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Spain’s first two S-80 Plus class submarines put to sea together for the first time this week, the Spanish Navy said. The Isaac Peral (S-81) and the Narciso Monturiol (S-82) represent what the Navy described as another step in Spain’s strategic autonomy and its submarine force’s deterrent capability. Isaac Peral, the lead boat of the […]View the full article

MSI Defence Systems has won a £16.6 million ($22.6 million) contract to supply three 30mm naval gun systems to an unnamed NATO country, according to Navy Lookout. The deal includes MSI-DS’s own radar and optical fire-control system, which the company says allows the gun mounts to engage aircraft, drones, surface vessels and semi-submersible threats. Deliveries […]View the full article

Latvia tested a new way to protect its infantry vehicles from one of the biggest threats on today’s battlefield: cheap, swarming drones. The country’s Ministry of Defence held a demonstration Thursday at the Ādaži military base, mounting counter-drone systems onto its new Hunter infantry fighting vehicle to see how well they work. The systems came […]View the full article

Russia fired an upgraded ballistic missile at Kyiv for the first time this summer, one with roughly 40 percent more range than the version Moscow has used against Ukraine for years, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said this week. The agency, known as HUR, said the missile is called the 9M723-2. It’s an upgraded version of […]View the full article

Yesterday saw the fifth anniversary of the slaughter at Abbey Gate. Two years ago, I reposted what I wrote on that day as the news came in. I think it is time again. I will not forget. I found myself on X having a few contentious back-and-forths with people about Afghanistan this week, but on Wednesday night, a post from our friend Kristina just brought it all back to me. Good. Bit by bit, perhaps some wrongs can be made right, but much still needs to be done. Those in senior civilian leadership positions five years ago still have not been held to account. Some of the senior military leadership still avoid the topic, or try to discuss what a great NEO they conducted. Still. We still live by lies about the end of our misadventure in Afghanistan. Accountability lost in a miasma of comfortable forgetfulness. That too is a blight on our collective national honor. Is accountability coming? Give the below a listen, perhaps it is. We’ll see. Anyway, half a decade later, I’ll just repost what I wrote at the time. It wasn't supposed to end like this. If, in the early fall of 2001, just after we had finished OPERATION RHINO, someone at C5F put up a picture of a 10-year old boy standing behind a group of five newborns, three 1-year olds, three 2-year olds, and a 4-year old and told us, "We will take Kabul, and after 18 months without a single casualty, we will abandon everything. We will be allowed to go home only at the pleasure of the Taliban and after we sacrifice these 13 children and abandon hundreds of American citizens behind us as we leave in darkness, tens of billions of dollars of our equipment left as tribute in addition to our children." we would have thought you were insane, sick, and off your medications. But we did, and there was a price. In a defeat of choice, in a complete collapse of competence at the most senior levels of our civilian and military leadership ... we did. In our panicked retreat, we had our deadliest day in 11 years. Our Marines, Sailor, and Soldier filled with their bodies the gap in intelligence, planning, and leadership by—what we are all told—are the very best, the most credentialed products of the finest institutions and selection processes designed to produce competent leaders for our nation of 330+ million souls. They physically stepped into the real-world breach created by the wholesale failure of our intelligentsia and its rent-seeking nomenklatura. They did their job; everyone whom they trusted with their lives in DC and Tampa did not. That is the first lesson here; our self-described "best" who claim to be the ruling class are not our best. They are not good at their jobs. Their ideas are garbage. Their ethics are fetid to the core. Their morality sold for a farthing's worth of power, fame, and influence. At the tactical level, from the C-17 aircrews to the leaders on the ground, they did the best they could with the ROE, restraints, and constraints that were put on them from DC. The American military from field grade officers to the 20-year-old E-3s did an exceptional job—but there was only so much that could be done inside a structure of incompetence and politicized uniformed nomenklatura that we allowed to rise to the top over two decades. Those left in Kabul were never given time. They were never given honesty. The enemy knew this. We had to be right all the time; the enemy only needed to be lucky once. And so they were. The world's self-described super power selected the wrong people for the wrong reasons using the wrong selection criteria, through a culture with the wrong priorities. This cannot be argued. The evidence is right there to be seen by all. And so, for two decades, the products of the 'best' universities, think tanks, and political organizations in what was once the world's greatest power brought us to the point where those kids and newborns of 2001 grew into adulthood, only to be killed on the altar of their leaders’ hubris and lies. We failed these young men and women in detail; we failed our nation and our friends at large. Like other great Americans before them, these men and women - the children of 2001 - decided to serve their nation as they became adults. As many of their peers complained about how COVID might interfere with their getting a Rhodes scholarship or positioning for the right fellowship in their resumes ... they enlisted to serve in the war they have known their whole lives, and what in the end would be their entire life. Here are the 13 we recognized last Friday. - Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas - Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, Calif. - Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City - Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tenn. - Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, Calif. - Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyo. - Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. - Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Neb. - Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, Calif. - Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass. - Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind. - Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Mo. - Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio I know I am not blameless here. I've been blogging since 2004 and have regularly written about the fact that I helped kick this off in the first few months of 2001. I spent years later that decade on active duty in Europe, Tampa, and Afghanistan studying, staffing, writing, and then trying to implement the Operational Plan to make this a success as one of many staff weenie worker bees that infested this failed enterprise. I was part of trying to make this work. For a while, I thought we could. At one time I was proud of what I did. I thought it was important and could be successful. I was wrong. I failed too. I owe the fathers of these men and women, men my age with kids the same age as mine - kids they now have to bury - an apology. I am so sorry. Words from me are inadequate. I cannot imagine your personal loss, joining thousands of others who fell in the last two decades. Everyone deserved to have more than this to show for it. Again, here words fail me. I'm sorry. If Hannity is the only place that will let them speak their peace, then so be it. Here are but two of the fathers. You can hear the words of other family members elsewhere. I encourage you to find them and add links to them in the comments. I can't right now. A monument to two things: to the steadfastness of the Afghan culture and the utter inadequacy of the elite of the United States of America. There's your photo. A final note: the median age in Afghanistan is 18.4 years. Everyone to the left of that mark, and a few others, grew up under American occupation. Tens of thousands of Afghans fought and died for the promise we made to them. They and their families fell for our myth. Most of the Taliban who saw us off knew nothing but American and allied occupation, and yet they too became an antibody to our presence, and they defeated us through sheer force of will. So, as Afghanistan falls into shadow, hundreds to thousands of American citizens, green card holders, allied civilians, and our Afghan friends who we abandoned behind us will fear the dark. Waiting for footsteps at the door. Waiting for people who will never return home from errands. Wondering why no one will return calls and texts ... and wondering how they can escape back to the civilized world. The fault, shame, and humiliation are all ours; all red, white, and blue. Share Leave a comment Subscribe now View the full article

REGENT Craft has raised $240 million in Series B funding, split evenly between equity and debt, the Rhode Island-based seaglider manufacturer announced Thursday. The round was co-led by investment firms Mare Liberum and AE Ventures, with debt capital provided by Erebor Bank. The new funding brings REGENT’s total raised to date, across equity and debt, […]View the full article

A Ukrainian defense expert has flagged an apparent discrepancy in a promotional video from American drone maker AeroVironment, saying footage the company presented as a successful Switchblade 600 strike actually shows the Ukrainian-made RAM-2X strike drone in action. Bohdan Miroshnychenko, military analyst and editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian defense outlet Oboronka, raised the discrepancy in a […]View the full article

Finnish defense manufacturer Patria remotely operated an AMV armored vehicle located in Finland from a control desk in Tokyo, a distance of more than 7,800 kilometers (4,847 miles), the company said this week. The demonstration took place August 25-26, hosted by the Embassy of Finland in Japan. The Patria AMV was positioned at the Parola […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has selected five companies to build and operate nuclear microreactors at military installations across the country, awarding up to $2.2 billion in combined funding under its Janus Program, the Army announced. Westinghouse Government Services will supply its eVinci microreactor to Fort Drum, New York. Antares Nuclear will build at Fort Bragg, North […]View the full article

Russia’s state defense conglomerate Rostec has delivered a new batch of Su-35S multirole fighters to the Russian Aerospace Forces, the company said Thursday. It is the third such delivery of 2026. The aircraft, built by Rostec subsidiary United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) at the Yuri Gagarin Aviation Plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, completed a full cycle of factory […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy is looking for companies that can help it build a new torpedo that aircraft and drones could launch from far away to hit enemy submarines, according to a notice posted publicly this week. The Naval Air Systems Command, working on behalf of the Navy’s Strike Weapons Program Office, is calling the effort […]View the full article

Navier’s N30 Quanta-D hydrofoil vessel completed a round of testing with U.S. Department of War customers last week, running mission profiles in front of special operations evaluators, the company said. The San Francisco Bay Area maritime technology company said the exercise, called Technical Experimentation 26-3, tested the boat’s performance in real mission scenarios. Navier did […]View the full article

Splash Industries has introduced a new mission module for its Typhoon uncrewed surface vessel that lets operators launch one-way aerial drones from the boat, the company said Monday. The module, called the Airstrike Pack, allows operators to deploy the aerial assets with the press of a button through Splash’s own command and control software, Splash […]View the full article

British company ZeroUSV said it has demonstrated the autonomous deployment of two smaller surface drones from its Oceanus12 uncrewed surface vessel, during trials conducted in Plymouth, England. The Oceanus12, a 12-meter uncrewed surface vessel, deployed two Oshen C-Star drones during the trial. ZeroUSV described the demonstration as a world first, showing how one autonomous surface […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has ordered another $51 million worth of Switchblade 600 loitering munitions from AeroVironment, the company announced Wednesday. The delivery order covers additional Switchblade 600 Block 2 systems and also includes Switchblade 600 Block 1 systems tied to a Foreign Military Sale for an unnamed U.S. ally. It was issued under the Army’s […]View the full article

Cambridge Pixel will show its software for uncrewed and autonomous surface vessels at SMM 2026, a maritime trade fair running September 1-4 in Hamburg, Germany. The UK-based company will set up at Hall B1, Stand 321, where it plans to demonstrate radar, camera and sensor processing modules used for tracking, data fusion, display, control, recording […]View the full article

A European company plans to build a $233 million explosives and warhead factory in Latvia, a NATO ally that sits just 175 miles (280 km) from Russia’s border, in a project aimed at closing a supply gap that has left Europe dependent on outside sources for the raw materials behind its weapons. Wolfram Europa announced […]View the full article

The U.S. Army is preparing to select a new infantry fighting vehicle that will replace the Bradley after more than 40 years in service and serve as the backbone of the Army’s armored formations for decades to come. Known as XM30, the program has two finalists, General Dynamics Land Systems and American Rheinmetall Vehicles, both […]View the full article

Y Combinator-backed startup IMPACT Drones says it built a working prototype of its high-speed interceptor drone, called SABLE, in two weeks, according to posts by the company’s two co-founders on social media. Jasper Lortije, whom the company lists as CEO, and Alessandro Fiume, listed as founder, both posted about the prototype this week. IMPACT Drones […]View the full article

More than 2,500 government, industry and academic representatives gathered in Novi, Michigan, August 11-13 for the 18th annual Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium, where U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center leaders outlined how the command is using integrated experimentation to speed new technology toward soldiers, according to a DEVCOM […]View the full article

Four decades. Austal USA launched the Navy’s Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium (AFDM) 15 on July 28. This is the first AFDM built in over 40 years and the largest vessel launched into the Mobile Channel to date. At 12,000 tons, 694 feet long and with a deck working area of 90,800 square feet, AFDM is the largest vessel launch Austal USA’s test and activation team has coordinated and executed in the company’s 26-year history. Let’s look at those stats again: Displacement: 12,000 tons Length: 694 feet Lifting capacity: 18,000 tons Armament: none For reference, a Flight III Arleigh Burke DDG is 509.5 feet and weighs 9,700 tons. She is now the only AFDM the Navy has. Just one. A single point of failure. When it comes to this segment of the “unsexy but important” part of maritime power, AFDM are not the big boys. That category belongs to what we now call Auxiliary Floating Docks, Big (AFDBs) that were built in WWII. Some still live on in other roles today, 80 years later, but none of them are working for the U.S. Navy. What can an AFDB handle? Let’s use USS AFDB-2 as an example of her type—which has an interesting story we’ll get back to down-post. Displacement: 38,500 tons Length: 927 feet Capacity: 90,000 tons Armament 14 × 40 mm (1.6 in) guns 14 × 20 mm (0.79 in) guns Never forget that names mean things. AFDBs have not always been called that. They were first called Advanced Base Sectional Docks (ABSDs). Someone decided to rename them, and with that, they avoided the question, “Advanced Base? What advanced base?” Of course, in the last Great Pacific War when the American Navy was contested at sea, a foundational capability, in line with what we discussed on the last Midrats Podcast was being able to do maintenance, in volume, forward, in an expeditionary manner. Now it is time to get ready for that war. We do not need one AFDM on the West Coast praying no one looks at her sideways and that someone pulls heavy lift ships out of a hat to bring damaged ships to her. No. We need a lot of AFDMs. We should also consider if we need need AFDBs as well, ones that you can pull a 1,106-foot, 100,000-ton Ford CVN onto if needed. If you have a battle damaged CVN, focusing on the “N” here, wouldn’t the prudent thing to do is to have another option besides, “Tow the holed and listing girl for a few weeks to Pearl and then we’ll evaluate her…” Think about it. Whatever more we buy, they need to be designed to be forward, and they need at least a rudimentary ability to defend themselves against air and surface attack by the entire menagerie of attack drones we know will be hunting the open Pacific. As Winston said: Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves. We’ve been there before. We will need to be there again. For almost criminal reasons, our new AFDM are specifically designed to “…operate in benign threat environments“. Read it yourself on the last page. I smell accountants and non-battleminded budget trolls behind this foolishness. We know that we have to be able to repair forward or we will not win a war against the People’s Republic of China’s navy should we find ourselves at war in the next few years west of the International Date Line. We have allowed those tasked with stewardship of our maritime power to hand-wave this way in the hope that war will not come. Almost criminal. In the last Great Pacific War, the great anchorage at Ulithi came under attack, twice. ABSD-2 and ABSD-4 both came under attack in 1945 while in the harbor at Manus Island. ABSD-2 ate a torpedo. If we are serious about fighting…and winning…the next Great Pacific War, we will build more floating dry docks, larger ones, and we shall arm them and take them where they are needed—in harm’s way. Oh, and we should properly name them as well. We should make ABSDs great again. Words mean things. They focus the mind. We expect them to be in an Advanced Base. It is in their name. And they’re going to be armed, so they shall be USS. They shall be commanded by Engineering Duty Officer Captains. There. We can do this. History will not wait for us. Cut steel. 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 AC-130J Ghostrider is one of the most heavily armed aircraft in the U.S. military, a modified cargo plane converted into a gunship that circles slowly overhead and rains down precision fire on ground targets. It carries a 30 mm cannon, a 105 mm howitzer, and a mix of guided bombs and missiles, all controlled […]View the full article

Poland may be preparing to buy around a dozen Airbus A400M Atlas heavy transport aircraft through the European Union’s SAFE defense financing mechanism, according to Polish defense analyst Jarosław Wolski, who cited unnamed sources in an August 25 post on X. Wolski wrote that the numbers he has heard range from 8 to 15 aircraft, […]View the full article

Sen. Richard Blumenthal toured a Ukrainian drone production line in Kyiv and said the country is manufacturing “thousands” of attack drones every day, offering a rare on-the-record look from a sitting U.S. lawmaker at the scale of Ukraine’s wartime drone industry. Blumenthal named the company as SkyFall, a Ukrainian defense technology firm, in a post […]View the full article

Satellite images showing a stealth fighter-shaped object at a former Chinese airport turn out to depict a fire-fighting trainer mock-up, according to Chinese aerospace analyst Andreas Rupprecht. Rupprecht made the assessment in an August 25 post on X, sharing images that show Chinese military firefighters conducting a live training exercise around the mock-up, including one […]View the full article