Switchblade 300 vs Lancet-3
The US Switchblade 300 and Russia's Lancet-3 are often compared as light loitering munitions. The backpack-sized Switchblade (about 0.6 metres) has a reference range of some 10 km; the roughly 1-metre Lancet reaches about 40 km. The Switchblade's maker does not publish its warhead weight, and the Lancet figures are open-source estimates, so the payload comparison remains open.
Size to scale
Lancet-3 is 1.7 times larger than Switchblade 300 · Range: a 4× difference
Reference range
Switchblade 300 — 10 km
Lancet-3 * — 40 km
Logarithmic scale from 1 km to 100,000 km.
Payload or warhead
Switchblade 300 — n/a / not published
Lancet-3 * — 3 kg
Logarithmic scale from 1 kg to 10,000 kg.
Switchblade 300
0.6 m · 10 km · n/a / not published
Light loitering munition; the maker does not publish its warhead weight.
Lancet-3 *
1 m · 40 km · 3 kg
Russian loitering munition (ZALA); open-source figures, not officially verified.
* Open-source estimate. Range may be control-link, flight or ferry range depending on the system; it is not a combat radius.
Figures used and how reliable they are
- Switchblade 300: 0.6 m, 10 km, n/a / not published. Light loitering munition; the maker does not publish its warhead weight.
- Lancet-3*: 1 m, 40 km, 3 kg. Russian loitering munition (ZALA); open-source figures, not officially verified.
* Lancet-3: estimated or disputed figure; it does not come from a verifiable official data sheet and should be read as indicative.
Related comparisons
Compare any other pair in the military drone comparison, with its full method. More context: Modern warfare · Weapons · All tools
Sources / References
- U.S. Air Force official fact sheets for the MQ-1, MQ-9 and RQ-4.
- Baykar, AeroVironment and Teledyne FLIR public product sheets.
- RUSI reports on drone use in Ukraine.
- CSIS and IISS open-source analysis of Shahed, Lancet and Orlan.