Raw Intel

Airbus Helicopters Inc. has been awarded a $115.4 million contract to build up to 12 more UH-72B Lakota helicopters for the U.S. Army, the Department of War announced Aug. 14. The contract covers the helicopters themselves, designated the MBB-BK 117 D3, along with jettisonable cockpit doors, air conditioning system installation, engine inlet barrier filters and […]View the full article

Researchers at Monash University have published a capacity maturity model for assessing how prepared a country is to defend itself against disinformation campaigns, backed by a 103-page white paper that lays out the reasoning behind it in far more depth than the university’s public summary of the project disclosed. The model and white paper were […]View the full article

Thermopylae Aerospace, a California-based interceptor drone startup launched in June 2025 by a young Ukrainian engineer, said it completed a successful end-to-end demonstration of its SPART interceptor at Edwards Air Force Base, briefing senior Air Force Test Center leadership on the system during the “Game of Drones 26-2” event in mid-July. “At 412th Test Wing, […]View the full article

UFORCE, the London-headquartered maker of Ukraine’s Magura naval drones, is touting a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian air defenses in Crimea as evidence for its pitch to the Pentagon, days before the deadline for a Defense Innovation Unit prize challenge seeking naval drones that can launch their own aircraft. Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence agency, GUR, […]View the full article

Ukrainian long-range strikes hit an industrial site in Samara, Russia, overnight into Aug. 15, triggering a regional air raid alert and a series of explosions residents reported hearing across the city, according to Russian officials and Ukrainian open-source monitoring of the aftermath. Samara region governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev confirmed that a missile struck an industrial enterprise […]View the full article

A drone found washed up on a UK beach turned out to be a Skyhammer interceptor built by Cambridge Aerospace, the British startup that closed a $300 million funding round at a $3.4 billion valuation earlier this month, according to a Reddit thread and a subsequent technical breakdown posted on social media by UAV engineer […]View the full article

U.S. defense giant Northrop Grumman unveiled Raid Hunter on Aug. 11, a 50mm gun-based air defense system built to counter cruise missiles and drone swarms at short range around military bases and other critical sites. The system pairs the company’s XM913 Bushmaster III chain gun with newly developed precision-guided 50mm ammunition and a networked system […]View the full article

Quit? That is what other people do. I wonder how well he is known in his own nation. It really doesn’t matter, I think. Anyone who has worn the uniform should be able to look to this officer and simply say, “stud.” Naval aviator and all.. Via TheDailyMail; Japan declared war on Germany and (Oberleutnant Gunther) Pluschow flew in a single-seat Rumpler Taube plane to neutral China while under heavy fire from the Royal Navy. He obtained a false passport in the name of E.F McGarvin and boarded the SS Mongolia which left Shanghai to San Francisco on December 5, 1914. He travelled across neutral America and obtained another false passport that proclaimed him to be Swiss natio…

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) says its Alfa special operations unit is running what the agency calls a unique operation to isolate an entire stretch of front-line territory, using a category of strike drones it calls “middle-strike” to cut Russian supply routes. Over the past month, SBU special operations fighters destroyed or damaged nearly 2,400 Russian […]View the full article

German ARX Robotics and its Ukrainian manufacturing partner Roboneers have delivered 30 unmanned ground vehicles to Ukraine’s Defense Forces, equipping a single regiment to run logistics, casualty evacuation and ammunition resupply missions with unmanned systems at the same time, the German company said. The regiment is now operating the vehicles across multiple mission types simultaneously, […]View the full article

Avidrone Aerospace said this week it will develop a new version of Katana, the single-rotor helicopter drone that won the top prize at DARPA’s Lift Challenge earlier this month in Dayton, Ohio. Katana carried a 51-kilogram (112.4-pound) payload aboard a 13.3-kilogram (29.3-pound) airframe, producing an official payload-to-aircraft-weight ratio of 3.84 to 1, Avidrone said. The […]View the full article

Oshkosh Defense and the Marine Corps’ Marine Depot Maintenance Command manufactured an identical, approved replacement part for a Marine Corps heavy truck at two separate production sites, one in Japan and one in Georgia, using the same secure digital blueprint during Exercise Valiant Shield 2026, the company said in a release. Oshkosh Defense, an Oshkosh […]View the full article

Most are familiar with the rolling train wreck of missed opportunities, bad theory, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, and destroyed careers that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) left in its wake…and still does. Many of us remember the mission set it was supposed to meet compared to the shambolic grabassery it transmogrified into. Looking back at the sales pitch by the ascendant transformationalists just makes you sick to your stomach what they did to Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski and Captain Wayne Hughes’ concept. We also remember the mission set of the recently decommissioned-without-relief Cyclone Class Patrol ships and why we had them—with the added side-benef…

Leonardo DRS said its SGT STOUT M-SHORAD air defense system successfully defeated small drone threats during a government test, adding a capability the system was not originally built to handle. The company said the system defeated Group 1-2 unmanned aircraft, the military’s classification for small, low-altitude drones, during a U.S. government test event. SGT STOUT […]View the full article

Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck the Russian naval base at Novorossiysk overnight on August 12, 2026, damaging four Russian warships in what it described as a joint operation by Ukraine’s Defense Forces. The General Staff identified the damaged vessels as the frigates Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen, both Project 11356 ships, the Project […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy awarded BAE Systems a $149.8 million contract to overhaul USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship that turned back from deployment in 2024 after a rudder failure just 10 days out of port. BAE Systems Maritime Solutions in San Diego will perform the maintenance, modernization and repair work during a fiscal 2027 selected […]View the full article

I am of the last cohort of military officers who grew up training for nuclear war expected at any moment. By the time I had been on this planet less than 25 years, I was cleared, if ordered, to deliver nuclear weapons—so were thousands of us. From frigates to submarines to helicopters, pointy nosed jets and prop engined patrol aircraft—our Navy was thick with nuclear weapons. As a junior officer, it was just another PQS book, another exercise, another inspection, another qualification. No big deal. Well, it was a big deal. I saw a grown man cry over an inspection as a JO. In hindsight, it was actually kind of amazing how we just lived with those things on a hair-trigger …

A boat built to carry a 70-ton battle tank through the surf rolled off an assembly line in Vancouver, Washington, and the U.S. Army is counting down to delivery this fall. Vigor Marine Group unveiled the USAV Craney Island, the second Maneuver Support Vessel (Light) built under a program designed to replace the Army’s aging […]View the full article

Two of America’s biggest defense manufacturers teamed up to solve a problem that has quietly threatened to undercut the Pentagon’s entire hypersonic weapons push, the country’s struggle to actually build these weapons fast enough once the engineering work is done. Lockheed Martin and Albany Engineered Composites, a segment of Albany International Corp., announced a teaming […]View the full article

The U.S. Army’s search for a replacement to one of its most iconic armored vehicles is entering a make-or-break phase, and a nationwide network of American factories is racing to prove its design deserves the job. American Rheinmetall announced that its Lynx XM30 infantry fighting vehicle prototype is approaching delivery to the Army, a milestone […]View the full article