Anvil does not carry its own search radar. A human operator retains authority to launch the interceptor and, in the original variant, to command the final ramming pass once the drone has closed to visual range, a design choice meant to keep a person in the loop for lethal or potentially escalatory engagements.² After launch, the quadcopter uses onboard computer vision to track the designated target and can reach speeds of roughly 200 mph (320 km/h) during its terminal run, fast enough to catch most small commercial-derived drones and slow fixed-wing types.^3,4

The system originated as an internal concept at Anduril rather than a formal government requirement. According to the company's own account, engineers built a working prototype "over a weekend," recorded a demonstration video, and sent it to the Pentagon, which responded with a small test order.² Anduril announced Anvil publicly in October 2019 and had, by that point, already delivered early units to the United States and United Kingdom militaries for evaluation, with a further contract to field the drone in overseas combat zones.²

A second, munitions-carrying variant, Anvil-M, followed in October 2023. Rather than destroying its target by collision, Anvil-M carries a fire-control module and a high-explosive payload, intended for faster or more resilient Group 2 threats that a pure ramming kill might not reliably defeat.^5,6 Both variants launch from the same Launch Box, a ruggedized, transportable ground container that Anduril lists as holding two ready rounds and weighing about 253 pounds (115 kg), with external dimensions of roughly 63 by 46 by 30 inches.⁷

Anvil is one entry in a wider Anduril counter-drone product line that also includes the jet-powered Roadrunner interceptor family, the Pulsar electronic-warfare system, and the Sentry/Wisp detection towers, all tied together through Lattice.⁸ Anvil and Roadrunner are distinct products aimed at overlapping but not identical threat sets: Anvil is a smaller, lower-cost, ramming-first design for the bottom of the drone-threat spectrum, while Roadrunner is a larger, reusable, turbojet-powered vehicle built to also reach faster and higher-flying targets.^8,9

Anvil's airframe is a quadcopter roughly comparable in size to a large commercial drone: reporting on company-released figures puts an individual interceptor at about 11.6 pounds (5.3 kg), standing roughly 11.5 inches tall with a 15.5-by-16.0-inch footprint.⁴ The system uses a 50-volt battery pack and a "high-performance drivetrain" with brushless motors and optimized propellers, tuned for short, fast flights rather than sustained patrol, which keeps the airframe light and cheap but limits how long it can loiter waiting for a target.⁷ An onboard illuminator allows the interceptor to identify and close on targets at night or in low-visibility conditions, extending its use beyond daylight intercepts.⁷

Guidance is built around onboard, multi-spectrum computer vision fused with data pushed from the wider sensor network — what Anduril calls "sensor fusion at the edge."⁷ This lets Anvil close on a designated track autonomously, while a human operator still authorizes the launch and, for the ramming variant, the final intercept. The approach avoids the far-field radar-homing seekers used by rocket-propelled interceptors such as Raytheon's Coyote, trading standoff range for a smaller, cheaper airframe that can be produced and stockpiled in larger numbers.

Because Anduril has not published a full data sheet, several performance figures — maximum flight range, endurance, and altitude ceiling in particular — are not confirmed in open sources as of mid-2026. What is documented is the intercept geometry: the interceptor is optimized for the terminal few kilometers of an engagement, after wide-area sensors have already found and classified the threat, rather than for long-range patrol or standoff strike.^1,7 Unit pricing has likewise not been officially disclosed for Anvil specifically, though the broader Anduril counter-drone product line has been described in press reporting as costing in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars per interceptor, a range roughly comparable to the separately disclosed $100,000-125,000 unit cost of the rival Coyote interceptor.²⁸

Anduril first delivered Anvil to US and UK forces for evaluation shortly after its October 2019 unveiling, alongside a contract to deploy the system to overseas combat zones.² The interceptor's first large US government commitment came in January 2022, when US Special Operations Command awarded Anduril a 10-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract worth up to roughly $1 billion (reported variously as $967.6 million to $1 billion) to serve as the systems-integration partner for SOCOM's counter-UAS architecture, beating eleven other bidders. Anvil, alongside the Sentry detection tower, formed the hardware core of that award, all run through Lattice.¹⁴

Anduril unveiled the Anvil-M munitions variant in October 2023, expanding the product beyond pure kinetic ramming.^5,6 The following year, in November 2024, the US Marine Corps awarded Anduril a five-year, roughly $200 million contract to develop a counter-UAS capability for the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS), a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle-mounted air-defense pair that combines radar, missiles, and command-and-control equipment; Anvil was named as the low-collateral kinetic-defeat option within that system.¹⁵

In March 2025, the Marine Corps significantly expanded its commitment, awarding Anduril a $642 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract — beating nine other competitors — to deliver, install, and sustain a "family of systems" for Marine Corps installation defense through March 2035. That family combines Long Range Sensor Towers, the Wisp infrared sensor, Pulsar radio-frequency sensing, electronic-warfare effects, and the Anvil interceptor as the low-collateral kinetic option, all under Lattice.^16,17 Anduril's air-defense general manager, Kyle Erickson, said at the time that the company's "family of systems is deployed at scale with multiple services at multiple locations around the world."¹⁶

Through 2025, Anduril continued testing Anvil as part of a mobile, rapidly deployable "fly-away kit" for homeland air-base defense. In September 2025, an operations and technical team trained on the kit during exercise Falcon Peak 25.2 at Eglin Air Force Base, run by US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command to test counter-drone capabilities for continental air defense.¹⁸ The kit combines a Mobile Sentry sensor, the Anvil interceptor, Wisp in a "SkyFence" configuration, and Pulsar, running on Lattice within FAA airspace rules.¹⁸ The following month, the same team deployed the kit to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, for a week-long field certification between October 21 and 27, 2025, during which an 11-member crew engaged more than 100 drone targets in realistic scenarios, leading USNORTHCOM to certify the Counter-small Unmanned Aerial System fly-away kit for operational use.^19,20

In March 2026, the US Army awarded Anduril a 10-year contract vehicle with a ceiling of up to $20 billion, consolidating more than 120 separate prior procurement actions — including counter-drone work — into a single enterprise agreement centered on Lattice. Officials stressed the figure is a ceiling rather than a guaranteed obligation; the first task order issued under the new vehicle, worth $87 million, assigned Anduril's Lattice software as the tactical command-and-control solution for Joint Interagency Task Force 401's counter-drone mission.^21,22

Anvil's clearest documented operational activation came during Operation Epic Fury, the US military's name for its response posture during the 2026 Iran war. Beginning February 28, 2026, USNORTHCOM's fly-away kit — including the Anvil interceptor, Wisp, Pulsar, and Lattice — was used to respond to a series of small-drone incursions over an undisclosed "strategic" installation in the continental United States.^23,24 A Northern Command spokesperson said the kit "engaged its jamming protocol during these incidents," indicating the response used Pulsar's electronic-warfare effect rather than a kinetic ramming intercept by Anvil itself, and that officials had "not determined nefarious intent" behind the incursions.²⁴ Commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM Gregory Guillot separately confirmed that a drone threat over a strategic installation was countered in the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury.²³

Separately, the same 2026 Iran war produced the strategic rationale behind Anvil's largest confirmed export customer. On June 3, 2026, Iranian drones and missiles struck Kuwait International Airport, killing one person and damaging facilities during the broader Iranian strikes on Kuwait.²⁵ A retired Kuwaiti air force officer said the attack showed how inexpensive Iranian Shahed-type drones — estimated at roughly $50,000 each — could exhaust the interceptor stocks of far costlier systems like Patriot, whose PAC-3 interceptors cost on the order of $4 million apiece, exposing a saturation-attack vulnerability that lower-cost systems such as Anvil and Roadrunner-M are designed to address.²⁶ As of mid-2026, however, the Kuwaiti units remained an approved Foreign Military Sale rather than a fielded or combat-tested capability; no confirmed Anvil intercept in Kuwaiti service has been reported.

Because Anvil has been employed primarily in homeland-defense and installation-security roles against ambiguous drone incursions rather than in sustained combat against an organized adversary force, its record of confirmed kinetic intercepts in an active war zone is thin in open sources as of this writing.

Anvil (base/kinetic) — the original ramming interceptor, in service since 2019, defeats a target purely through high-speed collision, avoiding blast-fragmentation effects near friendly infrastructure or personnel.^2,11

Anvil-M — announced October 2023, this munitions variant adds a fire-control module and an explosive payload to increase lethality against faster, more maneuverable, or more robust Group 2 targets. Anduril said the design incorporated "lessons learned in operational environments and feedback from recent combat operations," without publicly detailing which operations.^5,6 Neil Thurgood, an Anduril senior vice president and retired US Army general, said Anvil-M "was designed to defeat the biggest threats from Group 1 and Group 2 unmanned aircraft systems to ensure air deterrence."⁵

Anvil-Kinetic ("Anvil-K") — the export designation used in the 2026 Kuwaiti sale, referring functionally to the same ramming-kill approach as the original Anvil, packaged for the Foreign Military Sale process alongside Roadrunner-Munition.^12,13

The United States is Anvil's primary operator, fielding the system across the Marine Corps (installation defense and MADIS), Special Operations Command, the Army's emerging enterprise counter-drone architecture, and USNORTHCOM's homeland-defense fly-away kits.^14,16,21 The United Kingdom received early Anvil units alongside the United States around the October 2019 unveiling, though subsequent open-source reporting on the scale or continuation of UK use is limited.²

Kuwait is the first announced export customer. On June 5, 2026, the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs approved a possible $1.98 billion Foreign Military Sale to Kuwait built around Roadrunner-Munition and Anvil-Kinetic interceptors, together with launch boxes, Pulsar electronic-warfare equipment, Long Range and Maritime Sentry towers, Menace tactical operations centers, generators, training, and logistics support.^12,13,27 Industry and trade press described the package as Anduril's first confirmed Foreign Military Sale of both Roadrunner-M and Anvil to any country, and the first such sale to a Gulf state.^12,25 As of mid-2026 the sale had US government approval but had not yet been delivered or fielded.

Anvil sits at the low end of a spectrum of ground-based kinetic counter-drone interceptors that also includes Raytheon's rocket-boosted Coyote and L3Harris's vehicle-mounted VAMPIRE laser-guided rocket system, along with Anduril's own larger, reusable Roadrunner.

Coyote and VAMPIRE both rely on guided rocket propulsion and standoff seekers — radar mid-course guidance for Coyote, semi-active laser homing for VAMPIRE — which extend engagement range well beyond what a battery-powered quadcopter can reach, at the cost of a more complex and more expensive round. Anvil trades that standoff range for a smaller, simpler airframe intended for high-volume production and for engagements where the target has already been localized by an external sensor at short range, making it a complement to, rather than a direct substitute for, rocket-based interceptors.

Within Anduril's own line, Roadrunner-M targets a distinctly different part of the threat set. Where Anvil is a small, largely single-use quadcopter optimized for the cheapest, most numerous Group 1-2 drones, Roadrunner is a twin-turbojet, vertical-takeoff vehicle that Anduril has marketed as reusable — able to abort an intercept, return to its launch container, and be flown again if its payload is not expended, which the company argues lowers the effective cost of intercepting threats that would otherwise require far more expensive munitions.^9,30 The Kuwaiti FMS package purchased both systems together rather than either alone, reflecting a layered-defense logic: Anvil-Kinetic for low-cost, close-in drone threats, and Roadrunner-Munition for faster or more capable targets that a ramming quadcopter could not reliably reach.^12,13

MASS Assessment

MASS scoring rates Anvil across ten components tied to what is publicly documented about the system, rather than a single blended figure.

Mobility (80) is Anvil's standout score: at roughly 5.3 kg and man-portable from a small Launch Box container, it can be carried and set up by a single operator far more readily than Coyote's radar-cued launcher infrastructure or VAMPIRE's vehicle-mounted rocket pod. Defeat effectiveness (60) and technology (70) reflect its Lattice-tied autonomy stack and demonstrated real-world activation, tempered by the fact that its kinetic ram has fewer confirmed intercepts on record than Coyote's documented Al Tanf engagement.

Non-kinetic options (10) is Anvil's clearest weak point: the baseline Anvil is a pure kinetic ram with no alternative soft-kill mode, unlike systems built around jamming or cyber-takeover. Coverage (20) and multi-target capability (30) trail for the same underlying reason as its low-cost design intent — each unit engages one target at a time at short, terminal-phase range once cued by an external sensor, rather than providing its own wide-area detection.

Against Coyote and VAMPIRE, Anvil is the cheapest and simplest of the three — a tradeoff of standoff range and guided-rocket sophistication for a lower unit cost and a smaller logistical footprint.

What does "Group 1" and "Group 2" mean for drone threats? These are US military size/altitude/speed classifications for unmanned aircraft. Group 1 covers the smallest drones (under roughly 20 lbs, low altitude), and Group 2 covers slightly larger systems up to around 55 lbs. Anvil is designed against both categories, not against larger Group 3-5 military drones.¹

Does Anvil use explosives? The original Anvil defeats targets purely by collision. Anvil-M, unveiled in 2023, adds a fire-control module and a high-explosive payload for harder targets.^5,6

Can Anvil detect drones on its own? No. Anvil depends on external sensors — typically Anduril's Sentry towers, Wisp infrared system, or Pulsar radio-frequency detector — feeding tracks through Lattice before the interceptor launches.^1,7

Has Anvil been used in actual combat? Its clearest documented activation was a non-kinetic jamming response to drone incursions over a US installation during Operation Epic Fury in the 2026 Iran war. Open sources do not confirm a kinetic ramming kill by Anvil against a hostile drone in an active war zone as of mid-2026.²⁴

Who else besides the United States operates Anvil? The United Kingdom received early units around 2019. Kuwait is the first announced export customer, via a $1.98 billion Foreign Military Sale approved in June 2026, though delivery had not been confirmed as of this writing.^2,12