Bolt

Bolt is a man-packable vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) quadcopter developed by Anduril Industries of the United States, unveiled on 10 October 2024 at the AUSA conference. It comes in two forms: the baseline Bolt for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and search-and-rescue, and the armed Bolt-M loitering munition, selected by the US Marine Corps for its Organic Precision Fires-Light (OPF-L) programme.

Overview

Anduril debuted Bolt and Bolt-M on 10 October 2024, positioning Bolt-M as a competitor to AeroVironment's Switchblade 300 and Teledyne FLIR's Rogue 1 under OPF-L, a Marine Corps programme to give dismounted infantry rifle squads a man-portable, precision-strike capability against targets beyond line of sight. The Marine Corps signed agreements with all three vendors in April 2024 under a program worth up to $249 million over as long as eight years, with no single downselect planned — each vendor's system can be fielded if it passes testing.

Anduril received an initial OPF-L contract with a disclosed floor of about $6.5 million in 2024, and Breaking Defense and TWZ reported that the company delivered more than 250 Bolt-M systems to the Marine Corps and over 300 to an undisclosed customer within five months, at a production rate Anduril said was moving toward more than 175 systems a month across Bolt variants. On 15 January 2026 Anduril announced a follow-on $23.9 million contract for more than 600 further Bolt-M systems, with deliveries of the munitions and associated ground-control equipment running from February 2026 to April 2027, following roughly 13 months of government testing. Breaking Defense reported in April 2026 that the Marine Corps expected to field live-warhead systems to operational units in the "June timeframe," based on testing at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah.

Design and capabilities

Bolt is a four-rotor VTOL quadcopter rather than a fixed-wing design. Anduril and Breaking Defense give an aircraft weight of about 12 to 15 lb (roughly 5.4–6.8 kg) depending on configuration; the specs block uses the upper figure. Defense News and TWZ report an endurance of more than 40 minutes and a range of about 20 km (12.4–12.5 miles). Troops can unpack and fly the aircraft in under five minutes, and Anduril supplies a mountable ground control station along with an electronic safe-and-arm device so Bolt-M can be transported without risk of detonation.

The armed Bolt-M variant carries a warhead of up to 3 lb (about 1.36 kg); Kraken Kinetics of North Carolina helped design interchangeable anti-personnel and anti-materiel warheads for use against dismounted troops, light vehicles and trench positions. Both variants run on Anduril's Lattice autonomy software: an operator draws a bounding box around a target on a dual electro-optical/infrared camera feed and can set a standoff distance, engagement angle and warhead fuzing, after which Bolt-M can continue to its target even if it loses its communications link, with a human required to finalise the attack order. TWZ describes the autonomy suite as more advanced than that of the long-serving Switchblade loitering munition, which has seen heavy use in Ukraine.

Operational history

Bolt-M is under contract to the US Marine Corps for the OPF-L programme. After a government testing campaign that began following the October 2024 award, Anduril received a follow-on $23.9 million contract in January 2026 for more than 600 additional systems, and Breaking Defense reported that Teledyne's competing Rogue 1 also received a follow-on order of similar size; AeroVironment did not disclose whether it received one. As of April 2026, Marine Corps program manager Col. Bradley Sams said operational units had so far received only inert training rounds and expected to receive live-warhead systems in June 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What is the range of Bolt-M?

Anduril and Defense News give a range of roughly 20 km (about 12.5 miles).

How long can Bolt fly?

More than 40 minutes, according to Anduril, Defense News and TWZ.

What is the difference between Bolt and Bolt-M?

Bolt is the baseline ISR and search-and-rescue configuration; Bolt-M is the armed loitering-munition variant, carrying an interchangeable anti-personnel or anti-materiel warhead of up to 3 lb.

Who operates Bolt-M?

The US Marine Corps, under the Organic Precision Fires-Light programme; Anduril has said multiple other military programmes align with the Bolt-M requirement but has not named additional operators.

How is Bolt-M different from Switchblade?

TWZ reports that Bolt-M's autonomy suite, built on Anduril's Lattice software, is more advanced than that of AeroVironment's Switchblade, which has been in production for over a decade and is used heavily in Ukraine.