Raw Intel

Epirus’ Leonidas high-power microwave weapon, which knocks out drones by frying their electronics, has been added to the Pentagon’s online counter-drone marketplace, making it easier for U.S. military units and other federal agencies to buy the system. The California-based company said Leonidas met the criteria for inclusion in the Counter-UAS Marketplace run by Joint Interagency […]View the full article

Ukrainian drones have destroyed a Russian 9K515 Tornado-S heavy multiple launch rocket system in occupied Kherson Oblast, hitting the launcher with several different kamikaze drones in succession in a strike carried out by the Prymary unit of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR), which released the footage on Oct. 20. OSINT analyst Dominik geolocated the strike to […]View the full article

I think I have posted as many pro-USAF posts in the last year as I have in the last decade…and I ain’t happy about it. However, you have to give the Boys-in-Blue a tip of the hat. They have their new fighter by number, even if they have not given it a name yet or given everyone a good view of it. They have their new bomber on the way. They still have some work to do in replacing the older-than-Sal C-135 Class derivatives and are overdue for new-build strategic airlift…but in the tactical and strategic air arenas, they are cooking with gas. They’re thinking right. Via Stephen Losey at Air & Space Forces Magazine, Currently, the fighter fleet—not counting A-10s—is split…

L3Harris Technologies has received a three-year contract worth up to $60 million to develop a long-range, maneuverable missile for the U.S. Army that is designed to shoot down small and medium drones at greater distances than today’s interceptors. The company announced the award on Oct. 23, 2026, under the Xtended Range Counter-sUAS Missile program run […]View the full article

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said on Oct. 19 that the basic policy governing how the Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces use artificial intelligence needs to be reviewed, telling lawmakers that AI development has moved faster than the 2024 guidelines can handle, the Nikkei reported. “I feel there is a need to review […]View the full article

The Royal Canadian Air Force has taken delivery of its first two CF-35A stealth fighters, the Canadian version of the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II, at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, the service announced. The jets will stay at Luke, a major U.S. Air Force training base for F-35 pilots from the United States […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin has received a $114.6 million order to redesign two key navigation systems on the F-35 Lightning II, the GPS electronic unit and the NAV100 inertial navigation system, replacing electronic parts that are going out of production so the stealth fighter can keep rolling off the line. The cost-plus-fixed-fee order, announced on Oct. 23, […]View the full article

A Chinese H-6KG bomber has been seen carrying what appears to be a new large electronic jamming pod that closely resembles the pods carried by the J-16D, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s dedicated electronic warfare jet, military aviation analyst Andreas Rupprecht reported on Oct. 25. Rupprecht, who closely tracks Chinese military aircraft, said the […]View the full article

Spanish defense company EM&E Group used remote weapon stations on armored vehicles and a jamming-equipped ground robot to detect and shoot down several drones during the Spanish military’s ATLAS 26 counter-drone exercise this week at the Médano del Loro firing range in Huelva, in southwestern Spain. The exercise was led by Spain’s Chief of the […]View the full article

Kadena Air Base in Okinawa will bar all vehicles made by Chinese electric carmaker BYD from entering the installation starting Oct. 26 over concerns that the cars could expose sensitive military information, Kangnam Times reported. The ban covers privately owned cars as well as contractor vehicles, taxis, delivery vans and other commercial vehicles. The 18th […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG 91) has entered General Dynamics NASSCO’s shipyard in San Diego for a second depot modernization period that will make it the first warship to receive the Raytheon AN/SPY-6(V)4 radar, the Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Maritime said. The availability will also make Pinckney the first ship fitted with […]View the full article

A French Navy Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft has deployed to Romania and is supporting search and rescue efforts after a wave of drone attacks on merchant ships off the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts, while a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon has begun patrolling the Black Sea at Bulgaria’s request. The Atlantique 2 arrived in Constanța […]View the full article

China and South Korea completed a 10-day joint maritime law enforcement patrol in the Yellow Sea fishing zone the two countries share under their bilateral fisheries agreement, with the China Coast Guard ship Changshan and the South Korean fisheries guidance vessel Mugunghwa 42 sailing together. Over more than 210 hours at sea and more than […]View the full article

China’s Liaoning carrier group has carried out its second far-seas training deployment to the Western Pacific this year, a decade after the carrier’s first such voyage in 2016, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Oct. 24, describing the ship’s path over those 10 years as a three-step climb from training ship to combat ship to […]View the full article

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has opened a tender to buy Skydio X10D small drones, the American-made reconnaissance quadcopter already ordered by the thousands by the U.S. Army, with an estimated budget of £120,000 (about $160,700) excluding VAT, according to a notice on the Defence Sourcing Portal. The tender was issued by Navy Commercial, the Royal […]View the full article

No, you don’t want to put up Halloween decorations this afternoon, you want to continue to avoid it until the last minute…and instead plan to join Mark and me from 5-6 PM for another LIVE Midrats Podcast! If its happening in the national security arena and its worth talking about, we’ll cover it. You can listen live and join the studio chat at this link. If you are reading this after the show, check back on the Substack page later Sunday night for the podcast audio links. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

Britain’s Royal Navy could be left with just one frigate available for operations at any given time next year, as two more of its five remaining Type 23 frigates are expected to be declared unseaworthy within months, leaving three ships in service in 2027 with one at sea, one in training and one in maintenance, […]View the full article

Ukraine has rejected Elon Musk’s claim that its military broke Starlink’s terms of service by using the civilian satellite network for offensive drone strikes, with a presidential adviser saying that restrictions SpaceX placed on the service in February make such use physically impossible. Musk made the accusation on X on Oct. 24, the same day […]View the full article

DARPA, a central research and development organization within the United States Department of War, put four autonomous unmanned ground vehicles through their first end-to-end test at Fort Knox, Kentucky, on Oct. 15, sending them as a team from a satellite-imagery tip all the way to a simulated strike on an enemy position, with a human […]View the full article

Do we have that rare intersection of unmet-need, essential requirement, and unexpected answer? Maybe. We’re not the first, but we kind of wandered into it on yesterday’s Midrats Podcast. I’d like to set the table first. A saying I first heard in my 30s, and that with each passing year appears to be more and more a fact of life in the opinion arena, is that once you are tired of saying something is when people are finally starting to listen. Both here in writing and the UNCLAS Read Board Podcast, along with the Midrats Podcast, one requirement that needs to be addressed as we prepare for a Great Pacific War, and that continues to rise to the top of my list, is to Arm the A…