The US Army is proposing to ship Rapid Prototyping Labs to the battlefield

The lab is a simple 20 feet long shipping container that’s packed with the latest technologies including a 3D printer, industrial CNC machine, plasma cutters and more.  The Rapid Equipping Force (REF) director, Col. Peter Newell, said that 3D printers “are not really inventing anything new; they are modifying something that exists already so they can do something else.”

http://www.webpronews.com/the-army-deploys-3d-printers-to-afghanistan-2012-08