Raw Intel

The U.S. Air Force has published a sources-sought notice asking whether any company other than the current sole producer can build and deliver the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile for production lots from 2031 to 2036. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Long Range Systems Division, operating out of Wright-Patterson […]View the full article

With millions of soccer fans heading to the Seattle area for the FIFA World Cup this summer, the Washington National Guard gathered federal agents, police officers, and military units at a desert training range in June to rehearse a threat that barely registered on public safety radar a year ago: drones. Representatives from federal, state, […]View the full article

Ukraine launched one of its largest drone offensives of the war overnight into June 6, sending more than 400 unmanned aircraft deep into Russian territory and striking targets that included a naval weapons depot near Saint Petersburg, an oil refinery in Siberia, a port in Russian-occupied Mariupol, and munitions warehouses in the Leningrad region. Russia’s […]View the full article

Listening to what the enemy is saying on the radio, the phone, or any other communications channel has been one of the most consistently decisive intelligence advantages in modern warfare, and the U.S. Army has invested nearly $10 million to make sure its capability to do exactly that stays current. The deal, awarded to a […]View the full article

Every mortar round fired by an American soldier depends on a small set of metal fins at the back of the shell to spin it into stable flight, keep it on course, and make sure it lands where the gunner intended. Without those fins, a mortar round tumbles, loses accuracy, and becomes a danger to […]View the full article

Norway has built one of the most capable stealth, anti-ship missiles in the Western arsenal, and the United States Air Force ordered another batch of them for $241 million, deepening a transatlantic weapons partnership that has become increasingly central to American plans for fighting a war in the Pacific or the North Atlantic against a […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded an $11.2 million contract to Teledyne FLIR Defense to deliver more than 45 drone kits capable of flying into chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear contamination zones and mapping hazards in real time, keeping soldiers out of environments that can kill within seconds of exposure. Teledyne Technologies announced the contract award […]View the full article

France has fired its next-generation air-to-air missile from a Rafale at supersonic speed for the first time, clearing one of the most demanding technical hurdles in the weapon’s qualification program and moving MBDA’s MICA NG significantly closer to operational service. The second development firing of the MICA NG, which stands for Missile for Interception, Combat, […]View the full article

Australia fired its first domestically built self-propelled howitzers during live-fire training last week, completing the journey from a production line in Geelong to live rounds downrange in a matter of months — a timeline that would have seemed implausible for a major weapons system just a few years ago. Thirty gunners from Townsville’s 4th Regiment, […]View the full article

Vladimir Putin told the world’s press agency chiefs this week that Russia’s Su-57 fighter is the best combat aircraft on the planet. Independent analysts and the jet’s own production record tell a more complicated story. Putin made the claim at a meeting with leaders of major international news agencies organized by TASS, Russia’s state news […]View the full article

A Ukrainian naval drone lost control after Russian electronic warfare jammed its guidance system during a Black Sea mission, drifted into Romanian territorial waters, and detonated inside the civilian port of Constanța on Friday morning, the Ukrainian Navy confirmed. The explosion, which shook windows across the city and triggered a mass evacuation of the coastline, […]View the full article

Back in 2007, I did a Battle of Midway FbF that featured one of my favorite aircraft, the Brewster Buffalo. In the post, I focused on then 2LT William “Bill” Brooks, USMCR. In the mid-60’s Mr. Brooks helped found Bellevue University, among other things. Back in 2010, I was notified by the President of Bellevue University that Mr. Brooks passed away. In his honor, I would like to repost that FbF from 2007 and 2010. You could spend a lifetime on Battle of Midway posts - that is what I like about it. This time, I want to focus on the men of Marine Fighting Squadron 221. Men who knew they were being asked to do a suicide mission, but did it - and did it well. They were, as …

A maritime drone of the type used in the war in Ukraine self-detonated Friday morning inside the civilian port of Constanța, Romania’s largest Black Sea harbor, after authorities discovered the device at berth 78 and began working to neutralize it. The explosion occurred at approximately 10:30 a.m., roughly four and a half hours after the […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has standardized a new smartphone-based fire control application for all mortar units, replacing two decades-old software systems with a single app that runs on an Android phone and took the 82nd Airborne Division almost no time to learn. The Mortars App achieved full release and clearance to become the standard fire control […]View the full article

The United States Air Force’s newest special operations aircraft is a lean, rugged turboprop built for long loiter times, precision strikes, and operations from remote airstrips in some of the world’s most austere environments. There is just one problem: it has nowhere to put anything and the 17th Special Operations Squadron, the only OA-1K flying […]View the full article

The United States Army is searching for a missile cheap enough to be fired in large numbers against the kind of threats that modern battlefields produce by the hundreds, and it wants working hardware ready to demonstrate by the end of fiscal year 2026. A request for information first posted May 15 and updated June […]View the full article

The United States has not produced its own TNT since the 1980s, relying entirely on overseas allies to supply the explosive that fills its artillery shells, bombs, and grenades. That four-decade gap in domestic production is now being closed, and according to a June 4 contract notice, the Army awarded Repkon USA a $77.9 million […]View the full article

Russia’s defense industry is claiming a milestone on one of its most closely watched aviation programs, and this time the claim carries slightly more weight than usual. The United Aircraft Corporation, Russia’s state-owned aircraft manufacturing conglomerate, confirmed this week that physical construction of the first flying prototype of the Su-75 Checkmate, a single-engine fifth-generation stealth […]View the full article

Vietnam has publicly displayed the T-1, a domestically developed amphibious light tank that represents the most ambitious armored vehicle project the country’s defense industry has ever attempted. The T-1 prototype appeared at a public display in Vietnam, drawing immediate attention from regional military observers for what it signals about Hanoi’s defense industrial ambitions as much […]View the full article

Russia’s state defense conglomerate Rostec has unveiled what it claims is the lightest body armor in its class, presenting the Obereg 2.0 vest to the defense ministers of Moscow’s closest military allies at a showcase outside the Russian capital. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov led a delegation of defense ministers from the Collective Security Treaty […]View the full article