Raw Intel

Americas Boeing won a $28.3 million modification by the US Air Force for an engineering change proposal modification for the F-15 Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS). Work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri, and is expected to be completed by December 31, 2023. DARPA has completed the first phase of its Robotic Autonomy […]View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin on a $172 million modification, which definitizes the order and adds scope to provide special test/tooling equipment for increasing Block 4 manufacturing capacity, as well as procures material modification kits in support of removing life limits, correcting deficiencies, and retrofitting aircraft to incorporate Next Gen Distributed Aperture System hardware and associated Power […]View the full article

Americas General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) announced that it successfully conducted flight maneuvers with its MQ-20 Avenger drone using artificial intelligence aided by Low Earth Orbit satellite communication. The company demonstrated its “live, virtual, constructive collaborative combat aircraft ecosystem over a Low Earth Orbit satellite communication (LEO SATCOM) provider’s IP-based Mission Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) datalink” […]View the full article

Americas Brazil is in discussions about the possibility of extending its initial order of Saab Gripen E fighter jets from 36 to 40. The Defense Minister, Jose Mucio, confirmed that the Brazilian Air Force has expressed the need for additional aircraft and they are currently studying the matter. The 2014 agreement between Brazil and Saab, […]View the full article

Americas The Philippines and the United States launched their largest-ever joint military exercises on Tuesday, as the longstanding allies seek to counter growing Chinese assertiveness in the region. Nearly 18,000 troops are taking part in the annual exercises dubbed Balikatan, or “shoulder to shoulder” in Filipino, which for the first time will include a live-fire […]View the full article

Americas Boeing won a $1 billion order, which procures 400 RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II Update (HIIU) Grade B canister tactical missiles, four RTM-84L-4 Block II HIIU Grade B canister exercise missiles, 411 containers, four blast test vehicles, two Harpoon Weapon System (HWS) Joint Common Test Sets (JCTS), Harpoon Coastal Defense System (HCDS) spares, weapon station […]View the full article

Americas The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory won a $73.2 million modification which exercises options to provide design analysis, testing, procurement, and manufacturing of interferometric fiber optic gyros, accelerometers, and associated Trident II Strategic Weapon System guidance subsystem material. Work will be performed in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and Clearwater, Florida, with an expected completion date […]View the full article

Americas E-3 Sentry, #75-0560, is the first of the 31 AWACS that will be retired by Tinker Air Force Base. The base hosts veterans who worked on the plane to pay a final visit before it is flown off next week. The US Air Force has retired its last MC-130H Combat Talon II, #89-0280, after […]View the full article

Americas The US Army has awarded Lockheed Martin a $439-million contract to produce and deliver the Joint-Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) and Hellfire missile. Lockheed will produce the missiles for the army and Australia, the Czech Republic, France, South Korea, and Thailand. The contract offers three additional follow-on awards of up to $4.5 billion over the next four […]View the full article

Americas A US Navy warship intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile using software-upgraded SM-6 missiles in a recent trial. The test, conducted in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA), aimed to demonstrate the capability of the USS Daniel Inouye in detecting, tracking, and engaging a medium-range ballistic missile target. The US Air Force’s 71st […]View the full article

Americas Marshall Aerospace has launched the ARC-Radar, a modular sensor suite that can transform a tactical transport aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles using the Leonardo Osprey 30 radar. The Marshall ARC-Radar is a role-fit palletised solution that requires no permanent integration or aircraft modifications, and utilises only existing aircraft power outlets. The […]View the full article

Americas Hamilton won a $23.6 million deal with a firm-fixed-price pricing arrangement for C-130 repair. The total estimated value of all options is $116,760,189. The maximum ceiling value of the contract is $140,383,922. This contract provides repair in support of the NP2000 eight blade propeller and electronic propeller control system of the C-130 for the […]View the full article

For those who missed the previous announcements, please read the previous posts for the details, but after 18 2/3 years here, I will no longer be posting on blogspot. Worry not, just click here to go to substack. That is where I'll be. View the full article

Housekeeping Note: As I mentioned earlier this month, as our British friends might say, this "blogspot" hosted part of the blog is "going in ordinary." The archived posts here back to the beginning in 2004 will remain, but all new posts will be going over to CDR Salamander on Substack. The reasons are simply, really. Google owns blogspot and for some reason has decided to turn it in to a very creator-unfriendly environment. As noted in my earlier post, they are going through and marking all sorts of posts going back over a decade and new as "SPAM" or worse, "dangerous" or a variation of the usual etc. Most of it derives, I believe, from some automated system that looks…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $120 million modification, which exercises an option to provide continued engineering, maintenance, logistics, and material support in support of the development, production, and sustainment of software builds, as well as to execute developmental flight tests in support of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft for the Air Force, Marine Corps, […]View the full article

If you don’t wake up every morning cursing those responsible for defense and China policy in the 1990s … the gobsmackingly short sighted arrogance of it all – then what use are you, actually? With a few exceptions, from partially completed CV rusting in Ukraine to teaching the Communist Chinese how to MIRV ICBM warheads, to opening up our best research institutions to spies an assets, the USA was beset internally by unserious people with the attention span of a hamster and the historical perspective of a newborn in serious jobs requiring long-term thinking and decision making. The harvest of this decade of frivolity continue to ripen, and via Jeremy Bogaisky, at Forbes – …

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

One of the things that will get my eye twitching faster than about anything else is when someone responds to a question or concern with a, "Well, in our wargames ... " Bullshit. That may work for civilians or under-briefed lawmakers who lack the depth in military matters, but anyone who has run or been part of a wargame knows that you can design one to give you the outcomes you want. Planning assumptions etc ... it is all flexible. Wargames, done right, don't tell you the future, but they do help inform gaps in your OPLAN, thinking, or expectations of the enemy ... and shortfalls you might have. At the POLMIL level - where our most senior uniformed and civilian leaders l…

Americas Boeing won a $30.4 million modification, which exercises an option to procure eight P-8A aircraft mechanisms as ancillary equipment in support of P-8A production aircraft. Work will take place in Washington. Estimated completion will be in January 2026. The US Office of Naval Research (ONR) has contracted Textron to develop a non-towed mine sweeping payload […]View the full article

There was a topic as a JO in the 1990s that we bandied about when we started to think about what we wanted to see show up in the fleet before we had to fight a no kidding war at sea for any length of time. Of course, at the end of the Cold War when "there was no other place I'd want to be" was in the air with the world waking up from history etc ... no one was really interested in spending the shrinking Clinton Era defense budget on something that, at best, maybe should be on the bottom of the unfunded priorities list from the perspective of the Potomac Flotilla. At the end of the decade and the experience of Desert Fox, the requirement came in to even sharper relief. Wit…