Mach announces deal with Army lab for vertical takeoff ‘Strategic Strike’ cruise missile
“The primary objective for Strategic Strike is to launch from beyond enemy radar range, reducing the probability of detection, and increasing launch team survivability,” the company wrote in the announcement.
California-based defense firm Mach announced on March 4, 2025 it was working with a US Army lab to develop a new vertically launched cruise missile dubbed Strategic Strike. (Mach)
WASHINGTON — Mach Industries has announced a recent deal with an Army research lab to work on a vertical takeoff (VTO) cruise missile called Strategic Strike.
Based in Huntington Beach, Calif., the company said today that the Army Applications Laboratory awarded it with an undisclosed amount of funding last year to work on a new weapon for soldiers at the company- through brigade-level formations. The weapon, according to Mach, is being designed to hit targets up to 290 km (180 miles) away and host a 10-plus kg (22-lbs) warhead.
“The primary objective for Strategic Strike is to launch from beyond enemy radar range, reducing the probability of detection, and increasing launch team survivability,” Mach said in the press release. “Tactical maneuver units will be able to engage and prosecute high-payoff targets, such as radar arrays and artillery pieces, well beyond the forward line of troops.”
The company said it locked down the weapon’s design in September 2024 before “successfully” testing out its vertical take-off during a full-performance, wing-borne flight in mid-January. It is now integrating “artificial intelligence visual” and radio frequency sensing techniques into the cruise missile to enable it to hit a target when GPS and communication is severed — a growing requirement as strategists watch the electronic warfare-saturated combat environment in Ukraine.
“The combination of VTO, high speed and range/payload is radically novel for the current fighting force,” Mach said in the press release. “At the culmination of the contract, Mach will provide the warfighter with a VTO asset that has HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] range, cruise missile speed, and Hellfire effects.”
As novel as it is, Mach is not the only company working on a new class of such vertical takeoff weapons. While not a cruise missile, Anduril Industries has been working on a subsonic, vertical takeoff and landing drone dubbed Roadrunner-Munition (Roadrunner-M) that the company says can be reused on surveillance missions or in a kamikaze-like fashion to strike moving aircraft.
