Tanks That Launch Drones: PERCH 2.0 Puts Switchblade Loitering Munitions on Abrams

An Abrams tank crew spots an enemy position hiding behind a ridge they cannot see over — and instead of calling for help and waiting, they launch a small drone from their own turret, watch it circle the target, and dive it straight in, all without opening a single hatch. That is the idea behind PERCH 2.0, General Dynamics Land Systems' updated drone-launcher kit for US Army armor — and by the end of October 2026, four prototypes will be in soldiers' hands at Fort Hood, bolted onto Abrams tanks and ready to be pulled apart by the people who would actually have to fight with it.

Concept illustration.

What PERCH 2.0 Is — and What It Is Not

PERCH stands for Precision Effects & Reconnaissance, Canister-Housed — a mouthful that describes something refreshingly simple. It is a canister launcher kit that carries AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munitions on the outside of an armored vehicle, wired into the crew's world inside it. The kit mounts on both the Abrams main battle tank and the Stryker armored vehicle.

The mounting method is the detail armor officers will care about most. There is no welding and no cutting. From earlier demonstration reporting, the kit replaces the loader's sponson box — a storage box on the turret — and bolts onto existing attachment points. That means a unit can fit PERCH in the field, remove it just as cleanly, and hand the tank back without a depot visit or a scarred turret. In an army that guards its maintenance hours jealously, a bolt-on capability is a capability that actually gets used.

And PERCH is explicitly not a finished weapon being issued to units. The four prototypes heading to the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood are for integration work and soldier experimentation — real crews, real tanks, honest feedback. GDLS executive Scott Taylor, the company's director of US growth, has framed this phase as putting the refined design in front of the formation that will tell the company what still does not work.

First, a Plain-English Guide to the Switchblade

If you have never met the ammunition, here is the whole concept in one breath. A Switchblade is a loitering munition: a small, tube-launched flying weapon with folding wings and a camera in its nose. It does not race straight at a target like a missile. It launches, pops its wings out, and circles — loiters — above the battlefield while its operator watches its camera feed and looks for a target. Once the target is confirmed, the operator sends it into a terminal dive, and the Switchblade strikes with a small explosive charge carried in its body.

Think of it as a grenade that can wait, watch and choose its moment — a scout and a strike weapon in the same tube. For a tank crew, that changes what “line of sight” means. A tank gun is a magnificent weapon against things the crew can see. A Switchblade lets the same crew find, watch and hit things they cannot see at all: a mortar team behind a building, an anti-tank crew in a treeline, a vehicle tucked behind the next ridge.

Concept illustration.

What Changed in Version 2.0: The Army Talked, GDLS Listened

The first PERCH debuted at the AUSA conference last year, and GDLS built it the old-fashioned way — with its own money. The company funded development through internal research and development, or IRAD, after studying reporting from the war in Ukraine, where small drones and loitering munitions rewrote armored warfare in real time, and after direct conversations with field commanders in Europe and leaders in the Army's III Armored Corps. Version 2.0 is what happened after soldiers got their hands on version 1.0 and complained constructively.

Smaller Munitions, More of Them

The headline change is a swap: PERCH 2.0 moves from the larger Switchblade 600 to the smaller Switchblade 300. On paper that looks like a downgrade. In a turret canister, it is a trade soldiers asked for — the smaller round means more munitions stored in the same space and easier, faster reloads when the first ones are gone. A tank that carries a few large strikes has a capability. A tank that carries many small ones has a habit it can use all day, against the soft, scattered targets — infantry teams, light vehicles, drone crews — that dominate a modern battlefield far more often than enemy tanks do.

See Further, Shoot Without Opening Up

Two further upgrades target survivability. Beyond-line-of-sight capability is enhanced, extending how far and how reliably the crew can operate the munition once it is over the horizon of hills, woods and city blocks. And the system now lets the crew fire without opening their hatches. That sounds minor until you picture the alternative: in a fight where the sky itself is hunting — enemy drones overhead, snipers watching, artillery registered on your position — an open hatch is an invitation. A crew that can scout and strike while staying buttoned up inside the armor keeps both its new capability and its oldest protection.

From Demonstration to Experiment: The Story So Far

PERCH did not appear from nowhere this month. Before the AUSA debut, GDLS ran an earlier demonstration at Fort Hood under the MARS banner, in which an Abrams launched both Switchblade 300 and Switchblade 600 munitions in support of an obstacle breach — the brutal, exposed operation where engineers clear mines and barriers while the enemy shoots at them. It was a well-chosen test case: a breach is exactly where a tank crew most needs eyes and strikes beyond the obstacle belt in front of them, and exactly where stopping to coordinate outside help costs the most time and blood.

The October delivery follows that logic to its next step. Four prototypes, one brigade, one purpose: find out whether the concept survives contact with ordinary soldiers, ordinary maintenance schedules and ordinary Texas mud — before anyone talks about buying it in quantity.

The Comparison: What a Tank Gains, Option by Option

• Main gun: devastating, instant — and useless against anything the crew cannot see. Range is not the limit; the horizon is.
• Calling artillery or air support: powerful, but shared with every other unit, dependent on communications, and measured in minutes when a loitering anti-tank team may give you seconds.
• Dismounted scouts: the traditional answer to dead ground — and the most dangerous job on the battlefield, done by soldiers outside the armor.
• PERCH + Switchblade: organic to the single tank, launched in moments, eyes and strike in one package, effective against targets the crew has never directly seen — at the cost of canister space, reload discipline and one more system for the crew to master.

Put in salvo terms: before PERCH, one Abrams brought exactly one kind of reach to a fight — direct fire. With a loaded canister, that same tank brings its gun plus a small magazine of precision strikes it controls itself. Multiply that by a company, then a brigade, and the formation's total precision-fire capacity grows without a single extra artillery battery being attached.

Why It Matters

Ukraine taught every army the same uncomfortable lesson: armor without its own drones is half-blind, and half-blind armor dies to weapons a fraction of its price. The expensive argument since then has been about how to fix it — new vehicles, dedicated drone units, or kits that upgrade the fleets armies already own. PERCH is the strongest form of the third answer. It costs a sponson box, not a new hull. It rides on a development budget a company spent on its own initiative, informed by a real war and real corps-level feedback. And its 2.0 changes — smaller munitions for volume, closed-hatch firing, better beyond-line-of-sight reach — read like a checklist written by crews, not marketers.

There is a deeper shift underneath, too. For a century, a tank's job ended at the edge of what its optics could see. Giving every tank its own loitering munitions quietly redefines the vehicle: from a gun that sometimes gets information, into a sensor-shooter that happens to also carry a very large gun.

Frequently Asked Questions

When do the PERCH 2.0 prototypes arrive, and who gets them?

Four prototypes are due by the end of October 2026, delivered to the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, for integration on Abrams tanks and soldier experimentation — testing and feedback, not combat fielding.

Why did PERCH 2.0 switch from the Switchblade 600 to the 300?

Army feedback. The smaller Switchblade 300 allows more munitions to be stored in the canister and makes reloading easier — trading single-shot size for magazine depth and practicality, the trade crews preferred after using the first version.

Does fitting PERCH damage or permanently modify the tank?

No. The kit is a bolt-on design: it replaces the loader's sponson box and attaches to existing mounting points, with no welding or cutting, so it can be fitted and removed without altering the turret structure.

Can the crew really fire it with the hatches closed?

Yes — that is one of the headline 2.0 improvements. The crew can launch and operate the munition from inside the armor, which matters enormously on a battlefield watched by enemy drones and snipers.

Our Take

The smartest weapons programs of this decade will not all be new vehicles — some will be clever boxes bolted onto vehicles the Army already owns by the thousand. PERCH 2.0 is exactly that: a modest-looking canister that turns the world's most famous tank into its own drone operator, scout and precision artillery, in one crew, under armor. The Fort Hood experiments will decide whether soldiers love it or merely tolerate it, and their verdict matters more than any brochure. But the direction is unmistakable. The tank is not dying. It is growing eyes that can fly over the next ridge — and teeth that dive.

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