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Israel has signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of War to buy 12 Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, the newest version of the Apache, with deliveries scheduled to begin early in the next decade, the Israel Ministry of Defense said on Oct. 14. The ministry’s director general, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Baram, instructed Israel’s […]View the full article

A small Performance Drone Works quadcopter carrying a Leonardo DRS laser designator guided precision mortar rounds onto targets beyond the normal maximum range of a 120 mm mortar during a recent test for U.S. Army special operations forces at Dugway, Utah, Leonardo DRS said on Oct. 14. The company said its STAG-5 electro-optical and infrared […]View the full article

The German Air Force has fired its new IRIS-T SLM air defense system for the first time at the NATO Missile Firing Installation on Crete, completing the operational certification the system needed before it can be relied on in German service, manufacturer Diehl Defence said this week. Air Defence Missile Group 61, the unit based […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force went looking for three new flight test ideas for its AI-controlled X-62 VISTA research jet and came away with more than 30, after the first research symposium built around the aircraft drew over 80 participants to Edwards Air Force Base, California, in August. The three-day meeting at the U.S. Air Force […]View the full article

U.S. drone maker WingXpand has unveiled xPAIR, a removable control unit that the company says can be moved between its small fixed-wing aircraft, a ground vehicle and a small boat, letting one set of AI software and sensors run uncrewed systems in the air, on land and on water. The Schaumburg, Illinois, company introduced the […]View the full article

A Ukrainian Air Force Il-76MD heavy transport aircraft was tracked on Oct. 12 flying out of Sharurah, a Saudi town in Najran Province near the border with Yemen, in a rare appearance of a Ukrainian military cargo plane in the south of the kingdom. Flight-tracking data shared by the open-source account Egypt’s Intel Observer shows […]View the full article

The U.S. Marine Corps is buying a small tracked cargo loader that can pick a fully loaded 4,500 kg (10,000-pound) air cargo pallet off the ground and still fit inside an MV-22 Osprey, under a contract worth more than $10 million to Las Vegas-based S.A.F.E. Structure Designs. The company announced the award for its SAFE […]View the full article

Leonardo DRS has won a spot on a Pentagon counter-drone contract worth up to $500 million, giving the company a path to sell its tactical radars to Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the U.S. Department of War organization set up last year to speed anti-drone gear to troops. The company announced the three-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award […]View the full article

German startup Reactive Dynamics says combat troops have put its RDX 1 tracked unmanned ground vehicle through its first tactical trials, using it to haul supplies and carry soldiers, evacuate casualties and run reconnaissance patrols by day and night. The company said the tests took place last week with frontline units and also covered using […]View the full article

Israeli loitering munition maker Uvision is showing an eight-canister launcher for its HERO 120 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, pitching the remotely operated system as a way to spread strike capacity across land and maritime platforms and tie it to the company’s AI-enabled CORTEX mission management software. The Multi-Canister […]View the full article

It is on rare occasion that we do a guest post here, but friend to the blog, Midrats Podcast alumnus, and co-host the CavasShips podcast, Chris Servello put together an inspired review of the moment we are at, this decision point, our nation has as a naval power. A must read. Chris, over to you. Standing in Greenwich, on the outskirts of London, surrounded by museum ships, artifacts and reminders of centuries of British seapower, I found myself thinking less about the past than about America’s maritime future. That may sound like an odd conclusion to draw in a museum. But every gallery seemed to make the same point: naval power is not inherited forever. It depends on decisions made years before the consequences become obvious. I came to London last week for APEX Europe, a thought and defense tech conference where defense leaders from across NATO are talking about the approaches, capabilities and investments that will shape future security. Those conversations felt more urgent after spending time in Greenwich. The museums made clear that maritime strength is about much more than ships. It depends on industrial capacity, technological imagination, national will and the willingness to act before a crisis makes action unavoidable. That raises a difficult question for the United States: Are we making the decisions today that will preserve American maritime power tomorrow? I’ll acknowledge something up front. I know I can sound like a broken record on this subject: act now, make hard choices, invest in the industrial base, embrace new technology, take care of our sailors and save our Navy. But it’s hard not to keep saying it. I can’t read another story about shipbuilding, listen to another speech about maritime strategy or visit another American or allied naval museum without reaching the same conclusion: This is our moment. For the United States Navy. For the maritime services. And for the nation. Walk through the quaint town of Greenwich and you are surrounded by evidence of what maritime power meant to Britain—not just militarily, but economically, technologically and strategically. British seapower was never an isolated military capability. It was tied to the country’s industrial strength, commercial reach, technological innovation and national ambition. What struck me most is that these museums are not really about old ships, paintings or artifacts. They are about choices. Some were smart. Some were disastrous. Some were made early enough to shape history. Others came only after events had made the cost of waiting impossible to ignore. There is a lesson in that for America today. Maritime power is not something a nation inherits forever because previous generations built a great Navy. Every generation has to choose it again. Ours is making that choice right now. We are making it through the ships we fund—and the ones we do not. Through the capacity we add to our shipyards, the workforce we recruit and retain, the weapons and munitions we procure, and the infrastructure we modernize. We are making it through our willingness to experiment with autonomous and unmanned systems, super intelligence and other emerging technologies. More important, we are making it through our ability to move successful ideas out of demonstrations and into the hands of sailors. And we are making it through our people: whether we give sailors, Marines, civilians and industry partners the resources, training, tools and leadership they need to solve hard problems instead of simply discussing them. None of these challenges are secrets. We know the condition of the American maritime industrial base. We know how long it takes to build and maintain ships. We know the pressures facing our workforce and supply chains. We can see the pace at which potential adversaries are expanding their maritime capacity. We also know that technology is changing warfare at remarkable speed. So this is not primarily a problem of awareness. It is a problem of action. America still has enormous advantages: remarkable sailors and Marines, world-class engineers and entrepreneurs, tremendous technological capacity, experienced allies and partners, and a private sector capable of moving quickly when given the opportunity. But opportunities have expiration dates. That is the part I keep coming back to—the part that, I admit, can make me sound like an old compact disc stuck on repeat. Someday, there will be museums telling the story of the Navy we are building—or failing to build—right now. Future generations will know what we knew. They will know what China was building. They will know the condition of our shipyards and industrial base. They will know which technologies were emerging. They will know what military leaders, policymakers, analysts and industry executives were saying. They will also know what we chose to do about it. That is why protecting America’s maritime legacy is not about nostalgia. History should not become an excuse to admire the past while competitors build for the future. The point of preserving history is to learn from it. The museums in Greenwich are a powerful reminder of what can happen when a nation understands that its security, prosperity and global influence are inseparable from the sea. It is also a reminder that maritime dominance is neither permanent nor guaranteed. America has its own extraordinary maritime inheritance. But inheritance is not destiny. We have to build. We have to experiment. We have to learn faster. We have to accept some risk and tolerate some failure. We have to expand industrial capacity, invest in our people and move promising technology from PowerPoint slides and demonstrations into the hands of sailors at sea. Most of all, we have to act with the urgency this moment demands. History will not simply record the challenges America faced during this period. It will record the choices we made. And the opportunities we either seized—or allowed to expire. Chris Servello is the co-founder of Provision Advisors PR and Government relations firm, as well as the co-host of the award winning maritime podcast CavasShips. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

The U.S. Navy is building up its stocks of spare parts for the radars and fire-control gear on its Aegis warships, ordering $15.1 million worth of components from Raytheon in a deal it tied directly to the surface fleet’s goal of keeping 75 mission-capable ships ready on any given day. The Department of War contract […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded Lockheed Martin a $117.1 million contract to keep supporting the second-generation radar frequency interferometer on its Apache attack helicopters, a passive sensor that lets crews find and pinpoint enemy radars without giving away their own position. The Department of War contract announcement describes an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity deal that mixes cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding a $56.2 million contract for engineering and design work on nuclear-powered submarines for America’s AUKUS partners, with foreign partner funds covering the full cost of the deal. The Department of War contract announcement describes a cost-plus-fixed-fee deal covering engineering and technical support, along with […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Raytheon a contract worth up to $8 billion to modernize and restart production of the satellite communications terminals that link the president and military commanders to U.S. nuclear forces, the U.S. Department of War announced on Oct. 13. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract covers development work to modernize the Air […]View the full article

Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec is pitching its new 30 mm ZAK-30 “Tsitadel” anti-drone gun as a direct competitor to Western systems such as Germany’s Skynex and the U.S.-made Phalanx, saying its combat use has shown advantages in automation, cost per shot, and effectiveness on the world market. Rostec made the claim in a statement […]View the full article

Ukraine’s partners warned it about three of the four waves of Russian ballistic missiles launched overnight into Oct. 14, but sent no alert before the first wave hit Kyiv, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Col. Yurii Ihnat said on national television. Ihnat said he wanted to clarify the issue because many people had asked whether Ukraine […]View the full article

Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian strikes has been limited by two U.S. moves in a single night: the country went without early warning of Russian ballistic missile launches from its partners for a second time in a row, and Starlink, the U.S. satellite service its frontline units depend on, was cut back for […]View the full article

Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions at Ukraine’s energy and critical infrastructure overnight into Oct. 14, knocking out power to at least 600,000 people days after President Donald Trump announced a halt to strikes on energy facilities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Zelenskyy said that the attack […]View the full article

China has developed a new light, highly mobile rocket launcher built on an upgraded version of the Dongfeng Mengshi MV3 tactical truck, carrying a 20-round launch pod that can fire guided or unguided 122 mm rockets out to 40 km (25 miles), according to images and details shared by Chinese military commentator DS北风 on X. […]View the full article

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has opened a new national defense museum packed with the country’s missiles, rocket launchers and drones, and among the exhibits is a previously unseen 4×4 armored vehicle that closely resembles the Canadian-made Roshel Senator used by Ukraine. State news agency KCNA reported on Oct. 13 that Kim attended the […]View the full article

Russia has nearly finished the steel frames for the first three of 16 large aircraft shelters it is building at Engels-2, the main base for its strategic bomber fleet, satellite imagery published by open-source analysis group AviVector shows. An Airbus Defence and Space image dated Oct. 12 shows three side-by-side shelter frames standing on new […]View the full article

DARPA, the Pentagon’s research agency, has awarded Abram Scientific a contract worth up to $8.3 million to develop CoagCare, a handheld device that shows how well a wounded person’s blood is clotting in under 10 minutes from a single drop, so medics can decide on transfusions far from a hospital. The Defense Advanced Research Projects […]View the full article

BIRD Aerosystems has installed its Airborne Missile Protection System on a Bombardier Global 7500 business jet and received European Union Aviation Safety Agency certification for the installation, giving the long-range VIP aircraft protection against shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles. The Israeli company, part of U.S.-listed Ondas Holdings, announced the milestone on Oct. 12. EASA approval means the […]View the full article

Leonardo DRS has won a $63 million U.S. Army production order for its Family of Weapon Sights–Individual, a clip-on thermal sight that sends its image wirelessly to a soldier’s night vision goggles so a target can be found and aimed at without raising the rifle to the eye. DRS announced the order on Oct. 13, […]View the full article