Raw Intel

The U.S. Army has selected five companies to build and operate nuclear microreactors at military installations across the country, awarding up to $2.2 billion in combined funding under its Janus Program, the Army announced. Westinghouse Government Services will supply its eVinci microreactor to Fort Drum, New York. Antares Nuclear will build at Fort Bragg, North […]View the full article

Russia’s state defense conglomerate Rostec has delivered a new batch of Su-35S multirole fighters to the Russian Aerospace Forces, the company said Thursday. It is the third such delivery of 2026. The aircraft, built by Rostec subsidiary United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) at the Yuri Gagarin Aviation Plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, completed a full cycle of factory […]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 AC-130J Ghostrider is one of the most heavily armed aircraft in the U.S. military, a modified cargo plane converted into a gunship that circles slowly overhead and rains down precision fire on ground targets. It carries a 30 mm cannon, a 105 mm howitzer, and a mix of guided bombs and missiles, all controlled […]View the full article

Poland may be preparing to buy around a dozen Airbus A400M Atlas heavy transport aircraft through the European Union’s SAFE defense financing mechanism, according to Polish defense analyst Jarosław Wolski, who cited unnamed sources in an August 25 post on X. Wolski wrote that the numbers he has heard range from 8 to 15 aircraft, […]View the full article

Sen. Richard Blumenthal toured a Ukrainian drone production line in Kyiv and said the country is manufacturing “thousands” of attack drones every day, offering a rare on-the-record look from a sitting U.S. lawmaker at the scale of Ukraine’s wartime drone industry. Blumenthal named the company as SkyFall, a Ukrainian defense technology firm, in a post […]View the full article

Satellite images showing a stealth fighter-shaped object at a former Chinese airport turn out to depict a fire-fighting trainer mock-up, according to Chinese aerospace analyst Andreas Rupprecht. Rupprecht made the assessment in an August 25 post on X, sharing images that show Chinese military firefighters conducting a live training exercise around the mock-up, including one […]View the full article

Austria’s Bundesheer received its first modernized Ulan infantry fighting vehicle and Leopard 2A4 tank at a handover ceremony in Großmittel on August 25, Austria’s Ministry of Defense announced. Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner attended the event. The modernization program is part of a broader force-development plan the ministry calls Aufbauplan ÖBH 2032+. Work on the armored […]View the full article

CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow for meetings on August 25, CBS News reported, citing multiple sources. The trip explains the previously unexplained flight of a U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III that landed at Vnukovo International Airport near Moscow that morning after departing Riga, Latvia. The Kremlin said it had “no information” about […]View the full article

Russia’s Baltic Fleet has fitted several of its warships with improvised netting and irregular camouflage patterns as makeshift protection against drone strikes, according to footage circulating from a recent fleet exercise. The images show at least three vessels equipped with different combinations of netting, deformation-pattern paint and other visual countermeasures on their bridges, radar housings […]View the full article

The general director of a Russian state-backed drone development center was arrested and jailed on fraud charges, according to Russian outlets reporting August 25. Yevgeny Grigoryev, head of the TulaDrone Research and Production Center, was detained in Tula and ordered held for two months by a court on August 14, according to the local outlets […]View the full article

The U.S. Army awarded General Dynamics Land Systems a $54,281,616 contract to provide sustainment support for the Stryker vehicle fleet, the Department of War announced August 24. The cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract covers field-level maintenance, field service representative support and fielding activities. The contract specifically applies when interactive electronic technical manuals and logistics products have not […]View the full article

The U.S. Army awarded Hardwire LLC a $99 million contract to develop advanced processing methods for metallic armor, the Department of War announced August 24. The contract runs through Phase III of the Small Business Innovative Research program and has an estimated completion date of August 23, 2031. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, […]View the full article

Four decades. Austal USA launched the Navy’s Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium (AFDM) 15 on July 28. This is the first AFDM built in over 40 years and the largest vessel launched into the Mobile Channel to date. At 12,000 tons, 694 feet long and with a deck working area of 90,800 square feet, AFDM is the largest vessel launch Austal USA’s test and activation team has coordinated and executed in the company’s 26-year history. Let’s look at those stats again: Displacement: 12,000 tons Length: 694 feet Lifting capacity: 18,000 tons Armament: none For reference, a Flight III Arleigh Burke DDG is 509.5 feet and weighs 9,700 tons. She is now the only AFDM the Navy has. Just …

The U.S. Navy is looking for companies that can help it build a new torpedo that aircraft and drones could launch from far away to hit enemy submarines, according to a notice posted publicly this week. The Naval Air Systems Command, working on behalf of the Navy’s Strike Weapons Program Office, is calling the effort […]View the full article

Navier’s N30 Quanta-D hydrofoil vessel completed a round of testing with U.S. Department of War customers last week, running mission profiles in front of special operations evaluators, the company said. The San Francisco Bay Area maritime technology company said the exercise, called Technical Experimentation 26-3, tested the boat’s performance in real mission scenarios. Navier did […]View the full article

Splash Industries has introduced a new mission module for its Typhoon uncrewed surface vessel that lets operators launch one-way aerial drones from the boat, the company said Monday. The module, called the Airstrike Pack, allows operators to deploy the aerial assets with the press of a button through Splash’s own command and control software, Splash […]View the full article

British company ZeroUSV said it has demonstrated the autonomous deployment of two smaller surface drones from its Oceanus12 uncrewed surface vessel, during trials conducted in Plymouth, England. The Oceanus12, a 12-meter uncrewed surface vessel, deployed two Oshen C-Star drones during the trial. ZeroUSV described the demonstration as a world first, showing how one autonomous surface […]View the full article