All Activity

Some sources: “War in Ukraine. Volume 2: Russian Invasion, February 2022. Tom Cooper, Adrien Fontanellaz, Edward Crowther and Milos Sipos. Helion Books 2023. Hostomel: 3,502 Meters That Broke the “Kyiv in Three Days...— Ukrinform.https://warontherocks.com/the-battle-of-hostomel-airport-a-key-moment-in-russias-defeat-in-kyiv/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antonov_Airport https://theaviationgeekclub.com/russias-implausible-claim-that-200-helicopters-took-part-in-antonov-airport-assault-the-disastrous-russian-seize-of-hostomel-airport/ https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project-case-study-12-battle-of-kyiv/

Assault on Hostomel-Antonov Airport. February 24, 2022. Historical Scenario. Assault on Hostomel-Antonov Airport. February 24, 2022. Historical Scenario. A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for EC2003 Battle for the Mediterranean Battleset and the HCDB2-170909 (or later) 1980-2025 era Platform Database. This scenario is designed with Advanced Scenario Editor Build 2017.013 and to be run with HCE 2015.008+ or later. This scenario is designed to be played from the Blue/Ukrainian side or from the Red/Russian side. You should play a few times first the Blue side to avoid spoilers, and only later play the Red side. Image: The only one An-225 Mriya (Dream) destroyed in the Hostomel-Antonov airport aside many other destroyed aircrafts, photo took fifty days after the Russian invasion, and released for enhancing the idea of resistance. The largest and most powerful transport aircraft on the planet had set 240 world records, but for the Ukrainians Dream will never die. Photo by KCSA, Oleksii Samsonov, and this file comes from the website of the Kyiv City Council and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. and took from Wikipedia Commons. From the eventful year of 2014 (Mainly from the Russian invasion of Crimea) the world was beginning clearly the so-called Second Cold War, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB lieutenant colonel) was showing clearly his plan to recover the Russian Empire including previous Soviet territories for reinstitute the greatness of "his" Russia, and to guarantee his passage on the History as saviour of the Rodina. After the massive Russian build-up of forces from late 2021 in Russia and Belarus near the Ukrainian border, NATO forces were forced to an increased and constant deployment near Ukraine and the Eastern Mediterranean, to deterrent Putin's ambition. The probably original plan was to avoid an intervention by NATO ground forces but preventing the Russian main forces to enter Ukrainian territory, and to get this target to establish an air and sea exclusion zone around and over Ukraine. But at last, on February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine against most forecast, sinking the world in a new state of international relations, as consequence of a long and failed campaign of unexpected outcomes. One of the first military actions was a Russian heliborne assault (From the theoretically “neutral” Belarus! Also Russian armoured columns came from Belarus) on the Hostomel-Antonov international cargo airport and testing facility, some 20 nautical miles from the Ukrainian capital city, Kyiv. The original Russian idea was the late arrival of airborne troops on Hostomel-Antonov via Il-76 Candid, but the runway was very damaged after the initial battle. The surprise of improvised defence by very small Ukrainian forces turn the Russians away from the airport grounds in the evening of the same February 24 and very possibly preventing the occupation of Kyiv by Russia. But the next day a second wave heliborne and armoured force took the airport for the invader Russians. But the airport was abandoned on April 2 by the Russian forces when them “strategically” retired from the Kyiv Oblast. The forces available to both sides are very small in this scenario, to reflect the chaos and surprise of the Russian invaders in face of the opposition of the Ukranian forces, and the improvised defence by the Ukranian side. Another legend born those days was the MIG-29 “Ghost of Kyiv”, some of it is also reflected in the scenario. A very simple and easy scenario, at least apparently, and perhaps surprisingly balanced. Could you do better than Russian or Ukrainian historical forces on this scenario? Enrique Mas, July 26, 2026. File Information Submitter broncepulido Submitted 07/26/2026 Category MEDC View File

A North Carolina Air National Guard unit, part of the U.S. military’s part-time reserve force, wants to give its people the ability to quietly fly themselves into places a helicopter would get shot down trying to reach, and the shopping list it just published reads less like a defense contract and more like gear for […]View the full article

The U.S. Department of the Air Force published a market research notice this week seeking companies capable of designing, developing, prototyping, manufacturing and fielding what it calls a Semi-Autonomous Collaborative Platform, government shorthand for an uncrewed jet aircraft smart enough to fly and fight alongside a piloted fighter without a human controlling every move. The […]View the full article

U.S. Marine Corps attack and utility helicopters are heading into a major upgrade built specifically to carry the next generation of weapons, and the electrical rewiring needed to make that possible just landed a $33.6 million contract. Naval Air Systems Command handed Bell Textron, the Fort Worth, Texas manufacturer that builds both helicopters, the deal […]View the full article

The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency awarded Rockwell Collins ESA Vision Systems, a Fort Worth, Texas company, an estimated $333 million contract to supply spare parts and repair services for the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, a fighter pilot’s helmet that doubles as a targeting computer. The system, known in defense circles by its acronym JHMCS, […]View the full article

The U.S. Space Development Agency, the Pentagon office building America’s next generation of missile-tracking satellites, awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems a contract with a ceiling of $400 million to develop the ground segment for Tranche Three of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, the government’s name for a sprawling network of satellites meant to give American […]View the full article

Three countries have taken a real step toward keeping their new stealth fighters flying without shipping them back to Texas every time something breaks, and the Pentagon just handed Lockheed Martin $23 million to make it happen. The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command awarded Lockheed Martin Corporation, the Fort Worth, Texas defense giant that builds […]View the full article

An electric motor smaller than a coffee mug might decide whether America’s drone army flies during the next crisis, and the U.S. Army has placed a nearly $80 million bet on building that motor at home instead of buying it from a country Pentagon planners increasingly view as an adversary. The Department of War announced […]View the full article

A single explosion at one South Korean missile factory has exposed just how fragile the supply chain behind the country’s booming arms export business really is, since many of the components that go into a guided missile can only be built by one qualified company in the entire nation. The Korea Times reported that the […]View the full article

Romania shot down a second drone in its own airspace within 24 hours on Saturday morning, a milestone that would have been unthinkable for a NATO member just weeks ago and now marks the second time in two days that Romanian pilots have opened fire inside their own country’s skies. President Nicușor Dan announced the […]View the full article

North Korea has resumed sending Russia one of its deadliest ballistic missiles, a weapon that started this war as a punchline for its terrible aim and has since become one of the most accurate short-range missiles in Moscow’s arsenal. That’s according to Polkovnik GSH, an open-source intelligence account with close ties to Ukraine’s armed forces, […]View the full article

A Formula 1 engineering firm has unveiled a nearly supersonic combat drone designed to fly wing to wing with fighter jets, and it costs less than a fraction of what those crewed aircraft run. MGI Engineering announced the launch of the T-022 Vortex, describing it as the first UK-built Autonomous Collaborative Platform of its kind, […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin’s second quarter looked almost nothing like the same three months a year earlier, when the world’s largest defense contractor posted a jarring $1.6 billion in program losses. The company reported second-quarter 2026 net earnings of $1.8 billion, or $7.94 per share, a swing of more than $1.5 billion compared to the $342 million […]View the full article

Only two bidders remain in the running for Canada’s nearly $5 billion program to supply new armored and unarmored land utility vehicles to the military, and one of them is Brampton-based Roshel, CityNews reported, citing reporting from Cristina Howorun. Roshel has built its reputation almost entirely outside Canada despite being headquartered just outside Toronto. Founded […]View the full article

It was only 2019 that I first posted this…but given the news about the UK defense cuts…now is a good time too. How do you protest draconian defense cuts? Well, this is one way. Alan loved the RAF and felt its 50th anniversary should be celebrated with a flypast over London. There had been an official dinner and a few parades — but no flypast. This, he felt, was a terrible slight. ‘One thing that was in the Air Force’s blood was that you celebrated in the air, not on the ground,’ Alan, now 82, says at his home in Surrey. He was serving at the time in No. 1 Squadron. This is the RAF’s oldest unit and as such he believed it had a responsibility to take the lead in ensuring the half-centenary was celebrated properly. Alan decided to take matters into his own hands by staging a flypast of his own. On April 4, Alan and three other Hunter pilots from his squadron had flown from their base at West Raynham in Norfolk to RAF Tangmere in Sussex, the former home of No. 1 Squadron, where they were helping to celebrate the base being given the freedom of the city of Chichester. He decided that the following day, on their way back, he would make a detour over the capital. ‘It was worth flying over London, even if I was going to get court-martialled,’ Alan says. At the very least, a trial would give him a chance to have his say on the problems facing the Air Force. Read the whole thing from 2018 ... and watch the video. On a personal note - I love the Hunter. I see them fly on a not infrequent basis, as some are owned by a civilian “Red Air” company that visits my airspace now and then. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Share Leave a comment View the full article

A Croatian drone manufacturer has laid out an ambitious bet that Europe’s appetite for weapons it doesn’t have to import from China or the United States is only getting bigger. Orqa announced Wednesday it is scaling its annual manufacturing capacity from roughly 290,000 products today to 500,000 by the end of 2026, a jump the […]View the full article

The first publicly documented combat test of Russia’s upgraded anti-drone tank defense system ended in failure, with footage showing a Russian T-72B3A tank taking a direct hit from a Ukrainian FPV drone despite carrying the modified Arena-M active protection system specifically built to stop exactly that threat, Militarnyi reported. The video shows the FPV drone […]View the full article

HDT Robotics, doing business as BLADE, announced Wednesday it has been selected as one of five industry partners for the U.S. Army’s Project Sustainment initiative, a program run through the National Advanced Mobility Consortium that focuses on automating how supplies reach troops in combat zones where the enemy is actively trying to disrupt that resupply […]View the full article

A landmark nuclear deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia is already unraveling into confusion, less than 24 hours after it was signed with fanfare in Washington. The agreement, laying the groundwork for American companies to help Saudi Arabia build a civilian nuclear power industry, immediately sparked concerns about a Saudi path to enrichment […]View the full article

Photos of scorched, twisted wreckage now circulating from Russian sources may be the first physical proof that a Dutch-built cruise missile has actually been used in combat. Images shared by the open-source tracking account on Telegram show what is presumed to be the tail section of a Ruta Block 1 cruise missile, built by the […]View the full article

Bosnia and Herzegovina is doubling down on Turkish anti-drone technology, signing a new contract to acquire 10 KANGAL/ADL 100 radio-frequency jamming systems from Türkiye-based defense manufacturer ASELSAN, Turkish defense outlet Ulusavunma reported. The deal marks the latest step in a defense relationship that has already put Turkish-made drones, armored vehicles and counter-drone hardware into Bosnian […]View the full article

Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missile has struck deep inside Russia again, this time hitting a defense plant that builds the ejection seats meant to save the lives of Russian fighter pilots and the anti-aircraft missiles meant to shoot down Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian forces attacked the Avitek plant in the Russian city of Kirov early Friday morning […]View the full article

Small and medium-sized wars that populate the periods between larger wars will always give hints to what new weapons, concepts, and technologies will be of importance in the next varsity game. The Spanish-American War and the Boer Wars at the end of the 19th and first decade of the 20th Century along with the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 gave hints to the early years of The Great War. The Spanish Civil War did the same for World War II. Wednesday’s return to the U.S. of our service members killed by Iranian attacks on our base in Jordan had me thinking again of the lessons everyone should be taking onboard from the wars in Ukraine since 2022 and those against Iran and her proxies since 2023. Over the last month, one lesson keeps seeping into my thoughts. The details of that attack, and how it echoes an issue we got our first wake-up call about over six years ago, kept coming up. That little voice in my head kept telling me the lesson is greater than what I was thinking. To make the voices happy, I figured it was time to write it down. What is bouncing around my nogg’n is not a tactical lesson about drones, combined arms, or decision cycles. No, something closer to home, literally. The larger issue is that we are reaching the point that the concept of “the rear” is rapidly decreasing. The Germans learned that by 1943. The Japanese by 1944. Everyone has forgotten it. During the Cold War, of course, we all knew that—but that was for a nuclear fight in a war expected to last hours to days or maybe a few months depending on how it started. After the Cold War, we thought—absent a localized terrorist attack here or there—that any fighting would be done “over there” not “here”. I don’t think we live in that world anymore. There is not a radical change in technology or operations, just convergent evolution of a few trends accelerated by the demands of war. Normalization of the use of conventional ballistic missiles at scale. Launch on warning is a relic of the past. It is but a booster to make an IRBM or MRBM into an ICBM. That is your high and hypersonic. Additive manufacturing and CNC machines have made everything from FPV to short-range cruise missiles (which is what Lucas-like drones are) easily made, transported, and launched in large numbers with little or no notice as your low and slow threat. All make your backyard in Oklahoma the front line. Secure, low probability of intercept/interference navigation and data communications Miniaturization of sensors and propulsion power. Appreciation of the many/small/scalable over the few/large/exquisite. The first and second are receiving a high order multiplier effect from advances in the last three. If we are going to be striking the Chinese mainland in any fight west of the International Date Line, why wouldn’t the Chinese return the favor. In a conventional exchange, it would not be an escalation, it would simply be sound military practice. As I mentioned on yesterday’s UNCLAS Read Board Podcast, we are just a half-to-full decade away from a significant threat to all we have become used to since the end of the Cold War—the security of our CONUS bases. Our Fleet Concentration Areas and Master Air Bases? That just simplifies and economizes targeting. Welcome to the renaissance of the concept of strategic homeporting and dispersal. Masses of ships tightly packed pierside and at one base, with the balance of the national inventory of a given type-model-series parked in perfect lines—open and defenseless? Our military industrial production for some capabilities at a single site location? A shallow bench of spares and reserves? No flex for repair and resupply at peace? Solutions: Disaggregate. Your “fleet concentration area” or “master base” is a national security liability. Accountants love them with equal intensity that forward-looking enemies want you to keep them. That floating barrier around your ships? That’s cute. Make base defense serious, layered, and flexible. If it can be put in a hardened shelter, put it there, especially if it has a nuclear reactor or weapon on it. What can an RPG-7-sized shaped-charge warhead do to an engineering compartment…especially a nuclear one? Do you want to see the consequence management plans for this eventuality? Don’t ask. If more than 30 percent of any capability we have is located at one place, we lose. How scalable are our low rate of production lines? What is the real cost of keeping a ship or aircraft for 50 to 60 years as opposed to putting a demand signal into the system by replacing them at 20 or 30 years? What are the second-order effects of this short-sighted decision making starving our industrial base? How scalable are our parts and repair facilities? How many ways can you move supplies if 30% of your present preferred methods are unavailable at D+1? It isn’t just our bases west of the international date line we should be concerned about, but those in Louisiana and Missouri; Georgia and Colorado. If I can wargame this out, I know people with a lot more resources and talent can. Editor’s Note: No, I will not apologize for the AI-slop poster. I kind of like how in two sentences they can produce ~87.6% of what I wanted.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