HG S2 (Intel Bot)

You go to war with the weapons your government gives you, not the weapons you wish you had. The key as a leader is how you employ what you have against the enemy. I give you the Imperial Austrian triple-decker wooden battleship, Kaiser. Yes the AUSTRIAN Navy, again. Why her for Fullbore? Well, the year was 1866 and this wooden warship held her own in the first major naval battle in Europe between ships of iron and steam and the Italian Navy at the Battle of Lissa during the Third Italian War of Independence. Sure, she was outdated and Fleet Admiral Wilhelm Freiherr von Tegetthoff was only 39, but the battle was a glorious effort for a navy that had only a little more than half a century left. Encountering the Italian fleet early on the morning of 19 July 1866, Tegetthoff sailed straight for the center of the Italian fleet, hoping to ram the ships to make up for his own fleet’s lack of firepower. The smoke from the Italian ships made visibility very poor, however, and the Austrians missed the Italian fleet completely. Swinging around, Tegetthoff again charged, this time setting two Italian armored ships on fire and damaging several more. After Tegetthoff’s flagship, the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, rammed and sank the armored Italian frigate Re d’Italia, the Italian fleet retreated the next day. Tegetthoff returned in triumph to his base at Pola (Pula). Nevertheless, his victory did not materially affect the outcome of the war, as Italy emerged victorious. ... Seeing things going badly, Persano found the courage to throw himself into battle, deciding to ram the unarmoured screw battleship Kaiser rather than one of the armoured ships engaged with the Italian 2nd Division much nearer him. However, Kaiser managed to dodge Affondatore. Taking heart from his admiral, the captain of Re di Portogallo decided to hurl his ship at Kaiser, maintaining a heavy fire with her rifled guns as he did so. At the last moment, von Petz turned the tables on her and turned into the ram, in effect conducting a counter ram. The impact tore off Kaiser’s stem and bowsprit, leaving her figurehead embedded in Re di Portogallo. The Italian used the opportunity to rake Kaiser with fire, putting her mainmast and smokestack into the sea. The smoke was so great that as they backed off for another ram they lost sight of each other and ended the duel. It’s all here. Using 2,000-year-old tactics to win. Making the best of the fleet you have. Aggressive action. Leaders who lead and win without waiting for specific direction to do so. More on the Kaiser, she survived the battle, here. 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

About half of Ukraine’s F-16 fighter jets have spent long stretches in Europe for repairs and maintenance, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, and some have taken so long to come back that Ukraine lost time when it needed them most to defend its skies. Zelensky made the comments in an interview with the Financial Times published […]View the full article

AM General is building a next-generation Humvee around a new 250-horsepower diesel engine, giving the four-decade-old military truck more power and better fuel economy. The Indiana-based company said on LinkedIn that the new vehicle uses a 6.5-liter engine with common rail direct injection, an electronically controlled fuel system that delivers more precise injection than older […]View the full article

Naval Group has started building the first of four new frigates for Sweden, cutting steel for the future HSwMS Luleå at its shipyard in Lorient, France, on Oct. 1, just one month after Stockholm signed the contract. The first ship is due for delivery in 2030, the French shipbuilder said. Sweden’s Defence Materiel Administration, known […]View the full article

Polish state-owned radar maker PIT-RADWAR has signed a contract to start rebuilding its plant in Czernica, near Wrocław, the first step in a nearly 90 million zloty (about $23 million) investment that the company links to Poland’s new counter-drone program. The first stage is worth nearly 21 million zlotys (about $5.5 million) before tax, and […]View the full article

BAE Systems will upgrade the GPS inside the U.S. Navy’s carrier landing system to the military’s encrypted, jam-resistant M-code signal under a $16 million contract from Collins Aerospace. The company will design and develop the M-code GPS solution for the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System, known as JPALS, BAE Systems said on Oct. 1. […]View the full article

Poland’s military and Border Guard are now using an artificial intelligence system to watch the country’s border with Belarus, pulling feeds from cameras, drones and other sensors into one picture and flagging activity that needs a human’s attention. Poland’s Operational Command said the system, called Inteligentna Granica, or Intelligent Border, is now working as part […]View the full article

British company SatVu has launched HotSat-3, a satellite that maps heat on the ground from orbit, giving it a second working spacecraft and the ability to photograph any spot on Earth in thermal infrared once every 24 hours, day or night. The satellite lifted off on Oct. 1 aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg […]View the full article

Russian forces shot down one of their own Mi-8 military helicopters over the Voronezh region on Oct. 1, killing all three crew members, after a ground-based air defense crew mistook it for an enemy drone. The helicopter came down in a field in the Anninsky district, about 80 km (50 miles) from the city of […]View the full article

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm that funds high-risk military technology, has hired Systems Planning and Analysis to help manage its biotechnology programs, and it wants artificial intelligence built into how that work is done. The Alexandria, Virginia-based company received a $10.9 million task order for operational and program support services, […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has awarded Oceaneering International a contract worth up to $154.1 million to keep its Dry Deck Shelters working, the hangar-like chambers that let U.S. Navy SEALs leave and return to a submarine while it stays submerged. Oceaneering’s Marine Services Division in Chesapeake, Virginia, received a $24.3 million cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-type contract on […]View the full article

The U.S. Air Force has awarded WindBorne Systems, a California startup that flies a fleet of self-steering weather balloons, a contract worth up to $48.7 million to supply atmospheric data for military weather forecasting and mission planning. The contract, awarded on Sept. 29, covers continuous, global and targeted vertical profiles of the atmosphere, from the […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Coast Guard used a water cannon on a Chinese fishing boat that refused to leave waters near Dongsha Island in the South China Sea, then warned its crew they would be arrested and their boat seized before finally towing it out of the area. The Coast Guard Administration said its Dongsha-Nansha Branch spotted an […]View the full article

The U.S. military will deploy its NMESIS anti-ship missile launcher to Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island and about 107 km (66 miles) from Taiwan, during a major U.S.-Japanese exercise this month, Japan’s Kyodo News reported on Oct. 2, citing the Yonaguni town government. The launcher will take part in Keen Sword, a large joint exercise […]View the full article

Taiwan’s Air Force has received the first two of 66 new F-16V Block 70 fighter jets bought from the United States, after the aircraft landed at Chihhang Air Base in the eastern county of Taitung around noon on Oct. 2. The arrival comes about a month later than expected and roughly three years behind the […]View the full article

South Korea put its Cheongwang laser weapons on public display for its 78th Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1, showing two new prototypes for the first time, but a live demonstration of the system already in service ran into trouble before the laser burned two target drones out of the sky. The new hardware included […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has set up permanent test lanes for counter-drone weapons at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where it spent most of September putting systems from multiple companies through scenarios modeled on drone incursions along the U.S. southern border. The work was part of Falcon Peak 26.2, an operational experiment run by Joint Interagency […]View the full article

Forterra says well over a thousand missions in Ukraine have shaped how it builds autonomous ground vehicles, from coping with jamming and mud to keeping them running under constant threat from Russian drones. The company develops autonomy systems for military vehicles. Its Lancer is a Polaris Ranger 1500 utility vehicle fitted with Forterra’s AutoDrive self-driving […]View the full article

Ukraine has used its homegrown FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 1, adding that the next step is production. “Ukrainian tactical ballistics. FP-7. First combat use. Thank you for the result. Next, production. Glory to Ukraine!” Zelenskyy said. He did not say when or where […]View the full article

U.S.-based defense technology firm CX2 has released a new version of Vadris, a small radio sensor that rides on an FPV drone and steers it toward the source of an enemy drone’s control signal, now able to pick up several of the most common drone control systems instead of just one. CX2 announced Vadris SDR […]View the full article

As I like to say, words mean things. I was looking for a quick summary of the significance of the Battle of Agincourt and why it might have been chosen as the name for the effort to, in a year’s time, set up a new 4-star functional combatant command, the Autonomous Warfare Command. In a discussion of Jodi Taylor’s fictional novel A Second Chance, Hazel Cushion over at Welcome to Jodi Taylor Books made a solid summary. The Battle of Agincourt …. demonstrated that a well-disciplined force, equipped with innovative tactics and superior weaponry, could overcome numerical superiority on the battlefield. Moreover, Agincourt shattered the myth of invincibility surrounding the French knights, paving the way for future military innovations and strategic thinking. That captures what everyone is trying to do. How do we need to look at Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) as a key to battlefield success for our nation as we approach 2030? How do we reshape our large and unwieldy defense sector to rise to the occasion? With the 5th anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 six months away—and with things having finally evolved to demonstrate the central role RAS will have in future wars at sea and ashore—we have finally decided that our leisurely pace, bureaucratic sloth, and general appreciating-the-situationness were not sufficient for the needs of the moment. We need to move faster with more. Inside our system, besides requirements and needs (not always the same), how do we do that? You need three things: Sponsorship Money Advocacy I don’t think anyone has been satisfied with where we are at the opening of 1QFY27. That appears to be the driving force behind it. The existing structures are not getting the job done, so time to change the structure. Yesterday, among a half-dozen areas covered in his State of the Force speech (the other five I may cover next week in whole or in part), Secretary of War Hegseth brought up a solution his team has come up with to get things up on step. I’ll put the video of the speech at the bottom of this post. The process is Operation Agincourt. The endgame is a 4-star Autonomous Warfare Command to be stood up a year from now, October 1st, 2027. The full memo is below, I cover a few items that stuck out to me after the memo. We have got to find something better, name-wise, than that acronym that…well…how do you pronounce that, “Der-PUM-ux-es”? At first glance, you have to wonder: is that one of Elon Musk’s kids? This clearly states that while it will be a combatant command, it will be a supporting command, and the existing COCOMs will be the supported. This is an aggressive but necessary and doable timeline. “…rebalanced Joint Force investment allocation…”, money, people, and authorities are going to be moved around. Lots of cheese to move. This is where the fighting will be. I hope that this restructuring, from a personnel point of view, will be created out of existing funded billets from other commands, i.e. no increase in staff bloat. Congress will have to put in necessary legislation. We’ll see what happens after the election. The next year will require a lot of work, done quickly, with a new Congress, and a ticking clock. For those in the right place at the right time, what a great opportunity. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Leave a comment Share View the full article

Ukrainian defense company DevDroid put two of its armed ground robots through their paces with the Italian Army during AEGIS 26, a major exercise watched by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, operating them alongside an Italian robot and infantry in a simulated assault and linking them to a NATO battlefield information system. AEGIS 26 was held […]View the full article

Latvia has signed a contract to buy Czech-made Morana 155 mm wheeled howitzers and rocket artillery systems for its armed forces, in a three-way deal with the Slovak government and Czech manufacturer Tatra Defence Systems, the Latvian Defense Ministry said. The ministry, the Slovak government and Tatra Defence Systems signed the contract on Sept. 30. […]View the full article

Turkish defense manufacturer Otokar has signed a $1.47 billion contract to export wheeled armored vehicles and logistics support to a customer it has not named, though the deal will not take effect until government approvals are in place and the buyer pays an advance. The contract, worth exactly $1,472,080,360, covers the supply of several types […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s research agency DARPA is asking industry how to build a new hypersonic cruise missile that would fly much farther, faster or higher than current designs and could still be produced cheaply in large numbers. DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office posted a request for information for the Next Generation Hypersonic Cruise Missile on Sept. 30 […]View the full article