Explained: Anduril’s Family Of 'Barracuda' Air-Breathing Missiles Meant To Shake Up Long-Range Warfare

Anduril, America’s new-age weapons manufacturer, last week (12 September) unveiled a new family of Barracuda, low-cost, air-breathing cruise missiles.

This new family of missiles is unlike any currently in production worldwide.

They can be launched from helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, ground-based platforms, maritime platforms, and potentially artillery systems — all at lower costs than contemporary systems while offering greater scalability.

The family consists of three variants with a scalable design — Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500.

The design of all three variants is similar, featuring a pair of pop-out wings in the centre and three folding wings at the rear. All three variants share the same core systems and subsystems and have the same top speed of 500 knots.

All of them are powered by a small turbojet engine.

Barracuda-100 is the smallest of the group, with a range of anywhere between 110 and 160 kilometres while carrying a small 15 to 16-kilogram warhead.

It can be launched from attack helicopters like the AH-64 Apache, drones like the MQ-9 Reaper, fixed-wing aircraft such as AC-130 gunships, and ground-based launchers, replacing Hellfire-like missiles.

Anduril renders show the variant sporting an electro-optical, infrared, or laser-guided seeker.

The middle variant, Barracuda-250, carries the same 15 to 16-kilogram warhead but with a range of 280 to 370 kilometres when launched from the surface or air, respectively.

It can be launched from fighter jets and ground-based platforms like multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) such as high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), and from sea.

Barracuda-500, the largest of the three, carries a warhead of approximately 45 kilograms with a maximum strike range of more than 800 kilometres.

This variant is primarily intended for air-launched missions.

All three variants, Anduril says, might also use its innovative autonomous software system — Lattice AI — which gathers data from various sensors and systems and interprets it using advanced machine learning algorithms for next-generation networked targeting capabilities.

This essentially means that the missiles, when launched simultaneously, can communicate with each other in a networked and collaborative setting to provide assured destruction of the designated target, similar to how swarm drones operate.

Moreover, these missiles are inexpensive — Anduril says 30 per cent cheaper on average than contemporary systems — and easy to manufacture.

The company states these missiles use commercially established supply chains, making them suitable for low-cost, large-scale production.

It says “a single Barracuda takes 50 per cent less time to produce, requires 95 per cent fewer tools, and 50 per cent fewer parts than competing solutions on the market today” and that “the Barracuda family … is 30 per cent cheaper on average than other solutions, enabling affordable mass and cost-effective, large-scale employment."

These advanced scalable and networked capabilities coupled with the low cost of the missile will shake up the entire long-range precision targeting market.

This is part of a new approach that Anduril — established just seven years ago (in 2017) — is advocating for all new weapon systems.

This approach emphasises the use of affordable, highly scalable precision systems and munitions that can be manufactured at a high production rate. It stems from various wargames, which have repeatedly concluded that US and allied forces will run out of stockpiles of precision munitions after the initial to-and-fro, given the large number of targets in the Indo-Pacific (i.e., China).

Bringing the stockpiles back to strength will take a long time using traditional approaches.

Consider Ukraine's experience in its war with Russia: its European suppliers quickly depleted their stockpiles, and it is still taking time to replenish them.

The Barracuda missiles intend to address all these production-related issues that US forces are expected to encounter in any potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific.