Anduril Bolt-M

A man-portable, VTOL autonomous loitering munition built by Anduril Industries — designed to give squad-level warfighters AI-guided organic precision fires with a returnable airframe, fielded by the U.S. Marine Corps under the OPF-L program and entering operational service in mid-2026.

Overview

The Bolt-M is a battery-powered quadcopter loitering munition developed by Anduril Industries that fuses machine-vision autonomous guidance with a modular, operator-swappable warhead architecture. Unlike improvised first-person-view (FPV) strike drones, Bolt-M flies, tracks, and engages targets under AI supervision, requiring the operator only to authorize four simplified decisions — where to look, what to follow, how to engage, and when to strike. If no lawful target is confirmed, the vehicle can be recalled and stowed for reuse. Built from the ground up for producibility, Bolt-M occupies a deliberate cost band between expendable commercial FPV drones and high-end anti-armor loitering munitions, positioning it as an "affordable attritable" for the squad fight.

Development

A small Anduril engineering team conceived Bolt in 2023 to address a specific battlefield problem: giving non-specialist infantry a reliable loitering capability without requiring "professional-racing-level FPV operators," according to Dan Leighton, Anduril's GM for Precision Engagement Systems, in an interview with TWZ. The system was publicly unveiled in October 2024 alongside the base Bolt ISR variant and the first USMC Organic Precision Fires–Light (OPF-L) evaluation contract award, as reported by DefenseScoop.

In the April 2024 OPF-L down-select, Anduril received $6.4 million — the smallest of three initial awards, compared to AeroVironment's $8.9 million for Switchblade 300 Block 20 and Teledyne FLIR's $12 million for Rogue 1 — under the program's $249 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity ceiling, per Inside Unmanned Systems. Anduril delivered more than 250 Bolt-M systems to the Marine Corps in December 2024 for operational evaluation. After 13 months of testing at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, the Marine Corps awarded Anduril a $23.9 million production follow-on in January 2026 for over 600 systems to be delivered between February 2026 and April 2027, as detailed by Army Recognition. An additional undisclosed customer received more than 300 systems within five months of its own contract award, TWZ confirmed with Anduril.

Design & capabilities

Bolt-M is a VTOL quadcopter that fits in a single operator's backpack and deploys from the packaged state in under five minutes, according to Designation-Systems. The airframe is identical to the Bolt ISR variant, with the addition of a modular munition payload bay that accepts one of three warhead configurations — anti-personnel, anti-materiel, or anti-armor — up to 1.4 kg. The system auto-detects the loaded warhead type and adjusts flight and engagement parameters accordingly. Launch weight is approximately 5.9–6.8 kg including the warhead.

Guidance runs through Anduril's proprietary Lattice AI architecture. The operator designates a target via a live EO/IR gimbal feed that Anduril describes as offering face-recognition-grade resolution at operationally relevant ranges, per the TWZ interview with Leighton. Once designated, Bolt-M tracks autonomously — negotiating terrain, adjusting approach angles, and coordinating multi-asset maneuvers — while the human operator remains on the loop solely for the final strike authorization. The system supports waypoint navigation, autonomous target detection and tracking, and over-the-air firmware updates to counter evolving electronic-warfare threats without hardware changes.

Standard operational range is more than 20 km, though Leighton told TWZ that the system "can push to 30 and 40 [km] if you have to" depending on configuration. Endurance is approximately 40 minutes with the warhead installed; the unarmed Bolt ISR achieves over 45 minutes. The electric propulsion system's specifications — battery chemistry, cell count, and motor type — have not been publicly disclosed.

Variants

• Bolt (base): Man-portable ISR and search-and-rescue configuration; no warhead; recoverable. Same airframe as Bolt-M, as specified by Anduril.
• Bolt-M (munition): Loitering munition variant with modular warhead bay accepting up to 1.4 kg payloads across three configurations. Fully returnable if no lawful strike is executed.

Combat record / operational use

As of mid-2026, no combat use of Bolt-M has been confirmed by U.S. official sources. Anduril declined to comment when asked directly by TWZ about whether the system had been employed operationally. Defence-ua.com reported unverified Ukrainian-language claims in January 2026 suggesting Bolt-M may have reached Ukraine, though no corroboration from U.S. or Ukrainian government sources has followed.

USMC operational testing was conducted at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, and Col. Bradley Sams, program manager for Marine Corps Ground Weapons Systems, told Breaking Defense in April 2026 that fielding to operational units would begin in the June 2026 timeframe. Bolt-M's performance under live electronic-warfare conditions and against active air-defense measures therefore remains publicly unvalidated.

Advantages

• AI-guided autonomous targeting reduces operator cognitive load and eliminates the skill barrier of manual FPV piloting, directly addressing the ~80% attrition rate observed among FPV strike missions in Ukraine-analogous scenarios, per Anduril's Leighton in the TWZ interview.
• Returnable if no lawful strike is authorized: the operator can recall, disarm, and stow the vehicle — a capability absent from conventional one-way attack drones.
• Modular plug-and-play warhead architecture (anti-personnel, anti-materiel, anti-armor) with automatic payload recognition enables a single airframe to cover multiple target sets.
• Designed for producibility from inception: a Block 2 hardware revision implemented manufacturing process improvements, and Anduril demonstrated a surge output of ~260 units in one month in Q4 2025.
• Lattice software integration enables coordinated multi-asset maneuvers, fleet management, and over-the-air counter-EW firmware updates without hardware changes.
• At "tens of thousands of dollars" per unit, Bolt-M occupies a cost band between cheap expendable FPV drones (~$1,200–$5,000) and high-end loitering munitions like Switchblade 600 (~$100,000+), as analyzed by Forbes.

Drawbacks / limitations

• Unit cost remains 10–25× that of a commodity FPV drone; at the consumption rates seen in high-intensity conflict, even "low tens of thousands" becomes a severe constraint on mass employment, a tension Forbes explicitly flagged in its headline question: "If They Can Afford It."
• Electric propulsion limits endurance to ~40 minutes and standard range to ~20 km — adequate for squad-level tactical use but well short of the operational-depth reach of systems like Switchblade 600 (~40 km) or Hero-120 (~60 km), per Inside Unmanned Systems.
• Quadcopter form factor implies low maximum speed and an acoustic signature consistent with audible detection at close range, a known disadvantage versus fixed-wing loitering munitions; Anduril has not publicly quantified acoustic or infrared signature.
• Cybersecurity concerns surfaced in October 2025 when Reuters reported an Army memo identifying "deep flaws" in the Lattice battlefield communication system; Leighton acknowledged the issue to TWZ, stating internal red-teams had found four times more vulnerabilities than external auditors — indicating a real attack surface despite active hardening efforts.
• No confirmed combat use means field performance against contested electronic warfare and air-defense environments remains publicly unvalidated.

Counterparts

• Switchblade (USA) — tube-launched fixed-wing loitering munition; Switchblade 300 is the closest man-portable peer in the OPF-L competition; Switchblade 600 serves at a heavier, longer-range tier.
• Lancet (Russia) — Russian fixed-wing loitering munition with extensive combat employment in Ukraine; direct operational comparator in the tactical loitering strike role, though heavier and tube-/rail-launched.

Outlook

The OPF-L program marks the first formal U.S. military fielding of AI-guided loitering munitions at squad level, and Bolt-M's January 2026 production award — alongside Teledyne FLIR's Rogue 1 — establishes two domestic suppliers in the dismounted organic precision fires category. Anduril has stated intent to scale production into the thousands per month if demand signals warrant, and the company is positioning Bolt-M as the baseline for a wider family of Lattice-integrated autonomous precision fires systems. The Marine Corps' separate OPF-M (medium) solicitation for a vehicle-mounted, longer-range, anti-armor loitering munition confirms that Bolt-M occupies the light end of an expanding organic fires spectrum. International demand signals are present — the undisclosed 300-unit customer and unverified reports of Ukraine delivery suggest export appetite — but export licensing and political factors remain publicly unconfirmed.

Key specifications

Sources

1. Designation-Systems.Net (Andreas Parsch) — "Anduril Bolt" (January 2026). https://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/bolt.html
2. Anduril Industries — Bolt product page. https://www.anduril.com/bolt
3. The War Zone (Tyler Rogoway) — "Inside Anduril's Bolt-M Kamikaze Drone Program" (2026). https://www.twz.com/uncategorized/inside-andurils-bolt-m-kamikaze-drone-program
4. Army Recognition — "Anduril Wins $23.9M Contract to Equip U.S. Marines With Man-Packable Bolt-M Loitering Munitions" (January 2026). https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2026/anduril-wins-23-9m-contract-to-equip-u-s-marines-with-man-packable-bolt-m-loitering-munitions
5. Breaking Defense (Carley Welch) — "Marines to Field Light Loitering Munition to Operational Units in 'June Timeframe': Official" (April 2026). https://breakingdefense.com/2026/04/marines-to-field-light-loitering-munition-to-operational-units-in-june-timeframe-official/
6. Defence-ua.com — "Latest Bolt-M FPV Drone, Purchased by U.S. Marines, May Have Been Delivered to Ukraine" (January 2026). https://en.defence-ua.com/news/latest_bolt_m_fpv_drone_purchased_by_us_marines_may_have_been_delivered_to_ukraine-17264.html
7. Forbes (David Hambling) — "Anduril's Bolt-M Is The Future For U.S. Forces, If They Can Afford It" (October 2024). https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/10/16/andurils-bolt-m-is-the-future-for-u-s-forces-if-they-can-afford-it/
8. Inside Unmanned Systems — "Report: What Unmanned Systems is America's Military Buying in 2026?" (November 2025). https://insideunmannedsystems.com/report-what-unmanned-systems-is-americas-military-buying-in-2026/
9. The Defense Post — "US Marines Select Anduril's Bolt-M Loitering Munitions for OPF-L Program" (January 2026). https://thedefensepost.com/2026/01/15/usmc-anduril-bolt-m/
10. DefenseScoop — "Marines to Get New Bolt Kamikaze Drones from Anduril" (October 2024). https://defensescoop.com/2024/10/10/anduril-bolt-drone-marines-opf-loitering-munitions/