Raw Intel

While there is a lot more fighting left to be done in Ukraine, there is one safe assumption regardless of what happens; we will have to learn to live with Russia as she is. Russian victory in Ukraine runs the spectrum from unconditional surrender of Ukraine to a negotiated settlement that lets Russia retain Crimea and the Donbas. One may define a Ukrainian victory on an extreme edge with Russia retaining only Crimea over to being expelled entirely back to pre-2014 boundaries. The longer the war goes on, the less the Ukrainians will find the Crimea option acceptable, and we may already be past that point. If you think the war will be the end of the Russian desires in her …

Americas Timken Gears & Services won a $119.2 million modification to exercise the options for three Main Reduction Gear shipsets to support DDG-51 class. Work is scheduled to be completed by November 2027. The DDG-51 class is a class of guided missile destroyers in the United States Navy. It is also known as the Arleigh […]View the full article

The Japanese Ministry of Defense confirmed that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) has, for the first time, identified a Chinese Navy submarine rescue vessel of the Type 926 Dakai-class operating near Japanese waters. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defense on July 25, the vessel was first spotted around noon on […] The post Chinese new sub rescue ship spotted near Japan first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

Service selection. Warfare speciality. Rating/MOS. When you sign your name on the bottom line, except for certain circumstances, you really don't know where the "needs of the service" will take you. You fill out your wish list and hope for the best. We all know someone who wasn't all that excited about what their service had in store for them. I had a peer who came from a family of fighter pilots. He didn't pass the pilot physical for eye reasons, so wound up on the naval flight officer pipeline. This was when we still had A-6 and F-14, and that is where he thought he would save face. Where did the Navy decided he was needed? E-2. He cried. He then didn't tell anyone for…

Americas Huntington Ingalls Industries won a $20.2 million contract modification to exercise options for the accomplishment of the planning yard services for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) in-service ships. Work will take place in Virginia, Mississippi, California and Jacksonville. Expected completion will be by April 2023. The first Trial Kit Installation (TKI) onto a C-130H for the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) Increment 2 program has been completed. 124 C-130Hs and 10 LC-130Hs will undergo this upgrade under a $690 million project. The next step is low rate initial production after the aircraft successfully completes testing. Middle East & Africa Uganda is…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $31.8 million modification to incrementally increase the annual award of Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target Advanced Capability-3 missiles. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama; Rocket Center, West Virginia; Camden, Arkansas; Chelmsford, Massachusetts; and Grand Prairie, Texas, with an estimated completion date of December 31, 2024. Lockheed Martin has made significant progress in the development of its Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM). The company conducted a successful flight test of the JAGM Medium Range (JAGM-MR) on November 16 at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California. The missile flew for 16 kilome…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $74 million deal for the AH-64 Apache Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor Performance Based Logistics program. Work will be performed in Orlando, Florida, with an estimated completion date of December 31, 2024. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Raytheon a $10-million contract to design […]View the full article

If you want to get past the press releases, spin, and general garbage takes about who is doing what to help Ukraine, the Kiel Institute should be one of your first stops. Their Ukraine Support Tracker is heavy on facts and light on what you don't need. If like me you like to see the dataset, they've posted it in the raw or a smoother form. They are doing this right. I especially like how they break out aid as a percentage of GDP, the Salamander Approved™ way that smaller nations show they are giving a fair-share effort. Dig in to the data. Talk is talk; action is action; money speaks. Remember. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds…

The words of former SECDEF Gates was on my mind all weekend; Moscow has deployed some 100,000 troops to the borders of Ukraine. What now? Putin finds himself in a situation where Russian success is defined as either a change of government in Kyiv (with the successor aligned with Moscow) or conquest of the country. The 18th-century French diplomat Talleyrand is meant to have said: “You can do anything you like with bayonets except sit on them.” Putin must use those troops soon or face the humiliation of withdrawing them without achieving anything except pushing Ukraine closer to the west. In either case, he has placed himself in a difficult position at home and abroad. Th…

Americas NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian, an ongoing maritime security operation in the Mediterranean, saw a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P-8 maritime patrol aircraft participating for the first time. Departing from its base in Edinburgh, Australia, the jet and its crew took 3 days to arrive in Italy. From there, the jet undertook a few overwater surveillance missions from October 3-14. A first-of-its-kind, F-35 crash recovery course was held at Hill Air Force Base and twenty-nine maintainers had the opportunity to train on handling different scenarios using a real F-35A. One of the scenarios in the five-day Crash Damaged or Disabled Aircraft Recovery course involved …

No well meaning, honest person can say that it is bad to desire a color blind society, to want everyone to be treated equally relative to immutable characteristics, or to be judged by the content of their character - and then tell you they oppose racism. No one who desire a free nation should want to compel speech to squash debate ... but here we are. The absolute worst people in public discourse cannot argue their position, cannot stand for their policies to see the light of day ... so they will instead strive to destroy any voice that runs counter to their own. Weak people with weak ideas are always the most vicious. Congrats, you are a racist...in Canada. The Canad…

Your town isn't a small town at a bit over 34,000, but everyone knows each other more or less. It isn't so big that you are disconnected from your neighbors. You are always one degree away from having a connection to anyone. Maybe 2. Any American from New England would feel comfortable here. The weather is not that different, really - perhaps even a few degrees warmer. Trip Advisor does not give your off the beaten path home (even though you are a stop on the railroad line to Odessa) a big write up, but you have nice restaurants and pubs. You have shockingly beautiful parks. Again, you are poor, but you were, at least before the Russian Army came, a tidy and proud town i…

Americas BAE Systems Land & Armaments won a $32 million contract modification, for M2A4 and M7A4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Work will be performed in York, Pennsylvania, with an estimated completion date of August 23, 2023. M2A4 is designed to provide protected transport of soldiers and direct fires to support dismounted infantry, disrupt or destroy enemy military forces, and control land areas. The Bradley Engineering Change Proposal (ECP), termed M2/M7A4, includes changes intended to restore ground clearance, suspension reliability, and lost mobility, and to improve situational awareness. The M2/M7A4 maintains the survivability enhancement features found on legacy v…

Italian Eurofighters (click to view full) The multi-national Eurofighter Typhoon has been described as the aerodynamic apotheosis of lessons learned from the twin engine “teen series” fighters that began with the F-14 and F-15, continued with the emergence of the F/A-18 Hornet, and extended through to the most recent F/A-18 Super Hornet variants. Aerodynamically, it’s […]View the full article

B-52H, B-1B & B-2A (click to view full) The good news? 2006 saw a convergence of opinion within the USAF that a new long-range strike platform was needed. This is understandable given the B-52H Stratofortress fleet’s age (40-50 years), the B-1B Lancer’s internal power and electronics issues, both of these platforms’ low survivability against advanced air defense systems, and the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber’s very small numbers (21, of which 7-12 are generally operational). The unmanned J-UCAS program, meanwhile was seen as having inadequate range and payload (Boeing X-45C: 1,400 mile radius with 8 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs). The USAF decided that J-UCAS wasn’t a so…

This week I want to return to our topic from last week, the critically important case presently with the US Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admission v. President and Fellows of Harvard College & the University of North Carolina. I'm going to bring out an extended pull quote from the Amicus Brief of Veterans for Fairness and Merit. You can read it all at the prior link, but this is coming from pages 27-28. It makes so many of the points we have been making here for the last 18-years about the raw and unfair racialist policies our military practices in general, and our service academies do in particular. We have said for years to all who would listen that these sect…

If you believe the threat from China is overblown, our Navy is well led, and that our fleet is big enough, then this is not the post for you. If you are concerned for all of it, grab a fresh drink and dive right in. We are facing of something our nation has not had to seriously consider in well over three decades; we do not have free and unfettered access to the sea. Even when Soviet submarines roamed the world’s oceans at will – though closely watched – and the Red Banner Fleet could send battle groups on cruises through the Gulf of Mexico, we had fair confidence in one thing – the Pacific was an American lake. No more. Even when the Soviet Union’s navy gave the US Navy …

I am, generally, not all that taken in by large memorials to the fallen. Perhaps it is just me, but I find them cold, a bit off-putting, and many - but not all by any measure - seem to be more about something else than the memory of fathers, mothers, daughter, sons, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and friends who answered the call of their nation and never came back. Like the little neighborhood memorial back when I lived in Norfolk I've written about before, I find the smaller ones speak to me more - they have an intangible quality to them. For this Memorial Day weekend I'm reaching out of the USA and in to a lost world that is still remembered. Well off the beaten p…

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won a $19 million modification, which provides logistics and test support for mission control and operator training systems as well as associated engineering and field service representative technical support to sustain MQ-4C Triton air vehicles, ensuring continued mission-capability for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for the Navy and the government of […]View the full article

Regardless of how seriously you take national and alliance security issues, never forget that both are worm-ridden with unserious people who only see defense structures as an exceptionally pliable organization with lots of money that can be used for other purposes. Always remember this. If you forget, they will remind you. Case in point today. After the Cold War, NATO remained in place for a couple of reasons. First was that the major nations of the West had over the decades developed a comfortable habit of 80/20 meshing our security concerns and capabilities together. Institutional inertia, yes - but more than that; in fits-and-starts we saw a stability almost unheard of…