The Leidos Black Arrow, also known as the Small Cruise Missile, is being proposed for launch from ground and naval platforms, the manufacturer has confirmed. Leidos also disclosed to TWZ the range of the weapon, 400 nautical miles, putting it very much at the upper end of what had been expected. Only last month, Leidos announced that the missile had completed a guided flight test from an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship, as you can read about here.
TWZ spoke today with Mark Miller, Leidos Senior Vice President for Missile and Aviation Solutions, at the Special Operations Forces (SOF) Week that’s now taking place in Tampa, Florida.
Weighing roughly 200 pounds, the Black Arrow is designed to accommodate a variety of different payloads and not just a kinetic warhead, making it a “mission-adaptable delivery platform,” rather than a traditional munition.
The missile was tested from an AC-130J last November via a pair of Ramp Launch Tubes (RLT) mounted on the aircraft’s rear ramp, but other launch options are being offered. For air launch from other platforms, the Black Arrow is compatible with traditional stores pylons found on fixed-wing aircraft.
As Miller explained, “The ramp launch tube enables us to ripple these in onesies and twosies, in small quantities. But we also developed the design to not preclude integration and conventional manner.”
Currently, the Black Arrow is compatible with 14-inch lug spacing on fixed-wing aircraft. This includes the BRU-78 dual-carriage rack that’s used on the MQ-9 Reaper drone as well as the OA-1K light attack aircraft.
Leidos has also spoken in the past about plans to have the Black Arrow launched from a palletized system, which Miller said would involve the MC-130J Commando II multi-mission combat transport.
Beyond aircraft, the company is also looking at options to launch the Black Arrow from ground and maritime platforms.
“You could adapt it,” Miller elaborated, “and we’ve done initial trade studies to look at a ground-launched version. Basically, you’d have a boost motor that would get it off the launcher to a sufficient speed at which the engine could take over, just like other ground-launched cruise missiles.”
As a “quick look” study, Leidos has determined that the Black Arrow would fit into an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) “pretty easily, and that’s the extent thus far of launchers that we have looked at.”
In terms of applications on naval vessels, Miller says, “There’s no reason that you couldn’t put these on different maritime vessels […] but to be honest, right now, we’re marching towards emphasis on airborne platforms.” Small cruise missiles and similar drone systems could be extremely beneficial to surface combatants of all sizes, as we laid out in this past feature.
Looking at the missile itself in more detail, Miller admitted that while “it doesn’t look as sophisticated and as slick and sexy as some of the other things you might see here, it’s basically designed in modular sections so that the manufacturing can be distributed.” At the same time, this allows multiple different payloads — each of which will weigh around 50 pounds — to be fitted.
“If you slice it up, like you would a loaf of bread, the front portion is the payload portion. The back end is a common bus that will take it where it needs to go. Within that payload section is a seeker and a warhead. But there are also non-kinetic options that you can put in there.”
The missile is powered by a small turbojet engine, of an undisclosed type that’s also been utilized in fielded applications, Miller said.
By developing the missile with an open architecture and a modular airframe design, if the payload meets the requirements, then the customer — primarily the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) — has the option to integrate different payloads to meet its operational needs in the future.
At this point, Miller was not willing to talk about specific payload options, although we know that at least one of these is kinetic in nature and that it’s “consistent with meeting the initial needs of SOCOM.”
The range figure for the Black Arrow that Miller provided — “in excess of 400 nautical miles” — is very noteworthy. Indeed, it’s at the upper end of what was previously seen as likely for the weapon.
Back in 2021, SOCOM issued a contracting notice for a Stand-Off Precision Guided Weapon Program Cruise Missile, outlining interest in a weapon of this type. The specifications included a range of between 200 and 400 nautical miles (around 230 and 460 miles) while the weapon was required to fit inside a standardized cylindrical Common Launch Tube (CLT).
While the Black Arrow is too large to be accommodated in a CLT, the range figure is nonetheless significant, especially when compared with the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) that the AC-130J, for example, can currently drop. An SDB has a range of perhaps a few dozen miles or so when dropped from the AC-130’s launch altitude and speed.
This is especially relevant for the AC-130J, the survivability of which is increasingly threatened by the kinds of modern enemy air defenses likely to be encountered in a high-end fight. It will also allow the AC-130 to respond to targets relatively rapidly over an exponentially larger area at any given time — basically a 400-mile-diameter circle around the aircraft at any given time.
Having the Black Arrow on the AC-130 transforms that aircraft into a standoff weapons delivery platform, and it would bring the same capabilities to other, more vulnerable platforms, too, like the MQ-9 and OA-1K. You can read more about how the latter may be adapted to a high-end Pacific fight — including via the addition of standoff munitions — in this feature.
Other performance attributes of the missile include a cruising speed of up to Mach 0.8 and the ability to reach altitudes of 30,000 feet.
The guidance used by the Black Arrow remains largely secretive, although there is a separate terminal guidance function, provided by an undisclosed sensor. At the same time, Miller stated that the overall guidance system is “conventional,” but that it also allows the missile “to operate in areas where GPS is denied or challenged. The sensors that we have on board, will enable us to remain operationally viable in even difficult environments,” he added.
Four years after work on the Small Cruise Missile began, Leidos says it’s “marching towards placing this capability into [the Air Force Special Operations Command] inventory … it’s happening very rapidly.”
With its combination of substantial range, affordability, and a variety of payload capabilities, the Black Arrow looks to be able to meet a number of requirements that are of growing importance across the U.S. military. Importantly, this program is gathering pace at a time when the Pentagon is looking at harnessing the potential of lower-cost weapons that can be readily produced at scale to meet the likely demands of future conflicts.
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