U.S. Focuses on Low-Cost Missiles, #BarracudaM #lowcostmissile #etv #EnterpriseTestVehicle

The U.S. Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) selected four companies in June of this year to participate in the development of the Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV), a program aimed at developing a low-cost, mass-deployable, medium- and long-range air-launched cruise missile.

The U.S. military is equipped with three types of air-launched cruise missiles: JASSM-ER, LRASM, and JSM. Although they have excellent performance, the price is expensive, with a unit price of 1 million to 4 million U.S. dollars. The U.S. military hopes to equip a large number of cruise missiles at a low price. The ETV program for the new munitions sets the maximum range of 575 miles, they do not need to fly supersonic, and the procurement of the unit price is less than 150,000 U.S. dollars.

On September 12, Anduril disclosed a model of its new low-cost cruise missile Barracuda-M family. The Barracuda-M are a modular design with low cost, easy to operate, scalable production, and other features, will be mainly used for ground, sea, and other precision strike missions, able to perform direct attack, long-range attack, and defense zone attack missions. The Barracuda-M comes in three variants: Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500.