US Air Force one step closer to turning cargo planes into makeshift bombers - Breaking Defense

From the article: Next month the Air Force will conduct a capstone exercise for a program aiming to turn cargo planes into aerial bomb trucks, when a standard-looking pallet will be airdropped out of an MC-130J and launch a live cruise missile as it parachutes down through the air.

The demonstration will wrap up the first phase of the Air Force’s Rapid Dragon program, the service’s effort validating its “palletized munitions” concept, Dean Evans, the service’s Rapid Dragon program manager, told Breaking Defense today.

In the early stages of a war with a sophisticated adversary like China, the Air Force believes the number of airstrikes being traded will make it difficult for airlift platforms to move people and equipment into threat zones. Further, the service has hypothesized that it may need even more strike capacity than it currently has with its fleet of fighters and bombers.