Raw Intel

A commercial supply ship the length of a football field just spent nine days getting a robot brain installed, and then drove itself across open water in Hawaii with the U.S. Army watching. The ship is called the HOS Resolution, a 257-foot (78-meter) offshore supply vessel normally used to haul equipment and supplies to oil […]View the full article

A Russian Aerospace Forces Mi-8 helicopter crashed onto a highway on Sakhalin Island on September 2, coming to rest on its side in a roadside ditch after what the pro-Russian military Telegram channel Fighterbomber described as a complete loss of power from fuel exhaustion in both engines. Video and photographs of the incident show the […]View the full article

From the Sea of Azov, Strait of Hormuz, Ankara, to the South China Sea - don’t miss today’s LIVE Midrats Podcast from 5-6pm Eastern. You can join the live session and contribute the chat room at this link. In our melee format, Mark and I have our list of topics, but if you join the live show chat, you can ask us questions or even suggest a topic we cover. Live…not net. If you are reading this after the show, check the Substack later Sunday night for all the podcast links. Don’t miss it! Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

Ukraine appears to have struck one of the more obscure but consequential nodes in Russia’s weapons manufacturing chain, hitting the Sborka plant in Voronezh, a facility that Ukrainian military intelligence identifies as a supplier of specialized semiconductor components to three of Russia’s most operationally significant weapons programs: the Kh-101 cruise missile, the Iskander-K ballistic missile […]View the full article

The U.S. Army is getting more hypersonic missiles, after the Navy awarded Lockheed Martin Space an $83 million contract modification on June 22, 2026, to procure additional All-Up Rounds under the Conventional Prompt Strike program satisfying Army requirements, with nearly the entire contract value funded by Army missile procurement appropriations and work running through June […]View the full article

Two Norwegian companies have joined forces to put better magnetic technology into the hands of military boarding teams around the world, with Blumags and H. Henriksen AS announcing an exclusive supply agreement on June 23, 2026, that reshapes how corrosion-resistant tactical magnets reach the specialized operators who depend on them. Under the deal, Blumags becomes […]View the full article

Poland and Britain are building artillery shells together at scale, and their governments and chambers of commerce have just given that partnership a formal award recognizing it as one of the most consequential industrial collaborations between the two countries. The British Embassy in Warsaw and the British Polish Chamber of Commerce jointly presented the British-Polish […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded ThinKom Solutions an Other Transaction Agreement worth up to $49 million to deliver and test a mobile high-power microwave weapon designed to counter drones. The agreement was issued by the Army’s Program Manager for Advanced Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System Effects, part of Portfolio Acquisition Executive Fires. Initial funding covers one of […]View the full article

With the first operational B-21 Raiders scheduled to arrive at Ellsworth Air Force Base in 2027, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $44 million construction contract to build the permanent outdoor shelters that will protect America’s most advanced stealth bomber from the harsh South Dakota winters, extending its service life and keeping […]View the full article

Sikorsky, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary best known for the Black Hawk helicopter, announced Wednesday at the Farnborough International Airshow that its Nomad 100 uncrewed aircraft has completed initial ground and flight testing under DARPA’s Early VTOL Aircraft Demonstration program, known as EVADE, a fast-track Pentagon research effort designed to push new vertical takeoff aircraft from […]View the full article

A Polish-Turkish unmanned aircraft system demonstrated approximately one-meter accuracy striking a ground target during live field trials, MBF Group S.A. announced June 30, 2026, marking a significant validation milestone for the IRYDA+ X1 swarm-capable drone platform the Warsaw-based company has been developing with Turkish technology partner Shark Aviation Dynamics since their operating agreement was signed […]View the full article

An unmanned boat has launched a drone into the air over open ocean, all without a single person on board either vehicle, and the demonstration could change how the Royal Navy watches its own waters. British maritime robotics company ACUA Ocean and American sensor and drone manufacturer Teledyne FLIR Defense confirmed they completed two days […]View the full article

Nineteen companies have survived a brutal, weeks-long elimination round built to answer one question the Pentagon considers existential: can American industry build enough cheap, lethal drones fast enough to matter in a real war. The Drone Dominance Program, a Pentagon initiative jointly run by the Test Resource Management Center and the Defense Innovation Unit, announced […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has told the defense industry it wants an alternative to its own primary radar-killing missile, and it wants companies capable of building as many as 600 of them every year. The Naval Air Systems Command, the branch of the Navy responsible for developing and buying naval aircraft and weapons, published a Request […]View the full article

A next-generation stealth fighter that nearly stalled out over a funding dispute severe enough to cost two British officials their jobs has received a $6.1 billion vote of confidence from the three countries building it. The Global Combat Air Programme, known in Britain as Tempest, awarded an 18-month, £4.6 billion ($6.1 billion) contract on July […]View the full article

The Defense Logistics Agency has awarded Ohio steelmaker Metallus a contract worth up to $995 million for High Fragmentation 1 steel, the special alloy used to make the bodies of U.S. 155 mm artillery shells, the U.S. Department of War announced. The five-year, firm-fixed-price contract runs through Sept. 24, 2031, and has no option periods. […]View the full article

A Russian tank fitted with the country’s signature radar-guided missile defense system has turned up again on the Ukrainian battlefield, this time firing from a hidden position rather than facing the enemy head on. Photographs published by Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti show a T-72B3A main battle tank equipped with the Arena-M active protection […]View the full article

Yuma Proving Ground, the U.S. Army’s massive desert test range in southwestern Arizona, successfully supported a full-scale, live-fire hypersonic warhead test using a cannon-based test system, establishing what officials describe as a critical new testing capability for modern national security programs, according to a report published in The Outpost, Yuma Proving Ground’s official publication, on […]View the full article

Japan’s government has used its most authoritative annual security document to declare that China and Russia are no longer just cooperating occasionally near its shores, they are actively strengthening coordinated military activity, Nikkei reported. Japan’s Ministry of Defense published its 2026 Defense White Paper on Aug. 4, expressing new alarm over deepening military cooperation between […]View the full article

A small Indian defense company has built a weapon that looks like it walked straight off a battlefield in Ukraine, a portable, gun-shaped launcher that fires its own miniature drone to physically hunt down and destroy enemy aircraft in midair. Picraft Technology Pvt. Ltd., a private Indian defense technology company, developed the system, called Harpy […]View the full article