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Turkish drone maker Baykar has turned its Bayraktar TB2 combat drone into a flying carrier for small FPV attack drones, firing two of them at ground targets in a test released on Nov. 4. The TB2 carried 16 Skydagger first-person-view kamikaze drones, eight under each wing, and also served as a communications relay for the […]View the full article

Satellite imagery released by the Chinese commercial company MizarVision appears to show the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) carrier strike group in the South China Sea on Nov. 4, as the carrier heads toward the Middle East. MizarVision said in a post that it identified the aircraft carrier along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin […]View the full article

Norway’s air force has deployed NASAMS air defense sensors to Kirkenes, near the Russian border, to detect drones that drift off course into Norwegian airspace, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense said in a press release. The ministry is also sending more than 30 soldiers to reinforce the Garrison of Sør-Varanger, the army unit that guards […]View the full article

Satellite navigation interference hit almost the entire length of NATO’s eastern border on Nov. 3, according to a map of aircraft data published by the Italian flight-tracking project ItaMilRadar. The heaviest disruption ran in a nearly continuous band from the southern Baltic Sea through Lithuania, eastern Poland, Romania and Bulgaria to the western Black Sea. […]View the full article

Saronic has put a second Marauder autonomous ship in the water at its shipyard in Franklin, Louisiana, and the vessel is now running under its own power, company CEO Dino Mavrookas said in a post on Nov. 3. He said the second hull took 8% fewer labor hours to build than the first. “That’ll continue […]View the full article

U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transports have flown at least 16 missions into Israel’s Ovda Air Base since mid-October, most of them from Fort Bliss, Texas, the home of the U.S. Army’s air and missile defense forces, according to flight data compiled by open-source trackers. Three more C-17s were logged flying into Ali Al […]View the full article

I stopped doing dedicated politics here a decade ago, and there are plenty of places you can go to get the play by play of the Democrats’ very good midterm. That round is out of the tube, so let’s start thinking about what this means for the Navy. I think it is time that we revisit my post from February of this year, We Need a Plan-B for the Battleship. I hate to say, “I told you so,” but… If you are really on team battleship, there are some critical vulnerabilities from the start that you need to accept. The Trump Class: this is the foundational error of what by all logic and tradition should be called the Defiant Class. At the start, this automatically makes 38% of the American public and their elected representatives dislike the entire project. In the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, where our ruling class lives, 75% of voters supported Harris in the 2024 election. Calling a class of warship that will need bipartisan support, in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government through the length of the program, this poisons the program from the start. For an unnecessarily large percentage, you cannot even begin to argue the merits of the program, their ears and minds are closed to it. I’m not sure how you mitigate that unforced error at the start. Make no mistake: along a very broad front, (D) are going to go after anything with more than a passing connection to President Trump—one of the most expected and predictable outcomes of this election. They don’t have the razor-thin margins the (R) had the last couple of years, they have a bone in their teeth, and they have a mandate. It would be silly not to think that, with (D) controlling the purse strings in both houses of Congress, that they won’t go after one of the most Trump-branded items in the defense budget: BBGN. The President can propose whatever he wants, but Congress will decide where the money goes. Last year, DDG(X) was put out to pasture, and a full effort was put toward BBGN. We’ll see what the next Congress does, but I don’t think the smart money is betting on BBGN. So, what options are there except for the running seven-year joke here, building DDG-51 until the crack of doom Well, I presented the options last February. I’d recommend reading the whole post, but here’s what you’re looking for. So, we have your baseline DDG(X). Let’s call that Flight I a DDG that takes over the mission set of the Arleigh Burke DDG (PBUH). The Navy has envisaged the DDG(X) as a ship with (1) DDG-51 Flight III Aegis combat system elements; (2) more growth margin than the DDG-51 Flight III design, meaning more space, weight-carrying capacity, electrical power, and cooling capacity (aka SWAP-C) for accepting additional or higher-power equipment and weapons (including directed-energy weapons) over the ship’s service life; (3) an integrated power system (IPS); (4) reduced vulnerability due to reduced infrared, acoustic, and underwater electromagnetic signatures; (5) increased cruising range and time on station; and (6) increased weapon capacity. Without the BBG in play, we still need to fill the requirements of the BBG. I can already see requirements for three different flights of DDG(X). Flight II would be a CAG. Yes, a guided missile attack cruiser. Baseline Flight I with the addition of the DPM and substituting the 32 VLS forward for 12 CPS in what I assume will be G-VLS…unless, as I have heard rumored, you have to remove the 5” gun forward in order to have your CPS configured like in the Zumwalts with the 4 APM. If you can put 4 APM or 12 G-VLS in the DPM, then that still leaves you, what, 64 MK-41 VLS aft for SM-2/3/6, ASROC, etc? Rumor has it you can pack multiple PAC-3 missiles in the G-VLS as well, so mix and match? Sounds fun either way. Also, sorry about all the acronyms, but as a recidivist staff weenie, this is my happy place. Flight III would be your Air Warfare Commander CVN escort. It’s a CG. Baseline Flight I with the DPM full of G-VLS loaded with PAC-3 missiles, and expanded square footage to support afloat staff. In Sal’s world, in a fit of pique, I’d mandate that we build all three flights in parallel in three different yards. If, as we swag’d Monday, you can buy a bit more than three DDG(X) for each BBG…and let’s say 2.5 CG and CAG for each BBG…then you have a very solid Plan-B. If you really want to seal the deal, bring in the conversation about the intangible advantages of not so much “Distributed Lethality” but “Distributed Risk.” Most of the nightmares that come with the concentrated risk of the Arsenal Ship concept, are there with the BBG as well. I’m open to hearing what other positive directions we may have for our surface force with the (D) in power. It’s been a rough century so far regardless of who was in power. I’m not too concerned about air and submarine…they have challenging but modern programs moving forward. Don’t get me wrong, Arleigh Burke Flight III are great…but…there is only so much more we can do with that design. Well…we will see, won’t we? Pray for peace. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. 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France has ordered production of a large uncrewed combat submarine demonstrator for its navy, with first sea trials planned for 2028. The French defense procurement agency DGA and the Defense Innovation Agency signed the contract with Naval Group on Nov. 3, the French shipbuilder said in a press release. The demonstrator, called UCUV for Unmanned […]View the full article

U.S. Army soldiers on the southern border are training on the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser, a vehicle-mounted 20-kilowatt laser that has already shot down cartel-linked drones, according to photos released by the Department of War. Troops from the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, operated the system on an Infantry Squad Vehicle […]View the full article

Joint Task Force-Southern Border has deployed the Bumblebee Version 2, an updated light interceptor drone that destroys hostile drones by ramming them, for testing near the U.S.-Mexico border, according to photos and captions released by the U.S. military. The interceptors were staged near Chaparral, New Mexico, on Oct. 21, where service members and military contractors […]View the full article

U.S. Army soldiers on the southern border have set up an Anduril-built Heimdal Mobile Trailer Kit, a towable counter-drone sensor system, for testing near Chaparral, New Mexico, according to photos and captions released by the U.S. military. Troops from the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Mobile Brigade Combat Team, put the trailer in place […]View the full article

Raytheon has won a phase one contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop photonic circuits that process signals entirely with light, the company said on Nov. 3. The work falls under DARPA’s PICASSO program, short for Photonic Integrated Circuit Architectures for Scalable System Objectives. Raytheon, an RTX business, did not disclose the […]View the full article

Edgerun, a U.S.-based, Y Combinator-backed company building a powered hip exoskeleton for soldiers, says it has run more than 100 field tests with Ukrainian troops since May 2026. The company launched the device publicly on Aug. 25. It weighs about 10 pounds, runs for more than 12 hours, and, based on internal testing, cuts the […]View the full article

Russia Spent Decades Modernizing One Giant Cruiser—Now Its Flagship Is Headed for Scrap (United 24 Media)

I decided a few weeks ago to take a bit of my own medicine. I needed to take a spell and return to the fundamentals. That means, of course, to lean over on the bookcase. Last month I finished a return to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. This week, I’m diving back into the work of WWI veteran and one of the premier military historians of the mid-20th century, Captain Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, KCB, GBR A — Strategy: Second Revised Edition. As the quote at the top of the page makes clear, Hart was not a man stuck in the past. He was often a step or two ahead of everyone else, even if they did not realize it. Prior to WWII, his thinking was more aligned with that of the Germans of his time and the American Army of the late Cold War than with the British Army of the late 1930s. However, his thoughts were not detached from the lessons of the past. Just the opposite—everything is built on the lessons of thousands of years of war. In the preface to his work, also known as Strategy: The Indirect Approach, this bit hit home to me. It hits on a common theme we’ve touched on for years, and it also reminded me of our friend Claude Berube’s February 2009 article, The Navy Can Handle the Truth: Creative Friction without Conflict. Truth, both in leadership and action, was hard to come by this century. The optimism of Claude’s article was drowned out in the decade that followed. Our Navy and many of the institutions that were associated with it took another path which had no use for open discussion, challenge, or creative friction. The results of the second decade of the 21st century speak for themselves. Our system of incentives and disincentives—and the priorities of our nomenklatura—simply did not provide the right leaders at the right time. Enough of my prattle; I’ll let Liddell Hart take it from here and just ask you to ponder how it reads from your seat. … true conclusions can only be reached, or approached, by pursuing the truth without regard to where it may lead or what its effect may be on different interests. History bears witness to the vital part that the ‘prophets’ have played in human progress, which is evidence of the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Yet it also becomes clear that the acceptance and spreading of their vision depended on another class of men - ‘leaders’ who had to be philosophical strategists, striking a compromise between truth and men’s receptivity to it. Their effect has often depended as much on their own limitations in perceiving the truth as on their practical wisdom in proclaiming it. The prophets must be stoned; that is their lot, and the test of their self-fulfillment. But a leader who is stoned may merely prove that he has failed in his function through a deficiency of wisdom, or through confusing his function with that of a prophet. Time alone can tell whether the effect of such a sacrifice redeems the apparent failure as a leader that does honour to him as a man. At the least, he avoids the more common fault of leaders - that of sacrificing the truth to expediency without ultimate advantage to the cause. For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought. Is there a practical way of combining progress towards the attainment of truth with progress towards its acceptance? A possible solution of the problem is suggested by reflection on strategic principles, which point to the importance of maintaining an object consistently and, also, of pursuing it in a way adapted to circumstances. Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished - by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long-established position; instead, seek to turn it by a flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth - for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth. The meaning of these reflections may be made clearer by illustration from one’s own experience. Looking back on the stages by which various fresh ideas gained acceptance, it can be seen that the process was eased when they could be presented, not as something radically new, but as the revival in modern terms of a time-honoured principle or practice that had been forgotten. This required not deception, but care to trace the connection - since ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. A notable example was the way that the opposition to mechanization was diminished by showing that the mobile armoured vehicle - the fast-moving tank - was fundamentally the heir of the armoured horseman, and thus the natural means of reviving the decisive role which cavalry had played in past ages. How do we recapture that process? Who can do it? 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

Russian forces dropped 8,016 guided aerial bombs on Ukrainian positions in October, an 11% fall from September’s record, the monitoring project Oko Gora said in a post summarizing the month. The figure works out to an average of 259 bombs a day and is the first monthly decline after a long climb through the summer. […]View the full article

Two Polish defense companies have agreed to work together on the wheeled chassis for 155mm self-propelled howitzers that Poland plans to build under license from Ukraine. PK MIL, part of the PONAR Wadowice group, and SZCZĘŚNIAK Pojazdy Specjalne of Bielsko-Biała signed a memorandum of understanding to select and adapt chassis for the systems, the companies […]View the full article

Poland has delivered more Rosomak 8×8 armored vehicles armed with the ZSSW-30 unmanned turret and Spike anti-tank missiles to the Land Forces Training Ground Center in Poznań, where they will be used to train soldiers from mechanized units, the country’s Armament Agency said on social media. The agency said the delivery is the next stage […]View the full article

Counter-drone missile maker Perseus Defense has released video of one of its small, low-cost interceptors climbing into the sky and hitting a hovering multirotor drone, which the company’s chief executive described as the first time an “attritable” missile has shot down a drone. Jason Cornelius, co-founder and CEO of the Texas-based company, posted the eight-second […]View the full article

Siemens Mobility and Lufthansa Technik Defense plan to build a hospital train for the German armed forces and NATO allies that could carry more than 150 wounded or sick patients, including those needing intensive care, the two companies said on Nov. 3. The companies signed a memorandum of understanding ahead of the Berlin Security Conference […]View the full article

Japanese satellite-servicing company Astroscale and German space firm OHB have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore working together on technology to protect satellites and other infrastructure in orbit, with a focus on linking Astroscale’s British subsidiary with OHB in Germany. The two companies announced the agreement on Oct. 28 at the German Embassy in […]View the full article

Auriga Space, a California company building electromagnetic launch technology, wants to fix one of the slowest steps in developing American hypersonic weapons: testing their materials and parts on the ground. Instead of a rocket-powered sled racing down steel rails, its Prometheus accelerator uses an electric linear motor to push a magnetically levitated test article through […]View the full article

Kazakhstan has taken delivery of its second Airbus A400M Atlas heavy military transport aircraft, completing a two-plane order the Central Asian country placed in 2021, the Kazakh Defense Ministry said on Nov. 2. The aircraft flew from Airbus’ A400M final assembly line in Seville, Spain, to Almaty, where it joins the Air Defense Forces, Kazakhstan’s […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy’s top officer, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, got a close look at Blackbeard, the new air-launched hypersonic strike missile that the Navy is preparing to arm its F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with, during a visit to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland on Oct. 28, the U.S. Navy said. Caudle […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital has agreed to lend up to $450 million to Neros, the California maker of the Archer attack drone, to build drones and their key parts in the United States, the Department of War announced on Nov. 2. Neros said it will put $165 million of its own equity into […]View the full article