Raw Intel

It is time to return to a topic no one likes. It is one of the most damning of the military service and its leaders; the abuse of Command Investigation and the Inspector General process. Sadly, they often degrade to the lowest motivation from one or two of the players involved. If not properly led and managed, they can quickly devolve in to Star Chamber, Kafkaesque nightmare that no one gets out of alive. The more I've seen of them, the firmer I hold that no one can survive one intact. If you dig enough, you will run in to something or someone that can give and investigating body enough to destroy in a day what took decades to build. I give to you another example, this…

Americas Boeing won a $13.6 million contract modification, which exercises an option to perform 24 modifications in support of the Increment Three Block One retrofit as well as the procurement, manufacture and assembly of 25 additional retrofit kits supporting engineering change five for existing P8-A Poseidon aircraft. The P-8A Poseidon is the US Navy’s maritime patrol aircraft. It is capable of broad-area, maritime and littoral operations, and is also successful at search and rescue. Work will take place in Washington. Expected completion date is in December 2023. An annual air exercise between South Korea and the United States kicked off secretly on November 1. The ex…

Americas Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group ships are heading to the Mediterranean Sea for exercise Neptune Strike ’22, the Pentagon said. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby says the deployment is not a response to increased tensions with Russia. He stressed that planning for Neptune Strike ’22 began in 2020. “The exercise itself is not designed against the kinds of scenarios that might happen with respect to Ukraine. It really is a NATO maritime exercise to test … really a wide range of maritime capabilities that we want to make sure we continue to improve.” The US Army Contracting Command Issued a Sources Sought notification for an organic small unit-level Lethal Miniatur…

History is funny about how it delivers leaders. Some nations, when they need it most, are given the worst leaders who on paper at least, should have been the right leader at the right time. Other nations are provided leaders who, on paper, seem to be a disaster in the making ... but don't just rise to the occasion, come to dominate the occasion. A comic. They elected a comic. Ukraine's President Zelensky's May 9th address to his nation - and to everyone else - is a masterpiece of the right man at the right time with the right words. Take time to listen to it. This is what a sharp, vibrant, focused, and grounded leader looks like. At least at this moment, at this time, I d…

Americas Raytheon won a $8.8 million deal for Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile Production Lot 35 Rectifier Filter Assembly Captive Air Training Missile Retrofit effort. Work will take place in Arizona. Expected completion date is May 30, 2026. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Air Dominance Division Contracting Office, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity. Sikorsky Aircraft won an $8 million deal for procurement of services and data for the integration and qualification of the Improved Turbine Engine onto the UH/HH-60M Black Hawk aircraft. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. UH-60 Black Hawk is a multi-mission h…

US Army HH-60Ms (click to view full) In July 2012, the US military signed another huge contract with Sikorsky. With production of the Army’s HH/UH-60M, and the Navy’s MH-60S and MH-60R helicopters, all in full swing, there’s no question about the need for future orders. In that environment, multi-year contracts allow efficiencies in purchasing, and […]View the full article

Americas Sierra Nevada Co. won a $400 million contract for the Airborne Mission Networking System. The contract provides for Airborne Mission Networking system kits for the MC-130 aircraft, as well as engineering services, contractor logistics support, program management, field service representative support, and over and above. The locations of performance are Centennial, Colorado; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Englewood, Colorado; Hagerstown, Maryland; Robins Air Force Base, Georgia; Eglin AFB, Florida, and Hurlburt Field, Florida. The work is expected to be completed by June 27, 2029. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Robins AFB, Warner Robins, Georgia, is the …

The French defense procurement agency, Direction générale de l’armement (DGA), has conducted a new series of trials aimed at validating software upgrades to the MURIN battlefield surveillance radar developed by Thales. According to a public release by DGA, the testing campaign took place at the DGA Maîtrise de l’information test center and utilized the mobile […] The post French military tests upgraded Murin radar first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

Pentagon’s No.1 weapons supplier, Lockheed Martin, is joining with President Donald Trump’s administration and South Korean industry to strengthen access to critical materials vital for national defense. The initiative, announced by Michael Williamson, President of Lockheed Martin International, is aimed at building a more resilient supply chain for technologies essential to both U.S. and allied […] The post Lockheed Martin, South Korean Zinc sign critical materials deal first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

Regulars here know I am a big supporter of the underdog, and in naval warfare few things are more of an underdog than Mine Warfare (MIW). Effective, deadly, affordable, and few things will terrify a ship faster than its crew yelling “MINE”! Forgotten and neglected in peace, absolutely devastating at war. Regulars also know that I love nothing more than dragging the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), AKA Little Crappy Ship (as popularized on this blog two decades ago) around. Where do they intersect where the former negates the latter? Friend to the blog, guest and occasional guest host for the Midrats Podcast, MIW SME, and altogether hail-fellow-well-met Matthew Hipple’s recent …

Thank goodness for the internet archive via Way Back Machine. The links to fleetsubmarine.com are dead today, but viw WBM, we can still get them. As such, I’m going to repost this little FbF just so everyone can get what used to be. So, like WWII submarines? This fits for a very good find from reader Steve - it’s all so Fullbore, I can’t pick just one. All the submarine reports Historic Naval Ship Association from S-11 to USS Diablo. At the end of each war patrol of WW II, submarine commanders created a report on the patrol. These reports were used as the raw material to inform intelligence, improve tactics, evaluate commanders, etc. During WW II, over 1,550 patrol rep…

Uvision Group has announced the full acquisition of SpearUAV, an Israeli defense technology company known for its encapsulated, AI-driven loitering systems. According to the company, the move is intended to strengthen Uvision’s multi-layered approach to loitering munitions and broaden its offerings across air, ground, sea, and subsea domains. In a release from Uvision, the company […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense on Monday confirmed that its armed forces closely monitored Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels operating near the island, releasing imagery showing Taiwanese F-16V fighters tracking People’s Liberation Army aircraft during ongoing Chinese drills. In a briefing held at 4:45 p.m. local time, the Ministry of National Defense of the […]View the full article

United States Marines and Department of War contractors conducted flight operations with a V-BAT unmanned aerial system aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) in the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 28, 2026, as part of ongoing integrated training with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. During the event, a V-BAT unmanned aerial system […]View the full article

United States Special Operations Command has awarded Boeing a $19,4 million modification to an existing delivery order for the procurement of MH-47G rotary-wing aircraft, according to a contract announcement. The modification supports continued acquisition of special operations helicopters, with most work to be performed in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, through November 2030. The contract action addresses […]View the full article

MSI Defense Solutions and South Korea’s Nearthlab on March 24 signed a memorandum of understanding to integrate the KAiDEN autonomous interceptor drone into the EAGLS counter-UAS system, the companies announced at the Association of the United States Army Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. The agreement focuses on adding a kinetic interception capability to the […]View the full article

Iran’s military has reimposed restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, closing the critical waterway to shipping just hours after briefly allowing transit, according to Iranian state media. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Saturday that control of the strait had returned “to its previous state,” placing the passage back under what it described as strict […]View the full article

CSG group and Turkish armored vehicle maker FNSS unveiled the CFL-120 Karpat medium tank at the IDEB 2026 defense exhibition in Bratislava, presenting a joint European-Turkish development program that combines a proven tracked hull with Leonardo’s HITFACT MkII turret and a 120mm main gun capable of engaging the same armored targets as a main battle […]View the full article

The first satellite from Russia’s nascent attempt to build a domestic broadband constellation fell back into Earth’s atmosphere and burned up on approximately June 6, 2026, less than three months after it launched, according to reporting by Anatoly Zak, a journalist who specializes in the history of Russian and Soviet space programs and maintains the […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a $104 million contract on June 26, 2026, to begin procurement of long-lead materials and early engineering work for the F-100 mid-life upgrade of Spain’s Álvaro de Bazán-class frigates, the most capable surface combatants in the Spanish Navy and one of the most combat-proven Aegis frigate designs operating outside […]View the full article