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The U.S. Army has awarded Sikorsky a $234.5 million contract modification to build 16 new UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, bringing the total value of the underlying contract to $356.3 million. The fixed-price-incentive modification adds to contract W58RGZ-26-C-0008, which the Army and Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, first signed earlier this year. Work will take place […]View the full article

The Air Force Research Laboratory has added $16.4 million to a Castelion Corp. contract for developing a low-cost, mass-producible long-range strike weapon, the latest in a rapid series of government awards backing the company’s Blackbeard hypersonic missile. The modification brings the total value of this particular contract to $37.2 million, up from $20.9 million. Work […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Anduril Industries a contract worth up to $85 million to develop computer-based design tools for future aircraft, part of a push to design and test new systems digitally before building physical hardware. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, made the award under a program […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded JRC Integrated Systems a $47.4 million contract modification to provide engineering and technical support for the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, or SLCM-N, the service’s effort to field its first new nuclear weapon since the Cold War. The modification adds to a contract Strategic Systems Programs, the Navy office overseeing the […]View the full article

Turkish manufacturer Otokar and Italy’s Leonardo have completed integration and live-fire testing of a 120mm turret mounted on Otokar’s Tulpar medium tank platform, a combination now being pitched as a potential replacement for Brazil’s aging Leopard 1A5 tanks. The companies ran the tests at Italy’s UTTAT Nettuno test range near Rome, fitting the Tulpar with […]View the full article

An Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet was hit during an overnight attack on King Fahd Air Base near Ta’if, Saudi Arabia, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto confirmed Friday. Crosetto said the aircraft, designated F-2000 by the Italian Air Force, was parked in a remote area of the base when it was struck. No Italian personnel […]View the full article

Social media users shared widespread footage Thursday evening of a glowing, tentacled shape in the night sky, with some posts claiming it showed a missile launched toward Ukraine. Within hours, astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell offered a more mundane explanation, and Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed it the next day. “Russia appears to have […]View the full article

Paramount and India’s Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited unveiled a new 4×4 light armored modular vehicle (LAMV) called the Mbada at the Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Pretoria on Sept. 17, marking the vehicle’s first public showing at an international defense show. The Mbada is built as a modular platform that customers can configure for […]View the full article

A counter-drone startup tested a low-cost interceptor missile at Yuma Proving Ground this month, loading it into an eight-shot launcher during a homeland-defense experiment involving U.S. Northern Command, NORAD and the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401. Perseus Defense, a company that went through Y Combinator’s 2025 batch, said each Mk-III interceptor it fired cost […]View the full article

"AUKUS has forced the United States to confront its "profoundly lacking" capacity to build and maintain naval submarines, but recent progress should inspire confidence in the defence deal, a former top White House official says." AUKUS felt 'too hard' at times, former White House offici...Five years after the pact between Australia, the US, and the UK was announced, three of its key architects assess its progress toward its goals, including arming Australia with nuclear-powered submari

U.S. Soldiers and Army capability developers spent two weeks at Fort Benning testing drones that stay tethered to the ground, aiming to give small infantry units a way to see farther and keep radios working even when the terrain or enemy jamming gets in the way. The Maneuver Battle Lab ran the assessment from July […]View the full article

A new automated security system helped Marines detect and track a vehicle that strayed toward a live-fire range during a training exercise at Twentynine Palms, California, on Aug. 19, the U.S. Marine Corps said, marking one of the first real-world uses of a system built to replace hours of manual guard duty with radar and […]View the full article

British manufacturer MSI-Defence Systems unveiled a new remote weapon station called TERRAHAWK RAPTOR at the DVD 2026 exhibition in Millbrook, calling it the lightest gun mount in its counter-drone product line. RAPTOR is a remote weapon station, a gun turret a soldier can aim and fire from inside a vehicle rather than exposing themselves on […]View the full article

Hanwha Aerospace and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems flew the Mojave short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) drone from a South Korean Army airfield, landed it on a tank maneuver route, and flew it back again during a demonstration at the 2026 Defense Drone Technology Exhibition in Pocheon. The maneuver was meant to show the aircraft can operate from short, […]View the full article

The U.S. State Department has approved a possible sale of 48 F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, a $24.3 billion deal that would make the kingdom just the second country in the Middle East, after Israel, cleared to fly the stealth aircraft. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of the potential sale on Sept. […]View the full article

GM Defense delivered its first batch of PAC-3 MSE missile-housing components to Lockheed Martin on Sept. 16, just 22 days after the two companies signed a formal production contract, Lockheed Martin said in a post on X. “The message is clear: we’re moving at the speed of relevance,” Lockheed Martin said. “The future of defense […]View the full article

Latvia’s government decided on Sept. 15 to buy Czech-made 155mm wheeled howitzers for the National Armed Forces, choosing the Morana system from Excalibur Army after Sweden’s competing Archer howitzer proved too costly and slow to deliver under the country’s current defense budget. The Cabinet of Ministers based its decision on the cost of the offers, […]View the full article

I mentioned @Schizointel’s graphic from last month on the last UNCLAS Read Board Podcast, and it keeps popping into my mind. Only the paying subscribers get access to the UNCLAS Read Board Podcast, so I thought I’d bring it to the Substack, chat about it a bit, and then perhaps it will get out of my head. Probably not, because it is one of the best representations of a regular topic of ours here: we have too small of a Navy. It is also a good representation of what it takes to conduct a blockade and deal with the threat of the once-3rd-rate and now-4th-rate-power of Iran and her proxies. So, here it is. How many ships do you need? Today, let’s just look at our Aegis ships, specifically our Arleigh Burke DDG. Everyone has heard me say it before: it takes three to make one. However, I’ve been counseled by my friend Bryan McGrath that the number is actually higher, five to make one. Let’s compromise between myself and Bryan and let’s call it four to make one. Yes, there will be math. What that means is if you want a ship deployed, you have to have three, four, or five ships non-deployed in post-deployment maintenance, training, or other non-deployed duty, depending upon what confession you’re part of. We’re going with the Church of Four. In the graphic, there are a couple of the last of our Aegis Ticonderoga Class cruisers. They are not long for this world, and soon will no longer show up in anyone’s Carrier Strike Group. If we need ships deployed—especially in a carrier escort or combat role—we will soon just have Arleigh Burke DDGs. We don’t have any frigates, and those that do arrive in the next decade won’t be able to survive forward well by themselves. Our Littoral Combat Ships aren’t fit for purpose in a hostile environment either. So when you’re going into a hostile environment, we’re down to our Arleigh Burkes. A lot of us have kept wondering how many DDGs are needed to sustain the present operations against Iran. It is hard to keep a regular tab on who is where, but a variety of sources keep pushing out a number +/- from 17. When you look at the graphic, from August, that looks like a very good planning number. For the operations against Iran and her proxies, we are not just talking about ships escorting our carriers. We have to include DDGs in the Eastern Mediterranean defending against ballistic missiles coming down on Israel and Jordan that we’ve seen in the last week. We need a few to manage the ongoing challenges from the Houthis in the Red Sea as well. I think how many Arleigh Burke class destroyers did we had in mid-August is a good proxy for this blockade against a 4th rate power and her proxies. The number is 20 if you include the cruisers Smalls and Princeton escorting carriers G.H.W. Bush and Washington. Lincoln, at least in this graphic, doesn’t have a cruiser with her. So, there’s your new normal. For just DDGs, we have the Peterson, Ross, Cook, Shoop, John Paul Jones, Milius, McFall, Higgins, Mason, John Finn, Peralta, Delton D. Black, Mustin, Spruance, Murphy. Gonzalez is alone and unafraid in the Red Sea. The Roosevelt and the Paul Ignatius are showing the flag in the Eastern Mediterranean. That’s your 18. Now for math. If the optimist says that three get you one: 18 x 3, gets you to a requirement for 54 DDGs. For the compromise of four get you one, if it takes four to make one, that’s to 72. So somewhere between 54 and 72. And it’s north of there if you are part of the McGrath School of Math. Guess how many DDGs we have. We have 75. So we are tapped out sustaining operations against a 4th rate power. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and her Navy are a first rate threat in a much larger in the Pacific. So we would have a much greater demand for ships. What if things get furry and we need to sustain operations west of the International Date Line? Just on a normal rotation with no losses? We can’t send any more against them than we are sending against Iran and her proxies. Sure, we could surge forces forward for a spell, but you cannot sustain that. No one at the end of 4QFY26 really thinks we will have a short war against the PRC? I hope not. If we do, we won’t be able to worry about problems in the Middle East, that’s for sure. NATO? Again, a note to my European friends. Y’all’ve known for twenty years that there’s been a Plan Salamander. The Europeans need to be able to take care of their own waters because the USA still has global requirements, a few of which are more important to America than Europe’s recurring tribal bloodlettings. Should one of them pop up while we’re busy in the Pacific, we’ll help them if they need it, but you won’t get much, and those you do get will be second-rate forces. Think of the Burma Theater in WWII. Harsh? No. Simple math. The US Navy is not going to be able to help anyone anywhere else because we just don’t have a large enough Navy. We just need to accept that fact. As it stands right now, with this blockade—a maritime policing operation if you will—we have minimal to no help by the Europeans, and as we covered last week, they’re not ready for the hardest fight anyway. They should work on that. With DDG(X) being put in a drawer with CG(X), Constellation-class FFGs limited to a short run, and FF(X) not ready to close any shore anytime soon…we wi—as the punchline goes—need to build Burkes until the crack of doom…and faster. The best time to fix this problem was twenty years ago. The second best time is now. Now, that brings us to the hard math problem, except this time I am not going to do your work for you. I have my answer, and I’ve given it to you quite a few times over the years. You have to either remember it or come up with it yourself. I’ll leave plenty of bread crumbs. For you Marines out there, don’t worry—I’ll tell the story with pictures. Assume that we solve the industrial capacity and manpower issues. There are no magic beans. Robotic and Autonomous Systems are augments to, not replacements for manned warships. At least in the foreseeable future, there is very little “substitution” you can expect to squeeze out of them. Where will we get the money? First of all—the 10-year yield has now “renormalized.” It is not ‘high.’ It is simply back to its normal place. Stop coping. It isn’t going to fall again. Why? …and to service that debt that is about to pop even higher… Here we are. Find a path from here to there. Share Leave a comment This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

Hanwha Aerospace and Lockheed Martin UK unveiled a Redback infantry fighting vehicle armed with a British-built 40mm turret at the British Army’s DVD 2026 exhibition, pairing an already fielded vehicle hull with a weapons system developed for a different British Army program. The turret carries the CTA International 40mm cannon and, for the first time, […]View the full article

Jaguar Land Rover unveiled three variants of a new military vehicle called the Defender Wolf Series II at the British Army’s DVD 2026 exhibition in Bedfordshire on Sept. 16, aiming to replace the Land Rover that has served British forces for more than 70 years. The event, held at the Millbrook proving ground, is where […]View the full article

Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation said its Su-57 stealth fighter flew to an air show in Egypt this month using fuel tanks built into its internal weapons bays instead of the external drop tanks fighters typically carry on long ferry flights. UAC said the aircraft made the trip to the El Alamein International Airshow with one […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin is pitching the U.S. Air Force on a new version of the F-16 fighter, designated the F-16G, as a way to replace aging Fighting Falcons faster than the F-35 production line can keep up. Multiple people familiar with the aircraft told Aviation Week that the F-16G builds on the current Block 70 F-16, […]View the full article

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military airfield in Rostov-on-Don overnight into Sept. 17, destroying one An-12 and two An-26 transport aircraft along with three helicopters. Zelensky said Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, carried out the airfield strike as part of a broader overnight operation that also hit the Slavneft-YANOS oil […]View the full article

The Missile Defense Agency wants industry to build a new mobile radar that can be flown into a war zone aboard a C-17, set up within hours and torn down again in minutes, according to a pre-solicitation notice posted September 16. The program, called Forward Based Mode Radar Next, is meant to replace or supplement […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has ordered the first production run of a new long-range radio system designed to keep ships and units communicating even when satellites are jammed or unavailable. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, New Jersey, awarded MaXentric Technologies a $9.6 million firm-fixed-price order for 12 low-rate initial production kits of the […]View the full article