Raw Intel

Americas Boeing won a $9 million order, which provides follow-on integrated logistics and engineering support, in support of the Harpoon/ Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response Missile System and Harpoon Launch Systems for the Navy and various Foreign Military Sales customers. Work will be performed in St. Charles, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; and Yorktown, Virgina, […]View the full article

Americas Elbit Systems has unveiled the Air Keeper, a revolutionary airborne system designed to integrate Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities with Electronic Warfare (EW) functionalities on a single platform. The Air Keeper is built with a modular architecture, allowing for compatibility with various business jets and civilian platforms. This flexibility enables customization […]View the full article

The Royal Navy and the United States Navy share a common heritage, and in the last century built one of the greatest maritime security partnerships over a longer period than any other pair of nations. In more recent years, they also shared common challenges in keeping their once unchallenged sea power relevant, capable, and funded. What are the lessons from both nations' recent stumbles in naval planning, program management, and managing the military industrial base that enables both? What have we done right that should be replicated, and where should we take the hard won lessons of failure to heart and move on? We have a great guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-…

At age 25 you have two young children and are vacationing with your husband when you find out your father dies. You now find yourself at the head of a devolving empire, in dire economic straits from two world wars and a building new cold war, facing domestic strife and more. For generations, even outside the Anglosphere, when people heard “The Queen,” only one person came to mind: Queen Elizabeth II the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. She did, and will, define an era. Her duty and composure – and her ability to hold the …

Americas General Dynamics won a $15.7 million deal for lead yard support and development studies and design efforts related to Virginia class submarines. Work will be performed in the continental US and is expected to be completed by June 2026. Fiscal 2023 research, development, test, and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $15,715,111 will […]View the full article

Americas In a collaborative effort involving multiple organizations, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) recently carried out radiometric data gathering on two C-130H aircraft. The purpose of this initiative was to compare the heat signatures of the two aircraft and utilize the collected data to update and validate their signature in GTRI modeling and simulation. […]View the full article

Americas The US Senate approved $60 billion in funding for Ukraine on Tuesday, but the Republican-led House Speaker indicated his chamber will reject the bill. The $95 billion package includes funding for Israel’s military and key strategic ally Taiwan, but the lion’s share would help Ukraine restock depleted ammunition supplies, weapons and other crucial needs […]View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $120 million modification, which exercises an option to provide continued engineering, maintenance, logistics, and material support in support of the development, production, and sustainment of software builds, as well as to execute developmental flight tests in support of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft for the Air Force, Marine Corps, […]View the full article

Americas Canada will boost its military and diplomatic presence in the Arctic to counter what it calls threats from Russia and others seeking a foothold in the far north, as part of a new doctrine unveiled Friday. The government envisions the deployment of new patrol ships and navy destroyers, ice breakers and submarines capable of operating beneath ice sheets, as well as more aircraft and drones. The US Navy has awarded Raytheon a $590-million contract for continued work on the Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) system. This is part of a follow-on production effort to enhance the electronic warfare capabilities of the EA-18G Growler aircraft used by the US Navy and…

Americas General Dynamics Land Systems won an $18.9 million modification for Abrams system technical support. Work will be performed in Sterling Heights, Michigan, with an estimated completion date of February 27, 2025. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity. Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea early Sunday in “an apparent case of friendly fire,” the American military said. Both pilots were recovered alive but “initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries,” the United States Central Command said late Saturday local Florida time – where CENTCOM is headquartered. Middle East &…

Americas Palantir Technologies has won a $480-million contract to begin the prototyping phase for the US Army’s Maven Smart System project. Maven is an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled tool that fuses information from various sources into a unified interface to provide faster and much-improved battlefield analysis. It can identify military points of interest more rapidly than […]View the full article

The Russo-Ukrainian War of the last six months is reminding everyone - I hope - that war in a large measure does not change. Yes, some new technologies and ideas comes in that no one appreciates the value of until proven on the field of battle, some established technologies and ideas no longer work, and that process of integrating battlefield lessons often determines who gets better results over time. At the end of the day, it is taking ground, keeping ground, and positioning yourself for more. Thinking of that reminded me of a FbF from 4.5yrs ago that I thought I would bring back this week. One of the enduring characteristics of WWI was the amount of blood that was shed …

The whole World Economic Forum/Davos experience is one part Bond villain parody, one part clout seeking billionaires, one part megalomania, a heaping cup of greed, and a dash of rent seeking. In 2023 things have reached the point where any association with Davos should put an individual or organization under notice of suspicion. Amazing to see people who claim to be American conservatives or lovers of liberty attending in an non-ironic, non-protesting capacity. This wannabee gaggle of quasi-oligarchs and autocrat throne sniffers represents everything that is wrong with the human desire for control, power, and to crush the individual for fun and profit. They pretend to be…

On Sept 30/08, “The USA’s National Cybersecurity Initiative” focused on the belated but growing reaction to recent uses of cyber-attacks as an adjunct to warfare, and by the growing rate of attempted intrusions into American systems from countries like China. “Secure Semiconductors: Sensible, or Sisiphyean?” discussed the growing realization within the US military that massive […]View the full article

Americas AeroVironment won a $12 million deal by the US Army for RQ-20B Puma AE3 UAS systems. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Simi Valley, California, with an estimated completion date of September 30, 2024. According to Defense News, the US Navy leveraged air and surface drones […]View the full article

Americas Boeing won a $17.7 million contract modification, which increases the scope to procure the necessary test and engineering support to complete the development of the Next Generation Jammer – Mid-Band system and the phased replacement of the AN/ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System currently mounted to the EA-18G aircraft. The AN/ALQ-99 intercepts and automatically processes radar signals and power manages the system’s transmitters to effectively jam large numbers of diverse radar threats with very high effective radiated power. The AN/ALQ-249(V)1 Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) system is part of a larger NGJ system that will augment, and ultimately replace the l…

Four years ago to the day, I posted the below, and did last year. As a matter of fact, I just changed “Three” to “Four” and adjusted the title from 3rd to 4th. Everything else is the same because I am still have not worked this out. There are a lot more subscribers to CDRSalamander now than then, so I want to bring it back in part for them, but on the main because, to use my dear readers as therapy, I’m not over it. As many have asked, where is the accountability? Do the people responsible have no shame? Is there nothing demanded by honor for failure, or has our system of incentives and disincentives promoted to the highest positions of people who have a value system and …

Americas Marshall Aerospace has launched the ARC-Radar, a modular sensor suite that can transform a tactical transport aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles using the Leonardo Osprey 30 radar. The Marshall ARC-Radar is a role-fit palletised solution that requires no permanent integration or aircraft modifications, and utilises only existing aircraft power outlets. The […]View the full article

Americas Austal won an $8 million deal to provide advance planning, material procurement, and accomplishment of work for emergent availabilities in support of the littoral combat ship USS Kingsville (LCS 36). This effort is to develop and provide planning, engineering support, planning and logistics technical documentation, funds and man-hour expenditure data, projected costs, cost estimates, […]View the full article

Your commander matters. The best commanders know when to take the advice of their staff and when to brush it off. The worst commanders are those who lack the knowledge or personality to know when to do one of the other. As told by Douglas Sterling; “Great Army of the Sea” On May 16, the English royal council met and pushed back the deadline for gathering the ships until June 12, which would mean a sailing date around the 20th. When Edward met with his council again on June 4, it was clear that earlier delays had not been resolved. The only way to even attempt to keep up with the timetable previously set, which was being relied upon by the allies, was to send at least …