Spain’s Indra unveils Squall, a new low-cost cruise missile for ‘mass attacks’

MILAN — Spanish defense manufacturer Indra has unveiled a new, low-cost cruise missile for striking targets more than 300 kilometres (186 miles) away, the company says.

The company showcased the system, dubbed Squall, for the first time at the Unvex drone trade fair in Spain on Sept. 16.

In a press release, Indra did not indicate a price point. Still, it described the missile as a low-cost system for operations ranging from “surgical strikes involving a small number of units” to “mass attacks,” in which many would be deployed simultaneously to overwhelm adversarial defenses.

Per Indra, the Squall can be integrated into both land and naval platforms. The company stated that the system can fly at low altitudes to avoid enemy radars and can be equipped with anti-jamming and anti-spoofing guidance and navigation systems.

To date, the Spanish Armed Forces have no formal or publicly known requirement for such a missile, but there is growing demand across the globe for smaller strike weapons. And over the last year, defense companies have been churning out models of what they market as low-cost weapons, reflecting lessons from drone and missile attrition wars such as the war in Ukraine and the Iran conflict about the unsustainability of relying on expensive missiles to counter cheaper threats. 

Alongside Squall, the Spanish manufacturer also unveiled its Drizzle effector drone, which it says was developed to neutralize drones and hit “light assets” located at a maximum distance of 130 kilometres, or around 80 miles.