Raw Intel

You were born to immigrant parents. At home you spoke a different language than outside the home. A language that in your adulthood would – by simply speaking it – be a source of hate. You were part of a small religious minority. You were smart though, and resourceful. You excelled in academics and were an accomplished engineer. You did dearly love your country and while in college decided to help serve it by joining what we would call the Army National Guard. By the end of three decades, people – peers, subordinates, historians and Field Marshalls alike - would say things like this about you; "a great bullock of a man... though his manners were pleasant and his behavio…

Americas The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will soon start testing unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) on par with human-piloted vehicles being built under the Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program. The DARPA RACER program will develop and demonstrate autonomy technologies that enable unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to maneuver in unstructured off-road terrain at the limit of the vehicle’s mechanical systems and at, or beyond, human-driven speeds and efficiencies. The US Space Development Agency is planning to deploy 144 transport layer satellites and 28 tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) by 2024 to detect mane…

Hanwha Aerospace has secured a new long-term production contract for South Korea’s next-generation Long-range Surface-to-Air Missile system. According to a press release from Hanwha Aerospace, the company signed a KRW 705.4 billion (approximately $482 million) agreement with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) to begin mass production of L-SAM launchers and anti-ballistic missiles through 2030. […]View the full article

When people think of the freed slaves and freemen who fought for the Union in the formations then known as United States Colored Troops (USCT), they often think of July 18, 1863, when the 54th Massachusetts stormed Fort Wagner. Sadly, that more well known event - a Union defeat - overshadows an event six weeks earlier - a Union victory - that, at the time, probably had a greater impact on the growing support in the very racist by modern standards Northern Army to arming large formations of African-Americans than anything else. The attack on Ft. Wagner and the 54th Massachusetts were both in the Eastern theater of operations. As such, they naturally get more attention. T…

OK, it is the day after May Day ... but that's close enough for government work. As the entire maritime world this week decided to pick up on some Midrats favorites - poaching the Army's budget and making the Taiwanese porcupine a bit more imposing - could there be a better time for another Sal & Eagle One green range? Open topic, open chat room, open phones. We'll cover the waterfront and invite you to come on board for a broad ranging discussion of national and maritime security issues. Join us live if you can and roll in with your preferred topic in the chat room or call the switchboard number right here on the showpage. This Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern come jo…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $15.9 million contract modification to develop a second source for the qualification and facilitization of the Electromechanical Control Actuation System for the Hellfire missile. Hellfire is an air-to-ground, laser guided, subsonic missile with significant anti-tank capacity. It can also be used as an air-to-air weapon against helicopters or slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft. Work will take place in Orlando, Florida. Estimated completion date is August 28, 2021. Rolls-Royce won a $72.9 million contract modification, which exercises an option to procure 33 production AE1107C V-22 Osprey engines; 14 for the Marine Corps and 19 for the Navy for…

Americas The US Air Force is to contract Sikorsky to upgrade its HH-60W Jolly Green II combat search and rescue (CSAR) helicopter to improve on the 2012 requirements baseline. According to the service, the manufacturer is to bring the capabilities of the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) up to today’s specifications, ahead of the commencement of full rate production in fiscal year 2022. Under the potential five-year deal for rolling capability upgrades to both the helicopter’s hardware and software systems, Sikorsky stands to receive up to $980 million. Work to integrate the AN/SPY-6 radar on the new Aegis Flight III guided-missile destroyer, the future USS Jack H. Lucas (D…

Americas Rockwell Collins won a $16.3 million contract modification, which adds scope to provide for the adoption and application of updated security classification requirements, as well as to provide a preliminary design analysis and solution trade studies for an updated Very Low Frequency receiver solution in support of the developmental design and obsolescence mitigation engineering efforts for the airborne VLF system modernization in order to meet program capability requirements. The modernization effort is required to provide a compatible and producible VLF system to be integrated into a C-130 aircraft. Work will take place in Texas and Iowa. Estimated completion dat…

Americas According to Lockheed Martin, the US Army’s new extended-range version of its Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) had a successful 80-kilometer flight demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, on March 4. Lockheed Martin is the manufacturer of the GMLRS munition and has worked with the Army to double the rocket’s reach through extended-range capability development. The 80-kilometer shot fired from the Army’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System met the test objectives, Lockheed said in its news release. The release added that the demo “confirmed the missile’s flight trajectory performance, range and validated interfaces with the HIMARS lau…

As with all conflicts, just a few days in to the Second Russo-Ukraine War you have stories that start to break out in to the public. Some seem like rumor, urban legends, propaganda, or just embellishments of real stories or hopeful desires. Two have come up over the last few days. One that seems closer to the urban legend and hopeful desires area is the heroic fighter pilot, "The Ghost of Kyiv," putting up an amazing fight against all odds in his plucky MiG-29. The second seems to be from the same area but with time we have found is actually a true story. 13 Ukrainian border guards were stationed in an isolated, barren and what would appear to be generally ignorable islan…

Today we are going to discuss military strategy from the a macro level. We will cover the ways to teach military strategy to already seasoned military and civilian personnel, some of the significant members of the strategic canon, and larger strategic challenges we find today. Our guest for the full hour Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Dr. Alessio Patalano. Alessio is Reader in East Asian Warfare and Security at the Department of War Studies (DWS), King’s College London (KCL), and specializes in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian Security. From 2006 to 2015, he was visiting professor in Strategy at the Italian Naval W…

R.K. Lembke has an article over at Small Wars Journal that had me nodding my head in agreement on the subject more than any I have read in a long time. Regular readers of CDR Salamander will see many of the issues we've raised here over they years, but Lembke's presentation, tying them in together while providing sound and well documented quotes from the start, is simply a powerhouse. I spent half a decade of my active duty life on, and for a few months, in Afghanistan. A wee bit early on at the Tactical, but most as a staff weenie on the in-theater Operational and Strategic levels at USA and NATO commands from Bush43 through to the first year of the Obama administratio…

Americas International Enterprises won a $12.5 million requirements contract requirements contract for F-16 modular low power radio frequency (MLPRF) and dual mode transmitter (DMT) repairs. This contract provides for the repair of both MLPRF and DMT, which function as part of the radar systems of each F-16 C/D aircraft. The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the USAF. One of the most versatile aircraft in the US Air Force inventory, the F-16 Fighting Falcon has been the mainstay of the Air Force aerial combat fleet. With over 1,000 F-16s in service, the platform has b…

I'm not sure what percentage you can assign to greed, what to wishful thinking, and what to outright corruption, but the last four decades the West has not just sold companies, manufacturing, and economic leverage to the Chinese Communist Authorities - but at critical nodes through the world's critical choke points we've sold and leased to them unique land and resources they now control. How can smart nations try to recover from such a strategic mistake? Well, Australia is trying to figure that out. Details over at USNIBlog. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/…

There are but a few options here, none of which speak well of our Navy or its leadership – but we have to look at where this is with clear eyes. I have tried to be as clean-slate optimistic as possible with the CNO, Admiral Gilday. On a lot of actual Navy issues, I find him incredibly well informed, intelligent, and thinking in the right direction – but that is only part of his job. Another part of his job is to be a good steward of the position of the CNO, the Navy’s apolitical stance in line with our national traditions, and to ensure that all his Sailors can expect fair and equal treatment and consideration under his command. In the last respect, I can no longer giv…

Americas Raytheon won a $482.8 million contract modification, which provides for the exercise of the pre-priced options for Lot 35 production of AMRAAM missiles, AMRAAM Telemetry System, initial and field spares, and other production engineering support hardware and activities. The AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) is a new generation all-weather, missile. Work will take place in Arizona. Estimated completion date is May 31, 2024. Sikorsky won a $26.9 million contract modification for UH-60M green aircraft. The UH-60 Black Hawk has been operational in the US Army since 1978. More than 2,000 aircraft of different variants are in service with the U.…

Geography doesn't change. To a slightly lesser extent, neither do historic patterns. Even if Ukraine wins the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia will still be to the east from Central Europe. She will be back in one form or another. After the fall of the Soviet Union, liberation, and joining NATO - helped with a lot of ahistorical thinking on both sides of the Atlantic - there was a bit of hedging that there was time to rebuild Central European economies and civil society before a threat from the east came back. For almost three decades the former Warsaw Pact members of NATO let their military capabilities and investments fall closer to 1% of GDP as opposed to the 2% minimum. T…

While we are saddled with the best thinking the early 1980s can muster, the Communist Chinese government just updated their military law to better align with their national security requirements. What, exactly, are we doing? I'm pondering a bit over at USNIBlog. Come gnash your teeth with me. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=TGw0uEizdH0:U75thItqEkE:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=TGw0uEizdH0:U75thItqEkE:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=TGw0uEizdH0:U75thItqEkE:V_sGLiPBpWU http://fe…

Americas Boeing won an $18.9 million order, which provides for the production and delivery of 48 automatic backup oxygen system retrofit kits for the T-45 aircraft, to include installation tooling, engineering reach back, spares and support equipment. The T-45A Goshawk is a tandem-seat, carrier capable, jet trainer whose mission is to train Navy and Marine Corps pilots. Work will take place in Texas and Missouri. Expected completion is in September 2022. Sikorsky won a $25.8 million deal for the repair/overhaul of the refueling probes on the HH-60G helicopter. The HH-60G Pave Hawk is the US Air Force’s primary combat search and rescue helicopter used by Air Force special…

Every few years I repost this little bit from 2005. It is time again. I'll add the commentary I put with it in 2013 and have slightly modified some personal items to keep it up to date. In a culture where more often than not, all your neighbors are really just transients - they move in an out every few years, chasing whatever they are chasing. Their families are scattered hither and yon; few really related to anyone. I've wondered for awhile what impact the reality of the rolling, self-imposed Internally Displaced Persons has had on our nation - perhaps causing us to miss something. Is it a net-gain, or a net-loss? Well, perhaps I am projecting; I have always thought…