Raw Intel

The U.S. military will deploy its NMESIS anti-ship missile launcher to Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island and about 107 km (66 miles) from Taiwan, during a major U.S.-Japanese exercise this month, Japan’s Kyodo News reported on Oct. 2, citing the Yonaguni town government. The launcher will take part in Keen Sword, a large joint exercise […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Air Force has received the first two of 66 new F-16V Block 70 fighter jets bought from the United States, after the aircraft landed at Chihhang Air Base in the eastern county of Taitung around noon on Oct. 2. The arrival comes about a month later than expected and roughly three years behind the […]View the full article

South Korea put its Cheongwang laser weapons on public display for its 78th Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1, showing two new prototypes for the first time, but a live demonstration of the system already in service ran into trouble before the laser burned two target drones out of the sky. The new hardware included […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has set up permanent test lanes for counter-drone weapons at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where it spent most of September putting systems from multiple companies through scenarios modeled on drone incursions along the U.S. southern border. The work was part of Falcon Peak 26.2, an operational experiment run by Joint Interagency […]View the full article

Forterra says well over a thousand missions in Ukraine have shaped how it builds autonomous ground vehicles, from coping with jamming and mud to keeping them running under constant threat from Russian drones. The company develops autonomy systems for military vehicles. Its Lancer is a Polaris Ranger 1500 utility vehicle fitted with Forterra’s AutoDrive self-driving […]View the full article

Ukraine has used its homegrown FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 1, adding that the next step is production. “Ukrainian tactical ballistics. FP-7. First combat use. Thank you for the result. Next, production. Glory to Ukraine!” Zelenskyy said. He did not say when or where […]View the full article

U.S.-based defense technology firm CX2 has released a new version of Vadris, a small radio sensor that rides on an FPV drone and steers it toward the source of an enemy drone’s control signal, now able to pick up several of the most common drone control systems instead of just one. CX2 announced Vadris SDR […]View the full article

As I like to say, words mean things. I was looking for a quick summary of the significance of the Battle of Agincourt and why it might have been chosen as the name for the effort to, in a year’s time, set up a new 4-star functional combatant command, the Autonomous Warfare Command. In a discussion of Jodi Taylor’s fictional novel A Second Chance, Hazel Cushion over at Welcome to Jodi Taylor Books made a solid summary. The Battle of Agincourt …. demonstrated that a well-disciplined force, equipped with innovative tactics and superior weaponry, could overcome numerical superiority on the battlefield. Moreover, Agincourt shattered the myth of invincibility surrounding the Fr…

Ukrainian defense company DevDroid put two of its armed ground robots through their paces with the Italian Army during AEGIS 26, a major exercise watched by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, operating them alongside an Italian robot and infantry in a simulated assault and linking them to a NATO battlefield information system. AEGIS 26 was held […]View the full article

Latvia has signed a contract to buy Czech-made Morana 155 mm wheeled howitzers and rocket artillery systems for its armed forces, in a three-way deal with the Slovak government and Czech manufacturer Tatra Defence Systems, the Latvian Defense Ministry said. The ministry, the Slovak government and Tatra Defence Systems signed the contract on Sept. 30. […]View the full article

Turkish defense manufacturer Otokar has signed a $1.47 billion contract to export wheeled armored vehicles and logistics support to a customer it has not named, though the deal will not take effect until government approvals are in place and the buyer pays an advance. The contract, worth exactly $1,472,080,360, covers the supply of several types […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s research agency DARPA is asking industry how to build a new hypersonic cruise missile that would fly much farther, faster or higher than current designs and could still be produced cheaply in large numbers. DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office posted a request for information for the Next Generation Hypersonic Cruise Missile on Sept. 30 […]View the full article

Türkiye will receive the first two of 12 C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft it is buying from the UK in December, once maintenance on them is finished in Britain, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Oct. 1, with the rest of the former Royal Air Force aircraft to follow in stages. The ministry also said […]View the full article

A previously unseen version of Russia’s jet-powered Shahed attack drone has appeared in Ukraine fitted with whisker-like rods on its nose, a modification that Ukrainian volunteer Serhii Sternenko says is designed to detonate the warhead on contact with high-voltage power lines. Sternenko, a Ukrainian volunteer and activist who runs one of the country’s largest drone […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has hired BAE Systems to work out how pulsed lasers could be used for military missions and how to pair solid-state lasers with beam control systems the U.S. Air Force already has, under a contract worth up to $19.7 million. The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, for a program called Laser Utilization […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded British-owned MSI Defence Systems a $197 million contract for 30mm deck gun mounts and the electro-optical sights that aim them, the weapons the service is fitting to its warships to shoot down small drones and fast attack boats. The firm-fixed-price contract, issued by Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division […]View the full article

The U.S. Marine Corps has ordered 32 recovery versions of its Amphibious Combat Vehicle from BAE Systems, the armored repair-and-tow vehicles that will haul broken-down or damaged ACVs off the battlefield and fix them in the field. Marine Corps Systems Command awarded BAE Systems a $230.1 million firm-fixed-price modification on Oct. 1 to exercise options […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded BAE Systems a $146.7 million contract for 40 sets of the electronic warfare suite that protects the F-15EX Eagle II, covering jets in the fighter’s seventh and eighth production lots. The sole-source contract, announced by the Department of War, buys 40 production hardware sets of the Eagle Passive/Active Warning […]View the full article

Russia’s state defense conglomerate Rostec says three of its newest jet-powered strike drones, the S-71M, S-71K and Dan-T, can now do the job of cruise missiles at a fraction of the cost, and that all three are already being used against Ukraine. Rostec made the claims in comments to the Russian Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya […]View the full article

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has put Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in charge of Project Meridian, a 120-day Pentagon study of where future wars will be fought and what weapons the U.S. military will need to win them. Hegseth announced the project on Sept. 30 during his […]View the full article