HG S2 (Intel Bot)

The U.S. Navy has awarded Zone 5 Technologies a $65 million contract to build a maritime strike variant of its AGM-188 Rusty Dagger cruise missile under a new program aimed at fielding low-cost precision weapons for the U.S. and its allies. The award is an Other Transaction Agreement, a contracting mechanism the Pentagon uses to […]View the full article

Kongsberg has signed a contract worth NOK 1.1 billion, about $118.4 million, to supply additional PROTECTOR RS4 Remote Weapon Systems to General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada for the Canadian Army’s Armoured Combat Support Vehicle program. The Norwegian defense company said the deal is a follow-on order building on previous RS4 deliveries for the same program. Kongsberg […]View the full article

Supacat has opened a new production facility at its headquarters in Devon, England, naming the building after company co-founder Nick Jones. The British vehicle manufacturer said Maj. Gen. Chris King cut the ribbon at the opening, which the company described as marking the launch of a facility expansion. Supacat did not disclose the size of […]View the full article

The U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory has completed technical acceptance of the first Ancillary Surface Craft prototype, moving the roughly 150-foot vessel into a new phase of testing at Quantico, Virginia, the laboratory said in a release. The ASC is a roll-on/roll-off landing craft designed to carry personnel, equipment, and fuel directly onto unimproved shorelines, […]View the full article

The U.S. Marine Corps has awarded Accrete a contract to deliver an artificial intelligence platform designed to track and analyze narratives across social media, broadcast outlets, and messaging platforms in near real time. The contract covers Argus for Cognitive Advantage, a system built on Accrete’s Knowledge Engine platform. Accrete describes Knowledge Engines as tools that […]View the full article

Houthi media released footage this week showing a Rajum quadcopter dropping a munition onto a Royal Saudi Land Forces M1A2S Abrams main battle tank at a forward position in Marib, Yemen, followed by an explosion and a fire that engulfed the vehicle. The video has not been independently verified, and neither the Saudi-led coalition nor […]View the full article

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the Main Directorate of Intelligence, known as HUR, said Friday that Russia has built a secret military complex of biological laboratories on an island in the Tver region, where it experiments with dangerous viruses and other pathogens on behalf of the armed forces. HUR identified the facility as the “Center for […]View the full article

No more complaining about a long Sea & Anchor detail. What a great story about a frigate ... and three hurricanes. Read the full thing, but here is how it starts; THE 24-gun frigate H.M.S. Experiment was built in 1740 by Henry Bird of Rotherhithe. She sailed on her maiden voyage on 21 July 1740 from Spithead to join Vice-Admiral Vernon’s squadron in the West Indies. Her captain was James Rentone, who had piloted Vernon’s squadron into Portobello Harbour and had been given the honour of bearing the news of Vernon’s victory to the king. George II had rewarded him with a present of 200 guineas and the promise of a 6o-gun ship. Under his command H.M.S. Experiment had nearly completed her passage to the West Indies when she received her first taste of what a hurricane could do. By her reckoning she was in latitude 16° 34’ N, longitude 43° 04’, west of Madeira. Her log reads: Saturday 30 August 1740 The first part fresh gales and squally, the latter a very hard Gale of wind at NNE and NE with a great swell from the ESE. At 6 p.m. took all the reefs in the topsails, furld the foretopsail, bunted the courses, brought too under main topsail and got down the topgallant yards: at 1 a.m. handed maintops’!, lower’d the main and foreyards and reef’d the courses: at daybreak the gale continued increasing and, having no hopes of its breaking, about r o a.m. cut away the topmasts to save the lower masts: soon after the mizon mast went away at the lower part of the hounds: the sea made a breach over the ship and we kept one pump constantly going, the wynch of the other being broke render’d it useless: lost one of the swivell guns over board by the fall of the foretop mast and had one of the lower studding sail booms wash’d away and severall other things of the deck harness, barr’l with beef 45 pd. and sev’l casks. Sunday 31 August 1740 The first part a violent storm of wind from NE to East with a very great sea making a breach over us, the latter part the gale somewhat abated: at 4 a.m. the foresail being split in pieces cut him away from the yard and lost most part of the canvas: at 8 a.m. bent a new foresail and set the reef’ d courses. On that afternoon her company raised a jury maintopmast and let the reefs out of the courses. On the next day they got up a fire-boom for a foretopmast and a maintopgallant yard for a topsail yard. At daybreak on 3 September they sighted Antigua and sailed into English Harbour. There Captain Rentone delivered the Duke of Newcastle’s letters to General Mathews and wrote to the Admiralty a description of the hurricane which adds a little to the log-book entry. I made a great deal of water, my comings being very low and the tarpaulings, tho’ double battened, being insufficient to keep it from getting down in a very great quantity for 14 hours which the gale continued without the least intermission and one of my pumps disabled by the wynch breaking so that I had but one to depend on and that almost constantly going and if the gale had continued many hours longer, the least increase of water would have made it very difficult to save the ship. Hat tip Society for Nautical Research.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

Saab has released the first public look at its concept for a Collaborative Combat Aircraft, an unmanned fighter designed to fly alongside crewed jets. The video shows an aircraft marked A3-01, featuring a delta-wing design, a single jet engine, and two intakes positioned on either side of the fuselage. The airframe shows visible attention to […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy is asking industry for ideas on a replacement for the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile, the ship-defense weapon used by a dozen NATO navies to shoot down anti-ship missiles and aircraft. The Naval Sea Systems Command posted a sources sought notice on Aug. 20 seeking companies capable of designing, building, and supporting what the […]View the full article

POLARIS Spaceplanes has flown its COBRA prototype for the first time, covering more than 20 km in what the German company described as a smooth flight. The German aerospace firm announced the milestone in a social media post, saying additional test flights are planned in the coming months and that video footage would follow in […]View the full article

Ukraine’s Defense Forces have added the Alexa Spatium, a jet-powered drone built to intercept small aerial, ground, and surface targets, to their arsenal, according to a Ukrainian defense outlet on Aug. 21. The turbojet-powered aircraft was developed by Ukrainian engineers specifically to counter fast, low-flying threats in combat conditions. Its primary targets are Russia’s Shahed-type […]View the full article

General Atomics has won a $42.9 million U.S. Navy order for spare parts supporting the electromagnetic catapults and arresting gear on the service’s in-service Ford-class carriers. The order, designated N0001926F1037, was issued against an existing basic ordering agreement, N0001926G1008. It covers insurance spares and rotable pool spares for the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as […]View the full article

A second Boeing KC-46 “Gideon” aerial refueling aircraft landed at Nevatim Airbase and joined the Israeli Air Force’s 46 Squadron, the service said Friday. The aircraft is the second of six KC-46 tankers Israel’s Ministry of Defense has purchased through the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales process. It joins the “Gideon” Squadron, formally Squadron 46, which […]View the full article

General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Defense Research Institute Inc., of Anniston, Alabama, has been awarded a $41.57 million contract modification to build 559 warhead cases and 559 fuzewells for the U.S. Navy’s Tactical Tomahawk missile. The modification, designated P00016, adds the work to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract, N6893619C0039. It covers production and delivery […]View the full article