Soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord got a hands-on look at 3D printing technology during a symposium hosted by 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), reinforcing how the military is rethinking its approach to readiness.
The event brought together Soldiers from across the installation to explore additive manufacturing, walking them through the full production cycle, from digital design to finished part. Using SolidWorks for modeling and PrusaSlicer to calibrate print parameters, participants adjusted variables like temperature, density, layer thickness and print speed to shape both the form and function of what they produced. The choice of material matters just as much as the design itself. Standard plastics work well for proof-of-concept prototypes, but more demanding applications call for tougher options.
“Some of them are just very plasticky,” said Sgt. Clarissa De La Cruz, a 91E allied trade specialist. “They’re not meant to withhold a whole lot of strength. But many of the other ones that we have, like ABS, tend to be more strong and can be more durable.”
The symposium was not meant to produce specialists overnight. The aim was broader: give Soldiers enough working knowledge to recognize where the technology might solve real problems in their own units. “The main goal was familiarization for Soldiers post-wide,” De La Cruz said. “This allowed them to get some type of hands-on training with 3D printing.”
Already at Work: Parts, Training Aids and Decoys
At the unit level, the printers are already running. De La Cruz said her shop produces radio caps, component modifications, training aids and field decoys, including a replica M777 towed 155mm howitzer muzzle built for deception purposes. EOD training has also benefited, with printed aids giving units accessible, cost-effective tools for exercises.
The practical payoff often comes down to speed. A replacement vehicle door handle, for instance, can be produced in roughly an hour, cutting through the delays that traditional supply chains impose. “It just allows more accessible, quick solutions,” De La Cruz said. “It’s all made in-house, so it’s a lot less money that we’re spending.”
The time savings translate directly to readiness, allowing maintainers to return equipment to service faster and reducing dependence on slow-moving procurement pipelines. “We are booked and busy,” De La Cruz said. “We are making multiple different parts so that we can turn over services for different shops.”
Closing the Loop: Recycling and Expeditionary Innovation
One of the more forward-looking demonstrations involved the Recreator 3D, a system that converts plastic bottles into usable printing filament. By heating and processing discarded plastics, Soldiers can generate raw material from whatever is available in the environment, with the long-term goal of producing a fully functional drone from recycled plastic filament.
“When we are deployed, we can use whatever is around us to still do our job and get our mission done,” De La Cruz said.
That philosophy, identify the problem, design the fix, test and iterate, reflects a deliberate push to build creative problem-solving into military sustainment culture. “We 100 percent want them to be innovating and finding new ways of what we can fix and what we can make better,” De La Cruz said.
What Comes Next: Metal Printing and Remaining Hurdles
The Army’s additive manufacturing roadmap extends well beyond plastic. De La Cruz pointed to wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) as an emerging capability. “That’s where we’re going,” she said. “Metal 3D printing.”
Obstacles remain. Software licensing costs, equipment access, training bandwidth and institutional approval processes all slow adoption. SolidWorks alone requires high investment, and commanders need to understand what the tool enables before they can justify the cost. Still, the symposium demonstrated that the groundwork is being laid, not through finished products handed down from above, but through Soldiers learning to build solutions themselves.
“The possibilities are endless with what 3D printing can do,” De La Cruz said. “It’s really important for our Soldiers to get out there and start learning about what we can do, so that way they can also help progress themselves and their peers.”
Printing at the Edge: The Expeditionary Sustainment Gap
The 1st Special Forces Group symposium is part of a broader Army push to embed additive manufacturing directly into forward operations, reducing the dependence on supply lines that, in contested environments, can be slow, vulnerable, or simply unavailable. Drawing lessons from recent conflicts, the Army has been deploying mobile 3D printing and machining units, training Soldiers in advanced manufacturing, and experimenting with in-field recycling of materials to keep drones and unmanned vehicles operational. The objective is not just faster parts, it is the ability to sustain a mission without waiting for resupply.
The stakes of getting this right are concrete. When a critical component fails in a forward environment, standard U.S. Army logistics can take six to ten weeks to deliver a replacement, time a deployed unit cannot afford. In a February 2026 exercise in Tennessee, DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory compressed that entire chain into a single operational day, producing a mission-critical vehicle part on-site and delivering it by drone.
Elsewhere, the Army’s Battle Damage Repair and Fabrication Program has already assessed over 40,000 vehicle components for additive manufacturing suitability, producing more than 600 CAD models at Rock Island Arsenal to keep damaged systems in the fight.
On the metal printing front, the direction De La Cruz pointed to, the Army has awarded contracts under its Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) program, focused on expanding metal manufacturing and repair capabilities in deployed and depot environments through containerized hybrid systems that combine additive and subtractive manufacturing in a single deployable enclosure. What the 1st SFG symposium demonstrated at the Soldier level, the Army is now scaling institutionally.
3D Printing Industry is inviting speakers for its 2026 Additive Manufacturing Applications (AMA) series, covering Energy, Healthcare, Automotive and Mobility, Aerospace, Space and Defense, and Software. Each online event focuses on real production deployments, qualification, and supply chain integration. Practitioners interested in contributing can complete the call for speakers form here.
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Featured image shows A U.S. Soldier assigned to 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) observes a plasma cutter while it is operating in Joint Base Lewis-McChord Washington. Photo via US Army.
