Raw Intel

General Atomics has won a $42.9 million U.S. Navy order for spare parts supporting the electromagnetic catapults and arresting gear on the service’s in-service Ford-class carriers. The order, designated N0001926F1037, was issued against an existing basic ordering agreement, N0001926G1008. It covers insurance spares and rotable pool spares for the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as […]View the full article

Raytheon, the RTX-owned defense manufacturer based in Andover, Massachusetts, announced that the U.S. Navy awarded it a $1.8 billion contract extension for hardware production and sustainment of the SPY-6 family of radars, building on an initial contract the company received in March 2022. The extension carries options that, if the Navy exercises all of them, […]View the full article

The Australian Army has received a second batch of HIMARS rocket launchers from the United States, two years earlier than planned and about a year after the first batch arrived, Australia’s Department of Defence said. The new launchers are going to the long-range fires regiment of the Army’s 10th Fires Brigade, based in Adelaide. Defence […]View the full article

Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missile has struck deep inside Russia again, this time hitting a defense plant that builds the ejection seats meant to save the lives of Russian fighter pilots and the anti-aircraft missiles meant to shoot down Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian forces attacked the Avitek plant in the Russian city of Kirov early Friday morning […]View the full article

Earlier this year, I got a quick brief on the upscaled version of Saildrone’s surface unmanned system, which has a solid dozen years of proven performance at sea. I will admit, I was not fully sold when the program first started with the 7-meter Explorer’s deployment to CENTCOM a half dozen years ago, but they’ve proven their utility. Now, let me put some figures in front of you: Displacement: 457 metric tons Length: 53 meters Speed: 20 knots That sounds like a pretty big drone, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t. That is a WWII-era PC-461-class submarine chaser. There’s your reference point in size, and from my seat, mission. What are the figures for Saildrone’s Spectre? Displac…

The U.S. Department of the Air Force published a market research notice this week seeking companies capable of designing, developing, prototyping, manufacturing and fielding what it calls a Semi-Autonomous Collaborative Platform, government shorthand for an uncrewed jet aircraft smart enough to fly and fight alongside a piloted fighter without a human controlling every move. The […]View the full article

Romania shot down a second drone in its own airspace within 24 hours on Saturday morning, a milestone that would have been unthinkable for a NATO member just weeks ago and now marks the second time in two days that Romanian pilots have opened fire inside their own country’s skies. President Nicușor Dan announced the […]View the full article

The Swedish defense company announced Monday that it has received an order for two GlobalEye airborne early warning and control aircraft from an undisclosed country in the Middle East, a deal valued at roughly $1 billion. Deliveries are scheduled for 2030, and beyond that, Saab isn’t saying much. The company cited the sensitive nature of […]View the full article

General Dynamics Land Systems delivered its XM30 Wolf infantry fighting vehicle to the U.S. Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, last Friday, according to a post by Geoffrey Norman, a retired Army brigadier general now working on the GDLS team. Norman, who spent 30 years in the Army as a tanker and cavalryman, joined the […]View the full article

The first production-standard HÜRJET jet trainer, distinct from the program’s two earlier flight-test prototypes, completed its maiden flight on Victory Day, August 30, marking the transition from prototype testing to a working production line for the Turkish Air Force, according to a social media announcement. The HÜRJET is a single-engine, tandem-seat supersonic jet trainer built […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has taken delivery of its first two Collaborative Combat Aircraft, uncrewed jets built to fly alongside fighter pilots, at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, the Department of the Air Force said Sept. 24. Anduril delivered its YFQ-44A Fury to the base’s Experimental Operations Unit in August, and General Atomics followed […]View the full article

Uzbekistan’s state television broadcast footage of a Chengdu J-10CE fighter jet on the ground during coverage of the country’s 35th independence anniversary celebrations, confirming for the first time that Uzbekistan has received the Chinese-made aircraft. The footage aired on Uzbekistan 24, a state channel, and showed the jet taxiing on a runway. The first batch […]View the full article

A mysterious Chinese warship that has spent years testing stealth technology just showed up with something new bolted to its deck, and naval watchers cannot agree on whether it is designed to disorient people or fry electronics. Open-source images circulating on social media this week show China’s unnamed experimental corvette, a stealthy test vessel that […]View the full article

Quit? That is what other people do. I wonder how well he is known in his own nation. It really doesn’t matter, I think. Anyone who has worn the uniform should be able to look to this officer and simply say, “stud.” Naval aviator and all.. Via TheDailyMail; Japan declared war on Germany and (Oberleutnant Gunther) Pluschow flew in a single-seat Rumpler Taube plane to neutral China while under heavy fire from the Royal Navy. He obtained a false passport in the name of E.F McGarvin and boarded the SS Mongolia which left Shanghai to San Francisco on December 5, 1914. He travelled across neutral America and obtained another false passport that proclaimed him to be Swiss natio…

Russian aircraft dropped 8,766 glide bombs on Ukrainian front-line positions in August 2026, the highest monthly total recorded since the invasion began, according to Ukrainian General Staff figures compiled by the OSINT monitoring group Oko Gora. The total works out to an average of 283 bombs a day over the 31-day month. Oko Gora put […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded a $10 billion contract with a potential 26-year term to overhaul how it trains new helicopter pilots, shifting initial flight instruction at Fort Rucker, Alabama, to a contractor-owned, contractor-operated model. M1 Support Services L.P., based in Denton, Texas, won the firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, beating out 10 other bidders after the […]View the full article

An Eitan wheeled armored personnel carrier fitted with Hetz Dorban, an Israeli-developed hard-kill active protection system, was photographed during a recent training exercise, according to images published on the Israel Defense Forces’ website in August 2026. The system is marketed internationally under its commercial name, Iron Fist, by Elbit Systems. Hetz Dorban uses radar and […]View the full article

A Russian satellite built to maneuver alongside and inspect other countries’ spacecraft up close fell back to Earth on September 12, but the object that came down may not have been the real satellite, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks satellite activity. The satellite, Kosmos-2558, launched from […]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 …

Two Chinese research ships pushed north through American waters off Alaska this week, and for the first time this year, they didn’t just skirt past the edge of U.S. territory, they crossed directly through it. The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed it tracked the Chinese research vessel Xue Long as it transited north through the United […]View the full article