Raw Intel

Sometimes, history whispers to you during small and medium-sized wars. It won’t force you to listen or even understand, but it is a loud enough whisper that you know it is there. These are not private whispers, only for you. These are understandable by anyone making an effort to hear them. More often than not, it is not a good-news whisper. No, it is an uncomfortable whisper, an inconvenient whisper, an expensive whisper. You don’t have to think about the implications of this whisper, but other people may. These whispers from small to medium-sized wars are, on occasion, riddle-strewn prophecy, but more often than not they are clear and direct about what you should expect …

A West Point cadet has spent three weeks helping Army engineers solve a math problem that could determine how many enemy drones an American air defense system can shoot down before it runs out of ammunition. Cadet Alex Anteen, a member of the U.S. Military Academy’s class of 2028, worked alongside scientists at the Army’s […]View the full article

Cameras mounted on Royal Navy surveillance drones bound for special forces missions in the Gulf were secretly transmitting signals to an IP address inside China, The Telegraph reported, citing an investigation by the newspaper’s Richard Holmes. The drones in question are Kraken K3 Scout uncrewed surface vessels, roughly 8.4-meter (28-foot) unmanned speedboats built by the […]View the full article

A mysterious Chinese warship that has spent years testing stealth technology just showed up with something new bolted to its deck, and naval watchers cannot agree on whether it is designed to disorient people or fry electronics. Open-source images circulating on social media this week show China’s unnamed experimental corvette, a stealthy test vessel that […]View the full article

A British air defense startup that did not exist until late 2024 just landed a $300 million funding round that values the company at $3.4 billion, a valuation that puts it on par with established defense primes despite having built its first missile from a blank sheet of paper less than two years ago. Cambridge […]View the full article

Russia’s prized “unstoppable” hypersonic missile has gone dark, and Ukrainian military intelligence says Moscow pulled the plug on purpose to feed a different weapon entirely. Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate, known by its Ukrainian acronym HUR, told the outlet RBC-Ukraine that Russia halted production of its Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ballistic missile back […]View the full article

Panels, seminars, conferences, reports, speeches, and emotion do not build a navy. Even shipyards do not build a navy. In the American system of government, if you want a navy you have to go up to Capitol Hill and get Congress to fund it. Without money, everything else is just a PDF. What is the state of play in bringing the argument for sea power to Congress? Returning to the Midrats Podcast just in time for the Senate’s August recess will be Brent Sadler, CAPT, USN (Ret.). You can join us LIVE today from 5-6 PM Eastern at this link. If you can’t make the live show, check the Substack later Sunday for all the podcast links and make us part of your commute listen. Brent i…

A patch of forest and lakeshore in northern Michigan has become one of the most important pieces of real estate in the U.S. military’s race to catch up with China on drone warfare. Camp Grayling and the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, a sprawling military training complex in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, has been selected by […]View the full article

An Israeli drone maker best known for building some of the quietest tactical aircraft in the sky is now pouring fresh money into scaling up how many of them it can actually build, ramping up serial production at home while pushing into new markets across Europe and Asia, Israel Defense reported in an article by […]View the full article

A Florida company that started out printing furniture with giant robotic arms is now applying that same technology to something considerably more consequential, building drone boats for the U.S. military layer by layer instead of piece by piece. Haddy, a digital manufacturing company based in St. Petersburg, Florida, announced on Saturday that it has produced […]View the full article

A small Indian defense company has built a weapon that looks like it walked straight off a battlefield in Ukraine, a portable, gun-shaped launcher that fires its own miniature drone to physically hunt down and destroy enemy aircraft in midair. Picraft Technology Pvt. Ltd., a private Indian defense technology company, developed the system, called Harpy […]View the full article

A soldier in the California desert flips a switch, and a small drone lifts off the ground carrying the ability to see through darkness and, if commanders choose, to strike a target without ever putting a human pilot in harm’s way. That was the scene at Fort Irwin, California this summer, where soldiers from the […]View the full article

A Russian tank that Ukrainian and Western observers had already written off as another failed experiment in anti-drone armor may actually have done exactly what it was built to do, just not enough of it. New battlefield testimony from a combat drone specialist who spoke directly with the Ukrainian unit involved in the fight suggests […]View the full article

A Russian air defense battery that had been launching missiles at Ukrainian cities for days finally went up in flames, and Ukraine’s drone operators are taking credit for putting it there. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, a dedicated branch of the country’s military built specifically around drone warfare, struck a Russian S-400 Triumf air defense position […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s most futuristic research arm has put out a call for a missile that can outrun and outsmart the very air defenses that increasingly threaten American pilots and ships. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon office famous for turning science fiction concepts like stealth aircraft and self-driving cars into real military hardware, […]View the full article

Getting a fighter jet part built faster in America might soon depend on cutting through a mountain of paperwork that has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with accounting. The Department of War wants the companies that build its weapons to tell it exactly which forms and financial audits are slowing them […]View the full article

A missile that first destroyed tanks in the jungles of Vietnam more than five decades ago just landed another half-billion-dollar contract, and the Army plans to keep firing it well past the year 2050. The U.S. Army awarded Raytheon, the missile-making arm of aerospace giant RTX based in Tucson, Arizona, a $536 million modification to […]View the full article

A British engineering company that spent decades building Formula 1 race cars has announced it will start delivering a weapon that flies faster than 460 mph, carries a 300-kilogram (661-pound) payload, and never comes back from its mission. MGI Engineering, a defense firm based in Witney, Oxfordshire, announced that its TigerShark autonomous strike drone is […]View the full article

Out of 61 Russian cruise missiles fired at Ukraine in a single wave, Ukrainian air defenses shot down 54, and F-16 fighter jets alone accounted for 38 of those kills, Militarnyi reported, citing a statement from Yevhenii Karzhau, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Air Force. The figures place the American-made jets at the center of one […]View the full article

One of my evergreen arguments is over the use of, “kids” to describe those who serve. I’m sorry, 18, 19, and even 25-year-old men and women are just that, men and women. We all put our lives in their hands every day, I find the paternalistic “kid” a bit insulting and can cause some to expect less of them. Perhaps it is just me being pedantic, it probably is. “Kids” is better than “boy” and “girl,” I suspect—but maybe it isn’t just me, maybe it is just “us.” We don’t expect much from our young men and women as a society compared to what was expected just a few generations ago. Adult college graduates—especially the young men—still living at home. They have the car, clothe…