Raw Intel

The Air Force Research Laboratory has added $16.4 million to a Castelion Corp. contract for developing a low-cost, mass-producible long-range strike weapon, the latest in a rapid series of government awards backing the company’s Blackbeard hypersonic missile. The modification brings the total value of this particular contract to $37.2 million, up from $20.9 million. Work […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Anduril Industries a contract worth up to $85 million to develop computer-based design tools for future aircraft, part of a push to design and test new systems digitally before building physical hardware. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, made the award under a program […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded JRC Integrated Systems a $47.4 million contract modification to provide engineering and technical support for the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, or SLCM-N, the service’s effort to field its first new nuclear weapon since the Cold War. The modification adds to a contract Strategic Systems Programs, the Navy office overseeing the […]View the full article

Turkish manufacturer Otokar and Italy’s Leonardo have completed integration and live-fire testing of a 120mm turret mounted on Otokar’s Tulpar medium tank platform, a combination now being pitched as a potential replacement for Brazil’s aging Leopard 1A5 tanks. The companies ran the tests at Italy’s UTTAT Nettuno test range near Rome, fitting the Tulpar with […]View the full article

An Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet was hit during an overnight attack on King Fahd Air Base near Ta’if, Saudi Arabia, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto confirmed Friday. Crosetto said the aircraft, designated F-2000 by the Italian Air Force, was parked in a remote area of the base when it was struck. No Italian personnel […]View the full article

Social media users shared widespread footage Thursday evening of a glowing, tentacled shape in the night sky, with some posts claiming it showed a missile launched toward Ukraine. Within hours, astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell offered a more mundane explanation, and Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed it the next day. “Russia appears to have […]View the full article

Paramount and India’s Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited unveiled a new 4×4 light armored modular vehicle (LAMV) called the Mbada at the Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Pretoria on Sept. 17, marking the vehicle’s first public showing at an international defense show. The Mbada is built as a modular platform that customers can configure for […]View the full article

A counter-drone startup tested a low-cost interceptor missile at Yuma Proving Ground this month, loading it into an eight-shot launcher during a homeland-defense experiment involving U.S. Northern Command, NORAD and the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401. Perseus Defense, a company that went through Y Combinator’s 2025 batch, said each Mk-III interceptor it fired cost […]View the full article

U.S. Soldiers and Army capability developers spent two weeks at Fort Benning testing drones that stay tethered to the ground, aiming to give small infantry units a way to see farther and keep radios working even when the terrain or enemy jamming gets in the way. The Maneuver Battle Lab ran the assessment from July […]View the full article

A new automated security system helped Marines detect and track a vehicle that strayed toward a live-fire range during a training exercise at Twentynine Palms, California, on Aug. 19, the U.S. Marine Corps said, marking one of the first real-world uses of a system built to replace hours of manual guard duty with radar and […]View the full article

British manufacturer MSI-Defence Systems unveiled a new remote weapon station called TERRAHAWK RAPTOR at the DVD 2026 exhibition in Millbrook, calling it the lightest gun mount in its counter-drone product line. RAPTOR is a remote weapon station, a gun turret a soldier can aim and fire from inside a vehicle rather than exposing themselves on […]View the full article

Hanwha Aerospace and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems flew the Mojave short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) drone from a South Korean Army airfield, landed it on a tank maneuver route, and flew it back again during a demonstration at the 2026 Defense Drone Technology Exhibition in Pocheon. The maneuver was meant to show the aircraft can operate from short, […]View the full article

The U.S. State Department has approved a possible sale of 48 F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, a $24.3 billion deal that would make the kingdom just the second country in the Middle East, after Israel, cleared to fly the stealth aircraft. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of the potential sale on Sept. […]View the full article

GM Defense delivered its first batch of PAC-3 MSE missile-housing components to Lockheed Martin on Sept. 16, just 22 days after the two companies signed a formal production contract, Lockheed Martin said in a post on X. “The message is clear: we’re moving at the speed of relevance,” Lockheed Martin said. “The future of defense […]View the full article

Latvia’s government decided on Sept. 15 to buy Czech-made 155mm wheeled howitzers for the National Armed Forces, choosing the Morana system from Excalibur Army after Sweden’s competing Archer howitzer proved too costly and slow to deliver under the country’s current defense budget. The Cabinet of Ministers based its decision on the cost of the offers, […]View the full article

I mentioned @Schizointel’s graphic from last month on the last UNCLAS Read Board Podcast, and it keeps popping into my mind. Only the paying subscribers get access to the UNCLAS Read Board Podcast, so I thought I’d bring it to the Substack, chat about it a bit, and then perhaps it will get out of my head. Probably not, because it is one of the best representations of a regular topic of ours here: we have too small of a Navy. It is also a good representation of what it takes to conduct a blockade and deal with the threat of the once-3rd-rate and now-4th-rate-power of Iran and her proxies. So, here it is. How many ships do you need? Today, let’s just look at our Aegis ships…

Hanwha Aerospace and Lockheed Martin UK unveiled a Redback infantry fighting vehicle armed with a British-built 40mm turret at the British Army’s DVD 2026 exhibition, pairing an already fielded vehicle hull with a weapons system developed for a different British Army program. The turret carries the CTA International 40mm cannon and, for the first time, […]View the full article

Jaguar Land Rover unveiled three variants of a new military vehicle called the Defender Wolf Series II at the British Army’s DVD 2026 exhibition in Bedfordshire on Sept. 16, aiming to replace the Land Rover that has served British forces for more than 70 years. The event, held at the Millbrook proving ground, is where […]View the full article

Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation said its Su-57 stealth fighter flew to an air show in Egypt this month using fuel tanks built into its internal weapons bays instead of the external drop tanks fighters typically carry on long ferry flights. UAC said the aircraft made the trip to the El Alamein International Airshow with one […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin is pitching the U.S. Air Force on a new version of the F-16 fighter, designated the F-16G, as a way to replace aging Fighting Falcons faster than the F-35 production line can keep up. Multiple people familiar with the aircraft told Aviation Week that the F-16G builds on the current Block 70 F-16, […]View the full article