Raw Intel

The U.S. State Department approved a potential $3 billion sale of 24 MH-60R Seahawk naval helicopters to South Korea on May 18, doubling Seoul’s fleet of the American-built submarine hunters just weeks after the country’s navy put its first two Seahawks into operational service. The MH-60R Seahawk, built by Sikorsky and supported through Lockheed Martin […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has handed a $40 million contract to World Wide Technology, a St. Louis-based technology firm, to build an artificial intelligence-powered Security Operations Center — essentially a high-tech nerve center that will monitor the service’s networks around the clock for cyber intrusions, attacks, and threats. The award, announced May 18 and running […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin walked away from May 18 with an $879 million weapons contract, and this one has nothing to do with building new jets. The Naval Air Systems Command handed the Fort Worth defense giant a production order covering the missile launchers, bomb racks, gun systems, wing pylons, and adapter hardware that physically attach weapons […]View the full article

I wanted to start this week out with a hearty Bravo Zulu to the Ford Carrier Strike Group, but we started yesterday’s Midrats Podcast with that, and did a good job with it. So, if you’d like, give the episode a listen when you get a chance, but today I want to instead review the military balance sheet on our operations against Iran over the last few months. In the Ford Strike Group’s Presidential Unit Citation, some stats were put on the table: 125 Iranian warships destroyed 207 TLAM launched from 9 surface platforms 1,700 sorties hitting 700 targets We’re still conducting a blockade. Still trying to negotiate with a dead-ender government. The question is, what have we a…

REGENT Craft has demonstrated the ability to charge its Seaglider vessels entirely away from established port infrastructure, completing a milestone test in partnership with Schneider Electric and World4Solar that the company says unlocks distributed maritime operations in austere and remote environments where conventional charging networks do not exist. The demonstration validated a three-component charging architecture […]View the full article

A Czech drone company with Ukrainian roots has signed a contract to supply reconnaissance unmanned aerial systems to U.S. Army units stationed in Europe, the company announced, marking what appears to be the first confirmed international defense export contract for U&C UAS and placing a European-manufactured ISR drone into American military service on the continent […]View the full article

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has relaunched its search for a precision strike loitering munition under a new program name, issuing a fresh request for information in May 2026 under the designation Project INSTIGATOR, a renamed and restructured version of the Medium Range Precision Strike program that the MOD has been developing since late 2024 with […]View the full article

Ukraine has cleared its first domestically developed guided aerial bomb for combat use, with Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announcing that the weapon has completed all required testing and an initial experimental batch has already been procured by the Ministry of Defense, with pilots currently training on combat scenarios using the new munition. The bomb was […]View the full article

Japan’s Ministry of Defense has released a comprehensive briefing document outlining its space domain defense buildup, revealing a sweeping expansion of military space capabilities that includes a dedicated Space Operations Group growing to 880 personnel, a space defense budget that has surged more than threefold since 2022, and an ambitious program to field satellites capable […]View the full article

Japan’s government is moving to deploy early warning radar-equipped drones over the Pacific Ocean as part of a significant expansion of its surveillance and deterrence posture against China, with the MQ-9B SeaGuardian emerging as the leading candidate platform for a capability that Tokyo considers essential to closing what defense planners have described as a surveillance […]View the full article

Blockades, 11-month deployments, and building plans…a full plate for a Midrats Free for All. We go LIVE at 5 PM Eastern this Sunday. You can join us at this link. If you are reading this after the show, check the Substack later Sunday night for the podcast upload. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

A two-seat variant of Russia’s Su-57 fifth-generation stealth fighter has been photographed conducting ground taxi trials, with Russian military aviation blogger Ilya Tumanov, who operates the widely followed Fighterbomber Telegram channel, confirming the aircraft’s existence on May 16 and describing it as a new two-seat modification of the Felon that completed ground runs as part […]View the full article

Ukrainian drone forces have struck a Russian naval vessel in the Caspian Sea for at least the third time in recent months, publishing footage on May 17 showing a Fire Point FP-1 attack drone successfully locating and hitting a Project 10410 Svetlyak-class patrol boat in the port area of Kaspiisk, Dagestan, more than 1,500 kilometers […]View the full article

South Korean-based Hanwha Aerospace and Estonian robotics company Milrem Robotics signed a teaming agreement at the BSDA 2026 defense exhibition in Bucharest to jointly pursue Romania’s unmanned ground vehicle program, combining Korean wheeled unmanned platform experience with Milrem’s combat-proven tracked UGV technology in a bid to capture one of Eastern Europe’s most strategically significant ground […]View the full article

A British uncrewed aircraft developer has completed ground trials of its CAPSTONE unmanned system with air-to-surface missile simulators, its chief executive announced, while simultaneously operating as a teaming partner with BAE Systems on the British Army’s Project NYX loyal wingman competition. Justin Tooth, Chief Executive Officer of Certo Aerospace, disclosed the missile integration testing in […]View the full article

A U.S. drone company has secured its first international defense contract, winning an order from the Royal Australian Navy to supply Transwing vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aircraft systems for maritime distributed logistics operations, with deliveries of the initial P4 variant scheduled for spring 2026. PteroDynamics Inc., a California-based developer of autonomous VTOL aircraft, announced […]View the full article

A U.S. defense startup is bringing a next-generation counter-drone system to SOF Week 2026 in Tampa that takes a fundamentally different approach to the close-in drone threat: instead of aiming at incoming targets, it keeps multiple barrels constantly rotating through a full hemisphere, eliminating the aiming delay that makes conventional single-barrel systems vulnerable to fast-moving […]View the full article

The U.S. Army is searching for missiles that cost less than $1 million each, issuing a formal request for information on May 15, 2026, that lays out one of the most explicit cost-driven weapons procurement challenges the service has publicly articulated. The Army’s Capability Program Executive for Defensive Fires, operating through the Rapid Capabilities and […]View the full article

The Syrian cargo aircraft that flight-tracking data and Russian media suggest carried Bashar al-Assad and regime officials out of Damascus on the night his government collapsed has returned to Syria, landing at Damascus International Airport on May 14, 2026, after sitting idle at Russia’s Hmeimim Air Base for more than a year and a half. […]View the full article

Ukraine launched one of its largest drone strikes on Moscow in the war’s history overnight into May 17, sending more than 130 unmanned aerial vehicles into the Russian capital and surrounding region, triggering fires at an electronics manufacturing facility and a major oil refinery, forcing all four of Moscow’s major airports to suspend flight operations, […]View the full article