Anduril Barracuda

Anduril's Barracuda is a family of low-cost, turbojet-powered autonomous cruise missiles designed to be built by the thousands from commercial components — the leading US bet that production rate, not exquisite performance, wins the munitions race.

Overview

The Barracuda is a family of air-breathing autonomous air vehicles (AAVs) developed by Anduril Industries, unveiled in September 2024 in three sizes — Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250 and Barracuda-500 — whose suffix numbers indicate the weight class in pounds, according to Designation-Systems.net. The cruise-missile variants with explosive warheads carry an "M" suffix (Barracuda-100M/-250M/-500M). All versions are powered by a single small turbojet with a top speed around 500 knots and accept modular payloads for strike, jamming or decoy roles.

The family's significance is industrial as much as military. Anduril told reporters at the unveiling that a Barracuda takes 50 percent less time to produce, requires 95 percent fewer tools and 50 percent fewer parts than competing cruise missiles, making it roughly 30 percent cheaper on average, per Air & Space Forces Magazine. That thesis has since attracted a US Army framework order for at least 3,000 surface-launched rounds, a co-production line in Taiwan, and — announced on July 6, 2026 — Europe's first Barracuda production line at PGZ's WZL-2 plant in Bydgoszcz, Poland, reported by Defense News.

Development

Barracuda grew out of the Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV) program that the US Air Force Armament Directorate and the Defense Innovation Unit launched in 2024 to develop low-cost, modular, mass-producible test vehicles from commercial off-the-shelf components. Designation-Systems.net records that contracts went to four companies — Anduril, Integrated Solutions for Systems, Leidos Dynetics and Zone 5 Technologies — with Anduril entering the Barracuda-500. Anduril publicly unveiled the family on September 12, 2024, stating that all three variants were already flying, per Air & Space Forces Magazine.

In September 2024 Anduril executed an end-to-end ETV flight test of the Barracuda-500, and in March 2025 the Air Force and DIU selected Anduril and Zone 5 Technologies to continue into the program's second phase, by which point the effort had shifted toward a mass-producible low-cost weapon. In September 2025 the US Air Force allocated the formal designation AGM-189A to the Barracuda-500M, according to Designation-Systems.net. Anduril has meanwhile demonstrated a ground-launched Barracuda-500 by adding a solid-rocket booster, the basis of the Surface-Launched Barracuda-500M (SLB-500M) now under US Army contract and slated for Polish co-production.

🔒 The rest of the Anduril Barracuda file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Stop here and you miss what actually matters: the full capability and performance detail, the operational and combat record, how it stacks up head-to-head against its real counterparts, the complete specifications, and our analysts' procurement, supplier and assessment notes. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →