Raw Intel

With the Falkland Islands War back in the news, thought ti would be fun to bring back a FbF from 2017 on a nice, tidy OP by our British friends. A great story via our friends at ThinkDefence about an exceptional side-show to The Falkland Island war. Pebble Island lies to the north of West Falkland and in 1982, its 25 inhabitants were mainly involved with tending 25,000 sheep. Its small airstrip was subject to a daring raid by the SAS. It did have an airstrip, though, or more accurately, four, three of grass, and the other on the beach. On the 24th of April, Naval Air Station Calderon (as it was called) was established there. ... HMS Hermes was detached along with HMS Gla…

The United States Army has delivered its first Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) equipped with a 30mm cannon to the 1st Cavalry Division, marking the initial fielding of a more heavily armed variant of the platform, the division confirmed in a recent announcement. The first new combat vehicles have been received by the division’s units as […]View the full article

Norway’s first Leopard 2A8 NO main battle tanks arrived at Rena camp in Østerdalen on April 30, 2026. The new main battle tanks came equipped with Trophy active protection systems, making them among the most survivable tanks fielded by any NATO nation. Two of the 54 Leopard 2A8 NO tanks Norway has ordered from German […]View the full article

A Utah defense technology company has launched an autonomous ground vehicle that carries 2,400 pounds of payload, travels 280 miles on a single charge, and exports 38 kilowatts of power to charge drones, run directed energy weapons, and sustain forward command posts. It’s all without a human on board. Hypercraft, based in Provo, Utah, announced […]View the full article

There is a point an officer’s career when they take a double take, and ask the question, “Why is that amphib commanded by an aviator?” The excuses one hears…well…here’s a change, and it makes sense. For LHA/LHD, LPD, and LSD, welcome to full-time SWO-dom. You have to pay attention to a letter from the CNO that comes out of the gate as direct and as clear as: Amphibious ship readiness and operational availability for years have been below Navy standards of acceptable levels. There are a lot of parallel threads in this letter that ask great questions from what it takes to have a ship ready for war, to the questionable “fleet up” concept, to…what looks like…what does your a…

General Dynamics European Land Systems has successfully demonstrated an acoustic drone detection system on the ASCOD infantry fighting vehicle. This is a passive, vehicle-integrated sensor that locates FPV attack drones in real time without emitting any signal that an enemy could detect. The system, called CASTLE, was developed in cooperation with Microflown AVISA and demonstrated […]View the full article

An Israeli AI defense company has cleared a major operational hurdle for its drone detection system. Axon Vision, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the ticker AXN and headquartered in Israel, announced on April 30, 2026, the successful completion of operational demonstrations and evaluation activities for its EDGE ClearSky drone detection system. The […]View the full article

A California antenna company has officially announced a High Power Microwave weapon that can fry drone electronics without firing a round, and it is already small enough to mount on an Infantry Squad Vehicle. ThinKom Solutions, headquartered in Hawthorne, California, announced on April 30, 2026, the self-funded development of Alecto, a mobile High Power Microwave […]View the full article

The German Bundeswehr successfully tested AI-enabled drone swarms last week, with European defense technology company STARK demonstrating its loitering munition and command and control software in a live exercise that integrated reconnaissance and strike capabilities into a single operational sequence. STARK participated in the trials with its Virtus loitering munition and Minerva command and control […]View the full article

U.S. Air Force Special Warfare Airmen tested a commercial off-the-shelf kinetic counter-drone interceptor in Arizona earlier this month. The proof-of-concept event brought together Airmen from the 48th Rescue Squadron, 7th Air Support Operations Squadron, and 316th Civil Engineer Squadron Explosive Ordnance Disposal at the Arizona Army National Guard Florence Military Reservation. The exercise integrated a […]View the full article

Lithuania is buying a second HIMARS battery, expanding a procurement agreement with the United States that now covers additional launchers, munitions, training, and logistics support — and pushing the combined value of both batteries to approximately $778 million. The Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense and the U.S. Defense Resources Agency signed the contract amendment covering […]View the full article

U.S. Army soldiers evaluated an autonomous 81mm mortar system mounted on an Infantry Squad Vehicle during a live-fire exercise at Fort Magsaysay in the Philippines. The exercise was part of Balikatan 2026, the annual U.S.-Philippine combined arms exercise that has become one of the Indo-Pacific’s most tactically substantive training events. The soldiers conducting the evaluation […]View the full article

Show Links:Substack posts Did China Culminate and No One Noticed? I’ll take LCC-21, 22, and yes, 23 and 24, thank you So, the SECNAV has Departed CVN Status The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, by Rick Atkinson SummarySal discusses current naval operations, geopolitical developments, and strategic insights, including the state of the US … Read more View the full article

Navies are expensive. This is true, however, the logic stands that the most expensive navy to have is one that can be defeated by the other navy that was better built, supported, and led. To avoid that, you spend a lot of money on the ships, the Sailors in them, the people ashore who maintain them, the naval infrastructure that supports them, and the leaders that will take them into battle. In times of peace, the opportunity cost of that kind of navy gets a lot of attention. Heck, the naval treaties of a century ago were less about world peace than they were as a mutual agreement between politicians to spend less money on ships and instead have more money to keep their b…

A startup’s drone just deployed armed FPVs from the air during a live-fire exercise of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Polk. Petrel Technologies validated its AERO Sky hybrid VTOL unmanned aircraft alongside the 101st Airborne Division during a Joint Readiness Training Center exercise at Fort Polk last week, with multiple armed First-Person View drones […]View the full article

Poland is testing the counter-drone technologies it intends to deploy along its eastern border — and one of the systems that showed up at the Central Air Force Firing Range in Ustka last week listens for drones rather than looking for them. Operational tests for Poland’s Eastern Shield program, known in Polish as Tarcza Wschód, […]View the full article

A Silicon Valley AI startup just raised $100 million to build what it describes as the artificial intelligence brain for unmanned warfare. Scout AI Inc. announced an oversubscribed $100 million Series A financing round to accelerate development of Fury, its foundation model for unmanned warfare. The round was co-led by Align Ventures and Draper Associates, […]View the full article

AM General showed up to Modern Day Marine with two vehicles and a clear message: the company that built the HMMWV for four decades is now building the unmanned systems that will operate alongside whatever comes next. At Booth 2007 of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., AM General displayed its next-generation […]View the full article

On April 14, teams from MBDA and Safran Electronics & Defense conducted the inaugural live test of THUNDART, a new long-range artillery rocket developed entirely within France, with support from the Directorate General of Armament Missile Testing division, known as DGA EM. The test took place at the Île du Levant test range and validated […]View the full article

Ukrainian drone operators reached deep into Russian territory on April 29, striking two Russian military helicopters on the ground in Voronezh Oblast. The operation was a joint effort by combined crews of the 429th Unmanned Systems Brigade “Achilles” and the 43rd Separate Army Aviation Brigade, planned and executed in coordination with Special Operations Center “A.” […]View the full article