Raw Intel

To start your week off right you should give our friend James Holmes's latest over at Real Clear Defense a read, How to Overcome Weaknesses in the Western Way of Sea War. He starts by setting up two distinguishing characteristics of how we prefer to start a war; Chinese anti-access strategy envisions pummeling U.S. forces forward-deployed along the East Asian rimland while preventing the larger U.S. Pacific Fleet from reaching the battleground from its home ports in Hawaii or on the west coast in time to affect a war’s outcome. ... The second aspect is this: Western maritime services fight in “systems” that depend heavily on the electromagnetic spectrum to pass in…

CH-148 Cyclone (click to view full) Canada’s Maritime Helicopter Replacement Program has been a textbook military procurement program over its long history. Unfortunately, it has been a textbook example of what not to do. While Canada’s 50-year old Sea King fleet aged and deteriorated to potentially dangerous levels, political pettiness and lack of concern turned a straightforward off-the-shelf buy into a 25+ year long odyssey of cancellations, lawsuits, rebids, and more. Eventually, the Canadian military settled on Sikorsky’s H-92 Superhawk as the basis of its new CH-148 Cyclone Maritime Helicopter, which will serve from the decks of Canada’s naval ships and bases. Th…

Simply a superb interview with General Anthony Zinni, USA (Ret) by Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett, USMC over at CIMSEC. What is so impressive about it is the the focus of the interview - wargaming. There are few things more misunderstood, abused, and poorly done than wargaming. Done incorrectly, either by incompetence or malice, it can lead to the death of millions and the destruction of nations. No, that isn't an exaggeration. Let's pull a few quotes that grabbed my attention; I think gaming was more valuable at the lower levels, at the tactical level, maybe lower operational level. ... As you go higher up, I found there was too much in the way of service po…

We're going to kick out Midrats' 13th year with someone who has been with us from the start, best friend to the show Dr. Claude Berube! If you care about American history in general, and US Navy history in particular, you won't want to miss a minute of this Sunday's show. Claude will be with us for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss his latest and 4th non-fiction book, On Wide Seas: The US Navy in the Jacksonian Era, just released by University of Alabama Press. Claude earned his PhD in Military History from the King's College, London and holds two master's from Northeastern and the Naval War College. In his 30-year career, he has worked as a defense …

At the end of the day, when we are all called home, how would you want to be remembered? As a naval officer, what legacy do you wish to leave? Few mortals know the day and time, but if you are looking for a benchmark, you would be hard pressed not to look to Captain Paul Rinn, USN and say, "That. Him. There." As skipper of the frigate Samuel B. Roberts, Capt. Rinn took his crew into the war-torn Persian Gulf where they joined other U.S. warships protecting Kuwaiti tankers that had been reflagged as American vessels during the Iran-Iraq War. Returning from a convoy on April 14, the frigate struck an Iranian contact mine, which blew a massive hole in the hull. The explosi…

Now that you’re in that time where you’re trying to make that transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas & New Years saturation … give your stomach and mind a break and join EagleOne and Sal for a maritime and national security free for all this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern. As is usual with our free for all format, the studio line is open for you to call in and the chat room will be running for your questions, observations … or even topics you wish we’d discuss but it seems we never get around to. In the course of the hour we’ll try to at least touch on this week’s warship chicken in San Diego, why everyone should care about secure undersea infrastructure, and take anoth…

Americas The US Navy together with Raytheon successfully test fired another round of Excalibur N5 munitions, the company announced on Monday. The Raytheon Excalibur N5 is a 5-inch or 127mm artillery projectile intended for use by surface warships utilizing 127mm cannons such as the Mk 45 naval gun system. The N5 is the naval variant […]View the full article

Americas The US Air Force has awarded Boeing a $7.5-billion contract for Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits that convert air-launched, unguided bombs into guided munitions. The contract includes spares, repairs, technical, and Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition sensor kits with an expected completion date of February 29, 2030. Some JDAMs will go to the […]View the full article

Americas The Uruguayan Air Force (FAU) has acquired five A-29 Super Tucano aircraft from Brazilian firm Embraer. The deal includes mission equipment, integrated logistics services, and a flight simulator. “We are ready to offer the best multimission aircraft to the FAU as well as our full support to increase their operational readiness and to enhance their capabilities to accomplish strategic missions such as border surveillance,” said Bosco da Costa Junior, President and CEO of Embraer. Boeing won an $18.5 million delivery order for the repair of R2 trailing edge flaps used on the F/A-18 E/F aircraft. The delivery order does not include an option period. All work will be…

Russia is forming mobile counter-drone units to defend its energy infrastructure amid an escalating wave of Ukrainian drone attacks that have crippled the country’s refining capacity and caused its worst gasoline shortage in three decades. The move comes as strikes on oil refineries continue to degrade Russian fuel production, with some estimates suggesting that 20–25% […] The post Russia deploys mobile anti-drone units amid fuel crisis first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

Peru has unveiled an ambitious plan to modernize its armored forces through a long-term partnership with South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem and STX, combining imports and local production of advanced military vehicles. The initiative will replace Peru’s aging fleet of tanks and armored vehicles, most of which date back to the 1970s, and lay the foundation […] The post Peru to locally produce South Korean combat vehicles first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

California-based drone manufacturer Pyka has released video footage showing its first DropShip cargo UAV running its hybrid propulsion system, marking what the company describes as a key milestone in the aircraft’s development. The test, conducted earlier this month, demonstrated integration of the full hybrid-drive system ahead of the aircraft’s initial flight trials. “It’s alive!” Pyka […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Army Armored 584th Brigade conducted an urban operational readiness and key infrastructure protection exercise on Thursday in the Hsinchu area, deploying M1A2T main battle tanks alongside multiple armored vehicle types as part of a battalion-level drill. As reported by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, the exercise was aimed at validating the unit’s ability to […]View the full article

Russia used Tu-22M3 Backfire-C bombers to launch a salvo of heavy Kh-22/Kh-32 cruise missiles toward the Kyiv region on January 24, marking the first recorded use of these weapons against targets near the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian air defense forces reported that Russia fired 12 Kh-22 or Kh-32 missiles toward a target on the outskirts of […]View the full article

Soldiers assigned to the United States Army’s 17th Field Artillery Brigade conducted a ground raid mission using the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) 26-02 in Alaska, validating long-range precision fires in extreme Arctic conditions while supporting the 11th Airborne Division, the Army said. The live-fire event focused […]View the full article

Turkish state-owned defense company Makine ve Kimya Endüstrisi (MKE) has revealed its PİRANA kamikaze unmanned surface vessel (USV), a system designed to serve as a strike asset for the Turkish Navy once it enters service. The company said the platform was developed for maritime operations as part of a broader push beyond land and air […]View the full article

Dynetics, a subsidiary of the American defense giant Leidos, has been awarded a $617 million contract to produce Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment Two systems for the U.S. Army, the Department of War announced on April 14, 2026. The award covers the fiscal year 2026 production buy of one of the Army’s most closely watched […]View the full article

Thing about Lou is that just a few years before, he was just another dude trying to figure it all out. Instead, he became something even a fiction writer would have trouble making up; 1 of only 3 US Aces to claim kills agains all 3 Axis powers, (3 main powers: Germany, Japan & Italy). The ONLY one to shoot down a USAAF plane as well, and definitely the only one to shoot down his girl friend He was a POW for awhile to boot. There are a lot of stories out there about Lou, but this one from AcesOfWWII catches it about right; Lt. Curdes was circling low over one of his P-51 pilots who was bobbing in his dinghy just off Jap field Batan Island. Another pilot whose plane ha…

A Japanese opposition lawmaker has gone directly to Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi in a parliamentary committee hearing to demand that Japan supply Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, citing Zelensky’s stated desperation for interceptors and arguing that Japan now has both the legal authority and the moral obligation to act. Shigefumi Matsuzawa, a member of […]View the full article

For almost two years, the war on the Continent had been raging. The Battle of Verdun has already happened, but the real bloodshed had not even started yet, with the Battle of the Somme only a month away. While the European land armies have been fighting on a scale not seen since Napoleon a century earlier, major conflicts at sea were rare in spite of the major belligerents having great and powerful fleets. Like two heavyweight boxers wary of each other, the surface fleets of the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine stared at each other across the North Sea, throwing a jab here or there, but not committing for a hard fight. Then, in the early morning hours of May 31st, Vi…