Raw Intel

Following is an address delivered by Claude Berube, PhD in which he was asked to address the issue of readiness for war at the Annual Congress of the Naval Order of the United States. I asked him to make it available here. Claude, over to you! Thank you, John, for your kind introduction and to my fellow companions of the Naval Order of the United States for having invited me to speak at this annual congress. The views I express today are my own and not those of the Navy or any other organization with which I am affiliated. When John Shanahan and others invited to address you, they asked me to talk about the navy of yesterday and of today with regard to readiness and discu…

Americas BAE Systems has finished a successful test of its APKWS laser-guidance kits, showcasing the weapon’s versatility and accuracy in engaging a broad set of targets. The rockets went “three on three against fortified targets,” firing direct shots and defeating well-armored targets such as a steel plate and an armored military vehicle. “We’re giving our customers more in-mission options for precision strikes against tougher targets,” BAE program manager Sam Kirsh said. The US Air Force has contracted Northrop Grumman to outfit two more E-11A Bombardier business jets with the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) system. The service already operates three su…

Hydras & Hellfires (click to view full) The versatile Hydra 70mm rocket family is primed for a new lease on life, thanks to widespread programs aimed at converting these ubiquitous rockets into cheap laser-guided precision weapons. Conversion benefits include cost, use on both helicopters and fighters, more precision weapons per platform, low collateral damage, and the activation of large weapon stockpiles that couldn’t be used under strict rules of engagement. Firms all over the world have grasped this opportunity, which explains why strong competition has emerged from all points of the compass. America’s “Advanced Precision-Kill Weapon System (APKWS)” is one of t…

Americas The X-37B has landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on November 12 after spending 908 days in space. Orbital Test Vehicle-6 (OTV-6) was installed with a service module-a ring for the first time and the module detached from the OTV before landing. An F-15C assigned to the 144th Fighter Wing was forced to make an emergency landing at Fresno Yosemite International Airport after the fighter started venting fuel in flight. The incident took place on the morning of November 10 and the fighter wing says the incident poses no hazard to the public. Middle East & Africa Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has unveiled a compact, lightweight ele…

Every election cycle provides a preview of what advocates for national defense and sea power will have on their side - or not on their side - in the next Congress. New people arrive, experienced people leave, and priorities, agendas, and advocacy will shift change with them. What can we expect in the next Congress based on changes we see and those national security issues waxing or waning in the mind of legislators and their counterparts in the Executive Branch? Politics matter. Our guests for the full hour Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss the implications of this years election in the national security arena, will be Claude Berube and Derek (Dirk) Maurer. Claude Beru…

Yes, in America - for some reason I simply do not agree with - we took what was for the rest of the West, Remembrance Day, and turned it in to Veterans Day. Yes, we have Memorial Day - which in the larger scheme of things is our "Remembrance Day" - but especially after living for years in Europe, I came to see the 11th of November as something else than what I grew up with. WWI was such a stupid and unnecessary war. The two empires that dragged the rest of the West and its auxiliaries in to this meatgrinder, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire, were destroyed by the end of the war. Their culture, empires, and dynasties disintegrated and disaggregated. The G…

Americas AeroVironment won an $86.4 million deal for the RQ-20B All Environment 3 and the Long Endurance Puma unmanned aircraft systems. RQ-20B is a block 2 upgrade of the Pointer Upgraded Mission Ability-All Environment (Puma AE) small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) designed and built by AeroVironment. Work will take place in California. Estimated completion date ist September 29, 2023. The 40th Flight Test Squadron has taken delivery of the first of two government-owned Kratos XQ?58A unmanned aircraft. The Autonomous Aircraft Experimentation team will take use the aircraft for developmental ground and flight testing. The first flight is scheduled later this month. The …

This week I want to return to our topic from last week, the critically important case presently with the US Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admission v. President and Fellows of Harvard College & the University of North Carolina. I'm going to bring out an extended pull quote from the Amicus Brief of Veterans for Fairness and Merit. You can read it all at the prior link, but this is coming from pages 27-28. It makes so many of the points we have been making here for the last 18-years about the raw and unfair racialist policies our military practices in general, and our service academies do in particular. We have said for years to all who would listen that these sect…

Americas The Department of Defense (DoD) has launched a multi-party project to ramp up its hypersonic weapons testing capacity. The Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) project will develop an affordable ground and flight test bed that leverages “commercially-available launch vehicles for hypersonic payloads,” contractor Dynetics said. The US Air Force has completed a series of ground and flight acoustic tests for its F-15EX fighter aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The trial was the first for the air force’s F-15 with the GE-129 engine. Test administrators aimed to establish a baseline of sound data to update the information on noi…

Usually things flow from here to twitter, but now and then I pop something off that - knowing that not everyone who reads CDRSalamander is on twitter - deserves to flow the other way. As a Navy guy who spent almost half a decade doing an Army guy's job as an operational planner, a few ideas popped in to my head this AM about "what next" in Ukraine. Generally I'm not a fan of winter offensives, but when they work - they work. I am even more not a fan of wasting momentum when your larger enemy is on the back foot. So, three Courses of Action for you to consider ... with absolutely no Commander's Intent or Higher Direction and Guidance ... but when has that ever stopped a co…

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won an $9 million deal for the manufacture of initiating propellant used on the MK48 heavyweight torpedo. This contract includes a three-year ordering period with no options. All work will be performed in Elkton, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by November 2025. Weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,203,980 will be issued for delivery order N00104-22-F-ZN01 that will be awarded concurrently with the contract and funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. In July 2017, Northrop was awarded a $50.1 million contract to manufacture 45 torpedo transducer array and nose shell assemblies for the heavyw…

For the last two decades here we have reminded people that - as much as one can on this net - they need to look hard at their magazine inventory and bounce that off REALISTIC (not official) expected wartime expenditures. Congress is mostly kept in the dark on this, and worse - people in uniform pimp vignettes and wargames that almost seem designed to minimize requirements. Our concerns have been hand-waved for years, often by the people you would usually rely on to push warfighting concerns to the front. The cold hard fact is we simply cannot sustain a large conflict for very long - especially with our best, most accurate and long-legged standoff weapons. One of the best…

Regardless of how seriously you take national and alliance security issues, never forget that both are worm-ridden with unserious people who only see defense structures as an exceptionally pliable organization with lots of money that can be used for other purposes. Always remember this. If you forget, they will remind you. Case in point today. After the Cold War, NATO remained in place for a couple of reasons. First was that the major nations of the West had over the decades developed a comfortable habit of 80/20 meshing our security concerns and capabilities together. Institutional inertia, yes - but more than that; in fits-and-starts we saw a stability almost unheard of…

Americas Bell Textron Inc. has delivered the 189th and final AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter for the US Marine Corps at Amarillo Assembly Center in Texas, concluding the Program of Record for the latest H-1 platforms. With the delivery of 160 UH-1Y Venom choppers in 2018, the marine corps now has 349 H-1s in service. The Bell AH-1Z Viper was developed to replace the older two-bladed AH-1W Super Cobra. Meanwhile, the UH-1Y replaced the UH-1N Twin Huey constructed specifically for the US Army. The US Navy is developing a torpedo-tube launch and recovery system for nuclear attack submarine-launched underwater drones. Submarines currently require a dry deck shelter and divers …

Americas Northrop Grumman won a $29 million modification, which exercises an option that provides five aerial refueling retrofit kits including installation onboard E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft for the Navy. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye is the newest variant of the E-2 aircraft platform. It features a state-of-the-art radar with a two-generation leap in capability and upgraded aircraft systems that will improve supportability and increase readiness. Work will take place in Florida. Expected completion will be in August 2025. On November 2, the 31st and final AC-130J gunship was delivered by Lockheed Martin to the US Air Force Special Operations Command. The warplane will …

There is no such thing as a "normal watch," especially on Nov. 22, 1975 onboard the USS BELKNAP (CG-26); We were on plane guard. They put us on a plane guard because their TACAN was down. We had been making this same maneuver to port eight or nine times a day – from the start of the turn to completion was 3600 yards. This time we made a turn to starboard. I’ve read the investigation report, so even though I was down in the fire room, I’ve since come to know what happened up on the bridge. With the lights of the carrier looking the same, there was confusion, and miscommunication, and we made a right-hand turn this time, and the arc was half of what it had been for the last…

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won a $25 million contract modification, which adds scope for fabrication and installation support to retrofit the Delta System Software Configuration 4.0 capabilities, to include tactical targeting network technology and the beyond line of sight in the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Work will be performed in Dallas, Texas; Melbourne, Florida; Boulder, Colorado; Norfolk, Virginia (8%); Salisbury, Maryland; Ronkonkoma, New York (3%); and various locations within the continental US, and is expected to be completed in September 2025. Sikorsky won a $21.4 million modification, which exercises options to procure one CH53K containerized fligh…

Time for a quick revisit to the most important DivThu related Supreme Court case we have seen since we started this series. We first touched on in 2018, and most recently back in August. This case has forced everyone to take the mask off concerning what anyone who has served on active duty for the last few decades has known as a truth; the US military actively discriminates based on race and ethnicity.So, we now have Students for Fair Admission v. President and Fellows of Harvard College & the University of North Carolina. If you need the details of that case, click here. We have a 2022 amici curiae for this case as well with Joe Reeder and his law firm again at the …

Americas L3 Technologies won a $20.7 million deal for the Manned/Unmanned Teaming hardware and technical and engineering support for the Apache attack helicopter. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. The US Air Force carried out its first test of the rappelling system on the new MH-139A helicopter on October 6. During the mission, special operators successfully rappelled out of a hovering MH-139A at Eglin Air Force Base. Middle East & Africa Israel’s Elbit Systems announced that that it was awarded a contract valued at approximately $25 million from the Finnish Ministry of Defense to supply radio communications systems to the Finnish Army. The con…

With all its inefficiencies, bloat, and error; with all its problematic revolving door issues between government/military and civilian sectors – there is no greater existential requirement for a mature nation than to have its own military-industrial sector. In peace it is easy to forget that in times of war – times that will always come with our warlike species – the vanities of peace can soon become a bleeding ulcer at war. While small nations simply cannot sustain the full spectrum of military equipment due to overhead and development costs, medium to large nations have options. You may on occasion have to partner with friendly nations, but what strings come with those …