Anduril unveils Barracuda-M family of cruise missiles at Land Forces 2024

US company Anduril has unveiled a new family of air-breathing, software-defined expendable Autonomous Air Vehicles (AAVs) optimised for affordable, hyper-scale production.

The Barracuda family of AAVs, which were launched globally to coincide with the Land Forces 2024 Expo in Melbourne, are compatible with a host of payloads and employment mechanisms, support a variety of different missions, and provide warfighters with an adaptable and upgradeable capability to counter evolving threats, says the company.

Barracuda features advanced autonomous behaviours and other software-defined capabilities and is available in configurations offering 500+ nautical miles of range, 50+kg  of payload capacity, 5G manoeuvrability, and more than 120 minutes of loitering time, Anduril adds.

Barracuda variants include the Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250 and Barracuda-500. Each increment offers increasing size, range and payload capacity. Barracuda-M is the munition configuration. Barracuda-100M, Barracuda-250M, and Barracuda-500M are the most producible cruise missiles on the market today, the company says.

A single Barracuda takes 50 percent less time to produce, requires 95 percent fewer tools, and 50 percent fewer parts than competing solutions on the market today, according to Anduril. As a result, the Barracuda family of AAVs is 30 percent cheaper on average than other solutions, enabling affordable mass and cost-effective, large-scale employment.

The vehicle’s high speed, manoeuvrability and extended ranges are made possible by Barracuda’s turbojets. The result is a highly intelligent, low-cost weapon system that is capable of direct, stand-in, or stand-off strike missions in line with existing requirements but rapidly adaptable to future mission needs due to its high degree of modularity and upgradeability.

Barracuda can be launched from a variety of different air, ground and maritime platforms to support a range of mission sets. Compatible with internal weapons bays of fifth-generation aircraft, external rails of fourth-generation fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, HiMARS launchers and Common Launch Tubes (CLTs), surface vessels, palletised employment from airlift aircraft, and more, Barracuda is designed to provide theatre commanders with flexible employment options, Anduril says.

Australia, the United States and their allies and partners do not have enough missiles to credibly deter conflict with a near-peer adversary, it adds. Existing arsenals of precision-guided munitions would be exhausted in a matter of days in a high-end fight. Barracuda is intended to bring mass to the fight by being designed for hyper-scale manufacturing at the company’s recently announced Arsenal 1 facility. Barracuda production rates are designed to keep pace with the threat and can be doubled on-call to meet short-term surges in demand, the company says.