Raw Intel

Americas R&M Government Services, Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been awarded a maximum $9.9 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract for KC135 aircraft fastener parts kits. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a five-year contract with no option periods. The performance completion date is June 15, 2030. Using military services are Army, Navy and Air Force. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2025 through 2030 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Richmond, Virginia (SPE4A7-25-D-0257). The US Army has contracted American Rheinmetall to supply M1 Abrams main battle tan…

Via Brian McElhiney and Keishi Koja at Stars and Stripes: Japan’s coast guard and military are helping the Navy battle a blaze that broke out aboard an amphibious transport docking ship off Okinawa’s southeastern coast on Wednesday evening. “Crews are responding to a fire aboard USS New Orleans (LPD 18) this evening, Aug. 20, (Japan time) which is in the vicinity of Okinawa, Japan,” U.S. 7th Fleet wrote in an unsigned statement emailed to Stars and Stripes. “We will provide more details as they become available.” … The fire started in the front part of the 684-foot-long vessel, a coast guard spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone Wednesday. “We do not know if it starte…

China’s Eastern Theater Command Navy has conducted a series of realistic combat exercises involving coastal defense missile forces, focusing on rapid deployment, strike coordination, and multi-layered air defense against unmanned aerial threats. The drills, held in unfamiliar terrain, were designed to test and improve the unit’s battlefield adaptability under high-tempo conditions. According to Chinese military […] The post China conducts coastal strike drills in eastern theater first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

L3 Technologies has been awarded a firm-fixed-price contract worth $20,5 million for the production of AN/PEQ-15 infrared illuminators, also known as Advanced Target Pointer/Illuminator/Aiming Lights (ATPIAL). The U.S. Army Contracting Command at Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, made the award on October 21, 2025. According to contract details, the procurement was conducted through a competitive process, with […]View the full article

Footage shared on social media this week by Indian defense journalist Sandeep Unnithan shows what appears to be a kamikaze drone intercepted by Indian Army air defenses during Operation Sindoor. “Turkish YIHA-III drone shot down by Indian Army during #OperationSindoor on display at the army chief’s residence for the Vijay Diwas celebrations,” Unnithan wrote in […]View the full article

Over at WSJ, recent Midrats Podcast guest and former Congressman Mike Gallagher, along with Kevin Wallsten remind us where we were just a year ago in their article, How DEI Caused a Military Recruitment Crisis. So much progress has been made over the last year in a move away from sanctioned sectarianism and institutional racial discrimination that it is easy to forget how bad things were. We should not forget. Much of the progress is based on executive action, not legislation or significant new action in the courts. With the courts, quite a few firewalls have been put in, but not enough. Without proper legislation, we are just one election away from returning to this. Und…

Lockheed Martin successfully conducted a 112-kilometer flight test of its Extended-Range Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (ER GMLRS) at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, the company announced. The test marked the first time an M270A2 launcher fired the Alternative Warhead (AW) configuration of the ER GMLRS rocket, validating launcher integration, precision performance, and lethality. […]View the full article

HDT Robotics announced that it has deployed several Hunter WOLF unmanned ground vehicles for military training and operational evaluation activities, introducing soldiers to the robotic platform in field-based scenarios. The deployment is intended to familiarize military operators with the Hunter WOLF system and demonstrate how unmanned ground vehicles can support soldiers by transporting equipment, generating […]View the full article

A Romanian deep-tech company is preparing to mass-produce a lightweight interceptor drone in Bucharest capable of destroying Russian Shahed kamikaze Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, with monthly output projected to reach between 2,000 and 3,000 units by summer. The STUD drone, presented by American defense startup XDOWN and developed in partnership with Qognifly, is designed as a […]View the full article

Ukrainian armored vehicle maker Inguar Defence has developed a medevac variant of its Inguar-3 in a short development timeline. The medevac version keeps the Inguar-3’s proven armored shell but departs significantly from the baseline configuration inside. The new vehicle features specialized medical equipment, a redesigned floor layout, different mounting points, and a ramp for fast […]View the full article

One of America’s most battle-tested rocket artillery systems just got a new round of engineering investment, with the U.S. Army awarding Lockheed Martin a $14 million contract modification to sustain and improve the Multiple Launch Rocket System across all its production variants. The award, issued by Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, brings the […]View the full article

Russia laid the keel of a new nuclear-powered attack submarine on June 17, 2026, the first vessel of its class to enter construction in six years and a signal that Moscow is pressing ahead with its most capable undersea weapons program despite the enormous financial and industrial strain of the war in Ukraine. The ceremony […]View the full article

Germany approved more weapons for export in six months than most countries manage in years, and the country that received the single biggest share of that approval, once again, is not a NATO member at all. It’s Ukraine. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the government agency responsible for reviewing and approving […]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

The world’s nine nuclear-armed states expanded their arsenals in 2025, according to a new assessment from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Researchers Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda found that most countries deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapons during the year, even as the overall number of warheads in the world continued to decline. […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $209 million contract modification to keep building the AN/SLQ-32(V)6, the electronic warfare system that warns U.S. Navy surface ships of incoming anti-ship missiles and the radars guiding them. The U.S. Department of War announced the award, made Sept. 30. The modification includes options that, if exercised, would […]View the full article

Kadena Air Base in Okinawa will bar all vehicles made by Chinese electric carmaker BYD from entering the installation starting Oct. 26 over concerns that the cars could expose sensitive military information, Kangnam Times reported. The ban covers privately owned cars as well as contractor vehicles, taxis, delivery vans and other commercial vehicles. The 18th […]View the full article

For a certain generation of officers, your host included, there was one foundation event for many of all designators that shaped the way they looked at leadership - both uniformed and civilian - for their entire career. They learned early that bravery in combat and cowardice in life are not mutually exclusive of each other, and can easily inhabit the same person. They learned that facts were of little importance in the face of a politically driven head wind. They learned that when the going gets tough - the top cover they hoped their senior leadership would provide for them - would fade as fast as the Romanian Army at Stalingrad. They learned not to trust - they lear…

More evidence that we need a new "elite" and our defense and diplomacy nomenklatura is worm-ridden with people better suited for anything else. Few thing are more cost effective and strategically additive than our military attaché cadre. If anything, it should be expanded and being one made a top-shelf career enhancer than its status today. When done and funded correctly, attachés can be instrumental in helping build partnerships and relationships throughout the world that can pay orders of magnitude greater returns down the road. We have a huge military and as a former manpower guy, I see this for exactly what it is - screwed up priorities and myopic leadership. Th…

I wish I made the observation first, but last week I noted another's spot on commentary on LCS that was simply damning in its simplicity; LCS-1 will be decommissioned before any of the mission modules it were to carry are FMC. All that being said, LCS will be with us for awhile, and good people in hard jobs are doing their best to squeeze some utility out of them. That is great ... but we have so little actual experience with LCS besides a few bespoke deployments that we need to be very careful thinking we can transfer "lessons" to new classes, like FFG-62, that will be used in very different ways ... like useful ways ... but I digress. That won't stop some people, it…