With development of drones and air defense systems, helicopters' role on the battlefield began to be questioned, concerning both Apache attack helicopters as well as multipurpose UH-60 Black Hawks. American L3Harris is therefore promoting its modular Wolf Pack cruise missile family with 370 km range for their armament.
As the company told The War Zone, they want to increase target engagement range for helicopters from tens of kilometers to over a hundred this way. Over 50 test flights have already been conducted, including two launches from AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters.
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Overall, Wolf Pack should be cheap assets in U.S. service allowing mass use during full-scale combat operations in the Pacific. Unit cost should be from $300,000 to $500,000.
Wolf Pack includes two variants, strike Red with warhead up to 10 kg and electronic warfare Green. The latter is designed both for countering enemy air defense systems as well as conducting reconnaissance.
The missiles themselves rely on inertial and GPS satellite navigation. A seeker is also present, which searches for targets while simultaneously trying to increase its survivability. After detection, it either suppresses or strikes the enemy.
Defense Express notes that questions exist regarding the fairly basic navigation means set, because active EW use is common today. Resistance to this needs to be provided for as well. Of course, autonomous guidance partially compensates for this, but it's worth checking how sufficient this will be.
Otherwise, the ability to launch such missiles from helicopters, including multipurpose ones, will be very useful for striking targets in enemy rear. This will also increase the number of platforms that can execute such tasks.
Wolf Pack was presented by L3Harris in summer 2025. The U.S. Marine Corps has already selected them, and they're also being integrated on quite controversial OA-1K Skyraider II light attack aircraft.
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