A Marine fires a Switchblade 300 loitering munition at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Aug. 14, 2024. The Army awarded AeroVironment a $990 million contract to equip soldiers with its Switchblade-series loitering munitions, the company said in a statement Aug. 28, 2024. (Jaye Townsend/U.S. Marine Corps)
Weapons manufacturer AeroVironment will deliver more Switchblade-series loitering munitions to the Army over the next five years after signing an agreement worth up to nearly $1 billion recently.
The indefinite-quantity contract doesn’t specify how many Switchblades the Army will order over the next five years, but the first deliveries are expected within months, AeroVironment said in a statement Wednesday.
The Pentagon announced the $990 million deal Tuesday in its daily contracting notice. The munitions are “capable of destroying tanks, light armored vehicles, hardened targets, defilade and personnel targets,” the statement said.
AeroVironment is already delivering Switchblades to the Army under a separate contract awarded in December. The acquisitions are part of the Army’s revised focus on preparing for conventional warfare.
Both deals are in response to a requirement formalized in 2022 to equip infantry battalions with “lethal, man-portable loitering munition systems.”
Switchblades often are referred to as suicide drones because of their ability to fly above targets before crashing into them and exploding. They function as both a reconnaissance drone and a missile.
The Switchblade 600, the most advanced variant, has high-precision optics and an anti-armor warhead and can loiter in the air for more than 40 minutes, according to AeroVironment. It’s also said to have a range of about 25 miles and weigh about 65 pounds.
The Switchblade 300, meanwhile, has a range of about 12 miles, can loiter for about 20 minutes and weighs just 7 pounds.
Neither the AeroVironment nor the Defense Department statement specified which Switchblade variants are included under the latest contract. However, online news site The War Zone reported that both types are included in the deal.
The U.S. military has been acquiring Switchblade 300s for years, especially for use by special operations forces.
Hundreds of 300s also were sent by the U.S. to Ukraine as part of an arms package after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Meanwhile, Russia has used Iranian-made and designed one-way attack drones frequently in its strikes on Ukraine.
