France requests Switchblade loitering munition to fill ‘urgent’ capability gap

PARIS — The French Army has started the process of quickly procuring American-made loitering munitions as part of a longer-term effort to field remotely operated weapon systems, according to officials.

The service is looking to add AeroVironment’s Switchblade to its inventory within the next six months, Col. Arnaud Goujon, the Army’s chief of plans, told reporters at the Eurosatory defense expo , which was held last week outside Paris.

In a Tuesday email to Defense News, the French Armed Forces Ministry confirmed the country is in the process of launching a Foreign Military Sales request “for the acquisition of Switchblade remote-operated ammunition.”

“This launch aims to set up a first urgent capacity for the benefit of the French forces,” the ministry wrote.

The Pentagon in April announced plans to supply the Switchblade munition to Ukraine as part of military aid provided to the European country since Russian invaded it in late February .

At Eurosatory, Goujon noted the Army is discussing how best to use such weapons. “Six months from now, we’re going to have a really good discussion” on the path forward, he said.

The service is looking for a capability “that is different” than a mortar or an artillery shell, he said. “If it is the same price of a mortar round that goes about 3 kilometers away and flies for 15 minutes, then it’s interesting.”

But if it’s 10 times more expensive than a mortar and has the same range, Goujon said he is less interested.

However, if the weapon can fly 30 or 50 kilometers (19 or 31 miles) away and has an endurance of two to four hours, “suddenly, I can task it on a recovering mission … then it’s a different animal,” Goujon said.

The use of loitering munitions by both Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020 provided many “lessons learned” for how to use such weapons at the operational level, he added.

Neither Goujon nor the ministry commented on how many units the Army plans to acquire, and they would not provide a value of the foreign military sale. French news outlets reported this month that the ministry’s procurement office was looking to acquire 82 remotely operated weapon systems.

The U.S. State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency declined to comment on any potential or pending arms transfers prior to congressional notification.

AeroVironment declined to comment on the potential sale, but a company official said there has been “considerable interest” in the weapon from various militaries since the Defense Department announced plans to send it to Ukraine. The Switchblade 600 is on its way to Ukraine “right now,” Charles Dean, vice president of global business development for unmanned systems, told Defense News at Eurosatory.

He noted that AeroVironment’s loitering munitions have been “out of public view for many years,” despite being used for more than a decade by the U.S. Army. “But with the crisis in Ukraine and the donation by the U.S. government of our loitering munitions to support the Ukrainians, many more people are aware of these systems.”

AeroVironment has provided the rucksack-portable, tube-launched Switchblade 300 loitering munition to the U.S. Army for more than 10 years, and the company introduced the larger 600 variant in 2020. The company also provides a nonlethal variant of the 300 system, dubbed Blackwing.

The French ministry noted in its email that the government is gearing up for “a long-lasting remotely operated ammunition operation,” to launch as early as 2023 via two recently announced projects, Colibri and Larinae (or Hummingbird and Seagull in English, respectively).

Officials at Eurosatory told Defense News that the goal of those projects is to identify a low-cost solution that can target and neutralize an armored vehicle between 5 and 50 kilometers away, with a target demonstration date in 2024.

Vivienne Machi is a reporter based in Stuttgart, Germany, contributing to Defense News' European coverage. She previously reported for National Defense Magazine, Defense Daily, Via Satellite, Foreign Policy and the Dayton Daily News. She was named the Defence Media Awards' best young defense journalist in 2020.

巴黎——据官员称，法国陆军已开始快速采购美国制造的巡飞弹，这是部署遥控武器系统的长期计划的一部分。

陆军计划主管阿尔诺·古容上校在上周于巴黎郊外举行的欧洲防务展上告诉记者，陆军计划在未来六个月内将 AeroVironment 公司的 Switchblade 防空导弹系统纳入其装备库。

法国武装部队部周二在一封发给《防务新闻》的电子邮件中证实，该国正在启动一项对外军售请求，“以采购Switchblade遥控弹药”。

“此次发射旨在为法国军队建立首个紧急能力，”国防部写道。

今年 4 月，五角大楼宣布计划向乌克兰提供“弹簧刀”弹药，这是自俄罗斯 2 月底入侵乌克兰以来向这个欧洲国家提供的军事援助的一部分。

在欧洲防务展上，古容指出，陆军正在讨论如何最好地使用这类武器。他说：“六个月后，我们将就未来的发展方向进行一次非常深入的讨论。”

他说，军方正在寻找一种与迫击炮弹或炮弹“不同”的能力。“如果它的价格与射程约3公里、飞行时间15分钟的迫击炮弹相同，那就很有意思了。”

但古容表示，如果它的价格是迫击炮的 10 倍，射程却相同，那他就没那么感兴趣了。

然而，如果这种武器能够飞行 30 或 50 公里（19 或 31 英里）远，并且续航时间为两到四个小时，“突然之间，我就可以指派它执行回收任务……那就完全不一样了，”古容说道。

他补充说，亚美尼亚和阿塞拜疆在 2020 年纳戈尔诺-卡拉巴赫冲突中使用巡飞弹，为如何在作战层面使用此类武器提供了许多“经验教训”。

古容和国防部均未透露陆军计划采购多少套装备，也未提供对外军售的金额。法国新闻媒体本月报道称，国防部采购办公室正寻求采购82套遥控武器系统。

美国国务院国防安全合作局在通知国会之前，拒绝就任何潜在或正在进行的武器转让发表评论。

AeroVironment公司拒绝就潜在的销售置评，但该公司一位官员表示，自美国国防部宣布计划向乌克兰交付该武器以来，各国军队都对此表现出了“相当大的兴趣”。无人系统全球业务发展副总裁查尔斯·迪恩在欧洲防务展上告诉《防务新闻》，“Switchblade 600”目前“正在运往乌克兰的途中”。

他指出，尽管美军已使用AeroVironment公司的巡飞弹十余年，但该公司生产的巡飞弹“多年来一直鲜为人知”。“但随着乌克兰危机爆发，以及美国政府捐赠我们的巡飞弹以支持乌克兰，更多人开始了解这些系统。”

AeroVironment 公司已向美国陆军提供背包式、管式发射的 Switchblade 300 巡飞弹超过 10 年，该公司于 2020 年推出了更大的 600 型。该公司还提供一种名为 Blackwing 的 300 型非致命版本。

法国国防部在电子邮件中指出，政府正在为“一项长期的远程操控弹药行动”做准备，该行动最早将于 2023 年通过最近宣布的两个项目 Colibri 和 Larinae（英文分别为 Hummingbird 和 Seagull）启动。

欧洲防务局官员告诉《防务新闻》，这些项目的目标是找到一种低成本的解决方案，能够瞄准并摧毁 5 至 50 公里外的装甲车辆，目标是在 2024 年进行演示。

薇薇安·马奇是驻德国斯图加特的一名记者，主要负责《防务新闻》的欧洲报道。她此前曾为《国家防务杂志》、《防务日报》、《卫星通讯》、《外交政策》和《代顿每日新闻》撰稿。2020年，她荣获防务媒体奖最佳青年防务记者称号。