Raw Intel

France will let Ukraine build its own French-designed cruise missiles, guided bombs, and air defense interceptors on Ukrainian soil, President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday, an offer Reuters reported came alongside confirmation that Ukraine will receive 16 Rafale fighter jets starting in 2028, the first specific delivery window French officials have ever attached to Kyiv’s long-standing […]View the full article

Sudan’s army destroyed two Chinese-made combat drones flown by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces within the same operation, one shot out of the sky with an air-to-air missile and a second wrecked on the ground, according to footage published July 13 by Clash Report, a Turkish-based news outlet that has covered Sudan’s drone war extensively. […]View the full article

It was only a matter of time…and what a way to do it. Iran: check Submarine: check Shipyard: check Daylight: check “Just another day in the office.” vibe: check I like the matter-of-fact verbiage from DVIDS: Using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran, July 12, 2026. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations. The strikes degraded Iran’s ability to continue attacking commercial shipping. As Mehdi pointed out, just drove right in like we owned the place. You can find…

The U.S. military has now named the exact weapon it used to make history over the weekend, confirming that three Saronic-built Corsair unmanned boats carried out the first combat strike ever conducted by American sea drones, slamming into a submarine and ship maintenance facility at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base. U.S. Central Command detailed the […]View the full article

A single soldier could soon carry a weapon capable of dropping an air-bursting grenade precisely over an enemy hiding behind a wall, then swinging the same weapon skyward to knock a small attack drone out of the air, and American Rheinmetall Munitions just released a new video showing off the rifle it’s betting will do […]View the full article

Babcock International has finished building the last of 123 Jackal 3 high-mobility vehicles for the British Army, with the final vehicle, a six-wheeled Extenda variant, rolling off the production line at the company’s Devonport facility in Plymouth and now heading into testing before it joins the Army’s operational fleet. The Jackal has been a fixture […]View the full article

Ukraine’s military appears to have carried out its first mass simultaneous strike using converted light aircraft that function as reusable, remotely piloted bombers, with Serhii Sternenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Minister, publishing photos showing at least ten of the modified planes armed with Soviet-designed high-explosive bombs and describing the image as one worth calling […]View the full article

Ukrainian forces have carried out what the military describes as the world’s first known combat mission combining a naval drone with an armed ground robot, using an unmanned surface vessel to ferry a machine-gun-equipped robotic vehicle across the Black Sea and land it directly on Russian-occupied shoreline, United24 Media reported July 13, citing Ukraine’s 123rd […]View the full article

A U.S. Army base in Washington state just got a new kind of neighbor: a kinetic interceptor built to shoot small drones out of the sky before they reach anything worth protecting. Joint Base Lewis-McChord began installing a suite of Anduril Industries counter-drone hardware, the first physical build-out of a system meant to shield one […]View the full article

U.S. Marines with 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion spent early June learning to handle a boat the Marine Corps has bet will let small reconnaissance teams operate across the scattered islands of the Western Pacific without waiting for a ship to carry them there. The unit, part of 3rd Marine Division, conducted familiarization training with the Multi-Mission […]View the full article

U.S. Central Command struck dozens of targets across Iran on Sunday using one-way attack sea drones for the first time in the conflict, a new addition to a strike package that already included fighter aircraft, naval vessels, and one-way attack aerial drones, marking the fourth round of American strikes against Iran since Tehran resumed attacks […]View the full article

German defense giant Rheinmetall has secured a contract worth just under €1 billion (roughly $1.1 billion) for its role in overhauling how the British Army trains its soldiers, part of a broader £2 billion (approximately $2.7 billion) government program that will replace traditional live exercises with a blended system of virtual, synthetic and data-driven training […]View the full article

Norwegian defense and technology group Kongsberg posted a second quarter that outpaced its own recent growth trajectory by a wide margin, with revenue climbing 31 percent to NOK 10,389 million (roughly $1.06 billion) and operating profit jumping nearly 50 percent to NOK 1,669 million (about $171 million), as demand for its missile systems and layered […]View the full article

From the Sea of Azov, Strait of Hormuz, Ankara, to the South China Sea - don’t miss today’s LIVE Midrats Podcast from 5-6pm Eastern. You can join the live session and contribute the chat room at this link. In our melee format, Mark and I have our list of topics, but if you join the live show chat, you can ask us questions or even suggest a topic we cover. Live…not net. If you are reading this after the show, check the Substack later Sunday night for all the podcast links. Don’t miss 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

The fast-attack submarine USS Tucson (SSN 770) slid into Apra Harbor on July 10, swapping its old home in Pearl Harbor for a new one at Naval Base Guam, in a routine-looking port call that carries real weight for how the U.S. Navy positions its undersea forces against a rapidly expanding Chinese fleet. Tucson, a […]View the full article

U.S. Central Command finished its third round of airstrikes against Iran in a single week on July 11, hitting roughly 140 military targets after Iranian forces attacked another commercial vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil out of the Persian Gulf every day. The strikes, […]View the full article

Russia has begun arming its large surface warships with new electronic warfare systems in an apparent attempt to counter Ukrainian drone attacks, according to imagery circulating in recent days on Russian military-affiliated social media channels. The anti-drone complex, identified as “Pereyed-M,” has reportedly been spotted installed on four vessels of the Russian Navy: the Project […]View the full article

Germany’s DEUTZ AG, a 160-year-old engine manufacturer better known for building diesel motors than battle tanks, agreed on July 9 to buy FFG Flensburger Fahrzeugbau, one of Europe’s leading makers of armored vehicles, for €1.6 billion (roughly $1.83 billion). The deal marks the largest acquisition in the Cologne company’s history and signals a decisive break […]View the full article

Ukrainian ground robots ran more than 16,600 supply and evacuation missions in June, the highest monthly total since the Defense Ministry began tracking the numbers in January, and the pace shows no sign of slowing as Kyiv pushes to get soldiers off the most exposed roads to the front. Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the […]View the full article

The Czech Army held a handover ceremony on July 10 at the 73rd Tank Battalion’s base in Přáslavice, a garrison town in the Olomouc region of eastern Czechia, marking the delivery of the final Leopard 2A4 in a fleet that now totals 42 tanks. The Leopard 2A4 is an earlier variant of Germany’s Leopard 2 […]View the full article