Raw Intel

EagleNXT, the defense division of AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc., announced the sale of three eBee VISION unmanned aerial vehicles to the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment (1-4 IN), based at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) in Hohenfels, Germany. In a press release dated October 30, 2025, EagleNXT said the drones will support […]View the full article

Latvia has formally joined the allied user group for ASCOD infantry fighting vehicles, marking a new stage of international cooperation on tracked armored platforms. The announcement was made Thursday at the Ādaži military base, where delegations from Latvia, Spain, Austria, and the United Kingdom gathered for the group’s first meeting. According to the Latvian Ministry […]View the full article

North Korea on Sunday test-fired two strategic long-range cruise missiles into the sea, with leader Kim Jong Un overseeing the drill, according to state media reports released Monday. According to Korean Central News Agency, the missile launches took place over the Yellow Sea and were intended to assess the readiness and combat capability of long-range […]View the full article

The United States has awarded Raytheon a $197 million contract to deliver MS-110 Multispectral Reconnaissance Systems to the Polish Air Force, the company announced on January 28. According to Raytheon, an RTX business, the contract was issued by the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and covers production of seven MS-110 reconnaissance pods, aircraft […]View the full article

Ukraine’s Air Force said Russian forces launched a large-scale overnight air assault against Ukraine on February 26, employing anti-ship missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, air-launched weapons, and hundreds of strike drones, with Ukrainian air defenses neutralizing 406 of 459 aerial targets, according to official statements. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attacking force included […]View the full article

As a member in good standing of the diaspora from the Provisional People’s Democratic Republic of Diego Garcia, the news, four days ago. that the Islamic Republic of Iran attempted to strike our homeland got my attention. I’ve been waiting a bit to see if this was just a misunderstanding or one of those things that come from the fog of war. Of course, Iran states they did no such thing. But the general understanding, as I write this, is—well—Iran did something we thought they could do, but had not demonstrated in public. As the weekend closed, it was confirmed by otherwise reliable sources. Iran fired two missiles at the joint British-American Diego Garcia military base …

France’s 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade is using the ORION 26 exercise to test and implement a series of tactical modules designed to advance the brigade’s thinking on light mobility and decentralized combat, the unit announced April 18, 2026. The exercise represents a significant doctrinal experiment for one of France’s premier mountain warfare formations, translating concepts […]View the full article

RENK America has developed a drive-by-wire transmission upgrade that enables autonomous vehicle operation on the U.S. Army’s Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, working with BAE Systems and Forterra to deliver a plug-and-play autonomy kit that requires no vehicle redesign and fits within the existing transmission space claim. The system centers on RENK America’s HMPT transmission drive-by-wire kit, […]View the full article

Photos of a new Ukrainian drone-dropped munition began circulating on social media this week, published among the first by the open-source intelligence community Exilenova+, showing a rectangular metal device with a sharpened wedge at its forward end specifically engineered to penetrate the overhead cover of Russian field fortifications rather than detonate on surface impact. The […]View the full article

A new air defense missile system will move through a secure Kratos manufacturing facility under a roughly $36 million contract, adding another discreet but telling order to the United States push to rebuild missile and air defense production capacity. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions said July 2 that it had received the single-award contract for […]View the full article

The U.S. Army, Navy and Space Force have tested an electronic warfare system at sea for the first time, and its name alone tells you what kind of punch the Pentagon expects it to pack. The joint services put a maritime version of a system called Hammer of the Gods through its paces in mid-July […]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 Ge…

Rafael Systems Global Sustainment, the U.S. subsidiary of Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, won an Other Transaction Agreement through the Aviation & Missile Technology Consortium to pursue U.S. qualification of the SPIKE SR shoulder-fired missile, the company announced Sept. 22. The agreement covers testing and adapting the missile to U.S. military requirements, but the companies […]View the full article

Israeli loitering munition maker Uvision is showing an eight-canister launcher for its HERO 120 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, pitching the remotely operated system as a way to spread strike capacity across land and maritime platforms and tie it to the company’s AI-enabled CORTEX mission management software. The Multi-Canister […]View the full article

If you worry what kind of impact the money trouble in DC may have on the condition of the ships we are riding hard and leaving up wet, I invite you to spend some time with RDML Joe Carnevale, USN (Ret), Senior Defense Advisor for the Shipbuilders Council of America, presentation from 5 December 2012. I recommend slide 31 if you are in a hurry. View the full article

Americas Sikorsky won a $94.3 million deal to support an option exercise of six Program Year 5, Lot 45 HH-60M aircraft. The HH-60M Black Hawk features an integrated MEDEVAC equipment package kit intended to support casualty evacuation missions at daytime or nighttime or even in extreme weather conditions, according to the service branch. The branch exercised an option under a previously awarded contract to procure lot 45 HH-60M choppers for the fifth year of the aircraft procurement effort. Work will take place in Connecticut. Estimated completion date is July 31, 2022. Rockwell Collins won a $16.9 million order, which upgrades the E-6B Mercury mission computer from a 32…

If it is early summer in the Black Sea, it is time for the annual Ukrainian hosted international exercise Sea Breeze. Why is this exercise important, who came along, and what does it tell us about the state of the Ukrainian Navy, maritime security in the contested eastern Black Sea, and some interesting responses from the Russians? Recently returning from the exercise and joining us for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be returning guest, Captain Chris Rawley, USNR CAPT Rawley is the Reserve Chief of Staff for US. Naval Forces Europe and Africa. Over his 29 year career, he has deployed to the Persian Gulf, Western Pacific, Iraq, Afghanistan, and across…

Americas A US Air Force KC-46A crew has flown the aerial refueling aircraft for 24.2 hours in a mission to gather human factors data on long-duration flights. The aircraft was flown by four pilots working on four-hour shifts with another two pilots acting as backup. They were joined by three boom operators, a photojournalist, and a physician assistant. Taking off from McConnell Air Force Base on May 5, the jet landed back at McConnell Air Force Base the next day with just one refueling from a KC-46A. Korte Construction Co., doing business as The Korte Co. won $37 million firm-fixed-price contract to design and construct an operations and test facility. Bids were solicite…

Americas Sikorsky won a $36.4 million order, which procures spare parts and provides repair and maintenance support for the Lot 6 CH-53K low rate initial production configuration aircraft. Work will take place in Connecticut, Canada, Washington, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Missouri, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, West Virginia and California. Expected completion will be in December 2025. Boeing won a $12.4 million deal to procure upgraded flight control computer operational flight program with automatic ground collision avoidance system capable software for the F/A-18C/D aircraft. The F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather jet aircraft that is used b…

It appears that the recruiting and retention challenges are breaking above the ambient noise at the start of 2QFY23. We go through these cycles, but if things seem a bit different to you this time, your instincts are right. The ebb and flow of manning the Navy is a regular story - but there is one major cause that is different this time around and is beyond the control of anyone - it is an almost geographic or structural in nature as will be outlined later in the post. Layered on top of this structural challenge to recruiting and retention are challenges of our own creation and are fully in our control - a headwind of our own creation via decisions and policies that even …