Raw Intel

MiG-21 ‘Lancer’ (click to view full) The MiG-21 is reaching the end of its service life, but it can still be effective for a little while. India’s refurbished MiG-21 ‘Bisons’ combined Russian, Indian and Israeli technology to excellent effect in the COPE India 2004 and 2005 exercises with the USAF, and there’s even a Russian-Israeli […]View the full article

Americas General Atomics Aeronautical Systems won a $108 million contract for Canada MQ-9B remotely piloted aircraft systems hardware. This contract provides the necessary Foreign Military Sales (FMS) hardware and components to support Canada’s MQ-9B Direct Commercial Sale program. This contract involves FMS to Canada. This contract was a sole source acquisition. FMS funds in the amount of $12,890,775 will be obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity. BAE Systems has received a $68 million in contracts to manufacture 44 additional Beowulf Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicles …

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system suffered a major global disruption Thursday, knocking tens of thousands of users offline for more than two hours and affecting critical military communications across active warzones. According to Downdetector, the outage began on Thursday at approximately 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), with more than 61,000 user reports flooding the crowdsourced […] The post Starlink breakdown reveals frontline weakness first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

Russian forces have claimed their successful strike against a launcher of Ukraine’s Neptune coastal defense missile system. According to reports, Russian reconnaissance drones operating near the village of Liubytske in the Zaporizhzhia region identified a Neptune launcher as it prepared to fire. Within minutes, Russian forces directed a 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile with a fragmentation […] The post Russia hits Ukraine’s Neptune missile launcher first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded Knight’s Armament Company of Titusville, Florida, a $21 million contract for the production and delivery of M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper Systems (SASS), with deliveries expected to be completed by January 30, 2027. The contract, issued under the Ukraine Security Initiative and Building Partner Capacity funds, will support ongoing U.S. efforts to […] The post U.S. Army orders M110 sniper rifles for Ukraine first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

A Chinese turbojet engine has been recovered from the wreckage of a new Russian glide bomb used against Ukrainian positions, confirming that Russia is actively modifying its air‑dropped munitions to extend their stand‑off range. The discovery, first reported by Militarnyi, provides direct physical evidence of turbojet integration into the latest Russian bomb designs. According to […] The post Russia’s new glide bomb uses Chinese-made turbojet engine first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

A Ukrainian soldier serving in the 1020th Air Defense Missile and Artillery Regiment has set a record by destroying 24 Shahed-type kamikaze drones during a single night. The report was published by Militarnyi, which stated that the achievement was made by a serviceman with the call sign “Miguel.” As noted by Militarnyi, “a soldier of […]View the full article

L3Harris Technologies has been selected to provide assured communications support for the U.S. Air Force’s E-4C fleet as part of the Survivable Airborne Operations Center program, extending the company’s role in one of the military’s most sensitive command-and-control missions. According to a press release, L3Harris Technologies will serve as a subcontractor on the SAOC effort, […]View the full article

Though the Americans are now in the fight, still on every front; desperation. At every morning brief, more ships sunk. The enemy surrounds you as you starve. Your ships and aircraft sit idle for lack of fuel and parts. Through waves of attacks, a relief convoy comes ... and you wait. Do they know your desperation? Will they make it? What can be done? Well, in comes, Captain Dudley Mason - the master of the former U.S. and now U.K. tanker SS Ohio - and his crew and convoy. For the details, let’s look at the citation for his George Cross and the award to two of his crew, Frederick August Larsen, Jr., Junior Third Officer and Francis A. Dales, Deck Cadet-Midshipman on…

It is curious what the U.S. military chooses to honor. There are five or so U.S. Army units that in one way or another refer to themselves as “Spartans.” Even the U.S. Navy and USAF have a unit or two in that game. It isn’t just ancient Greek history; it is all over the place. Heck, back in the day, the U.S. Navy had an attack squadron named the Clansmen, with a “C” not a “K”, VA-46, that served from 1955 to 1991. It was stationed in the very un-Scottish Cecil Field in the piney woods of northeast Florida. Yes, the U.S.A. is a young country, but we have plenty of martial legends of our own—well-documented with real people from real units. You don’t have to look far. As t…

The Republic of Korea Air Force’s first Embraer C-390 Millennium military transport aircraft has completed its maiden flight from the manufacturer’s facility near Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to Embraer, the aircraft will now enter a phase of testing and integration of specific systems to meet the operational needs of its first Asian operator. The milestone […]View the full article

Redwire has secured more than $20 million in awards during the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 to supply its Stalker unmanned aircraft systems to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ small tactical drone office, the company said. The order includes the Marine Corps’ first purchase of Redwire’s Advanced Navigation version of the Stalker Block […]View the full article

Ukrainian drones struck a Russian Defense Ministry military logistics complex near Moscow overnight on May 7, hitting the Nara production and logistics facility in Narofominsk in the Moscow region. The Nara complex is a large-scale military facility covering more than 180 to 200 hectares, located in Narofominsk on the grounds of Military Town No. 3. […]View the full article

Israeli loitering munitions manufacturer Uvision launched a new battle management software system on June 1 that connects sensors, decision-making processes, and multiple weapons into a single unified framework, announcing the CORTEX active Battle Intelligence and Mission Management system at ILA Berlin 2026 as the company’s most ambitious step yet toward automating the full sensor-to-shooter chain […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded a contract worth up to $95 million to study how laser weapons affect their targets and how to analyze that data more effectively, accelerating a research effort that sits at the foundation of America’s push to field directed energy weapons as a primary defense against the drone and missile […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin unveiled MORFIUS X-Rotor at the Farnborough International Airshow, an airborne counter-drone system built around a high-power microwave weapon that the company says can neutralize an entire swarm of hostile drones in a single mission, then land, get recovered, and fly again. A high-power microwave weapon, commonly shortened to HPM, works by blasting a […]View the full article

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the Main Directorate of Intelligence, known as HUR, said Friday that Russia has built a secret military complex of biological laboratories on an island in the Tver region, where it experiments with dangerous viruses and other pathogens on behalf of the armed forces. HUR identified the facility as the “Center for […]View the full article

This would stir thing up a bit. A leading defence expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from "unprecedented" internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country. "China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century," Bharat Verma, editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said. Verma said the recession has "shut the Chinese exports shop", creating an "unprecedented internal social unrest" w…

AIM-120C from F-22A (click for test missile zoom) Raytheon’s AIM-120 Advanced, Medium-Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) has become the world market leader for medium range air-to-air missiles, and is also beginning to make inroads within land-based defense systems. It was designed with the lessons of Vietnam in mind, and of local air combat exercises like ACEVAL and Red Flag. This DID FOCUS article covers successive generations of AMRAAM missiles, international contracts and key events from 2006 onward, and even some of its emerging competitors. One of the key lessons learned from Vietnam was that a fighter would be likely to encounter multiple enemies, and would need …

For a whole host of reasons, Australia needs a potent and numerous submarine force. Geography and potential opponents make the case pretty straight forward. It looks like they are not on a smooth path; As this is written, the head of the French naval construction company Naval Group, Pierre Eric Pommellet, is in Australia meeting federal ministers in an attempt to rescue the contract. Tragically for Australia – and for Monsieur Pommellet – not one of those ministers has the experience or competence to wrangle a successful result. Many informed commentators in France, Australia and elsewhere now expect the much-celebrated deal to be abandoned. If that happens, replacing…