This year, the exercise included the American, Japanese, and South Korean navies demonstrating nearly three dozen new technologies, including new 3D printing technology and ship-to-ship drone delivery, enabling ships with more 3D printing capabilities to get needed replacement parts to ships that needed them.

RIMPAC exercises are held every two years and last about two weeks. This is the world's largest naval exercise, and about twenty nations currently participate. China was invited in 2014 but never participated. Instead, a Chinese intelligence collection ship shows up to monitor the activities.

Since the mid-80s, 3D printing technology has evolved into a more versatile and cheaper way to manufacture metal and plastic components. Inexpensive 3D printers can be purchased and used to manufacture the components needed for 9mm pistols and similar weapons.

At first, using 3D printers to manufacture these crude pistols for gangsters and Islamic terrorists was time-consuming, but the technology quickly improved. Now you can buy a 3D printer for a few hundred dollars and create more of these weapons quickly. Obtaining ammunition is still a problem, but it won’t be long before 3D printers take care of that as well.

The U.S. Navy is using 3D parts printers to quickly fabricate metal replacement parts for many systems on ships, including aircraft, weapons, and vehicles. 3D printers for plastic parts already exist, but metal 3D printers have been around for a while, and computer specification files exist for enough aluminum parts to make this 3D printer worth having on board. The Navy 3D printer can handle aluminum components up to 25cm by 25cm. In the last century, warships have had limited capability to fabricate metal parts and even less space to store spare parts. Most of the parts are common hardware items that require no manufacturer's license to duplicate.

This 3D printer tech got a lot of publicity in the last few years when it became clear that SpaceX rapidly developed more effective, cheaper rockets and satellite launchers using 3D printers. SpaceX inspired European countries, which had already developed some of the tech SpaceX used to build its novel rockets and Space Launch Vehicles (SLVs). One of these technologies was 3D printing metal components for rocket engines and other major SLV components needed in small quantities. Traditional manufacturing methods like forging, machining, and stamping metal are expensive and time-consuming, especially for small quantities. Change has been coming since the 1980s, when the concept of 3D printing tech arrived. Soon, it became clear that this technology would evolve to the point where it could handle metal components and build complex objects with a 3D device. For manufacturers, this would be a major revolution for anyone needing small numbers of complex systems or developing prototypes for testing and further refinement. Spacecraft developers and manufacturers were among the first to use this new technology visibly. The first decade of the 21st Century saw the appearance of more effective 3D printers that could handle metal parts of different sizes and complexity. It was only a matter of time before the military adopted this new generation of 3D printer technology.

Other Western nations have followed suit for ships at sea and peacekeeping operations in remote areas. For example, in 2019 France joined a growing number of armed forces and adopted 3D printers for its counterterrorism operation in Africa. This force contains 4,500 soldiers, special operations troops, and aircraft crews that have been in the Sahel since 2014 to combat Islamic terrorists. The task force headquarters is in landlocked Chad, and about half the troops are in landlocked Mali to the west. A shortage of rivers and roads means it is time-consuming and expensive to get supplies in, even if you expedite the process by putting them aboard military transport aircraft that regularly fly between the Sahel bases and France. The French Task Force received two 3D printers at its Chad base, and they soon went into regular use to quickly supply needed parts. Otherwise, much equipment would be sidelined for days or weeks while waiting for parts to arrive from France or a foreign manufacturer.

The U.S. Army pioneered this approach in 2003 by establishing a Mobile Parts Hospital (MPH), and in 2013 MPH added 3D printers. By 2016, Special Operations Command/SOCOM noted that users, including some SOCOM personnel, were designing their own new parts and using MPHs to build them for immediate testing. A growing percentage of those new component designs worked, and many became part of the factory-made systems. Most SOCOM MPH detachments consisted of just a laptop and a 3-D printer for non-metal parts. The 3D printer for metal parts was bulkier and much more expensive, and fewer were in the field at the time.

Meanwhile, other nations were adopting these technologies. The Royal Navy had adopted the 3D printing concept for its warships in 2015, as had the U.S. Navy and American Marines. Meanwhile, many companies providing field support for expensive, complex equipment had adopted this 3D-printing approach. It was easy and inexpensive to supply field support teams with a 3D printer that could quickly produce thousands of plastic and metal parts for aircraft, ships, generators, electronics, vehicles, and so on.

It took the American army a decade to develop and deploy second- and third-generation MPHs. The 2013 version, called Expeditionary Lab, or Ex Lab, was more compact and relied more on 3-D printers and operators trained to help users design components that don’t yet exist. Troops often discovered the need for a new component or an improved replacement part for their equipment. In the past, this request often had to go back to the original factory for development and manufacturing. But with the software and equipment available now, along with satellite data links to factories, they can do this work quickly in the combat zone. Thus, the new name is essentially MPH 3.0.

MPH was developed when the Army realized the easiest and quickest way to get many rarely requested but vital replacement parts to troops was to manufacture them in the combat zone. After September 11, 2001, the Army built a portable parts fabrication system that fits into a standard 8x8x20-foot shipping container. The original version used two containers, but smaller equipment and more powerful computers eventually made one container possible. By 2010, four MPH systems were in service, two of them in Afghanistan. Over the next few years, they built two more for under $2 million each. In the first decade of use, MPHs manufactured over 150,000 parts on the spot, saving lots of time, shipping expenses, and aggravation for troops needing the item. This saved days or weeks compared with obtaining the part from the manufacturer. The MPH part is usually much cheaper because it avoids air freight and manufacturer markups for maintaining inventory. MPH 2.0 had a 3-D part builder, which uses metal dust and a laser to build a part.

SOCOM built its own, more ambitious, version of MPH in 2009. This was the Mobile Technology Complex, or MTC, that could fix more complex and exotic gear, which SOCOM has a lot of. MTC could modify their special gear or even create something new. SOCOM sent most of its MTCs to Afghanistan to see how effective they would be at improving equipment readiness and the value of modifying existing gear and building new items on the spot. The MTC was modified, with some new gear, a version of MPH 2.0. This led to Ex Labs.

The key to making this work originally was the availability of computer-controlled machine tools, which can take a block of the proper metal and machine into the desired part. Computer-controlled machine tools have been around for decades, but the big breakthrough came with the development of CAD software for PCs in the 1980s, which made designing and fabricating a part much faster. The computer-controlled machine tools can use the CAD file to automatically create the part. The MPH has a high-speed satellite data link, which enables it to obtain the CAD file for a part. Many CAD files are already stored in the MPH. Often, MPH staff improve a part based on broken parts they see and what the troops tell them.

Computer-controlled machine tools were eventually complemented and are now often replaced by 3D printers that can make all manner of metal parts. Aircraft and SpaceX spaceship manufacturers used this equipment on a large scale to build prototypes and items like satellite launchers and transport vehicles that brought supplies and people to the International Space Station. The metal 3D printers now come in a wide range of sizes and capabilities. Some never leave the factory, but the more portable ones are now common in field service offices and with the military.

These instant parts-builder operations were often staffed and open 24/7. Demand for critical parts happened round the clock in a combat zone, and it was often a matter of life or death to get the part as quickly as possible. This has eliminated many spare-parts crises where large quantities of equipment in a combat zone would be unavailable because a few parts wore out faster than anticipated. When that happens now, the MPH can get parts to troops quickly while the factory is alerted to produce more and airfreight them to the combat zone as soon as it can.

Meanwhile, the military's use of this technology led to the concept of building entire systems on demand with 3D printers or making extensive modifications to existing equipment. One application involved 3D-printed UAVs that cost about $1,000 but use commercial components like batteries, electric motors, cameras, and wireless comms. The airframe is 3D-printed on demand at the battalion and brigade level. Troops would still have a similar Raven UAV, with longer duration, better sensors, and encrypted comms. But for most combat zone needs, 3D-printed UAVs built at battalion or brigade headquarters as needed would do the job. These weigh less than a kilogram, have 20 minutes of endurance, and a range of about three kilometers. For most combat situations, that is sufficient. A smartphone or tablet can be used as a controller. The required 3D printers are small and use plastic material that can also be used to create replacement parts on demand for damaged UAVs, as well as a long list of parts for other equipment in the battalion. A 3D Printer would not be added to battalion or brigade equipment just to make UAVs, but to supply a long list of plastic replacement parts instantly.

In a combat zone, there is simply more demand for modifications to existing equipment that are a matter of life or death, or at least less anxiety.