All Activity

The nuclear-powered battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy, one of the best-known symbols of the Russian Navy and the flagship of its Northern Fleet, is too worn out to repair, a Russian commission has preliminarily decided, the head of a Russian naval support organization told state news agency TASS on Oct. 30. Vladimir Maltsev, who leads the All-Russian […]View the full article

A French Navy Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft spotted three Russian uncrewed surface vessels heading for a civilian container ship in the Black Sea on Oct. 28 and raised the alarm, helping Bulgarian naval forces rescue all 18 crew members after the drones struck, the French military said in a post. The Liberian-flagged container ship […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy plans to ask industry for artificial intelligence tools to help lay out the interior of its next-generation attack submarine, SSN(X), and on Oct. 30 told companies to register their interest by Nov. 6. The submarine program office said a formal call for proposals could open as early as next week. The notice […]View the full article

There are some heroes from the American Revolutionary War that seem to get lost in the shuffle. They really deserve a mini-series or at least a warship named after them, but they don’t. When you read outlines of their lives, they almost seem like characters in fiction…but they’re not.. I am going to steal liberally from the American Battlefield Trust, but I don’t think they’ll mind. Every American schoolchild should know the arc of a giant of a man…General Daniel Morgan. Daniel Morgan…As a young man, he settled in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley outside Winchester. Morgan worked as a teamster, hauling freight to the eastern part of the colony. His teamster career drew him into the French and Indian War, during which he helped to supply the British Army. … He accompanied General Edward Braddock on his ill-fated campaign against the French and Indians at Fort Duquesne. During the expedition, Morgan annoyed a superior officer who struck him with the flat of his sword. Morgan knocked the man down. For his impertinence, Morgan was punished with 500 lashes—typically fatal number. He survived the ordeal, carrying his scars and his disdain for the rest of his life. Afterward, when Morgan retold the story, he commonly boasted that the British had miscounted, only giving him 499. That right there is fullbore enough…and captures the best of America. That campaign was in 1754. Morgan was born in 1736. He was 19 years old when he took those lashes. Morgan eventually joined a company of rangers in the Shenandoah Valley. Outside Fort Edward, Morgan and his companion were ambushed by Indians allied with the French. Morgan took a musket ball through the back of his neck that crushed his left jaw and exited his cheek, taking all his teeth on that side of his mouth. He miraculously survived the encounter but carried the scars with him for the rest of his life. Of note, he did not put in for 100% disability. No, he was not done serving. At the age of 39, service called him again. After the outbreak of the American Revolution, Morgan led a force of riflemen to reinforce the patriots laying siege to Boston in 1775. His company, known as “Morgan’s riflemen” marched from Virginia to Boston in 21 days. These Southerners and frontiersmen quickly gained a reputation for their hard fighting ways and the incredible accuracy of their rifles. They also distinguished themselves through their dress. Morgan and his men wore hunting shirts, a distinctly American garment that soon struck fear in the British Army because of the known accuracy of the American riflemen, and soon became a common uniform item in the Continental Army. Later in 1775, Morgan participated American expedition to invade Canada organized by General Benedict Arnold. During the Battle of Quebec, Arnold suffered a wound to his leg, forcing command of the American forces on Morgan. The combat, however, resulted in his capture along with 400 other Americans. His release several months later was followed by his promotion to colonel of the 11th Virginia Regiment. A POW too. Add that to the list. One of Morgan’s most valuable qualities as a commander was his ability to think beyond the confines of the accepted standards of warfare. Not long after becoming colonel, he was placed in charge of a corps of light infantry made up of Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and Marylanders and he began to employ tactics designed to disturb the disciplined Royal troops. He and his men wore Indian disguises and used hit-and-run maneuvers against the British in New York and New Jersey throughout 1777. Later in 1777, Morgan was assigned to General Horatio Gates’ army and participated in the pivotal Battle of Saratoga. During one of the engagements near Saratoga, one of Morgan’s riflemen killed British General Simon Fraser and helped turn the tide of the battle. Morgan was indispensable to the Continental Army during the Saratoga campaign, but he grew irritated when he repeatedly failed to receive promotions. The commander-in-chief appointed Morgan colonel of the 7th Virginia Regiment, but he was continually passed over for promotion, forcing him to resign. I have a feeling he was not all that good at office politics. However, when at war, gravity pulls the best back in. By 1780, Patriot forces in the South were desperate for Morgan’s services. Morgan initially refused to rejoin the army, but after Horatio Gates’ disaster at the Battle of Camden, Morgan returned to service as a brigadier general. Once Nathanael Greene assumed command of the Southern Department, he gave Morgan command of a “flying army” and assigned him to the South Carolina backcountry. Rather than the invented character in The Patriot, I would have preferred the real story…but that is just me. Morgan’s main adversary was British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Tarleton and Morgan’s forces faced each other at Cowpens in South Carolina on January 17, 1781. Morgan emerged victorious and secured his reputation as a skilled military tactician. Utilizing knowledge of his enemy’s aggressive and impulsive behavior, Morgan lured Tarleton into a trap with a fake retreat. Tarleton charged, only to be surprised when Morgan’s infantry turned to fire and a hidden cavalry force joined the conflict. The victory was complete and was a turning point in the war in the South. . In 1790, Congress granted Morgan a gold medal for his victory at Cowpens. Morgan continued to serve in the militia, leading a force against the Whiskey Rebellion agitators in 1794. He also went on to serve one term in the House of Representatives as a Federalist. Daniel Morgan died on July 6, 1802 at Winchester, Virginia where he was buried. Fullbore. 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

The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems’ Jacksonville ship repair business a $66.5 million contract to dry-dock and overhaul the littoral combat ship USS St. Louis (LCS 19) in Mayport, Florida, with work due to finish by December 2027. Naval Sea Systems Command awarded the firm-fixed-price contract on Oct. 28, and options could raise its […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has ordered a $56 million retrofit for a single MQ-4C Triton, paying Northrop Grumman to install the B7 retrofit material kit on one of its high-altitude maritime surveillance drones. Naval Air Systems Command awarded the firm-fixed-price modification on Oct. 28, and the work is scheduled to run until May 2030. The full […]View the full article

MBDA is expanding its main German site at Schrobenhausen in Bavaria to about 100 hectares (247 acres) as it turns the plant into what it calls Germany’s “missile hub” for air defense and long-range strike weapons, MBDA Deutschland said in a post after a visit by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Oct. 29. The company […]View the full article

An upgraded version of China’s Yitian-L short-range air defense system has been spotted on the move with two six-round missile packs, apparently tripling its ready-to-fire load to 12 missiles from the four carried by the production model, images shared on social media show. The vehicle was photographed while being transported, and the images show a […]View the full article

Finland will set up a military Space Operations Center on Jan. 1, 2027, to run the country’s space defense and take over the three radar imaging satellites the Finnish Defence Forces bought from ICEYE, the Finnish Air Force announced on Oct. 30. Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen approved the new center, which will sit within Air […]View the full article

North Korea has released new images of its Saetbyol-9 attack drone, a near copy of the U.S. MQ-9 Reaper, firing an air-launched tactical cruise missile during a live-fire demonstration Kim Jong Un watched, state news agency KCNA showed on Oct. 30. A KCNA photo taken from the drone’s own wing shows a black cruise missile […]View the full article

North Korea has released images of a loitering munition diving onto and destroying a mock-up of a U.S. Army M1 Abrams tank, part of a firepower demonstration Kim Jong Un watched on Oct. 29, and the drone in the photos closely resembles the Hero-400 built by Israeli company UVision. The photos, published by state news […]View the full article

North Korea has shown off what appears to be a new large flying-wing stealth drone, along with first-person-view attack quadcopters and loitering munitions, at an exhibition on Oct. 29 where leader Kim Jong Un called for the country to seize “absolute superiority” in drone technology, state news agency KCNA reported on Oct. 30. The exhibition, […]View the full article

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Oct. 29 that Russia is “ready” for a war with Europe but does not want one, and warned that a conflict between them would leave no winners, responding to European warnings that Moscow could be able to attack NATO by the end of the decade. Putin made the remarks […]View the full article

Rheinmetall has booked an order worth a medium three-digit million-euro sum for its share of 69 more Schakal wheeled infantry fighting vehicles for Germany and the Netherlands, the company announced, after the European procurement agency OCCAR exercised the first option under the program’s 2025 contract. OCCAR placed the order with ARTEC, the Rheinmetall and KNDS […]View the full article

The Finnish Defence Forces have teamed up with Helsinki-based headset maker Varjo to test and develop mixed reality training that prepares soldiers to spot and counter small attack drones, the military’s Innovation Unit and the company announced on Oct. 29. Varjo is working with a brigade-level unit of the Finnish Defence Forces on the pilot, […]View the full article

Leonardo DRS raised its full-year 2026 forecast on October 29 after reporting third-quarter revenue of $1.066 billion, up 11% from a year earlier, as demand for tactical radars, naval power and propulsion systems and space sensors drove the gain. Orders grew even faster than sales, with the Arlington, Virginia-based defense electronics maker booking $1.64 billion […]View the full article

A photo released by Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry from a visit by its top military officer to King Khalid Air Base in the kingdom’s southwest appears to show a Royal Bahraini Air Force fighter pilot and a member of the Pakistan Air Force at the base, open-source analysts at OSINTWarfare pointed out in a post. […]View the full article

U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Air Force airmen at Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany are training on the Rapidly Deployable Small-Unmanned Air Defense System, or RD-SUADS, a palletized counter-drone system built by Trust Automation of San Luis Obispo, California, as they test how training across services can sharpen the response to drone threats, U.S. Army […]View the full article

Finland launched the third of its four new Pohjanmaa-class corvettes at Rauma on Oct. 29, putting three of the Finnish Navy’s largest warships in decades in the water, the Finnish Navy said. The ship was moved out of the construction hall at the Rauma Marine Constructions shipyard on Finland’s west coast, where fitting out will […]View the full article

As the record shows on CDR Salamander and the Midrats Podcast, our shortage of maintenance facilities and the resulting lack of capacity have been known problems for decades. We have known that we don’t have enough capacity to meet even expected peacetime requirements, much less any flex in the system for wars at sea, large or small. As such, absolutely no one should be surprised at this or think it is a new problem. If you see anyone pretending it is either, immediately understand that person is not worth listening to. Here we are, as expected, via Diana Stancy at Breaking Defense. The US Navy expects it will take years for its fleet to recover from recent drawn out deployments, with leaders bracing for a surge in maintenance work that could strain shipyard capacity and force trade-offs between repairs and modernization. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said Monday that the service is bracing for maintenance availabilities — particularly impacting the destroyer fleet — to snowball as some of its aircraft carriers and surface vessels return from more than 300-day long periods at sea. As a result, the Navy is weighing how to prioritize repairs, shorten some timelines and defer larger projects without pushing the service’s schedule further behind. … “The industrial base will not be able to swallow that pill, and so we’ll have to sequence that,” Kilby said during an Oct. 8 National Commission on the Future of the Navy hearing. “There’s a couple things that can happen there. I’ll defer maintenance. I’ll either squish the package into the bare minimum and not do modernization things I need to do. So that’s the bill that’s being paid there.” This year, extended deployments have pushed the Navy’s ships well beyond their typical seven-month period at sea. For example, the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford completed a 326-day deployment in May — shattering the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln’s previous record of 294 days at sea in 2019 and 2020. No, it is six months, not seven. Eric Labs, a senior analyst for naval forces and weapons at the Congressional Budget Office, said the full impact of ongoing military operations on the fleet is difficult to predict because it’s unclear how long they will continue. However, he said the Navy has historically taken “at least several years” to catch up on maintenance after previous military operations that required a surge in naval capacity. “At a general level, ships that are missing their maintenance availabilities now because of ongoing operations would have that maintenance manifest itself over the next several years,” Labs told Breaking Defense. Eric is great. While Labs said that some private maintenance shipyards that work on the Navy’s surface fleet have voiced concerns about a lack of work at present, he said they would face a hefty workload once destroyers return that would create planning and workforce challenges for both industry and the service. “The private maintenance yards in the US are undergoing a famine and then, later, will experience a feast cycle,” Labs said. “The consequence of that will depend on unique ship circumstances. It could mean some ships will need to return to sea before getting all the maintenance they need, which could just exacerbate problems in the future. Or it could mean some ships will sit idle until the maintenance can be done.” Of course, the question is—when will we stop appreciating this problem, and start taking action? We will find ourselves here again. Bradley Martin, a retired Navy captain who is now a senior policy researcher at RAND, also predicted it would take years for the fleet to recover from maintenance backlogs stemming from current operations in the Middle East. He said nearly every ship class would likely be affected, although the most acute maintenance issues could hit the destroyer fleet, given its heavy operational use in the Middle East. We are seeing good movement on new construction efforts, but what about maintenance? Modernizing existing shipyards and bringing online a new public shipyard will be a great help, but this will take years to fix, and bipartisan support to ensure it does not get strangled in the cradle. Patience and persistence are needed. Lack of both is part of what got us here, but more, faster if possible. Of note, both Labs and Martin quoted in the article above have been on the Midrats Podcast in the last year. If you have not listened to their episodes, here you go! 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

Dallas-based rocket propulsion firm Firehawk has raised more than $150 million in a Series D round that values the company at more than $1.4 billion, money it will use to scale up U.S. production of rocket propellant, solid rocket motors and artillery motors, the company said on social media on Oct. 28. Private equity firm […]View the full article

Ukrainian drone maker Frontline Robotics flew its Linza bomber drone alongside German, Ukrainian and other unmanned air, ground and sea systems during Forward Edge 26, a two-week exercise in Germany hosted by Quantum Systems, the company said on social media. In one deployment, Quantum Systems’ Vector reconnaissance drone spotted simulated enemy drones along the route […]View the full article

Teledyne FLIR Defense has won a $48 million U.S. Army contract to fit Bulgaria’s new Stryker fleet with the same upgraded chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance sensor suite now going to U.S. Army units, the company announced on Oct. 26. U.S. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, awarded the contract under a […]View the full article

Switzerland has narrowed its search for a second long-range air defense system to Israel’s Barak MX and the French-Italian SAMP/T NG, and will keep its delayed order for U.S. Patriot systems, the Swiss government decided on Oct. 28, Switzerland’s defense procurement agency armasuisse said. The Federal Council, Switzerland’s seven-member government, picked the two finalists after […]View the full article

Israeli company Smart Shooter has delivered the first batch of its SMASH Hopper MG remote weapon stations to an unnamed integrator in Asia, which is building them into a defense system for an Asian military to shoot down drones and engage ground targets, the company said on social media. Smart Shooter did not identify the […]View the full article