The Crimson Wolf Missiles will present Marine rotary wing platforms with long-range precision strike functionality, enabling inexpensive fight mass for floor strikes in a maritime situation.
L3Harris and Naval Air Programs Command (NAVAIR) introduced on Jan. 30, 2026 a significant progress within the Precision Assault Strike Munition (PASM) program for the U.S. Marine Corps, with an $86.2 million award to develop, take a look at and manufacture the Crimson Wolf launched results automobile.
The contract requires L3Harris to ship all models, manuals, coaching, assist gear, and take a look at gear for the AH-1Z Viper assault helicopter – the missile’s major provider platform that has been testing the weapon for some years now – by late fiscal yr 2027. The variety of missiles to be produced has not been disclosed.
Whereas L3Harris recognized the particular system because the Crimson Wolf and NAVAIR talked about the fee, the latter additionally talked about this was a Different Transaction Settlement/Authority (OTA) award. The Direct and Time Delicate Strike Weapons program workplace (PMA-242) selected this route “to streamline analysis and growth and prototype growth.”
L3Harris additionally mentioned the methods have undergone 52 take a look at fires to date, however didn’t point out the particular figures of every Crimson and Inexperienced Wolf variant.
Extra vary. Extra precision. Extra lethality: The @USMC is fast-tracking the brand new Precision Assault Strike Munition (PASM)! Following profitable testing by #HX21 in 2025, the Navy has awarded L3Harris Applied sciences the contract to convey this weapon to our AH-1Z Viper fleet. pic.twitter.com/es0sccb2IC
— NAVAIR (@NAVAIRNews) February 2, 2026
L3Harris and NAVAIR additionally launched a brand new picture of two of the missiles beneath the stub wings of an AH-1Z Viper of the Air Take a look at and Analysis Squadron (HX) 21, capturing a better, entrance side shot. As per particulars on DVIDS, the picture was taken on Sep. 9, 2025, and printed on Feb. 2, 2026, and pertained to a take a look at that occurred in late 2025 off the coast of Virginia, as per the caption.
This take a look at could also be a part of the “low-altitude take a look at firing” that L3Harris had introduced on Dec. 19, 2025. L3Harris beforehand mentioned this take a look at was held in September 2025.
Essential, cost-effective mass for uneven threats
L3Harris’ chairman and CEO Christopher Kubasik mentioned that the Crimson Wolf fills a “hole in trendy warfare with long-range precision weapons capabilities,” mirrored within the “current conflicts and incursions over NATO airspace, notably with the elevated use of mass-produced drones.” This “demonstrates the pressing want for cost-effective options to beautiful munitions,” the place the Crimson Wolf brings the “inexpensive mass to the Marine’s arsenal of superior munitions.”
We’ve been chosen by @NAVAIRNews to develop, take a look at and manufacture Crimson Wolf ™ automobiles for @USMC’s Precision Assault Strike Munition program – enhancing long-range precision weapons capabilities which can be essential to trendy warfare. Study extra: pic.twitter.com/MBj7x6eEwl
— L3Harris (@L3HarrisTech) January 30, 2026
The Marines have lengthy sought a weapon to have ranges better than the prolonged vary variants of the Hellfire, just like the AGM-114R-4, or the JAGM’s ‘MR’ variant, which might contact distances of 21 miles and 10 miles, respectively. L3Harris places the Crimson and Inexperienced Wolf’s vary at 200+ nautical miles at low altitudes and an endurance of over 60 minutes, “far exceeding the single-digit vary of different rocket-launched missiles.”
“The system’s past line-of-sight communication and autonomous over-the-horizon engagements will dramatically improve the variety of plane obtainable for strike missions,” the corporate added. NAVAIR in the meantime burdened on how the contract as a “a essential element of the Marine Corps’ imaginative and prescient for enhancing the lethality and survivability of its rotary-wing property.”
NAVAIR, in all its press releases about this system since 2025, has emphasised on the maritime strike position of the missile. It primarily includes firing the missile on PLA Navy floor combatants, for gentle disabling hits on the principle sensor masts, as per idea movies by L3Harris, previous to what could possibly be bigger follow-on anti-shipping operations by naval fighters.
Earlier U.S. Marine Corps’ drills have concerned AGM-179 JAGM missiles fired from AH-1Z Vipers in opposition to a maritime goal within the Indo-Pacific. NAVAIR mentioned that the PASM affords to the Marine Corps a “cost-effective, longer-range, precision weapon” for various “kinetic and non-kinetic results” from “AH-1Z plane in land and sea-based environments.”
With 45 flights and counting, Crimson Wolf ™ and Inexperienced Wolf ™ guarantee warfighters have a essential battlefield edge when it issues most. Study extra: #AUSA2025 pic.twitter.com/het0wEiJBh
— L3Harris (@L3HarrisTech) October 7, 2025
Marines and L3Harris held the 52 Joint Functionality Know-how Demonstration (JCTD) assessments to amass the ultimate PASM system, proving its means to allow a “low-altitude, rotary-wing plane to carry out offensive anti-surface warfare and maritime strikes.” These demonstrations then lastly knowledgeable the most recent contract.
PMA-242 program supervisor Capt. Lindsey Buzzell known as using an OTA contract as “a key a part of this technique, designed to quickly prototype and subject a functionality that’s important for operations in contested environments and in opposition to superior adversaries.”
Clearer view of missiles
The missiles have additionally now come into a greater view, providing a clearer have a look at the design configuration as in comparison with earlier photos from NAVAIR and L3Harris. On the identical time, they bear some divergence from the precise examples and renditions beforehand launched by the corporate.
The wait is over.
Introducing Crimson Wolf ᵀᴹ and Inexperienced Wolf ᵀᴹ, the primary automobiles in our increasing pack of launched results methods. pic.twitter.com/d4oG7fgeE4
— L3Harris (@L3HarrisTech) July 17, 2025
The Crimson Wolf and Inexperienced Wolf missiles are oriented in the direction of kinetic and non-kinetic digital warfare respectively, for use in maritime warfare situations. They’re collectively described because the Lengthy-Vary Assault Missile (LRAM), a part of the PASM Program of Document (PoR). On the time of the September 2025 take a look at, L3Harris had mentioned it had carried out 45 take a look at fires for “a number of DoD prospects” and matured the design over the course of the marketing campaign.
This explains discernible variations between L3Harris’ official unveilings of the Crimson Wolf and Inexperienced Wolf and the stay examples – the November 2024 trial from the AH-1Z Viper at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, the U.S. Military’s Challenge Convergence Capstone 4 multinational train in 2024 and the aforementioned September 2025 take a look at over the Atlantic Take a look at Vary.
#ICYMI Lengthy Vary Precision Fires (LRPF) was efficiently executed at Yuma Proving Grounds in Yuma, AZ, Nov 2024. The occasion was accomplished with an AH-1Z Viper launching a single weapon by the use of a wi-fi software. #MakeAnImpact #MarineCorpsAviation pic.twitter.com/RBksnVLsup
— NAVAIR (@NAVAIRNews) February 14, 2025
For one, the underside protrusion that was assessed to be a ventral air consumption, now seems to be the hub of the 2 fold-out wings – a characteristic clearly seen within the official models and graphic illustrations by L3Harris. The Crimson and Inexperienced Wolf unveiled by L3Harris have a plus-form tail, whereas the stay missiles beneath the AH-1Zs have an X-form tail. The most recent picture additionally seems to point out the shovel-like nostril seen within the ideas and show models by L3Harris.
