Raw Intel

Late. Everything is late. Just a little more time. All that was needed was a little more time. A few more bits of kits. A few better leaders up the chain, but mostly, just more time. The war drums could be heard, but people waited too long to accept what the sound was. Once it was accepted, all the right things were done, just not soon enough. Just a little more time. Just a bit. Then it came. A message. A pause. Then reports. Then you realize, time no longer matters. You have what you have. You will fight for your island with what you and your Sailors and Marines have. Nothing more. Promises and hopes are for fools in war. You do what you can with what you have and let …

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Bill Roggio as a guest on his podcast over at FDD, "Generation Jihad." Listeners to Midrats will recognize Bill as a regular guest there over the years, usually on the topics of international terrorism and Afghanistan, but we've turned the table around this time not only as host/guest, but topic. Bill and I spent the hour discussing the war in Ukraine in a very broad manner. Give it a listen. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did being Bill's guest. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogs…

Americas Austal won a $12.3 million contract modification to exercise an option for littoral combat ship (LCS) industrial post-delivery availability support for USS Santa Barbara (LCS 32). The USS Santa Barbara is the US Navy’s 16th Independence littoral combat ship (LCS) variant. The LCS programme will see the construction of the vessels in the Freedom-class and the Independence-class variants. Work will take place in Alabama and Massachusetts. Expected completion will be by December 2022. A joint exercise between the air forces of Pakistan and the United States was concluded recently. F-16s from Shaw Air Force Base participate in the exercise which started on February …

Americas Northrop Grumman won a $97.3 million contract modification, which exercises options to provide continued test, maintenance, logistics and sustainment engineering support for MQ-4C Triton air vehicles, mission control and operator training systems. This modification also provides continued field service representative’s technical support to ensure that the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial system (UAS) aircraft are mission-capable for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions supporting aircraft early operational capability and initial operating capability. Additionally, this modification provides continued reach-back engineering support for both the Navy …

Did the Ukrainians manage to hit a Russian navy patrol boat with Grad rockets? I'm sure regulars here have been tracking this for a few days;Russian Nav's Project 22160 patrol ship Vasily Bykov was damaged by a Ukrainian multiple launch rocket system in the Black Sea near #Odesa. The ship sank today. There is no information about its crew yet. pic.twitter.com/C5a3pY1IgK — Ukraine Reporter (@StateOfUkraine) March 7, 2022 You need to be careful in this war and when something sounds too good to be true, often it is. Sometimes, it isn't. Hard to tell;One of two Russian warships made famous for its attack on Snake Island in the Black Sea last month has been destroyed, accordi…

Well, there it is. Over at Politico we have an open letter calling for a limited no-fly zone. This letter is signed by people who should know better. I would put the substance somewhere in the wtf grid bounded by "irresponsible" & "insulting." Too many people have misremembered both recent and longer-term history. We are talking about Russia here. Not Serbia. Not Libya. Not Iraq. Let us be clear on this point; a No Fly Zone (NFZ) requires you shoot down aircraft over a specified area. Over Ukraine, what this letter calls for is for us to shoot down Russian aircraft. It says “NATO” but as anyone who served in Afghanistan knows, this will mean the USA, and possibly the…

Americas Raytheon won a $13.6 million deal, which provides test, evaluation and systems engineering support, to include mission planning, test plans and procedures, mission conduct and data collection, real-time range safety mission support, mission data analyses and reporting, operations research support, and technical management support for the Missile Defense Agency/AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense Program. Work will take place in California, Hawaii, New Mexico. Expected completion date is in March 2026. A Mirage F1 from Airborne Tactical Advantage Company crashed near Luke Air Force Base on February 10 after having low fuel pressure, according to a preliminary report …

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $869.9 million contract modification, which adds scope for integrating mission and weapon systems capability development, including flight-test hardware, through system functional review to development test complete on the F-35A, F-35B, F-35C aircraft. Work will take place in Texas, New Hampshire, Florida, Maryland, California, Missouri and Arizona. Estimated completion will be in December 2026. The US Air Force and Boeing have concluded that delivery of the new Air Force One is now 17 months behind schedule. This means the transport will not be delivered by 2024. The delay was first reported by Breaking Defense, which says the information …

For the Russians, the chance for a quick victory faded early on in the war when they failed to keep Antonov Airport airport in Kyiv after their air assault on 24 FEB 22 and the Ukrainians responded with unexpected resolve. Ukraine was not the nation and army the Russians faced in 2014. However, even with the logistics nightmare, convoy issues, and the now well-meme'd farmers-stealing-abandoned-armor appearance of a rough time so far, the Russian continue to take ground. Slowly and steadily they advance. They've bypassed most of the major urban centers in the classic "bypass and haul ass" operational scheme of maneuver, but now they need to clean up their lines and their r…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a not-to-exceed contract modification, which adds scope for the procurement, delivery, installation, and configuration of 22 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter training devices. The total quantity of training devices includes full mission simulators, multispectral database, and interactive courseware. Additionally, this modification provides non-recurring engineering to identify and integrate a replacement rechargeable battery module to be installed within the blade server system of pilot training devices in support of the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, non-US Department of Defense (DOD) participants and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work wil…

While the world's eyes are focused on Russia and Ukraine - and probably will for the foreseeable future - the People's Republic of China is not standing still. How can China use this moment to her advantage? What possible lessons can China take away from the Ukraine conflict so far, and perhaps more importantly, how should it impact how we and our allies look at China? Returning to Midrats to discuss these and related questions this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be our guest Dean Cheng. Dean is the Senior Research Fellow for Chinese political and security affairs at the Asia Studies Center of The Heritage Foundation. He specializes in Chinese military and foreign polic…

Civilization, we are being reminded in Ukraine, is paper thin. Because so much of war in Europe that we have seen is in black and white of very grainy color, in the last few decades – even with the collapse of Yugoslavia as a reminder – we have forgotten how fast all can fall apart. Heck, few under 30 even have memories of the Yugoslavian collapse, so two generations have no memory that, in a week – you are living in a history you did not ask for. You are the young girl, dog under one arm and cat under another, escaping from an advancing army on foot through ruins just a bit ago were just part of your neighborhood. In Ukraine, we see objectively poorer, but normal modern…

As I did once in a DivThu in 2017 when we looked again at the USCG's sad decline in to official sectarianism, there was once a time when the USCG Academy was a rare light where everyone was on an equal footing. There was no discrimination based on race, creed, color, or national origin. As we covered in 2010, not any more. A dozen years later, the USCG's diversity division is not through growing its empire well beyond the USCGA, expanding its grift. No, as was done in 2010, they are using their influence in Congress to find more positions for otherwise unemployable people who have but one job; don't solve problems, justify our grift. Let's have a little detailed …

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won a $22.6 million order, which provides for maintenance support to the E-2D aircraft throughout its entire life-cycle using operationally supportable and interoperable solutions. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye (AHE) 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 and New York. Estimated completion will be in February 2025. The MQ-9A Remotely Piloted Aircraft developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has surpassed 2 milli…

Are you aware that NATO nations have already been attacked by Russia? Well, their merchant ships in the Black Sea have. If you know your European history, you know the seriousness of this ... yet, it is out of most people's scan. Links and thoughts over at USNIBlog. Come by and give it a read. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=lFjwNzdVUz8:w0kBNOsXTLM:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=lFjwNzdVUz8:w0kBNOsXTLM:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=lFjwNzdVUz8:w0kBNOsXTLM:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds…

Americas Boeing won a $17.7 million contract modification, which increases the scope to procure the necessary test and engineering support to complete the development of the Next Generation Jammer – Mid-Band system and the phased replacement of the AN/ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System currently mounted to the EA-18G aircraft. The AN/ALQ-99 intercepts and automatically processes radar signals and power manages the system’s transmitters to effectively jam large numbers of diverse radar threats with very high effective radiated power. The AN/ALQ-249(V)1 Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) system is part of a larger NGJ system that will augment, and ultimately replace the l…

Just a quick note today as the paying gig is only letting me pop in and out of my alter ego's life. A friend posted the below from Janes' this AM from behind their paywall. I've had some well informed readers reach out to me after I posted it over on twitter to ask, roughly, "But I keep seeing how the Russians are screwing up the basics of fuel, food, bad comms and chaos." Well, yes - that is all true. I am also sure that this is not going as smooth as the Russian General Staff briefed Putin how things would go. The fact remains though that the Russians are making gains. Slower and uglier than they thought, but they are making gains. The Ukrainians are putting up a pluc…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $128.2 million contract modification by the US Air Force for the exercise of an option for hardware spares and the partial exercise of an option for an additional 123 Lot 20 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) – Extended Range missiles with containers. According to the company, JASSM is a long-range, conventional, air-to-ground, precision standoff missile for the US and allied forces. Designed to destroy high-value, well-defended, fixed and relocatable targets, JASSM’s significant standoff range keeps aircrews well out of danger from hostile air defense systems. Work will take place in Florida and Alabama. Expected completion date …

Events in the Second Russo-Ukrainian War (or whatever it is being called, this is what I call it with the 1st being in 2014), are moving fast. It seems anything you write will be OBE in a few hours, but write one must. Case in point; going in to the weekend Germany was stuck in, "We are pausing NS2..." and we find our way to Monday where she is giving the nod for artillery, fighter jets, anti-aircraft, and anti-armor weapons to Ukraine as fast as they can get there and announcing an unprecedented increase in defense spending. So, today let's focus on something that isn't quite as sexy as air superiority or logistics convoys, but may be the most important news of the day; …

Americas The US Air Force has selected Leidos Inc. to develop a $26 million prototype advanced high power microwave (HPM) weapon system to counter drones. “The new prototype will be called Mjölnir, the mythical Norse God Thor’s mighty hammer,” said Adrian Lucero, THOR program manager at AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. “Because THOR was so successful, we wanted to keep the new system’s name in the family.” Mjölnir is based on technology from the Tactical High-Power Operational Responder (THOR) program but with significant improvement in capabilities, reliability, and manufacturing capabilities. Leidos will deliver the prototype next year. G…