Raw Intel

A powerful explosion was reported at the Samara Kommunar plant in Samara, Russia, a defense-industrial facility directly involved in the production of explosives and the filling of munitions, according to local sources and open-source intelligence communities monitoring activity in the region. The blast was reported at the Federal State Enterprise Samarsky Zavod Kommunar, a plant […]View the full article

Hopefully, everyone here knows what the Davidson Window is about and all the concerns about the People’s Republic of China (PRC) being ready to go to war by 2027. While I can argue the point, I am more inclined to stress that it doesn’t mean the PRC is going to take that risk, especially if we increase the risk for them. However, were I a Chinese planner, if the Chairman tells me to do something, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do a damn good job of it, and I’m going to have recommendations that have been going back years on things we need to do. It won’t just be things the military has to do either. Oh, no. We would need to expect that it may evolve into a global war t…

The United States Navy has safely undocked the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Albany (SSN 753) on March 26 at Naval Submarine Base New London. According to the Navy, USS Albany arrived at Submarine Base New London in the summer of 2025 and has since undergone a range of repairs, structural inspections, and upgrades to […]View the full article

The United States Army plans to spend $250 million to procure 50 Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles (AMPVs) to replenish combat vehicles transferred to Ukraine, according to a Pentagon reconciliation spending plan recently submitted to Congress. The planned contract award is expected before April and is intended to restore armored vehicle inventories after large-scale security assistance deliveries. […]View the full article

It has long been a dirty little secret that we made a decision to “accept risk” in defending our bases from attack. That momentary bet became a habit…and then part of the environment. The Army, especially during GWOT, didn’t just underfund air defense in general and treat it as a secondary career field—it never even considered what was needed to defend bases. The USAF? No better…and they relied on the Army for air defense. It was only 18 months or so ago they started to experiment with base defense. In the halls of the Pentagon, the military historians and Red Teams lost the argument to the accountants and the pet theories of The Smartest People in the Room™. When things …

Rheinmetall and Boeing Australia have entered into a strategic partnership to offer the MQ-28 Ghost Bat as a collaborative combat aircraft solution for the Bundeswehr. The agreement centers on Germany’s emerging requirement for collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), a class of autonomous unmanned systems designed to operate alongside manned fighter aircraft as force multipliers in contested […]View the full article

A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier has been confirmed operating in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, after open-source flight tracking data exposed its position days before an official acknowledgment. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed on Thursday that USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) was sailing in the Indian Ocean within its area of responsibility as […]View the full article

Ukraine has converted an Antonov An-28 light turboprop aircraft into an airborne drone interceptor platform, arming it with drone-launched interceptors to hunt Russian Shahed long-range one-way attack drones in flight. The effort — documented in footage published by well-known Ukrainian pilot and volunteer Tymur Fatkullin — represents one of the most unconventional counter-drone solutions to […]View the full article

Somalia and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding on military cooperation on Feb. 9, 2026, on the sidelines of the World Defense Show in Riyadh, formalizing expanded defense ties as Mogadishu confronts rising regional pressure linked to Somaliland. Somalia’s Ministry of Defence said the agreement was signed by Defence Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi and […]View the full article

South Korea and Indonesia have tentatively agreed to transfer one of Seoul’s six KF-21 Boramae fighter jet prototypes to Jakarta, bringing their long-running joint fighter program closer to its final stage. The agreement was reached during working-level talks in February, according to documents submitted by South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration and cited Tuesday by […]View the full article

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

American Rheinmetall has released new details about the Lynx XM30, its next-generation infantry fighting vehicle developed for the U.S. Army’s XM30 program, as the Pentagon moves to formally transition the program from research and development into full procurement with a $547 million budget request for fiscal year 2027. The Lynx XM30 is being developed by […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin has secured a $4.761 billion U.S. Army contract to produce Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or PAC-3 MSE, interceptors, one of the most widely deployed high-end air and missile defense missiles in current service. The Department of War announced that Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Grand Prairie, Texas, received the firm-fixed-price award […]View the full article

Turkish Bayraktar KIZILELMA unmanned combat air vehicle successfully detected a passenger airliner at a range of 110 kilometers during a performance validation test of the ASELSAN KARAT Infrared Search and Track system. The result was disclosed through ASELSAN’s monthly publication, a-Bülten, confirming that one of the KIZILELMA’s three primary sensor systems has cleared a significant […]View the full article

The United States Army Corps of Engineers has awarded Exyte US, based in Albany, New York, a $96,2 million contract to support infrastructure construction and aircraft bed-down for Israel’s incoming CH-53K King Stallion helicopters, according to an official contract announcement. The work will be performed in Israel with an estimated completion date of March 23, […]View the full article

A newly published presolicitation notice shows the United States Air Force is preparing to award a sole-source contract to Northrop Grumman for support of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s AN/APG-81 radar and AN/AAQ-37 Distributed Aperture System. The notice, issued on March 19, 2026, outlines plans to expand software engineering and sustainment capabilities tied to the […]View the full article

The Missile Defense Agency awarded Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation a $475 million modification to an existing prototype agreement on April 3, 2026, accelerating development of the Glide Phase Interceptor — the United States’ primary program to defeat hypersonic glide vehicles in flight. The modification pushes the total value of the agreement from $832 million to […]View the full article

French Rafale fighter jets deployed to Lithuania under NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission were scrambled four times in a single week, intercepting and escorting six Russian military aircraft near the airspace of the Baltic states, France’s Armed Forces General Staff said. The sorties were carried out as part of France’s current rotation at Šiauliai Air […]View the full article

For the first time, photographs of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile have appeared in public, showing the nose section of America’s future nuclear deterrent sitting on the floor of a test chamber in Redondo Beach, California, after completing a structural validation milestone that clears one of the last major engineering hurdles before the missile’s first […]View the full article

Florida-based aerospace company AIR says it has begun flight operations with its new heavy-lift cargo unmanned aircraft, marking the first public confirmation that the platform has moved into active flying status. The aircraft, which the company describes as one of the largest in its category, is built to carry payloads of up to 550 pounds […]View the full article