Lance
Mass that arrives this year. Lance is a three-round family — squad dart, tank killer, theater loiterer — built in one factory so SOF can have the thousands of one-way attackers the Secretary of the Air Force said they will need.
Lance
BQM-26E
Meridian design bureau
Conceptual · not a program of record
- Unit cost
- $12K
- Combat radius
- 22 nm
- Endurance
- 0.4 h
- Speed
- 110 kt
- Ceiling
- 8,000 ft
- Payload
- 1.2 kg
- FY26 buy
- 12K
- Rate / year
- 50K
Launch / recover
Launch. Tube, canister, or rail from soldier / vehicle / air / USV
Recover. None — one way. Inert trainer recoverable.
C2. Fire-and-forget with abort; ATAK cue; manned-unmanned teaming from Harrier / Kestrel
Why it is better
- Family, not a zoo: S/T/L share seeker, fuze interface, and ATAK plugin
- Image-match terminal so jamming the last mile does not save the tank
- Factory sized for ammunition, not aircraft — 50,000/year
- Air, ground, and sea launch from the same canister geometry
Nav (GNSS optional)
- image-match terminal
- inertial
- mesh cueing
- GNSS-optional
Sense
- strapdown EO/IR
- aided target recognition on-edge
Effect
- anti-personnel / light vehicle (S)
- armor-top attack (T)
- deep interdiction (L)
Family
| Variant | Unit | Range | Endurance | FY26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Lance-S Squad Soldier tube, 5 min emplace, light vehicle / personnel | $12K | 40 km | 25 min | 12K |
Lance-T Tank Armor top-attack, moving-target ATR — LASSO analog | $65K | 80 km | 40 min | 2,000 |
Lance-L Long Air / USV launched, theater interdiction, Altius-class endurance | $220K | 450 km | 240 min | 400 |
Against the public program
Switchblade 300/600/400 (LASSO) / Altius-600M / SOF OWA
Public. SB-400: 65 km, 35 min, tank-kill; Army ~$1.2B LASSO FY26–31; SOF wants thousands of OWA by 2032
Gap. Three vendors, three controllers, production still boutique; Replicator missed thousands-by-2025
Meridian. One family, three ranges, one controller, 50k/year factory designed in from the start