Raw Intel

The U.S. Army is spending $18 million to repair and refit equipment as one of its cavalry regiments transforms into a heavy brigade combat team, trading in lighter reconnaissance vehicles for the tanks and armored fighting vehicles that define the Army’s most heavily armed formations. Army Contracting Command awarded the contract modification to Akima Facilities […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force is paying close to $148.3 million to keep an engine that has powered its supersonic jet trainer since the 1960s running. The Defense Logistics Agency awarded Collins Engine Nozzles two contracts for fuel-system parts on the J85 turbojet, the engine that powers the T-38 Talon, according to Department of War contract […]View the full article

Marine Corps attack and utility helicopters are getting more secure links to share battlefield data with other aircraft, ships, and ground units. The U.S. Navy awarded Northrop Grumman a $34.4 million contract modification to build additional Link 16 kits for the UH-1Y Venom and AH-1Z Viper helicopters, according to a Department of War contract announcement. […]View the full article

Israeli surveillance systems maker ESC BAZ demonstrated a new line of patrol and assault vehicles for the Israel Defense Forces’ 96th Division, the company said in a LinkedIn post. The vehicles are built for reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, security missions and first-response operations, and the demonstration included counter-drone technology developed with Israeli firm SmartShooter. ESC BAZ […]View the full article

Chinese state television has aired the first semi-official acknowledgment of the country’s massive intercontinental ballistic missile silo fields in a documentary marking the 99th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army. The program, produced by China’s national broadcaster CCTV, features an army engineer describing years of work building what he calls “houses for missiles” in the […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division has finished restoring an F-117 Nighthawk stealth jet, known as Aircraft 818 and nicknamed “The Overachiever,” for permanent display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The company said the aircraft will go on exhibit at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center later this fall. The move adds another […]View the full article

Israeli drone maker Steadicopter has cleared a regulatory hurdle needed to expand operations of its Black Eagle 50E unmanned helicopter in the United States, the company announced Sept. 15, 2026. The aircraft completed an airworthiness validation process run by the Nevada Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Site, based at the University of Nevada, Reno. The Nevada […]View the full article

A Dutch shipbuilder has landed the job of designing where submarine crews will sleep, eat and live during long stretches under the sea. Royal IHC and France’s Naval Group signed a contract Sept. 15, 2026, covering the living quarters on board the Royal Netherlands Navy’s new Orka-class submarines. It sounds like a modest piece of […]View the full article

Photos and video from Exercise Thunderstruck 3.0 show Oklahoma National Guard convoy vehicles fitted with wire mesh cage screens, a low-cost defense against first-person-view drones that Ukrainian forces have used on the battlefield since 2022. The exercise, held September 12 at Camp Gruber Training Center, centered on unmanned systems and drone threats. Images from the […]View the full article

Lost in the 25th Anniversary remembrance weekend of 11 SEP 2001 was the fact that there were significant changes on the ground in the festering sore on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Persian Gulf, Yemen. Bridget Toomey at FDD’s Long War Journal has a good summary. On September 10, the Houthis seized the strategic port city of Mocha on Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast. The next day, the Iran-backed group pushed south, culminating with the capture of the remaining Red Sea coast and Perim Island in the middle of the Bab al Mandeb Strait, the strategic chokepoint at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The Houthis also seized the Hanish Islands, an archipelag…

The U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing a $562 million contract to begin low-rate production of the MQ-25A Stingray, the service’s first carrier-based unmanned refueling drone. The Fixed Price Incentive contract covers three Lot 1 aircraft and includes advance funding to buy long-lead components for three more Lot 2 aircraft. Boeing expects to deliver the first […]View the full article

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hold an Industry Day on September 30 in Arlington, Virginia, for a new program aimed at building next-generation electronic-support systems that can watch across wide swaths of the radio spectrum without needing to digitize and process every signal they detect. The program is called BEAMERS, short for Beam-Space […]View the full article

Denmark accused a Russian warship of firing two emergency flares at one of its military helicopters over the Baltic Sea, the government said Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. The helicopter was tracking the vessel as part of what Denmark described as a routine monitoring operation when the flares were fired. The Danish government summoned the Russian […]View the full article

Diehl Defence and Elbit Systems demonstrated their SkyStriker loitering ‘kamikaze drone’ system in a live test in early September 2026, the companies announced Sept. 14. The demonstration focused on the weapon’s range and a “hand-over” function that worked at a distance of 80 km (50 miles). SkyStriker was launched from a canister, located a target, […]View the full article

As we like to point out, if you pay proper attention, small and medium-sized wars will show you what works, what doesn’t, and probably what you will need should war come your way at some point in the future on a larger scale. Prior to WWI, you had the Boer Wars. Prior to WWII, you had the Spanish Civil War. Right now, we are blessed—or cursed, depending on your focus—with a flood of lessons in the offensive use and defense against swarms of the many, affordable, and massed long-range attack drones, cruise missiles, and conventional ballistic missiles. The Russo-Ukrainian War since 2022 and the U.S.-Israeli conflict against Iran and her proxies since the Hamas invasion of …

Lockheed Martin is building four more of its newest combat drones, the company announced September 14, doubling down on a program that’s still more than a year away from ever leaving the ground. The news came from the company’s secretive Skunk Works division, following a major Air Force conference near Washington, D.C., where Skunk Works also […]View the full article

Open-source analysts say wreckage from a short-range ballistic missile turned up in northern Yemen this week, and they believe it points to a weapon type Saudi Arabia has never been confirmed to use before. The debris, identified as the booster stage of a Chinese-made DF-15A, was found in the Raghwan district of Marib Governorate, according […]View the full article

A U.S. Navy warship built to carry Marines ashore just wrapped up a stop at one of America’s most important Pacific outposts. USS San Diego (LPD 22), an amphibious transport dock, departed Naval Base Guam on September 12, 2026, after transiting Apra Harbor during what the Navy described as routine operations in the U.S. 7th […]View the full article

The Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 104th Fighter Wing formally welcomed the F-35A Lightning II to Barnes Air National Guard Base on September 13, 2026, marking the aircraft’s arrival after a transition process that began more than three years ago. The ceremony drew Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, military officials and representatives from Kenya and Paraguay, whose […]View the full article

The littoral combat ship USS St. Louis (LCS 19) left Naval Station Mayport on September 13 to take over U.S. Northern Command’s mission patrolling waters near the U.S. southern border, the U.S. Navy said. The ship relieves USS Cooperstown (LCS 23), which returned to Mayport on August 31 after a four-month deployment to the region. […]View the full article