Raw Intel

A small Performance Drone Works quadcopter carrying a Leonardo DRS laser designator guided precision mortar rounds onto targets beyond the normal maximum range of a 120 mm mortar during a recent test for U.S. Army special operations forces at Dugway, Utah, Leonardo DRS said on Oct. 14. The company said its STAG-5 electro-optical and infrared […]View the full article

The German Air Force has fired its new IRIS-T SLM air defense system for the first time at the NATO Missile Firing Installation on Crete, completing the operational certification the system needed before it can be relied on in German service, manufacturer Diehl Defence said this week. Air Defence Missile Group 61, the unit based […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force went looking for three new flight test ideas for its AI-controlled X-62 VISTA research jet and came away with more than 30, after the first research symposium built around the aircraft drew over 80 participants to Edwards Air Force Base, California, in August. The three-day meeting at the U.S. Air Force […]View the full article

U.S. drone maker WingXpand has unveiled xPAIR, a removable control unit that the company says can be moved between its small fixed-wing aircraft, a ground vehicle and a small boat, letting one set of AI software and sensors run uncrewed systems in the air, on land and on water. The Schaumburg, Illinois, company introduced the […]View the full article

A Ukrainian Air Force Il-76MD heavy transport aircraft was tracked on Oct. 12 flying out of Sharurah, a Saudi town in Najran Province near the border with Yemen, in a rare appearance of a Ukrainian military cargo plane in the south of the kingdom. Flight-tracking data shared by the open-source account Egypt’s Intel Observer shows […]View the full article

The U.S. Marine Corps is buying a small tracked cargo loader that can pick a fully loaded 4,500 kg (10,000-pound) air cargo pallet off the ground and still fit inside an MV-22 Osprey, under a contract worth more than $10 million to Las Vegas-based S.A.F.E. Structure Designs. The company announced the award for its SAFE […]View the full article

Leonardo DRS has won a spot on a Pentagon counter-drone contract worth up to $500 million, giving the company a path to sell its tactical radars to Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the U.S. Department of War organization set up last year to speed anti-drone gear to troops. The company announced the three-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award […]View the full article

German startup Reactive Dynamics says combat troops have put its RDX 1 tracked unmanned ground vehicle through its first tactical trials, using it to haul supplies and carry soldiers, evacuate casualties and run reconnaissance patrols by day and night. The company said the tests took place last week with frontline units and also covered using […]View the full article

Israeli loitering munition maker Uvision is showing an eight-canister launcher for its HERO 120 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, pitching the remotely operated system as a way to spread strike capacity across land and maritime platforms and tie it to the company’s AI-enabled CORTEX mission management software. The Multi-Canister […]View the full article

It is on rare occasion that we do a guest post here, but friend to the blog, Midrats Podcast alumnus, and co-host the CavasShips podcast, Chris Servello put together an inspired review of the moment we are at, this decision point, our nation has as a naval power. A must read. Chris, over to you. Standing in Greenwich, on the outskirts of London, surrounded by museum ships, artifacts and reminders of centuries of British seapower, I found myself thinking less about the past than about America’s maritime future. That may sound like an odd conclusion to draw in a museum. But every gallery seemed to make the same point: naval power is not inherited forever. It depends on dec…

The U.S. Navy is building up its stocks of spare parts for the radars and fire-control gear on its Aegis warships, ordering $15.1 million worth of components from Raytheon in a deal it tied directly to the surface fleet’s goal of keeping 75 mission-capable ships ready on any given day. The Department of War contract […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded Lockheed Martin a $117.1 million contract to keep supporting the second-generation radar frequency interferometer on its Apache attack helicopters, a passive sensor that lets crews find and pinpoint enemy radars without giving away their own position. The Department of War contract announcement describes an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity deal that mixes cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding a $56.2 million contract for engineering and design work on nuclear-powered submarines for America’s AUKUS partners, with foreign partner funds covering the full cost of the deal. The Department of War contract announcement describes a cost-plus-fixed-fee deal covering engineering and technical support, along with […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Raytheon a contract worth up to $8 billion to modernize and restart production of the satellite communications terminals that link the president and military commanders to U.S. nuclear forces, the U.S. Department of War announced on Oct. 13. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract covers development work to modernize the Air […]View the full article

Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec is pitching its new 30 mm ZAK-30 “Tsitadel” anti-drone gun as a direct competitor to Western systems such as Germany’s Skynex and the U.S.-made Phalanx, saying its combat use has shown advantages in automation, cost per shot, and effectiveness on the world market. Rostec made the claim in a statement […]View the full article

Ukraine’s partners warned it about three of the four waves of Russian ballistic missiles launched overnight into Oct. 14, but sent no alert before the first wave hit Kyiv, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Col. Yurii Ihnat said on national television. Ihnat said he wanted to clarify the issue because many people had asked whether Ukraine […]View the full article

Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian strikes has been limited by two U.S. moves in a single night: the country went without early warning of Russian ballistic missile launches from its partners for a second time in a row, and Starlink, the U.S. satellite service its frontline units depend on, was cut back for […]View the full article

Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions at Ukraine’s energy and critical infrastructure overnight into Oct. 14, knocking out power to at least 600,000 people days after President Donald Trump announced a halt to strikes on energy facilities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Zelenskyy said that the attack […]View the full article

China has developed a new light, highly mobile rocket launcher built on an upgraded version of the Dongfeng Mengshi MV3 tactical truck, carrying a 20-round launch pod that can fire guided or unguided 122 mm rockets out to 40 km (25 miles), according to images and details shared by Chinese military commentator DS北风 on X. […]View the full article

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has opened a new national defense museum packed with the country’s missiles, rocket launchers and drones, and among the exhibits is a previously unseen 4×4 armored vehicle that closely resembles the Canadian-made Roshel Senator used by Ukraine. State news agency KCNA reported on Oct. 13 that Kim attended the […]View the full article