According to information published on September 22, 2022, American company AeroVironment, a global leader in intelligent, multi-domain robotic systems, announced it received a $20,602,464 firm-fixed-price contract award on August 18, 2022, from the U.S. Army Tactical Aviation and Ground Munitions (TAGM) project office for the procurement of Switchblade® 300 tactical missile systems (TMS).
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
Switchblade 300 loitering munition with its container launcher unit.
The contract will be managed by the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, and is scheduled to be delivered by July 2023.
“Deployed by the U.S. Army for more than a decade, Switchblade 300 remains a critical force protection and soldier lethality solution for our customers, including Ukraine,” said Brett Hush, AeroVironment vice president and product line general manager for TMS. “It closes the gap between observation and action, giving soldiers the ability to identify threats and engage hostile beyond-line-of-sight targets from a greater distance with minimal collateral damage.”
AeroVironment’s combat-proven Switchblade 300 is back-packable and rapidly deployable from ground platforms, including a multipack launcher, providing warfighters with rapid-response force protection and precision strike capabilities up to six miles (10 kilometers) from its launch location.
The Switchblade 300 loitering munition is also used by the Ukrainian armed forces to fight Russian troops. Citing open source information, over 700 Switchblade 300s have been sent to Ukraine by the United States as part of an $800 million aid package that was launched in March 2022.
The Switchblade 300 loitering munition is designed to attack military personnel or light combat vehicles. It is a single-use drone and carries cameras, guidance systems, and explosives to dive-bomb into its target. The drone uses a tablet-based touch screen fire-control system with the option to pilot the loitering missile manually.
AeroVironment’s tactical missile systems provide users with the ability to identify threats and deliver a precision lethal payload with minimal collateral damage. Switchblade® 300 and Switchblade® 600 loitering missile systems enable the warfighter to easily launch, fly, track and engage beyond line-of-sight targets and light armored vehicles across land, maritime and air-launched scenarios.
The Blackwing™ loitering reconnaissance system is a variant of Switchblade designed to provide rapid-response intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and can be deployed from a submarine using an underwater-to-air delivery canister, shipboard or mobile ground vehicle via tube-launch or Multipack Launcher (MPL). AeroVironment’s tactical missile systems deliver the actionable intelligence and precision firepower needed to achieve mission success across multiple domains.
