US defence firm Covenant has unveiled its Anthem, a ground-launched cruise missile capable of carrying a heavy payload with low unit cost high volume manufacturing. The missile is designed to have over 200kg pay load, and the system is designed to complement established long-range weapons such as Tomahawk and JASSM-ER. Anthem utilizes a solid rocket booster during the boost phase, with a heavy fuel jet engine used during cruise. Covenant states the missile underwent more than 200 flights prior to the unveiling; The firm is aiming at a price of between mid- and high-six digits per missile when in full production.
Manufacturing capacity is the focus of the program, and Covenant has opened up a new 105,00-sqft facility in Dallas intended to build up to 5,000 missiles a year, and is planning an equivalently sized, equivalent-capacity facility in Germany along with an Israeli facility planned to build up to 2,000 units a year. It is estimated Covenant has about $150 million in orders and plans to increase production through 2027. The company has chosen a number of rocket-motor manufacturers and pre-signed thousand-unit long-term contracts for jet engines as a remedy for this bottleneck. Its example is indicative of a broader defence industry trend towards low-cost smart weapons built using scalable commercial manufacturing.
