Raw Intel

The U.S. government threw open its classified UFO files on Friday, releasing never-before-seen documents, videos, and photos through a new interagency program and making them freely accessible to any American with an internet connection — no security clearance required. The Department of War announced the initial release as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting […]View the full article

EDGE Group said it is speeding up development and production of the MANSUP and MANSUP-ER anti-ship missiles under its partnership with the Brazilian Navy, pushing forward one of Brazil’s key indigenous naval weapons programs. The Emirati defense company said the work is being carried out in close cooperation with local industry partners and the end […]View the full article

Satellite imagery published by the open-source intelligence community Exilenova+ has confirmed a successful Ukrainian strike on the research and production branch of the NTC Radar scientific center in Rostov, struck overnight between May 7 and 8. According to Exilenova+, the main building was completely destroyed, while a second structure partially burned out. Two additional drone […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy is set to commission a warship in Ohio for the first time in the nation’s 250-year history, with USS Cleveland scheduled to formally enter active service on May 16 during a ceremony at North Coast Yard in the city that gave the vessel its name. USS Cleveland, designated LCS 31, arrived in […]View the full article

American forces deployed Hornet strike drones during the Balikatan 2026 exercise in the Philippines, using the small pneumatic-launched weapons to destroy maritime targets simulating Chinese ZBD-05 amphibious assault vehicles in live-fire drills — marking one of the first confirmed appearances of the system in the Indo-Pacific theater. Balikatan 2026, the annual U.S.-Philippine bilateral exercise, ran […]View the full article

BZ to the folks who decided not to release it the Friday before Mother’s Day Weekend. Yesterday, Acting SECNAV Cao released the U.S. Navy’s Shipbuilding Plan. Let’s dive in, but first, the usual caveats we’ve used over the last couple of decades when reviewing such items. Ignore the out years. They are notoriously inaccurate in both numbers and type. Focus on what you see four years from the year it is issued. The next four years, meh. Beyond that…don’t bet your lunch money on it. There’s a LOT here to dive into. You need to read it all. I’m just going to hit the bright, shiny objects. I would argue that one of the more valuable things, if you are trying to get your min…

Since the first man from Tribe-A returning from harvesting figs from the big tree on the other side of the river heard a zing of an arrow zipping by his head, fired from a canoe belonging to Tribe-B, a guaranteed part of conflict between two groups with access to waterborne trade has been this: commerce raiding. Every naval power should have this concept in the mix of its fleet design, especially if your rivals depend on the seas for a significant portion of their food and raw materials. It isn’t a mission beneath a navy. It isn’t a lower form of naval war. No. Indeed, when practiced properly, it is a war-winning form of war at sea. It would require super-human strength…

The U.S. Navy has awarded a San Diego defense contractor a contract to deliver command, control, communications, and cybersecurity capabilities to Taiwan, with the work conducted both on the island and in the continental United States under the framework of U.S. government international agreements with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office. Naval Information Warfare […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a $325.5 million contract to develop a high-altitude long-endurance drone specifically designed to collect test data from high-speed weapons systems, filling a capability gap that has slowed the Pentagon’s ability to evaluate hypersonic and other advanced high-speed programs at the pace that competition with China and Russia demands. […]View the full article

Two separate contracts awarded within days of each other are pouring more than $163 million into the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll — the remote Pacific range where the U.S. military tests ballistic missiles, tracks reentry vehicles, and validates the interceptors designed to shoot them down. The more recent award, dated April 27, 2026, […]View the full article

With the Falkland Islands War back in the news, thought ti would be fun to bring back a FbF from 2017 on a nice, tidy OP by our British friends. A great story via our friends at ThinkDefence about an exceptional side-show to The Falkland Island war. Pebble Island lies to the north of West Falkland and in 1982, its 25 inhabitants were mainly involved with tending 25,000 sheep. Its small airstrip was subject to a daring raid by the SAS. It did have an airstrip, though, or more accurately, four, three of grass, and the other on the beach. On the 24th of April, Naval Air Station Calderon (as it was called) was established there. ... HMS Hermes was detached along with HMS Gla…

Lithuania’s first HIMARS rocket artillery systems are coming off the production line, the Lithuanian Armed Forces announced, releasing the first images of the vehicles and confirming delivery is expected within the coming years. “The first Lithuanian HIMARS are rolling off the production line — this is what they will look like,” the Lithuanian Armed Forces […]View the full article

Russia claims it has doubled combat aircraft production since the start of the war in Ukraine, defense heavyweight Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov told President Vladimir Putin at a meeting, according to the Kremlin’s official website. Chemezov made the claim directly to President Vladimir Putin at a formal meeting, according to the Kremlin’s official website. The doubling […]View the full article

A multi-company team has successfully tested a mobile counter-drone and anti-armor system mounted on a light utility vehicle, combining an Echodyne radar, a Dillon Aero M134 minigun, APKWS guided rockets, and Aeon’s Zeus missile in a single modular platform. The system is built on Moog’s Flexible Mission Platform, a modular weapons integration architecture that the […]View the full article

Japan’s government is moving to deploy early warning radar-equipped drones over the Pacific Ocean as part of a significant expansion of its surveillance and deterrence posture against China, with the MQ-9B SeaGuardian emerging as the leading candidate platform for a capability that Tokyo considers essential to closing what defense planners have described as a surveillance […]View the full article

Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue autonomous combat aircraft completed its first taxi test on May 14 at Mojave, California, moving under its own power for the first time and bringing the Air Force’s third designated drone wingman prototype within striking distance of its first flight. Crane Aerospace and Electronics, part of Connecticut-based Crane Company, supplied […]View the full article

Taiwan’s state defense research institute publicly unveiled its next-generation anti-armor rocket, showing off a weapon significantly more capable than what Taiwanese infantry currently carry and explicitly designed to counter the armored vehicles a Chinese amphibious invasion force would land on Taiwan’s beaches. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, known as NCSIST and the […]View the full article

A Romanian Air Force F-16 patrolling Baltic skies under NATO’s air policing mission shot down a suspected Ukrainian drone over southern Estonia on May 19, marking the first time NATO fighters have actively intercepted and destroyed a drone over the Baltic states rather than simply scrambling to track one. The incident unfolded around midday, with […]View the full article

A Virginia-based counter-UAS training company has launched a program focused on the phase of a drone incident that most training programs ignore entirely: what to do after the drone is already on the ground. 38 Sierra announced Drone Incident Response Training, known as DIRT, on May 5, 2026, from Barboursville, Virginia, positioning it as a […]View the full article

Thing about Lou is that just a few years before, he was just another dude trying to figure it all out. Instead, he became something even a fiction writer would have trouble making up; 1 of only 3 US Aces to claim kills agains all 3 Axis powers, (3 main powers: Germany, Japan & Italy). The ONLY one to shoot down a USAAF plane as well, and definitely the only one to shoot down his girl friend He was a POW for awhile to boot. There are a lot of stories out there about Lou, but this one from AcesOfWWII catches it about right; Lt. Curdes was circling low over one of his P-51 pilots who was bobbing in his dinghy just off Jap field Batan Island. Another pilot whose plane ha…