Army tasks start-up with designing vertical takeoff cruise missile for maneuver units

By Dominic Minadeo / March 4, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Army Futures Command's innovation lab has tapped Mach Industries to provide maneuver units with a vertical takeoff cruise missile to strike deep targets on their own, the vendor's chief executive officer told Inside Defense last Thursday. The company’s VTO aircraft, known as Viper, is contracted by the Army Applications Laboratory under the name Strategic Strike. The goal is to launch the missile from outside the enemy’s radar coverage, avoid detection and hit “high-payoff targets, such as radar arrays and...

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