MBDA has added a new SPEAR GLIDE variant to its weapons portfolio, presenting it at DSEI 2025 as a lower-cost option designed for high-rate production and rapid entry into service, the company stated.
According to MBDA, SPEAR GLIDE is intended to complement the existing SPEAR and SPEAR-EW systems by providing a cost-effective means of increasing combat mass.
The weapon uses commercial off-the-shelf components and alternative prpoduction lines, with artificial intelligence and image-based navigation enabling performance in GNSS-denied environments.
The company said development of SPEAR GLIDE has been accelerated through use of digital twin technology, leveraging performance data from existing SPEAR variants. By drawing on established infrastructure, loader systems, test equipment and integration solutions, MBDA claims the new variant reduces both risk and acquisition costs.
Eric Béranger, CEO of MBDA, was quoted in the press release as saying: “SPEAR GLIDE embodies MBDA’s commitment to a comprehensive, efficient, integrated weapons portfolio. By offering a lower-cost, higher mass option that fits seamlessly into our family of systems, we are enhancing flexibility and value for sovereign capabilities.”
MBDA described SPEAR GLIDE as a versatile system for precision strike and suppression of enemy air defences, capable of engaging static and mobile targets including soft and moderately hardened sites.
The company stated that its fire-and-forget capability, multiple engagement modes, and high load-out potential make it suitable for mass and saturation effects.
This is exactly what we need. However we are still years away from spear integration on F35 so how are we going to get this on to the F35 fleet. Why no desire to get it on the Typhoon fleet.
Exactly my thought, We shouldn’t be buying anymore F-35 until the block 4 intergration is complete and our missiles are fully intergrated. US companies have really been messing us about in the air domain and we should draw the line.
It is baffling to me that we’re not integrating Spear into Typhoon- a platform that we’ll be using into the early 2040s.
The Spear project is on Amber according to the project office, but it’s unclear from the information I’ve seen whether there’s an element of a problem with the missile itself- or whether it’s simply to do with integration onto F-35. Not sure if anyone else has any better info…
With Leonardo’s pitch about using Typhoon as Europe’s return to SEAD/DEAD, you’d think that integrating Spear and -EW would be a core enabler for that. But that would require some joined up thinking…
Wonder if they are hoping this will get a form of Spear into service earlier than the 2030’s even if limited to Typhoons in RAF service. Especially given the SDB interim buy for the F35’s being looked at. Possibly MBDA’s way of giving an alternative or limiting SDB buys by European air forces and give a viable alternative. Will be interesting to see range of the glide variant.
I don’t know, first it was Sailing Ships, now It’s Spears.
Whatever next ?
Hey, don’t forget about the archers.
MOD sponsored wizards have been cooking up brimstone too…
Thought this might be SPEAR 3 without the engine, but appears to be a new missile, for that reason it will likely not be quick or cheap if designed, proven and produced conventionally.
Perhaps not a missile, but rather a precision guided ‘Glide bomb’.
Yes all these brilliant weapons that the European nations are developing.. but the only jets we are buying at the moment are US jets and the only weapons getting integrated on these jets are US weapons.
I wonder what the weight of this is, remembering that Malloy T-150 can carry nearly 70kg. Delivering this from a low-cost attritible drone would be a huge win, but i’m not sure if they do attritable drones that size.
Maybe Banshees could go that high, thinking about RN Project Vampire, looking for cheap fixed-wing UAV, which seemed to be pushing Banshee 80+ payload upward from the 25kg range. The spec was “Payload bay capabilities between 25Kg and 100kg”, so I wonder how that has progressed in the last three and a half years since the start of Phase 1, given that it was a four year project.
It weighs less than 100 kgs but, with no motor, relies on the kinetic energy from the launch aircraft. So it will be limited to fast jet launch as an alternative to the US SDB. Range is.50 miles.
The big plus is that it can use existing Spear/ Brimstone launch systems, so integration should be easy, except for the F35, as usual.
There should be something high-subsonic that sits between the Banshees, which have been used as one-way strike drones in Ukraine but may not have the lifting power, and something like the Kizilelma, which can take over a ton of munitions, but costs £25m a pop.
I’d still be tempted to put in a bid for building Kizilelmas in the UK, even though Baykar are now partnering with Leonardo, probably to build in Italy.