The Army’s mini uncrewed aerial systems (MUAS) units in Latvia will soon be receiving new AeroVironment Switchblade 300 and 600 loitering munitions systems to add to their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.
The Canadian government recently finalized a $67-million deal with Virginia-based AeroVironment for the aerial precision-fires weapon systems able to strike targets beyond visual line of sight, out to a range of 40 kilometres.
The loitering munition, procured as an urgent operational requirement (UOR), addresses a gap in the Army’s ability to locate, track and strike moving targets, a gap made all the more evident by the lessons emerging from Russia’s invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine, explained Major Amelia Garton, the UOR project director.
“Within the Canadian Army there is a need for manoeuvre units to have an organic precision indirect fire asset. This will allow better use of fires assets at all levels,” she noted.
“The goal is to prosecute more targets over longer distances than we are currently able to. This gives us a mix of long-range precision fires to enable that goal.”
Among the Army’s considerations for selecting the Switchblade family of loitering munitions over several contenders, was the operational experience MUAS units already have with AeroVironment’s Raven B RQ-11, known as the CU-173, a land-launched, low altitude, fixed-wing ISR system.
Both the Switchblade series and the Raven B will share the company’s Tomahawk ground control station (GCS), a key factor in reducing training time and delivering an operational capability to Latvia.
“Our operators already understand how to use the [MUAS] ground control station,” said Garton, an artillery officer who has served with the 1st and 2nd Regiments of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, and with the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery School.
“They understand how to use the simulator that’s built into the GCS. And those Raven B operators also understand the ground picture and the airspace coordination measures.”
Operators can’t use one ground station to control both systems, she noted, but the GCSs share a similar look and functionality.
“To enable the UOR to go quickly and de-risk certain areas such as personnel training and airspace coordination, it made sense to go with technology operators are already comfortable with,” she said. “With this loitering munition the expectation is that the learning curve will be smaller for the initial operators to enable the quick adoption of this capability.”
Through the Canadian Army Land Warfare Centre, the Army is developing a long-term plan for how loitering munitions could be deployed across the land force. But in the short-term, the Switchblade systems are first being delivered to the artillery and armoured reconnaissance MUAS units because “they understand how to brief ground commanders, they know how to support ground commanders, and they understand airspace coordination measures including operating in the vicinity of crewed aircraft,” said Garton.
For operational security reasons, she could not share the quantity of Switchblade systems. But she said the Army expects formal deliveries to begin in Fall 2026, though initial cadre training will start in Spring 2026. The week-long operator course will be hosted by AeroVironment in the U.S. The short duration “makes it a lot easier to fit into a brigades’ work up schedule,” she added.
The UOR is expected to play a key role in helping the Army develop and refine its tactics, techniques, and procedures for the coordination and employment of precision guided fires, and pave the way for the eventual integration of the future Long-Range Precision Strike and wider loitering munition projects.
“The nice thing about the UORs is that they’ll de-risk a lot of future capabilities.” Garton noted.
In particular, the Army Lessons Learned Centre as well as a Technical Liaison Officer cell in Latvia will be gathering feedback from the MUAS units once the loitering munitions are deployed and answering questions around ammunition storage and other critical details to inform the downrange projects.
“As an artillery officer, it’s a good day to be a gunner when we can increase the fires assets within the Army,” she said.
