Raw Intel

Saudi soldiers are training alongside U.S. Army units in California in a milestone event for the two countries’ long-standing military partnership. According to the Army, troops from the Royal Saudi Land Forces are conducting operations at the National Training Center (NTC) during Rotation 26-02 at Fort Irwin on November 7, marking the first time a […]View the full article

Cambodian military forces have captured a Thai Army BTR-3E1 armored vehicle near the Thai-Cambodian border, marking the first confirmed battlefield trophy of the latest phase of fighting between the two countries. Photos circulating on social media show soldiers from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces posing alongside a BTR-3E1 infantry fighting vehicle after it was abandoned […]View the full article

Epirus released video on January 13 showing its Leonidas VehicleKit high-power microwave system disabling a fiber-optic guided unmanned aerial system during a December 2025 live-fire demonstration at a U.S. government testing site. The company said the demonstration represents the first documented instance of weaponized electromagnetic interference defeating a fiber-optic controlled drone. According to Epirus, the […]View the full article

The UK-built HYDRA-400 ultra heavy-lift drone has successfully completed its first flight, according to a report by The Daily Express, drawing interest from the British Army and several NATO partners. The aircraft, developed by Hampshire-based manufacturer Hybrid Drones, is described as a first-in-class ultra heavy-lift uncrewed aerial vehicle capable of lifting up to 400 kilograms. […]View the full article

Germany has overtaken China to become the world’s fourth-largest arms exporter, according to a new global weapons transfer report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The annual assessment reviews major conventional weapons transfers worldwide during the 2021–2025 period and shows Germany moving ahead of China in total export volume. The shift reflects […]View the full article

I have no idea what to do with this statement from the President of the United States earlier today. This is not what I would recommend. It can be read about six different ways, and the most charitable one would be, “Take the President of the United States seriously, but not literally.” That isn’t what I am going to focus on today. Nope. In this space, I am accountable to myself and my loyal readers. On March 2nd, I put this on the table. While I approve of what we’ve done so far, I am going to put a marker down.My support is based on what we see this beautiful March 2nd, 2026. If this degenerates into another long, drawn-out conflict where we put boots on the ground, my…

The U.S. Marine Corps needs roughly 40 amphibious warfare ships to sustain its goal of keeping three Marine Expeditionary Units deployed simultaneously, and it currently has 32. That gap, laid out publicly by Marine Lt. Gen. Jay Bargeron at the Modern Day Marine exhibition in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, frames one of the most consequential […]View the full article

The Netherlands sent more than 60 Toyota Hilux pickup trucks to Ukraine, dispatching them by rail for use by Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Force Command, the branch of the Ukrainian military that operates the country’s drone forces and has become one of the most consequential fighting formations in the war against Russia. The Dutch Ministry of […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s most ambitious research arm wants to build computers that can think in the dark, operate on almost no power, and keep working even when their own hardware is failing, and it is now asking the technology world to help figure out how. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Pentagon’s research and technology […]View the full article

Two German defense companies just proved a submarine can fire a scout instead of a torpedo, completing sea trials of an uncrewed boat small enough to launch from a standard torpedo tube and surface on its own to spy on an enemy without ever putting the submarine itself at risk. GABLER, a German firm known […]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…

Russian aircraft dropped 8,766 glide bombs on Ukrainian front-line positions in August 2026, the highest monthly total recorded since the invasion began, according to Ukrainian General Staff figures compiled by the OSINT monitoring group Oko Gora. The total works out to an average of 283 bombs a day over the 31-day month. Oko Gora put […]View the full article

Russia has shown an upgraded Pantsir-S1M air defense system mounted on a Belarus-built MZKT-7930-312 chassis during its Tsentr-2026 strategic exercise, the first official confirmation that the gun-and-missile system now rides on the heavy Minsk-built chassis. Until now, the configuration was known only from a leaked supply contract and from a single vehicle that Ukrainian drone […]View the full article

U.S. Army soldiers in Germany are training with AZAK’s S26 unmanned ground vehicle. On Oct. 21, troops from 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment used the robot to evacuate a casualty during a platoon situational training exercise at Grafenwoehr Training Area, the first field use of the system by the Vilseck-based regiment since it began receiving […]View the full article

Americas Sikorsky won a $550.4 million modification, which is for Lot IV low rate initial production and delivery of six CH-53K aircraft and associated aircraft, programmatic and logistics support, rate tooling and physical configuration audits. The CH-53K Super Stallion can be fielded from amphibious assault ships for the transportation of personnel and equipment. The aircraft can be operated from austere and remote forward operating bases. It is Marine Corps’ heavy-lift replacement for the CH-53E Super Stallion. Designed to lift nearly 14 tons at a mission radius of 110 nautical miles, in Navy high/hot environments, the CH-53K is designed to lift triple the baseline CH-…

I love our Navy, as I know almost everyone here does. As such, I try as hard as I can to be optimistic - not by experience - but by hope. We were granted by previous generations an advantage at sea not seen since the Royal Navy after the final fall of Napoleon. All today's leaders had to do was not screw it up. Since the victory in the Cold War - it was a victory - we seemed to have lost our way. Just look at the series of new major surface combatant failures of the last quarter century. Officially and unofficially, we've tried to admit our mistakes - we've even had "blue ribbon" commissions and reports outlining them and calling for corrections. It is one thing to ad…

Before: M109 & M992 (click to view full) The USA’s 155mm M109 self-propelled howitzers (SPH) were first introduced in 1962, as a form of armored mobile artillery that could stand up to the massed fire tactics of Soviet heavy artillery and rockets. They and their companion M992 Armored Ammunition Resupply Vehicles (AARV) have been rebuilt and upgraded several times, most recently via the M109A6 Paladin upgrade. In the meantime, the Army has re-learned a few home truths. Artillery arrives in seconds rather than minutes or hours, is never unavailable due to bad weather, and cheaply delivers a volume of explosive destruction that would otherwise require hundreds of mil…

Americas Lockheed Martin Missiles won a $101.3 million contract modification for procurement of Hellfire missiles and containers. Hellfire is an air-to-ground, laser guided, subsonic missile with significant anti-tank capacity. It can also be used as an air-to-air weapon against helicopters or slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft. It has also been fielded on surface platforms in the surface-to-surface and surface-to-air roles. Work will take place in Florida. Estimated completion date is September 30, 2024. Northrop Grumman won a $28.7 million contract modification, which provides for the procurement of one additional G/ATOR system for the Air Force. The G/ATOR program is man…

For obvious reasons, the navalists amongst us (guilty) have an ear out for Odessa. Not only is it the last significant port on the Black Sea under the control of Ukraine, it has a history from the dawn of time as the key to any conflict in this area. The Russians must take it during this campaign. As such, this got my attention today; The Ukrainian military is reporting Russian warships in the Black Sea are shelling villages near the coast close to the nearby port city of Odesa. These attacks specifically targeted the settlements of Lebedivka, Sanzheika, Zatoka, and Bilenke, according to a Wednesday Facebook post from Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces. These vi…

Americas Lockheed Martin has received a US Army contract to develop a future precision strike missile to strike targets more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away. Called the Long-Range Maneuverable Fires missile, the program will become the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) increment 4, being fired from existing army launchers to defeat distant threats. According to […]View the full article