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P.almer Luckey is no stranger to media hype. In 2014, he sold Oculus, a virtual reality startup, to Facebook for 2 billion dollarssparking the current wave of interest in VR. In 2017, he co-founded Anduril, another startup, this time focused on weapons. On November 29, Mr. Luckey said Anduril would launch “a new category of weapons radically different from anything that has come before it.” On December 1, it unveiled Roadrunner, a drone missile. It’s not revolutionary. But it’s interesting.
Roadrunner has two party tricks. Its payload can be modified depending on the mission. Sensors can be installed for monitoring, for example. But the company’s focus is on Roadrunner-Mr.which has an explosive tip and is designed to destroy drones. It is also reusable. Most air defense systems, including the American Patriot and the Israeli system An iron dome, fire multiple missiles at a target to increase the chance of killing. Those that are not used are lost. Roadrunners can talk to each other in flight. If one of them eliminates the target, the others can return home and land.
Both features have precedents. “Wandering munitions” such as the Israeli Mini-Harop or the Polish Warblefly can also land. The Coyote, an air defense weapon built by RTX, an American company formerly known as Raytheon, also has modular payloads. But putting it all together is new.
Anduril claims the Roadrunner is “far superior” to competing missiles, with a higher takeoff speed, larger payload and ten times the range. Brian Schimpf, the company’s boss, says it can also cope with faster, more evasive drones likely to appear in the coming years, comparable to high-end cruise missiles.
Maybe. Comparing air defense systems is tricky because they are designed for different purposes. Iron Dome takes care of small rockets. Patriot manages large missiles and aircraft. Coyote is designed for what the Pentagon calls group one and two drones, which weigh less than 55 pounds and fly below 3,500 feet (1,069 meters). Roadrunner is designed for Group 3 threats, which can weigh nearly 600 kg and fly up to 18,000 feet, such as the Iranian Shahed-136 drones that Russia has used to attack Ukraine.
A Coyote costs around $100,000 each. Roadrunner has a “low six-figure” price tag. That makes it “not much cheaper than many existing air defense missiles, capable of targeting a much wider range of high-end threats,” like cruise missiles, said Justin Bronk of the RUSSI think tank in London. He points NASAMS, a Norwegian-American system that uses commercially available missiles. The cheapest cost between $400,000 and $500,000 each.
Nevertheless, American special forces have already purchased a few Roadrunners. Anduril hopes that large-scale production will reduce costs. But anti-drone technology is a busy field. In 2019, a US destroyer shot down an Iranian drone using electronic warfare. High-powered microwave weapons and lasers have been installed on warships and tested at air bases.
The theatrical launch of Roadrunner reflects a division within the American arms industry. Critics see the country’s established companies as complacent and lazy, and welcome the disruption caused by scrappy newcomers like Anduril. Indeed, the name Roadrunner is a deliberate dig. In the Looney Tunes cartoon of the same name, the agile roadrunner foils Wile E. Coyote’s attempts to catch him with needlessly complicated gadgets. The big players, for their part, roll their eyes at newcomers with little experience in mass production. But there’s nothing like a little competition to stimulate everyone. ■
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