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Firehawk successfully fired six Hydra-70 rockets in a live-fire test at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, the company said Friday, achieving a 100 percent success rate. The rockets were built at Firehawk’s facility in Crawford, Mississippi, and fired from an M261 rocket launcher, the launcher used operationally with the Hydra-70 system on aircraft including the AH-64 […]View the full article

In our 21st century minds, it is easy to forget that 250 years ago, residents of the 13 Colonies had only a vague concept of themselves as ‘Americans’ and of America as a nation. They were, before anything, residents of their colony/state. Indeed, in less than a century, this concept had become so strong that it was one of the issues over which we fought our Civil War. Any yet, just over a month after the 13 Colonies declared their independence, at the southern end of Long Island in New York, a few hundred men from Maryland and Delaware, part of an Army led by a Virginian fighting in a revolution started by New Englanders stood in front of a massive host of British and Germans. They stood. There is no reason for the American military to celebrate so far out of proportion to what is necessary the 300 Spartans and their allies at the Battle of Thermopylae. 250 years ago, we had our own Thermopylae—not 300 strangers, but 400 of our fellow Americans from Maryland and Delaware. They stood before of King George III’s legions, outnumbered 2,000 to 400, in a holding action so George Washington and the rest of the army could successfully retreat from an army 10,000 strong—and survive to fight and win our independence years later. On 27 August, 1776 the Battle of Brooklyn Heights gave us our Immortals from Maryland and Delaware. …a month before, the First Maryland Regiment had already left for New York, Maryland’s most disciplined and well-equipped force. Many of the Marylanders even had bayonets for their weapons, which others in the Continental Army lacked. Bayonets turned muskets into spears for close contact fighting. The regiment was under the command of Colonel William Smallwood with the assistance of Thomas Stone’s brother, Captain John Hoskins Stone. By late August, the First Maryland Regiment, totalling about 1,100 men was positioned in the vicinity of Brooklyn on Long Island. While George Washington was an able and skilled commander, his task would be extremely difficult; trying to determine exactly where the British would land, and not having enough men to defend every area. Added to that, he made several significant mistakes in the lead up to the Battle of Brooklyn. He divided his forces between Manhattan, where he expected the main British attack, and Long Island. Even after the British landed 10,000 infantrymen on Long Island, Washington did not move to support the Marylanders and other American forces on Long Island. Early on August 27, 1776, a column of several thousand British soldiers under the command of Generals Cornwallis and Clinton marched through the barely defended Jamaica Pass on Long Island. At 9:00 am, the British commenced an attack on the Americans from the rear, while Hessian (German) mercenaries attacked from the front. In the battle, Colonel William Smallwood was not with the First Maryland Regiment, instead assisting in a court martial proceeding. General William Alexander, self-proclaimed as Lord Stirling, took command of the Marylanders and the First Delaware Regiment. As the morning progressed, the enemy began to encircle the Americans. The only possible escape route was to cross under heavy fire, a marshy area about eighty yards wide called Gowanus Creek. On the other side was the stronger American position of Brooklyn Heights. Lord Stirling ordered most of his men towards the Gowanus Creek, and about half the First Maryland Regiment and most of the First Delaware Regiment was able to retreat, including Stone’s first company. Stirling stayed with about 400 battle-weary Maryland and Delaware survivors to serve as a rear guard. Two thousand British infantrymen and Hessians surrounded the Marylanders and Delawareans. Many of the British fired from the windows of a building known locally as the “Old Stone House.” In the smoke and confusion of battle the house must have looked like a fortress. Then Lord Stirling and the “Maryland 400” did the unexpected. They charged towards the Old Stone House with their muskets and bayonets. According to survivor accounts, the British “infantry poured volleys of musket balls in almost solid sheets of lead” at the Marylanders and Delawareans. Forced to retreat, they regrouped over their dead and wounded friends and colleagues and charged a second time with their fixed bayonets. Then they did it a third time. When the fighting was ended, 256 Marylanders and Delawareans lay dead on the ground in the vicinity of the Old Stone House, over 60% of the attacking force and one of the largest fatality percentage rates for any battle in American history. Over 100 were captured, but many of those Marylanders and Delawareans died as prisoners of war. Only a few dozen of the “Maryland 400” escaped alive back to American lines. One of those survivors was brilliant and ever-proud Lord Stirling, who refused to surrender to the British that surrounded him. Instead, he slipped past these foes and surrendered to a group of Hessian mercenaries. Captain John Hoskins Stone would later fight alongside the men of the Maryland Line in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown. A bone shattering battle wound in his ankle at Germantown in October 1777 left him lame for the rest of his life. The significance of the "Maryland 400" cannot be understated. The intense fighting near the Old Stone House lasted almost an hour, which allowed many Americans to escape with their lives. More importantly, it halted the British offensive for the day, which otherwise may have led to the capture of General Washington and his army. The sacrifice of the "Maryland 400," although a more apt term should be the "Maryland and Delaware 400," quite possibly saved the Revolutionary War. We should know, and celebrate, our own history more. The fact we still do not have a great movie about this stand is, really, a bit of a national disgrace. 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

Ukraine’s Security Service struck a Russian Tu-95MS strategic bomber at the Engels-2 airbase in Russia’s Saratov region overnight Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, citing operations by the agency’s Alpha special operations unit, Militarnyi reported. The strike marks the second time in roughly six weeks that Ukrainian drones operated by the SBU’s “Alpha” Center for Special […]View the full article

The U.S. Army signed a deal worth up to $99 million for a small handheld gadget that can detect drones and other radio signals on the battlefield. The device is called MOTH, short for a spectrum analyzer, and it’s made by a California company called Heaviside Industries. The Army’s contract runs through 2031, according to […]View the full article

Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation held a keel-laying ceremony this week at its Admiralty Shipyards for a new Project 677 Lada-class diesel-electric submarine for the Russian Navy, the company said. The submarine, designed by United Shipbuilding’s Rubin Design Bureau, has been named Maloyaroslavets. United Shipbuilding described it as the sixth submarine in the Lada series, though […]View the full article

Raytheon has completed a 17,000-square-foot (1,579 square meter) expansion of its manufacturing facility in Forest, Mississippi, the company said Thursday. The $50 million project is expected to create 100 high-skill jobs by 2028, according to Raytheon, an RTX business. The expansion will serve as a production, test and integration hub for Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band […]View the full article

A firearms and military analyst who posts under the handle Gatnerd has drawn attention on X to a pattern in recent Western weapons development: several systems now being marketed as new technology closely mirror concepts first tested during the final years of the Cold War in the 1980s. The commentary centers on the FireAnt uncrewed […]View the full article

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