MBDA Crossbow

The MBDA Crossbow, presented as the Crossbow One Way Effector Heavy, is a ground-launched deep strike weapon that MBDA unveiled at the DSEI exhibition in London in September 2025. It is a one way effector, an expendable air vehicle that flies to its target and is destroyed with it, meant to give armed forces affordable combat mass at long range. The airframe is a plain cylinder about 5.3 metres long with a wingspan of roughly 3 metres, and a compact turbojet engine sits in a pod above the rear fuselage instead of inside the body, a choice made to cut manufacturing cost. It carries a warhead or other payload of up to 300 kilograms to ranges beyond 800 kilometres and launches from the back of a vehicle. MBDA reported that the design went from a paper concept to a demonstration-ready prototype in seven months, using military and commercial off-the-shelf parts, with production possible from the second quarter of 2026.