HG S2 (Intel Bot)

The Pentagon has told American metal suppliers it wants to know exactly how much titanium and magnesium the country would need to keep building fighter jets and military hardware if a real war cut off the foreign supply chains both materials currently depend on. The Defense Logistics Agency, the Department of War’s supply and logistics […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has asked American rocket companies for their best ideas on an engine that could let a single missile take off like a rocket, cruise like a jet, and skip the giant fuel tanks that usually make that kind of flexibility impossible. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket and Space Propulsion Division, […]View the full article

A satellite passing over southern Russia captured the aftermath Tuesday evening, and the image leaves little room for doubt: the Russian border guard ship Izumrud sits partially submerged against its pier, the surrounding dock scorched black from fire, exactly as Ukraine’s navy said it would be after announcing the ship’s destruction earlier the same day. […]View the full article

Ghostworks, a boutique shipyard based in Holland, Michigan, introduced MRLN, the Multirole Remote Logistics Node, on July 14 at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, an event hosted by U.S. Senator Dave McCormick at the Army War College in Carlisle. MRLN is not a boat itself but a remote-piloting and autonomy system that installs onto […]View the full article

The British military’s newest helicopter fleet finally has an engine, closing a question that even reporters covering the program in real time couldn’t get UK officials to answer for months. GE Aerospace announced July 14 that Leonardo selected its CT7-2E1 engine to power all 23 AW149 helicopters being built for the UK Ministry of Defence’s […]View the full article

You have to give the People’s Republic of China (PRC) credit for consistency. They like islands. On Sunday’s Midrats Podcast, we touched on this rather brazen act that would be laughable if not serious. The Batanes Islands, which are covered by the so-called maritime delimitation talks between Japan and the Philippines, are legally China's sovereign territory and form a natural geographic extension of China's Taiwan island. China should take corresponding actions to assert its sovereignty over the Batanes, the Global Times learned from Chinese experts and scholars at a symposium. The academic symposium on the sovereignty issue of the Batanes Islands was convened at Jinan University in South China's Guangdong Province, drawing dozens of experts and scholars in maritime affairs from leading Chinese universities and research institutions. Yes, yes, I know…that is from Global Times, but it is helpful to hear from the PRC’s angle. International law scholars systematically argued, from the standpoint of treaty law, that the Batanes Islands do not form part of Philippine territory. Ju Hailong, dean of the School of International Studies at Jinan University, argued that the Batanes Islands fall entirely outside Philippine territorial demarcations laid down by the Treaty of Paris signed in 1898 by the US and Spain. The Treaty of Manila of 1946 confined post-independence Philippine territory to areas south of 20 degrees north latitude, a boundary that excludes the Batanes Islands, which is situated wholly north of latitude 20 degrees. Participating experts also corroborated with factual evidence that the Batanes Islands constitute affiliated islets of China's Taiwan region. Wang Yuanyuan, a research fellow at the Center for South China Sea History and Culture, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, elaborated, "Anthropological evidence confirms that the roughly 10,000 Ivatan residents of the Batanes share cognate languages, analogous customs and identical underground dwellings with the Tao people of Orchid Island in the Taiwan region." Of course. Of course. To be fair, Taiwanese academics have made similar arguments, but if we are going to justify things back a few thousand years, the Italians would like to have a word. In summary, in modern era, they were claimed from obscurity the the Europeans, finalized by Spain. The U.S.A. then got it along with the rest of the Philippines after the Spanish American War, and then they simply went with the Philippines with independence. Why does China want it? Simple: look at the map at the top of the post. The islands stand athwart the Bashi Channel, one of the choke points that constrains the PRC from the open Pacific. That—and the usual PRC hyper-nationalism bordering on old-school imperialism. They live in a crowded neighborhood. What does the Philippines think of all this bluster? For his part, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. dismissed the claims of the Chinese academics as “baseless and ludicrous.” “In their closed society, their people believe these things. Their citizens have been brainwashed. So, this is a concerning situation, and it is something that must be opposed,” he said. “We should not allow this to go un-responded to. All academics in the world should douse cold water on this theory already. That is nonsense,” the Defense chief added. Teodoro said the claim on Batanes by the Chinese scholars validates his suspicion that China has plans to control the entire Pacific Ocean. “It signals a preconceived intention. It is also not far-fetched to think that this is part of their plan. And it validates what we have been saying—that they have a plan to control the entire Pacific Ocean,” he said. He said the false claims will only strengthen the united action against “China’s irresponsible behavior.” “And who will be to blame if anti-China sentiment develops? They will have only themselves to blame because of what they are doing…It’s no longer believable,” he added. For his part, National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) spokesperson Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela said the push back must be immediate. “Otherwise, if we do not debunk the lies they peddle over and over again, they are going to rewrite history once again,” he said. “For all we know, China might eventually claim the Pasig River,” Tarriela said. As expected, our friend Ray Powell is all over it. What can be done? China is a bully. What do bullies hate? When people call them on their BS. What do bullies fear? When the other kids on the playground team up and stand against them. From Japan down through Australia, the frontline nations in the western Pacific continue to grow closer and closer to each other and to the U.S. More. Better. Faster. The PRC won’t start a war over these islands, but like the Japanese, should one kick off, they are probably on the short list for the early grab. 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 consulting firm best known for advising Fortune 500 companies on corporate strategy just landed a nearly $20 million contract to fix one of the U.S. military’s most persistent headaches: getting American weapons into allied hands faster. The Boston Consulting Group received a $19.9 million contract from the Army to help redesign how the service […]View the full article

Ukraine’s navy sank a Russian border guard ship near Novorossiysk using an unmanned strike boat. The Ukrainian Navy said its sailors sank the Rubin-class patrol ship Izumrud (354), a Russian Federal Security Service border guard vessel, using the Sargan-3000, a domestically built unmanned surface strike platform that has entered service with Ukraine’s naval forces over […]View the full article

Two German defense companies just proved a submarine can fire a scout instead of a torpedo, completing sea trials of an uncrewed boat small enough to launch from a standard torpedo tube and surface on its own to spy on an enemy without ever putting the submarine itself at risk. GABLER, a German firm known […]View the full article

France will let Ukraine build its own French-designed cruise missiles, guided bombs, and air defense interceptors on Ukrainian soil, President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday, an offer Reuters reported came alongside confirmation that Ukraine will receive 16 Rafale fighter jets starting in 2028, the first specific delivery window French officials have ever attached to Kyiv’s long-standing […]View the full article

Sudan’s army destroyed two Chinese-made combat drones flown by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces within the same operation, one shot out of the sky with an air-to-air missile and a second wrecked on the ground, according to footage published July 13 by Clash Report, a Turkish-based news outlet that has covered Sudan’s drone war extensively. […]View the full article

It was only a matter of time…and what a way to do it. Iran: check Submarine: check Shipyard: check Daylight: check “Just another day in the office.” vibe: check I like the matter-of-fact verbiage from DVIDS: Using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran, July 12, 2026. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations. The strikes degraded Iran’s ability to continue attacking commercial shipping. As Mehdi pointed out, just drove right in like we owned the place. You can find it on google earth at N 27.140700, E 056.211584. If the Corsair sounds familiar, it is because we covered Saronic’s boat a month ago. She’s the one that picked up the Apache helo pilots who found themselves in the drink after being shot down—the accidental CSAR at sea. The Corsair is a multi-tool. It can pick up your airmen, and it can also take out your enemy's submarines and shipyard facilities. Just go watch that video again while humming the national anthem. You’ll feel better about everything, I promise. Now that you’re in a great mood, ponder the opportunities now that we’ve broken that attack USV (or surface RAS, whatever) seal. More, better, faster, forward deployed. Taiwan, call your office. If we and the Ukrainians can do it, so can other people. Arm your ships and shipyards accordingly. Ponder how you blind it (other nations’ version of the Corsair), and make it deaf and mute while you are at it…because it is coming our way. Expect a lot more. The US Navy has been building a family of USVs and recently replaced its Modular Surface Attack Craft (MASC) program for the medium unmanned surface vessel (MUSV) marketplace. The requirements for the designs include that the unmanned vessels have a range of 2,500 nautical miles with a speed of 25 knots in rough sea conditions. Each vessel should be able to carry 25 metric tons of containerized payload to carry out a variety of missions including strike, ISR, and transport. According to the US Navy, “the MUSV marketplace creates new opportunities for smaller, non-traditional shipyards to build our future fleet. This initiative represents a strategic shift in naval acquisition, designed to rapidly field unmanned technologies by leveraging mature, existing commercial solutions.” The US Navy recently announced seven companies that will be advancing to the at-sea testing phase: Sea Machines, Leidos, Saronic, Galliano Marine Services, PacMar Technologies, Birdon, and Huntington Ingalls Industries. The companies that successfully complete the at-sea testing, which will be completed by this coming October, will receive $15 million for follow-on production. Pay attention. Sometimes, like Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy, naval weapons developments happen suddenly, then all at once. Big things are moving. Keep in front of it. 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

The U.S. military has now named the exact weapon it used to make history over the weekend, confirming that three Saronic-built Corsair unmanned boats carried out the first combat strike ever conducted by American sea drones, slamming into a submarine and ship maintenance facility at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base. U.S. Central Command detailed the […]View the full article

A single soldier could soon carry a weapon capable of dropping an air-bursting grenade precisely over an enemy hiding behind a wall, then swinging the same weapon skyward to knock a small attack drone out of the air, and American Rheinmetall Munitions just released a new video showing off the rifle it’s betting will do […]View the full article

Babcock International has finished building the last of 123 Jackal 3 high-mobility vehicles for the British Army, with the final vehicle, a six-wheeled Extenda variant, rolling off the production line at the company’s Devonport facility in Plymouth and now heading into testing before it joins the Army’s operational fleet. The Jackal has been a fixture […]View the full article