Raw Intel

How are naval shipbuilding, commercial shipbuilding, and commercial shipping linked together to create a healthy and effective national seapower ecosystem? What did the 1990s “Last Supper” get wrong, and what can be done to correct the error? This Sunday, LIVE from 5-6 pm Eastern, Hunter Stires will be returning to Midrats to discuss this and more. We will be using as a starting point for our discussion the recent article that he co-wrote with Steve Brock at CIMSEC, Maritime Statecraft and its Future. You can listen live at this link. If you are reading this after the show, reload this Substack page later Sunday as the podcast audio will be here. Hunter Stires served as…

China has developed a next-generation 25mm handheld grenade launcher featuring programmable airburst munitions, a compact electronic fire control system, and modular construction, according to an article published in the military magazine Ordnance Knowledge. The report introduces a new experimental 25mm airburst grenade launcher designed for individual use, combining advanced fuze programming with a high level […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hungary’s 4iG Space and Defence Technologies to develop a long-range rocket artillery system tailored to Hungarian military requirements. According to a statement from Lockheed Martin, the agreement focuses on integrating the company’s Artillery Rocket System Launcher Loader Module onto trucks built in Hungary. The resulting system […]View the full article

The United States Air Force has confirmed that the 56th Rescue Generation Squadron (RGS) has received its final HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter, completing the unit’s transition to the service’s newest combat rescue platform, according to a service update released this week. The final aircraft was delivered to Aviano Air Base, Italy, where the 56th […]View the full article

Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces released combat footage showing the detection and destruction of a Russian 300-mm Tornado-S multiple launch rocket system during an operation conducted on occupied territory in the Zaporizhzhia region. The strike was carried out by operators of the “Ptahi” unit from the 1st Separate Center of the Unmanned Systems Forces, coordinated by […]View the full article

In February, 1956, there was a short little obituary in the NYT. Admiral Sir Walter Henry Cowan, whose fighting career on sea and land spanned the conquest of the Sudan in 1898 and the North African desert campaigns in World War II, died today at his home at Kineton, Warwickshire. He was 84 years old. That does not do the man justice. I’m not sure this short bio does either…but read it twice. Born at Crickhowell, Brecknockshire, he joined the navy in 1884 where he was invalided twice within the first ten years of his career. He became Lord Kitchener's aide-de-camp spending the entire year of 1900 in the field. Aged 30, he was promoted to commander, and then captain, seein…

The United Kingdom’s National Armaments Director Group has awarded a £879 million (approximately $1.1 billion) three-year contract to Boeing Defence UK to maintain and support the British Army’s AH-64E Apache attack helicopters and the Royal Air Force’s Chinook HC heavy-lift helicopters. The contract covers maintenance, technical services, logistical support, and — critically for the Apache […]View the full article

Yuma Test Center has installed and fired a Proof Gun System for the first time, giving the U.S. Army a dedicated artillery testing platform that can swap gun tubes in and out without ever needing a complete howitzer on the range. The Proof Gun System was developed by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command […]View the full article

In both comments and via a couple of email/DMs yesterday, there were some sincere questions about why no one is talking about installing the “newer” design MK-57 VLS cells that we see in the three ships of the Zumwalt Class. In isolation they appear to be fine VLS cells, but are creatures of the time and place in which they were designed. Let’s go back to their first name: the MK-57 Peripheral Vertical Launch System (PVLS). They are a custom solution for the DDG-1000 Class designed in the Age of Transformation™ in the first decade of this century. It is an evolutionary dead-end riding on a white elephant. The MK-57 has a common problem found on most designs from this dec…

A Ukrainian robotic ground vehicle took a direct hit from an enemy FPV drone, shrugged off the shrapnel damage, and kept driving until it delivered nearly a ton of supplies to front-line positions, Militarnyi reported. The same vehicle later struck a mine on the return leg of a subsequent mission and was lost, too damaged […]View the full article

BAE Systems, Boeing and Saab announced they have signed a formal teaming agreement to jointly pursue the UK’s next generation pilot training program, built around Boeing’s T-7 trainer jet, and the deal commits the companies to building a brand new final assembly and integration facility inside Britain. Advanced fast jet training currently runs through the […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded Zone 5 Technologies a $65 million contract to build a maritime strike variant of its AGM-188 Rusty Dagger cruise missile under a new program aimed at fielding low-cost precision weapons for the U.S. and its allies. The award is an Other Transaction Agreement, a contracting mechanism the Pentagon uses to […]View the full article

Turkish manufacturer Otokar and Italy’s Leonardo have completed integration and live-fire testing of a 120mm turret mounted on Otokar’s Tulpar medium tank platform, a combination now being pitched as a potential replacement for Brazil’s aging Leopard 1A5 tanks. The companies ran the tests at Italy’s UTTAT Nettuno test range near Rome, fitting the Tulpar with […]View the full article

The third prototype of Russia’s Yak-130M, an upgraded version of the Yak-130 jet trainer reworked to carry radar and guided weapons, has made its first flight, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation said. The aircraft, carrying side number 137, took off from the Irkutsk Aviation Plant in Siberia with Yakovlev test pilots Oleg Mutovin and Alexander Guskov […]View the full article

Japan will host a final assembly plant for the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile after Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth agreed on Oct. 28 to build the facility as part of joint U.S.-Japanese missile production, Nikkei reported. The two met for about 30 minutes in Cebu, the Philippines, on the […]View the full article

Some goob who I assume thinks he knows what he's talking about has decided, based on something he read in the Wall Street Journal, that the Medal of Honor has become "feminized". That's right - "feminized". We all know what that particular little code word means, don’t we? He couldn't just say, on the day Sal Giunta was awarded our nation's highest honor, "well done and well deserved". Oh, no. He had to make a point to try to cheapen the award by qualifying it somehow. Here's what he said: The Medal of Honor will be awarded this afternoon to Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta for his heroism in Afghanistan, and deservedly so. He took a bullet in his protec…

This popped up today on Facebook. Good morning PSNS & IMF family, I would like to share with you a recent update from U.S. 7th Fleet. USS George Washington (CVN 73) got underway from Yokosuka last night to assure she can sustain a state of readiness in the long term for the defense of Japan. The forward deployed carrier remains in the local waters off Japan. Moving George Washington is a precaution given the capabilities of the vessel and the complex nature of this disaster. PSNS & IMF has more than 460 project personnel onboard George Washington, nine of whom are our Yokosuka Detachment workers. This team continues to perform work on her Selected…

The latest lament of the lames in the Lamestream Media is that somehow, upon further inspection, Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan doesn't have enough Private Sector experience for the job of Vice President. For one thing, Ryan has no significant private-sector experience. Besides summer jobs working at McDonald’s or at his family’s construction company, or waiting tables as a young Washington staffer, Ryan has none of the business-world experience Romney frequently touts as essential for governing. The New Yorker, and specifically, Ryan Lizza, might want to take a moment to let the irony of saying something as galactically ridiculous as that sink in. I …

34 years after Goldwater-Nichols and the rise of the Combatant Commanders (COCOMS), is our national security structures more in line with what we need in the 21 Century, or the Roman Empire’s Proconsuls? What are these mini-Pentagons supposed to bring to the national security of the United States, and what are they actually delivering? What do they do right, and where are they off phase? Our returning guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss this an more will be Mackenzie Eaglen. We will use her recent article, Putting Combatant Commanders on a Demand Signal Diet, at War on the Rocks as a starting point for our conversation. Mackenzie is…

If geography is destiny, then Singapore is a nation of destiny. Sitting astride one of the world's most critical chokepoints, this polyglot island republic with a population of Denmark on a spot of land 1/4 the size of Rhode Island. For her size, she has a modern, large, and capable navy and military - important for what has always been a rough neighborhood. What makes Singapore's national security requirements unique, and what role does she play as the Indo-Pacific Theater becomes the center of global concern? Returning to Midrats this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss this and more will be Blake Herzinger. Blake is a Non-resident WSD-Handa Fellow with the P…