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Autonomous Systems: Land & Sea
12AUG

Switchblade 400 wins Army LASSO at $1.2bn ceiling

4 min read
14:17UTC

The US Army selected AeroVironment's Switchblade 400 under the Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance OTA on Monday 4 May. The Army is requesting $110 million in FY2027 procurement with a planned ceiling of approximately $1.2 billion through FY2031.

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TechnologyDeveloping
Key takeaway

Anti-tank loitering reach jumped from 10 km to 65 km in one Army selection.

The US Army selected AeroVironment's Switchblade 400 under the Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO) Other Transaction Authority on Monday 4 May 1. The Army is requesting $110 million in LASSO procurement for fiscal year 2027 (FY2027) with a planned ceiling of approximately $1.2 billion through FY2031 2. Annualised, that funds roughly 200 to 400 Switchblade-class munitions a year against the Pentagon's 300,000-drone procurement target. AeroVironment declined to disclose the prototype contract value.

Switchblade 400 has a 65 km range, 35-minute endurance, and an all-up weight of 39 lbs, deployable by a single soldier in under five minutes with day-night electro-optical / infrared (EO/IR) sensors and autonomous target recognition. In practice, that pulls Russian armoured columns inside loitering reach from 6.2 miles to over 40. The 400 sits between the existing Block 2 SB 600 and SB 300 already running under an $1 billion August 2024 contract and a $186 million February 2026 delivery order. AeroVironment now operates SB 300, SB 400, and SB 600 simultaneously inside Army programmes, the broadest US loitering munition coverage on offer.

The Pentagon's Lethality Prize and the Mountain Horse Solutions kinetic win sit alongside this award inside the same Gauntlet II munitions architecture. Anti-tank loitering reach jumping from 10 km to 65 km changes which echelon owns the deep-strike fires problem: brigade rather than divisional artillery.

A $1.2 billion ceiling spread across six fiscal years averages $200 million annually, modest against the $54.6 billion DAWG line and well below the volume the Pentagon's stated 300,000-drone target would imply. The annual run rate places LASSO inside the procurement-frame envelope rather than the production-rate envelope that DAWG would otherwise fund.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

A loitering munition is a drone that can fly to an area, circle while searching for a target, and then dive to destroy it. Think of it as a guided missile that can wait. The Switchblade 400 is an American version that a single soldier can carry and launch, and it can fly 65 km, more than 40 miles, before finding and hitting a target. The US Army has now chosen it as the standard weapon for this role, with up to $1.2 billion available to buy them through 2031. In practical terms, this means American ground troops could attack enemy tanks from a distance that was simply not possible with previous weapons, without needing aircraft or artillery.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The 65 km selection over shorter-range alternatives traces to two constraints absent from previous loitering-munition competitions.

First, the brigade-echelon targeting gap. The Army's FY2027 doctrine update identified a specific gap: no organic weapon could engage armoured vehicles beyond the reach of line-of-sight optics but inside the range envelope where Air Force close air support assets face unacceptable crew risk from integrated air defences. The 65 km figure was not chosen arbitrarily: it is the minimum range that closes that gap while staying inside the radio-link budget of man-portable ground-control equipment.

Second, AeroVironment's head start from the Block 2 SB 300 programme. The LASSO solicitation explicitly valued prior-programme investment and fielded-system data from the $1 billion August 2024 contract. AeroVironment enters LASSO with two years of Army range safety, logistics, and maintenance data already on file. Competitors starting from a clean sheet face a 12-18 month head start disadvantage that the OTA vehicle does not fully equalise.

Sources:AeroVironment·DefenseScoop
Mentions:Lethality Prize Challenge →Mountain Horse Solutions →IISS →US Army →Gauntlet II →Israel →Pentagon →Defense Autonomous Warfare Group →Switchblade 400 →LASSO →AeroVironment →
First Reported In

Update #8 · The week defence-AI got priced

AeroVironment· 10 May 2026
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Causes and effects
Caused by
Lethality Prize feeds Gauntlet II cycle
Pentagon Lethality Prize and Gauntlet II architecture created the procurement environment in which LASSO selection occurred.
Occurred 14 Apr 2026
Read story →
Mountain Horse wins first Lethality Prize
Mountain Horse Solutions Lethality Prize win sits alongside LASSO in the same Gauntlet II munitions architecture, contextualising the AeroVironment LASSO award.
Occurred 29 Apr 2026
Read story →
This Event
Switchblade 400 wins Army LASSO at $1.2bn ceiling
The Switchblade 400 sextuples anti-tank loitering reach from 10 km to 65 km, changing the brigade combat team strike envelope. AeroVironment now operates SB 300, SB 400, and SB 600 simultaneously inside Army programmes, the broadest US loitering munition coverage on offer. The $1.2 billion ceiling spread across six fiscal years averages $200 million annually, modest against the $54.6 billion DAWG line.
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