Raw Intel

BAE Systems built an armored vehicle with drone-killing capabilities in ten months and put it in front of soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, for training — without waiting for a government contract to fund it. The AMPV-30, a version of the U.S. Army’s Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle fitted with a 30mm cannon and a radar system […]View the full article

We need to talk about an unpleasant subject. I briefly mentioned it last week, and talked about it a little on the latest Midrats Podcast, but that is enough fiddling around the topic. Time to man up and address the topic head-on. I think the DDG(X) program is a dead program walking. There could be an error, as there was with BBG-1 vs. BBGN-1 in the chart, but let’s look again at the latest Shipbuilding Plan. There is no DDG(X) in the plan…just Arleigh Burke DDGs being built, as the Salamander says, until the crack of doom. In the Shipbuilding Plan, it is mentioned only once in this paragraph. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer (DDG 51) is the most capable s…

A Romanian Air Force F-16 patrolling Baltic skies under NATO’s air policing mission shot down a suspected Ukrainian drone over southern Estonia on May 19, marking the first time NATO fighters have actively intercepted and destroyed a drone over the Baltic states rather than simply scrambling to track one. The incident unfolded around midday, with […]View the full article

The U.S. State Department approved a potential $236 million sale of AGM-184 Joint Strike Missiles to the Belgian government on May 18, clearing the path for Brussels to arm its growing fleet of F-35A fighter jets with a weapon specifically designed to strike ships and hardened targets from well outside the range of enemy air […]View the full article

The U.S. State Department approved a potential $3 billion sale of 24 MH-60R Seahawk naval helicopters to South Korea on May 18, doubling Seoul’s fleet of the American-built submarine hunters just weeks after the country’s navy put its first two Seahawks into operational service. The MH-60R Seahawk, built by Sikorsky and supported through Lockheed Martin […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has handed a $40 million contract to World Wide Technology, a St. Louis-based technology firm, to build an artificial intelligence-powered Security Operations Center — essentially a high-tech nerve center that will monitor the service’s networks around the clock for cyber intrusions, attacks, and threats. The award, announced May 18 and running […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin walked away from May 18 with an $879 million weapons contract, and this one has nothing to do with building new jets. The Naval Air Systems Command handed the Fort Worth defense giant a production order covering the missile launchers, bomb racks, gun systems, wing pylons, and adapter hardware that physically attach weapons […]View the full article

I wanted to start this week out with a hearty Bravo Zulu to the Ford Carrier Strike Group, but we started yesterday’s Midrats Podcast with that, and did a good job with it. So, if you’d like, give the episode a listen when you get a chance, but today I want to instead review the military balance sheet on our operations against Iran over the last few months. In the Ford Strike Group’s Presidential Unit Citation, some stats were put on the table: 125 Iranian warships destroyed 207 TLAM launched from 9 surface platforms 1,700 sorties hitting 700 targets We’re still conducting a blockade. Still trying to negotiate with a dead-ender government. The question is, what have we a…

REGENT Craft has demonstrated the ability to charge its Seaglider vessels entirely away from established port infrastructure, completing a milestone test in partnership with Schneider Electric and World4Solar that the company says unlocks distributed maritime operations in austere and remote environments where conventional charging networks do not exist. The demonstration validated a three-component charging architecture […]View the full article

A Czech drone company with Ukrainian roots has signed a contract to supply reconnaissance unmanned aerial systems to U.S. Army units stationed in Europe, the company announced, marking what appears to be the first confirmed international defense export contract for U&C UAS and placing a European-manufactured ISR drone into American military service on the continent […]View the full article

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has relaunched its search for a precision strike loitering munition under a new program name, issuing a fresh request for information in May 2026 under the designation Project INSTIGATOR, a renamed and restructured version of the Medium Range Precision Strike program that the MOD has been developing since late 2024 with […]View the full article

Ukraine has cleared its first domestically developed guided aerial bomb for combat use, with Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announcing that the weapon has completed all required testing and an initial experimental batch has already been procured by the Ministry of Defense, with pilots currently training on combat scenarios using the new munition. The bomb was […]View the full article

Japan’s Ministry of Defense has released a comprehensive briefing document outlining its space domain defense buildup, revealing a sweeping expansion of military space capabilities that includes a dedicated Space Operations Group growing to 880 personnel, a space defense budget that has surged more than threefold since 2022, and an ambitious program to field satellites capable […]View the full article

Japan’s government is moving to deploy early warning radar-equipped drones over the Pacific Ocean as part of a significant expansion of its surveillance and deterrence posture against China, with the MQ-9B SeaGuardian emerging as the leading candidate platform for a capability that Tokyo considers essential to closing what defense planners have described as a surveillance […]View the full article

Blockades, 11-month deployments, and building plans…a full plate for a Midrats Free for All. We go LIVE at 5 PM Eastern this Sunday. You can join us at this link. If you are reading this after the show, check the Substack later Sunday night for the podcast upload. 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

A two-seat variant of Russia’s Su-57 fifth-generation stealth fighter has been photographed conducting ground taxi trials, with Russian military aviation blogger Ilya Tumanov, who operates the widely followed Fighterbomber Telegram channel, confirming the aircraft’s existence on May 16 and describing it as a new two-seat modification of the Felon that completed ground runs as part […]View the full article

Ukrainian drone forces have struck a Russian naval vessel in the Caspian Sea for at least the third time in recent months, publishing footage on May 17 showing a Fire Point FP-1 attack drone successfully locating and hitting a Project 10410 Svetlyak-class patrol boat in the port area of Kaspiisk, Dagestan, more than 1,500 kilometers […]View the full article

South Korean-based Hanwha Aerospace and Estonian robotics company Milrem Robotics signed a teaming agreement at the BSDA 2026 defense exhibition in Bucharest to jointly pursue Romania’s unmanned ground vehicle program, combining Korean wheeled unmanned platform experience with Milrem’s combat-proven tracked UGV technology in a bid to capture one of Eastern Europe’s most strategically significant ground […]View the full article

A British uncrewed aircraft developer has completed ground trials of its CAPSTONE unmanned system with air-to-surface missile simulators, its chief executive announced, while simultaneously operating as a teaming partner with BAE Systems on the British Army’s Project NYX loyal wingman competition. Justin Tooth, Chief Executive Officer of Certo Aerospace, disclosed the missile integration testing in […]View the full article

A U.S. drone company has secured its first international defense contract, winning an order from the Royal Australian Navy to supply Transwing vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aircraft systems for maritime distributed logistics operations, with deliveries of the initial P4 variant scheduled for spring 2026. PteroDynamics Inc., a California-based developer of autonomous VTOL aircraft, announced […]View the full article