Anduril Aims for Thousands of Copperhead Torpedoes Annually at a Fraction of Legacy Costs

Defense technology firm Anduril Industries recently unveiled its new Copperhead family of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), including munition variants designed to be mass-produced and deployed from uncrewed systems. The announcement, made at the Sea-Air-Space 2025 exposition, highlights the company's strategy to provide cost-effective, high-volume solutions for modern naval warfare, a significant shift from traditional, expensive torpedo manufacturing. The visual impact of the Copperhead's unveiling, particularly its "banner trick" that made the torpedo appear to "pop out of the screen," was praised by social media user @dcbuilder.eth, who called the creator a "genius."

The Copperhead series includes two primary models: the Copperhead-100 and the larger Copperhead-500. Both are available as "M" (munition) variants, functioning as torpedoes. While dimensionally similar to the U.S. Navy's standard Mk 54 lightweight and Mk 48 heavyweight torpedoes, Anduril's versions are significantly lighter and feature a unique rectangular hull. This design choice, according to Anduril Senior Vice President of Programs and Engineering Shane Arnott, simplifies production, enabling the company to produce "very high hundreds to 1000s of these systems a year," a stark contrast to the much smaller annual volumes of legacy torpedoes.

Anduril developed the Copperhead to address the evolving landscape of maritime threats, particularly from adversaries like China and Russia who are heavily investing in uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) and surface vessels (USVs). The company emphasizes that these new torpedoes are a "fraction of the cost" of existing traditional torpedoes, making them economically viable for engaging a wider range of targets, including enemy UUVs and USVs. This approach aims to provide navies with overwhelming mass and flexibility in contested underwater environments.

The Copperhead AUVs are designed for deployment from larger autonomous platforms, such as Anduril's Dive-XL and Dive-LD UUVs, which can carry multiple Copperhead-100Ms or several Copperhead-500Ms. The systems leverage Anduril's Lattice software platform, enabling autonomous decision-making within operator-defined parameters and allowing for software-only upgrades to adapt to evolving threats. Furthermore, unlike traditional single-use torpedoes, the Copperhead variants are designed to be recoverable, refurbished, and reusable, further enhancing their cost-effectiveness.

Beyond their munition role, Copperhead AUVs can be configured with various payloads, including active and passive sensors, magnetometers, side-scan sonar, and chemical detection equipment, supporting missions such as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and environmental monitoring. Anduril's rapid development and production capabilities aim to disrupt the traditional defense industrial base, offering a path to quickly scale advanced autonomous systems to meet urgent national security needs.