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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm that funds high-risk military technology, has hired Systems Planning and Analysis to help manage its biotechnology programs, and it wants artificial intelligence built into how that work is done. The Alexandria, Virginia-based company received a $10.9 million task order for operational and program support services, […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded Oceaneering International a contract worth up to $154.1 million to keep its Dry Deck Shelters working, the hangar-like chambers that let U.S. Navy SEALs leave and return to a submarine while it stays submerged. Oceaneering’s Marine Services Division in Chesapeake, Virginia, received a $24.3 million cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-type contract on […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded WindBorne Systems, a California startup that flies a fleet of self-steering weather balloons, a contract worth up to $48.7 million to supply atmospheric data for military weather forecasting and mission planning. The contract, awarded on Sept. 29, covers continuous, global and targeted vertical profiles of the atmosphere, from the […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Coast Guard used a water cannon on a Chinese fishing boat that refused to leave waters near Dongsha Island in the South China Sea, then warned its crew they would be arrested and their boat seized before finally towing it out of the area. The Coast Guard Administration said its Dongsha-Nansha Branch spotted an […]View the full article

The U.S. military will deploy its NMESIS anti-ship missile launcher to Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island and about 107 km (66 miles) from Taiwan, during a major U.S.-Japanese exercise this month, Japan’s Kyodo News reported on Oct. 2, citing the Yonaguni town government. The launcher will take part in Keen Sword, a large joint exercise […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Air Force has received the first two of 66 new F-16V Block 70 fighter jets bought from the United States, after the aircraft landed at Chihhang Air Base in the eastern county of Taitung around noon on Oct. 2. The arrival comes about a month later than expected and roughly three years behind the […]View the full article

South Korea put its Cheongwang laser weapons on public display for its 78th Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1, showing two new prototypes for the first time, but a live demonstration of the system already in service ran into trouble before the laser burned two target drones out of the sky. The new hardware included […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has set up permanent test lanes for counter-drone weapons at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where it spent most of September putting systems from multiple companies through scenarios modeled on drone incursions along the U.S. southern border. The work was part of Falcon Peak 26.2, an operational experiment run by Joint Interagency […]View the full article

Forterra says well over a thousand missions in Ukraine have shaped how it builds autonomous ground vehicles, from coping with jamming and mud to keeping them running under constant threat from Russian drones. The company develops autonomy systems for military vehicles. Its Lancer is a Polaris Ranger 1500 utility vehicle fitted with Forterra’s AutoDrive self-driving […]View the full article

Hello everyone, especially the more experienced members here. I’d like to gain a detailed understanding of Cold War naval tactics. I’m particularly interested in naval aviation and air operations, but I’m not very familiar with Cold War arms and equipment development. Would any of you be willing to recommend a reading list? I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions or guidance. Thank you in advance! Best regards, A devoted fan of Pacific naval warfare

Ukraine has used its homegrown FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 1, adding that the next step is production. “Ukrainian tactical ballistics. FP-7. First combat use. Thank you for the result. Next, production. Glory to Ukraine!” Zelenskyy said. He did not say when or where […]View the full article

U.S.-based defense technology firm CX2 has released a new version of Vadris, a small radio sensor that rides on an FPV drone and steers it toward the source of an enemy drone’s control signal, now able to pick up several of the most common drone control systems instead of just one. CX2 announced Vadris SDR […]View the full article

As I like to say, words mean things. I was looking for a quick summary of the significance of the Battle of Agincourt and why it might have been chosen as the name for the effort to, in a year’s time, set up a new 4-star functional combatant command, the Autonomous Warfare Command. In a discussion of Jodi Taylor’s fictional novel A Second Chance, Hazel Cushion over at Welcome to Jodi Taylor Books made a solid summary. The Battle of Agincourt …. demonstrated that a well-disciplined force, equipped with innovative tactics and superior weaponry, could overcome numerical superiority on the battlefield. Moreover, Agincourt shattered the myth of invincibility surrounding the French knights, paving the way for future military innovations and strategic thinking. That captures what everyone is trying to do. How do we need to look at Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) as a key to battlefield success for our nation as we approach 2030? How do we reshape our large and unwieldy defense sector to rise to the occasion? With the 5th anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 six months away—and with things having finally evolved to demonstrate the central role RAS will have in future wars at sea and ashore—we have finally decided that our leisurely pace, bureaucratic sloth, and general appreciating-the-situationness were not sufficient for the needs of the moment. We need to move faster with more. Inside our system, besides requirements and needs (not always the same), how do we do that? You need three things: Sponsorship Money Advocacy I don’t think anyone has been satisfied with where we are at the opening of 1QFY27. That appears to be the driving force behind it. The existing structures are not getting the job done, so time to change the structure. Yesterday, among a half-dozen areas covered in his State of the Force speech (the other five I may cover next week in whole or in part), Secretary of War Hegseth brought up a solution his team has come up with to get things up on step. I’ll put the video of the speech at the bottom of this post. The process is Operation Agincourt. The endgame is a 4-star Autonomous Warfare Command to be stood up a year from now, October 1st, 2027. The full memo is below, I cover a few items that stuck out to me after the memo. We have got to find something better, name-wise, than that acronym that…well…how do you pronounce that, “Der-PUM-ux-es”? At first glance, you have to wonder: is that one of Elon Musk’s kids? This clearly states that while it will be a combatant command, it will be a supporting command, and the existing COCOMs will be the supported. This is an aggressive but necessary and doable timeline. “…rebalanced Joint Force investment allocation…”, money, people, and authorities are going to be moved around. Lots of cheese to move. This is where the fighting will be. I hope that this restructuring, from a personnel point of view, will be created out of existing funded billets from other commands, i.e. no increase in staff bloat. Congress will have to put in necessary legislation. We’ll see what happens after the election. The next year will require a lot of work, done quickly, with a new Congress, and a ticking clock. For those in the right place at the right time, what a great opportunity. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Leave a comment Share View the full article

Ukrainian defense company DevDroid put two of its armed ground robots through their paces with the Italian Army during AEGIS 26, a major exercise watched by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, operating them alongside an Italian robot and infantry in a simulated assault and linking them to a NATO battlefield information system. AEGIS 26 was held […]View the full article

Latvia has signed a contract to buy Czech-made Morana 155 mm wheeled howitzers and rocket artillery systems for its armed forces, in a three-way deal with the Slovak government and Czech manufacturer Tatra Defence Systems, the Latvian Defense Ministry said. The ministry, the Slovak government and Tatra Defence Systems signed the contract on Sept. 30. […]View the full article

Turkish defense manufacturer Otokar has signed a $1.47 billion contract to export wheeled armored vehicles and logistics support to a customer it has not named, though the deal will not take effect until government approvals are in place and the buyer pays an advance. The contract, worth exactly $1,472,080,360, covers the supply of several types […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s research agency DARPA is asking industry how to build a new hypersonic cruise missile that would fly much farther, faster or higher than current designs and could still be produced cheaply in large numbers. DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office posted a request for information for the Next Generation Hypersonic Cruise Missile on Sept. 30 […]View the full article

Türkiye will receive the first two of 12 C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft it is buying from the UK in December, once maintenance on them is finished in Britain, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Oct. 1, with the rest of the former Royal Air Force aircraft to follow in stages. The ministry also said […]View the full article

A previously unseen version of Russia’s jet-powered Shahed attack drone has appeared in Ukraine fitted with whisker-like rods on its nose, a modification that Ukrainian volunteer Serhii Sternenko says is designed to detonate the warhead on contact with high-voltage power lines. Sternenko, a Ukrainian volunteer and activist who runs one of the country’s largest drone […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has hired BAE Systems to work out how pulsed lasers could be used for military missions and how to pair solid-state lasers with beam control systems the U.S. Air Force already has, under a contract worth up to $19.7 million. The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, for a program called Laser Utilization […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded British-owned MSI Defence Systems a $197 million contract for 30mm deck gun mounts and the electro-optical sights that aim them, the weapons the service is fitting to its warships to shoot down small drones and fast attack boats. The firm-fixed-price contract, issued by Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division […]View the full article

The U.S. Marine Corps has ordered 32 recovery versions of its Amphibious Combat Vehicle from BAE Systems, the armored repair-and-tow vehicles that will haul broken-down or damaged ACVs off the battlefield and fix them in the field. Marine Corps Systems Command awarded BAE Systems a $230.1 million firm-fixed-price modification on Oct. 1 to exercise options […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded BAE Systems a $146.7 million contract for 40 sets of the electronic warfare suite that protects the F-15EX Eagle II, covering jets in the fighter’s seventh and eighth production lots. The sole-source contract, announced by the Department of War, buys 40 production hardware sets of the Eagle Passive/Active Warning […]View the full article

Russia’s state defense conglomerate Rostec says three of its newest jet-powered strike drones, the S-71M, S-71K and Dan-T, can now do the job of cruise missiles at a fraction of the cost, and that all three are already being used against Ukraine. Rostec made the claims in comments to the Russian Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya […]View the full article

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has put Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in charge of Project Meridian, a 120-day Pentagon study of where future wars will be fought and what weapons the U.S. military will need to win them. Hegseth announced the project on Sept. 30 during his […]View the full article