Anduril, a U.S.-based drone company, has presented a video with live fire testing of its latest product, Altius-700M loitering munition. These are the first tests for this weapon, considered long-range in its class, and they were conducted back in September 2023, now becoming public.
Notably, during the live firing at the Dugway proving ground in Utah, the dummy target was a quite realistically-looking Buk-M2 air defense system of russian design.
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In the video, Altius-700M performs a precise strike, its warhead of 15 kg is comparable in power to that of an AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missile. What makes a difference, though, is the operating range up to 160 km, with endurance to stay up in the air for 75 minutes.
Conceptually, Altius-700M derives from Altius-600, a reconnaissance drone that has already made a name for itself during its operation by Ukrainian Armed Forces. More versatile and also coming in an attack version, the Altius-600, however, weighs 12 kg.
Other than that, the two drones follow the same idea: the mechanism of container launch supports deployment from any platform, be it from the ground, from a ship, or a helicopter mid-flight.
Anduril notes that Altius-700M and Altius-600's software has open architecture allowing for an easy upgrade or modernization. A particular focus was on the drones' ability to operate independently from the operator, enabling the latter to control multiple drones simultaneously.
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