By Brian Young, Senior Vice President of Loitering Munitions
For most of the last two decades, the question in precision strike has been straightforward: can you find and hit the target?
That standard didn’t just influence a category, it defined it. It laid the foundation for systems like Switchblade®, the weapon that wrote the loitering munition playbook and invented an entirely and way of thinking.
But the battlefield has changed.
Today, the challenge isn’t just hitting a target. It’s understanding what that target is, how it’s behaving, what else is happening around it, and then deciding, in real time, what effect actually makes sense. In many cases, destruction isn’t the first or even the best option.
What we’re seeing now is a gap between how quickly threats are evolving and how rigid many systems still are. Threats are more dynamic, more distributed, and more difficult to detect. They operate in contested and denied environments, often without reliable GPS, and they evolve faster than traditional systems can adapt.
At the same time, many U.S. and partner platforms remain locked into a single mission, configured and deployed with a fixed outcome in mind. Which forces operators to commit early, often before they have the full picture, and limits their ability to adjust when the situation inevitably changes.
That’s the problem we set out to solve.
We created MAYHEM 10 because the battlefield now demands flexibility at a level that hasn’t existed in this category before. It’s not just about delivering an effect, it’s about tailoring that effect to the threat, in real time, as the mission unfolds.
MAYHEM 10 is the first system in a new product line built around that idea. At its core, it’s a multi-role launched effect designed to give operators options. Not just the ability to strike, but to observe, detect, disrupt, deceive, relay communications, and, when required, apply kinetic force.
That may sound like a simple expansion of capability, but it’s actually a shift in how these systems are designed and employed.
The key difference is that MAYHEM 10 isn’t just a munition. It’s an architecture.
We built it as an open, modular system from the beginning. That allows us to integrate multiple payloads like EO/IR sensors, electronic warfare packages, communications relays, and lethal effects onto a single platform. It also allows us to bring in third-party software and autonomy much more quickly, treating capability more like an application than a fixed feature set.
In practical terms, that means a single system can launch, navigate into a contested environment, detect signals, identify targets, and determine the appropriate response, all within the same mission profile.
And importantly, it can do that at meaningful operational distances—on the order of 100 kilometers with up to 50 minutes of endurance, while maintaining standoff from the threat.
Where this truly changes the equation is when MAYHEM 10 operates in a pack.
There’s a lot of discussion right now around “swarming.” I think that term misses the point. What matters isn’t just putting more systems in the air. It’s creating coordinated, collaborative effects that actually solve the mission.
With MAYHEM 10, we’re focused on collaborative attack and on systems that communicate, share information, and dynamically assign roles in real time.
That allows a team of systems to operate very differently than anything we’ve seen before.
One system might be focused on signal detection. Another might classify and confirm a target using onboard sensors and AI-enabled targeting. A third might carry the appropriate effect, kinetic or non-kinetic, and execute at the right moment. And because they’re connected through a secure mesh network, they can adjust roles as the situation changes.
That’s the real advantage.
It’s not just mass. It’s intelligent mass, where every system contributes to the mission in a coordinated way.
That coordination also compresses the sense-decide-act loop. Instead of passing information between disconnected systems, decisions can be made within the network itself, at machine speed, while still keeping the operator in control of how autonomy is applied.
This is especially important in contested environments.
We’ve designed MAYHEM 10 to operate where GPS may be denied and communications are challenged. By combining onboard processing, alternative navigation approaches, and adaptable data links, the system can continue to function even as conditions degrade.
At the same time, the architecture allows us to rapidly integrate new technologies as they emerge, whether that’s improved autonomy, better sensors, or more advanced electronic warfare capabilities. The system isn’t locked into what it was at launch. It evolves.
That speed of adaptation is critical.
If there’s one clear lesson from recent conflicts, it’s that timelines have compressed dramatically. Capabilities are evolving in weeks, not years. Systems that can’t keep up become obsolete quickly.
We built MAYHEM 10 to operate on that timeline.
It’s modular in production, which means we can configure systems late in the process based on mission needs. It’s designed for scalable manufacturing, ultimately reaching Low-Rate Initial Production by Fall of 2026 with the ability to scale to hundreds per month by the first half of 2027. And it’s built to accept updates in the field, so capability can continue to improve after deployment.
At the same time, none of this matters if the system isn’t reliable.
One of the most important lessons we’ve learned over the past 20 years is that reliability is a capability. It’s what allows you to scale. It’s what builds trust with the operator. And it’s what ensures that when a system is called upon, it performs exactly as expected.
We’ve taken that foundation, everything we’ve learned from developing and deploying loitering munitions at scale and built it into MAYHEM 10.
What we’re ultimately delivering is not just a new system, but a new way of thinking about this category.
The future isn’t about single-purpose platforms. It’s about multi-mission systems that can adapt to a wide range of scenarios. It’s about software-defined capability that evolves over time. And it’s about coordinated systems that can operate together to create effects greater than the sum of their parts.
The battlefield is only getting more dynamic.
The systems that succeed won’t be the ones that hit the hardest. They’ll be the ones that adapt the fastest, coordinate the smartest, and deliver the right effect at the right moment.
That’s why we created MAYHEM 10.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Young is Senior Vice President of Loitering Munitions at AeroVironment, where he leads the company’s portfolio of precision strike and launched effects systems, including the combat-proven Switchblade® family and next-generation platforms such as MAYHEM 10. With more than two decades of experience in aerospace and defense, he specializes in advancing autonomous systems, scalable production, and mission-adaptable capabilities for modern warfare.
He has played a central role in evolving loitering munitions from single-purpose systems into flexible, multi-mission solutions that support distributed operations across air, ground, and maritime domains.
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ARLINGTON, Va., February 03, 2025 – AeroVironment (AV), a global leader in intelligent, multi-domain robotic systems, today announced it has been awarded its third delivery order for Switchblade® loitering munition systems in the amount of $288 million as part of U.S. Army’s Directed Requirement (DR) for Lethal Unmanned Systems (LUS). This is the third award in the last 12 months, totaling $471.3 millions. This award is the third such delivery order awarded to AV as part of the multi-year contract with a ceiling value of $990M, which was secured in August 2024.
Arlington, Va., December 17, 2024 – The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied the protest filed on September 6, 2024, challenging the U.S. Army’s sole-source award of a $990 million contract for AV’s Switchblade® systems.
