Raw Intel

Leonardo DRS said its SGT STOUT M-SHORAD air defense system successfully defeated small drone threats during a government test, adding a capability the system was not originally built to handle. The company said the system defeated Group 1-2 unmanned aircraft, the military’s classification for small, low-altitude drones, during a U.S. government test event. SGT STOUT […]View the full article

Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck the Russian naval base at Novorossiysk overnight on August 12, 2026, damaging four Russian warships in what it described as a joint operation by Ukraine’s Defense Forces. The General Staff identified the damaged vessels as the frigates Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen, both Project 11356 ships, the Project […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy awarded BAE Systems a $149.8 million contract to overhaul USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship that turned back from deployment in 2024 after a rudder failure just 10 days out of port. BAE Systems Maritime Solutions in San Diego will perform the maintenance, modernization and repair work during a fiscal 2027 selected […]View the full article

I am of the last cohort of military officers who grew up training for nuclear war expected at any moment. By the time I had been on this planet less than 25 years, I was cleared, if ordered, to deliver nuclear weapons—so were thousands of us. From frigates to submarines to helicopters, pointy nosed jets and prop engined patrol aircraft—our Navy was thick with nuclear weapons. As a junior officer, it was just another PQS book, another exercise, another inspection, another qualification. No big deal. Well, it was a big deal. I saw a grown man cry over an inspection as a JO. In hindsight, it was actually kind of amazing how we just lived with those things on a hair-trigger …

A boat built to carry a 70-ton battle tank through the surf rolled off an assembly line in Vancouver, Washington, and the U.S. Army is counting down to delivery this fall. Vigor Marine Group unveiled the USAV Craney Island, the second Maneuver Support Vessel (Light) built under a program designed to replace the Army’s aging […]View the full article

Two of America’s biggest defense manufacturers teamed up to solve a problem that has quietly threatened to undercut the Pentagon’s entire hypersonic weapons push, the country’s struggle to actually build these weapons fast enough once the engineering work is done. Lockheed Martin and Albany Engineered Composites, a segment of Albany International Corp., announced a teaming […]View the full article

The U.S. Army’s search for a replacement to one of its most iconic armored vehicles is entering a make-or-break phase, and a nationwide network of American factories is racing to prove its design deserves the job. American Rheinmetall announced that its Lynx XM30 infantry fighting vehicle prototype is approaching delivery to the Army, a milestone […]View the full article

A robotic combat vehicle that can drive itself 280 miles while charging drones, powering radar and running a portable command post has rolled through a demonstration in the Utah desert for a room full of government, defense and technology leaders. Hypercraft, a Provo, Utah-based autonomous vehicle company, showed off its Razorback unmanned ground vehicle at […]View the full article

Hromadske, the Ukrainian outlet, published an exclusive video report embedded with soldiers from Ukraine’s 19th Rocket Artillery Brigade “Svyata Varvara,” one of the first Ukrainian units to receive the American-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System back in 2022, documenting the launch process from the crew’s perspective for the first time in this level of detail. […]View the full article

An unmanned aircraft equipped with a microwave retroreflector, a device that bounces radar signals back with the strength of an object roughly twenty times its actual size, is designed to make one radar blip look like a genuine incoming strike drone. That aircraft, called Spectr, is built by OM Defence Systems, a UK based defense […]View the full article

The Defense Logistics Agency, the Pentagon office responsible for keeping military equipment supplied with everything from fuel to spare parts, published a notice on August 11 seeking manufacturers capable of building a replacement electric control panel for the B-1B Lancer, a swing-wing bomber that has served as a backbone of American long-range strike capability since […]View the full article

A team of engineers have proved that a helicopter design older than most of their grandparents can still out-fly the strangest, most futuristic drone shapes engineers could dream up. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s advanced research arm known for funding technologies that eventually reshape entire industries, announced that its Lift Challenge had […]View the full article

Soldiers from two of the U.S. Army’s most closely watched combat divisions spent a week at an Alabama training range flying different drones head to head, then got to pick which ones actually make it into their units, according to a report from the Army’s Capability Program Executive Aviation. The evaluation, held at Clarke Range […]View the full article

U.S. and Moroccan forces have proven out a brand-new weapons testing range in North Africa by firing a low-cost, long-range cruise missile across it, the first live-fire event ever held at the site, according to a report by Army Capt. Jordan Beagle of U.S. Africa Command. The demonstration ran from August 3 to 7 at […]View the full article

DroneShield, an Australian counter-drone technology company that has spent years building systems to detect and defeat hostile uncrewed aircraft, announced Tuesday the launch of RfRecon, a portable device designed to do something most current sensors cannot: not just detect radio frequency activity, but explain what it means, in real time, from a single handheld platform. […]View the full article

A pre-revenue air taxi startup has bought its way into the defense drone business, and Boeing is the one that sold it the keys. Archer Aviation, the Silicon Valley company racing to put electric flying taxis over American cities, announced Monday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire three Boeing subsidiaries in a […]View the full article

It’s been almost nine months since the last Long Game post. We’re overdue. For a while I thought I might stop the Long Game series I started in 2004, after all, the Long is Now…but I was mistaken. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still playing a long game…and we—and that includes me—just keep getting distracted. I had the following exchange with Brent Sadler at about the 52-minute mark toward the end of last Sunday’s Midrats Podcast that reminded me that, even in 2026, we’re still thinking like it’s 1996. Sal: It seem like it just happened a little while ago when they said, “Hey, there are there are PRC police stations right here in New York City.” It’s fairly hig…

A California aerospace firm building giant swarms of unmanned aircraft has landed a deal with the Air Force to prove it can manufacture those aircraft faster and cheaper than anyone else in the industry. Swarm Aero, a defense technology company that develops large uncrewed aerial vehicles designed to operate in coordinated fleets, announced more than […]View the full article

Money is flowing into defense technology at a pace that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago, and the people writing the checks are not just Pentagon program managers anymore. Individual investors, boutique venture funds and family offices are increasingly betting on drone makers, artificial intelligence startups and companies building weapons for a war in […]View the full article

The Swedish Armed Forces will receive 45 heavy recovery and technical rescue vehicles built entirely in Poland, a deal that marks one of the few instances in which Sweden has turned to a manufacturer outside its own borders for this kind of specialized military hardware. Szczęśniak Pojazdy Specjalne, a family-owned vehicle manufacturer based in Bielsko-Biała […]View the full article