General Atomics Tapped To Close Low-Cost Missile Gap With China

1/18/2025 5:04:29 AM

(MENAFN- Asia Times) While the US attempts to solve its missile stockpile crunch with cheap, easily mass-produced missiles, China's production surge forces a stark reckoning with modern warfare's industrial and attritional realities and the race to outgun near-peer adversaries.

This month, The War Zone reported that General Atomics has unveiled a new low-cost air-to-surface missile, dubbed the“Strike Missile,” at the Surface Navy Association's annual symposium.

The missile, developed by General Atomics' Electromagnetic Systems Group, features an air-breathing propulsion system with a single ventral intake and a slab-sided design with two lugs on top, with no clear indications about its size, performance and other specifications from the company.

The US military's focus on cost-effective, mass-producible munitions like the Strike Missile reflects an urgent need for scalable, long-range capabilities in high-end conflicts. Similar initiatives, like the US Navy's Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) and the US Air Force's Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) , highlight a broader effort to balance capability with affordability.

In addition to those projects, in September 2024, Asia Times reported that Anduril Industries, a US defense contractor, has introduced the Barracuda family of Autonomous Air Vehicles (AAVs) to address the critical depletion of US weapon stockpiles.

The Barracuda series, designed for economical, hyper-scale production, comprises the Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500. These air-breathing, software-defined expendable AAVs are compatible with various payloads and deployment mechanisms and have varying sizes, ranges, and payload capacities.

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