Crooked Bough News Round-up

— The US Army is back in the jungle. Panamanians are showing soldiers the way.

 

at 10/12/26 4:32pm

Gunshots erupted from solid ground towards a boat that ferried Panamanian soldier Albis Fajardo and his team during a counter-drug mission along the country’s Pacific coastline.The team attempted to return fire as they pulled back from a harrowing effort to target a cartel leader. Fajardo, then early into his military career, felt his adrenaline surge as he realized the team had been unsuccessful: A bullet had torn through the flesh of his friend.Over a decade later, with the early autumn sun sinking over Panamanian base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, the 47-year-old, now a first sergeant, recounted the ordeal. His friend survived, but the horror changed Fajardo’s life. The brush with death, he said, fueled him to learn as much as he could, militarily, and eventually led him to become an instructor at the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama.The class, offered for decades in the Central American nation before it was shuttered in 1999, has resumed in partnership between U.S. and Panamanian forces, with Panamanian service members teaching and attending the 18-day course. As Panama’s troops have trained, lived — and in some cases, fought — in such environments, they are largely seen by U.S. personnel as the ultimate masters of the terrain.Lt. Col. Andrew Eagen, who heads the U.S. Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, said that as U.S. forces developed the course, they became quickly attuned to the deft tactics their Panamanian counterparts had developed for survival. “They are the experts of this environment. We will never catch up,” he told Military Times in a mosquito-riddled interview at the jungle school. “This does not exist in the continental United States,” he said, gesturing to the lush canopy, which was twinkling with the day’s last glimmers of sun and abuzz with the evening hum of jungle creatures. “We do not have an exposure to it. They do, and they have incredible techniques and an incredible level of comfort that the average American [does not].”Fajardo is one of nine Panamanian instructors — from three branches of the country’s armed forces — who teach at the reestablished school. The instructors assist in some parts of the course, but lead in areas where students learn about jungle survival, Eagen said.In addition to the leading group, more than 10 Panamanian service members attended the course in which Military Times took part, according to Eagen.Throughout each exercise, Panamanian troops sat interspersed with U.S. personnel and were placed in squads with a Spanish-speaking U.S. participant for course assignments. Though the language barrier admittedly made some tactical movements difficult, U.S. personnel seemingly learned just from observing their Panamanian counterparts.During one practical exercise, one squad had to hide in the jungle, cover their tracks to erase any disturbance to the foliage, and position themselves so they would be alerted to any incoming intruders. The other squad’s job was to hunt down the hiding squad using tracking clues, the activity forming a tense game of tactical hide-and-seek.The hunters ultimately won, thanks to one Panamanian squadmate who spotted a tiny vine that appeared slightly too parallel to the ground. One rule of the jungle? Nothing is a straight line. The Panamanian student correctly identified the trailing plant, hovering inches above the muddy ground, as a hasty trip wire. Made using a vine and a piece of trash, it would have alerted the hiding squad to the hunters’ presence.When the two groups gathered to discuss the interaction, the lanewalker found that the Panamanian student in the other squad had set up the tripwire; a particularly impressive development, considering a tripwire class was scheduled for later in the day.During that class, an American instructor showed students how to create different forms of tripwires that could act as early warning systems. Some set off rattling cans. Others used fauna. Before letting students practice, the instructor shared stories from Panamanian cadres who once operated in the Darién Gap, a roadless land bridge of brutally dense, remote jungle that spans 60-plus miles between Panama and Colombia and has been notoriously rife with human and drug trafficking. Trip wires there are not historical relics of warfare from decades ago, the instructor said. Cartel members are using them now.Several instructors, including Fajardo, have attended Panama’s own jungle school, called Panajungla. Fajardo shook his head and shivered as he recounted the intense course in which participants were forced to survive on their own in the Teribe region of Panama’s Bocas del Toro province.Students of the Panamanian course must shop at the “supermarket de la selva” — the jungle supermarket — to eat, using machetes to prepare or kill any nourishment they can find, Fajardo said. Fajardo’s prized jungle delicacy is ñame, a tropical root vegetable similar to a yam. He also appreciates the taste of grubs, he said, which he likens to butter.Tucked neatly into each Panamanian instructor’s backpack, razor-sharp machetes sat nestled in intricately carved leather coverings. The U.S. Army teaches machete training in its jungle school, but some Panamanian instructors have attended a separate, more intensive course on using the long, daunting blade. It can clear brush, help prepare food, carve shelter and even help start a fire.To Fajardo, it is the single most important tool for survival in the jungle. And with a smile, he jokingly referred to the machete as “mi esposa,” or my wife, in English.To date, the U.S. Army is developing the course to dedicate at least 20 of its 120 spots to partner forces and at least 15 to Panamanians. Though no other countries have sent soldiers yet, Eagen is confident that the school is close to having Colombian students join. The U.S. has partnered with Colombia’s Lancero course, which is similar to Ranger School, and all three countries exchange information. Panama supports hosting Colombian forces, Eagen added, as “they have a direct relationship with the country. “They have a lot of shared bilat right there at the Darién,” Eagen said, “so both Panamanian leaders and Colombian leaders want them to be first.” Panama’s expertise in navigating such unforgiving terrain, meanwhile, has also prompted other countries, like Costa Rica and Brazil, to express interest in the course, Eagen said.Other jungle courses worldwide have so far informed the new U.S. Army jungle school’s curriculum, and Eagen said the Army is designing a scenario construct for the school using threat characteristics seen by Panamanian service members. And while Panamanian forces often confront small-team drug trafficking operations attempting to establish supply lines, Eagen was clear that the Army endeavored to replicate a potential combat environment, not the country’s security situation.“That is not the premise of us being in Panama,” he said. “We try to make sure there are clear boundaries of understanding for the students that this is about the skills required of the environment, not about the situation in Panama.” Though public sentiment between the countries has ebbed and flowed in the decades that followed Panama’s 1994 formal abolishment of its standing army — several years after a U.S. military invasion ousted military dictator Manuel Noriega — those tensions were absent from interactions Military Times observed among the service members during the course. Eagen said the U.S. is mindful of the pride Panamanians take in their nation’s sovereignty. The Army, he added, has been purposeful in approaching the course’s renewed partnership with an emphasis on learning from — rather than simply teaching — its Panamanian counterparts.

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— Catholics in US Army must not participate in firing squad, prominent archbishop says

 

at 10/12/26 2:48pm

Catholics serving in the U.S. Army should not participate in the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan that the Pentagon is planning to livestream in December, a prominent U.S. archbishop said on Monday.In an unusually strongly worded statement, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the spiritual care of Catholic members of the U.S. armed forces, raised a series of objections to the unprecedented plan to broadcast the execution of Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree.Broglio said he presided at the funeral of one of Hasan’s victims, and lamented the shooting. But the Ohio-born archbishop asked whether the U.S. wanted to “imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries.” “I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church,” Broglio said.U.S. Army regulations do allow for soldiers to request religious exemptions or accommodations, and the Army has yet to say how it intends to select members of the firing squad.Questions about the effect on young viewersU.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to livestream the shooting last week, triggering a backlash among Republicans in Congress, religious leaders and international observers. U.S. President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s execution by firing squad but has said he is still deciding whether to allow the livestreaming to proceed.The event would be extraordinary, even for a country that has long employed capital punishment. A government execution has never been broadcast or livestreamed, according to death penalty experts, and the U.S. military has not executed anyone by firing squad since 1945. Hasan, now 56, requires a wheelchair, having been shot by police during his arrest.Hegseth said last week he wants U.S. soldiers to execute Hasan at the time, day of the week and location of Hasan’s shooting spree. Hegseth has argued that making the event public will help serve as a deterrent.Broglio questioned whether the effect of a livestreamed execution on young viewers had been considered. He said the U.S. military had a good reputation and asked if there was “really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheelchair to the whole world.”Broglio’s statement was issued shortly after he met on Monday in Rome with Pope Leo, who has clashed with Trump and his Pentagon over issues including the Iran war. Leo on Saturday condemned the death penalty, without mentioning the Hasan case specifically.Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, has said that if it does ultimately get livestreamed, he would not watch it.

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— Twenty-Six Defense unveils new soldier-worn tech

 

at 10/12/26 1:59pm

The company that previously operated as Elbit Systems’ American subsidiary made its AUSA expo debut this week as Twenty-Six Defense. Under the new brand, the Texas-based defense firm debuted Primex, a lightweight wearable meant to provide soldiers with night-vision capabilities and augmented reality so they can “maintain awareness without distraction or cognitive overload.” For the design, Twenty-Six Defense said it engineered Primex for sustained operational use by equipping it with “the lightest head-borne load and near-neutral center of gravity.” The company explained Primex uses low-light sensors, thermal imagery, and real-time processing to produce an ultra-low-latency digital perception that enables operators to better interpret the surrounding area even amid challenging environmental conditions.What separates Primex from other advanced lightweight heads-up display units for operators, according to Twenty-Six Defense, is that its design was built on mature technologies that have already been fielded. The company said it already produces AN/PSQ-44 Enhanced Night Vision Goggles, which contain features that allow for rapid target acquisition and augment reality to enhance visual clarity. In August, Ernie Basic, Twenty-Six Defense’s senior director of research and development, explained how his company was developing equipment for the Soldier Borne Mission Command, a project to deliver augmented reality wearables to soldiers. He said the technology combines fighter-pilot displays with night-vision systems, so soldiers get “the full operational picture.”“You are not only seeing what is in front of you. You can leverage a feed coming from a drone or from other assets,” he said. “You can start seeing what is going on behind a house or another structure, cue a squad to a different location, and continuously update them.”In addition to Primex, Twenty-Six Defense showcased defensive weapons and equipment like the XM1168 mobile 120mm mortar system, Autonomous Relocatable Surveillance Tower and SkyStriker Block 4E.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

— US Army creates robotics technician job to focus on drone warfare

 

at 10/12/26 12:30pm

The U.S. Army kickstarted a military occupational specialty focusing on robotics and unmanned systems with an induction ceremony this month at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. During the ceremony, 10 warrant officers were formally introduced as 390A robotics technicians. They will now serve as subject-matter experts on all aspects of using robotic and autonomous systems, including programming, building and repairing them, plus integrating them into combat.The 390A inauguration is the result of a lengthy process that has been in the works since 2024, when U.S. Army Special Operations Command announced its aim to train experts in using autonomous systems.The Army deemed it necessary to introduce robotics as a separate specialization to avoid overburdening special warfare operators with having to master an additional, highly complex skill set, in addition to their existing knowledge.“What we’ve determined is it cannot be an additional task or an additional hat for someone on the ODA,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jerry Brown, command chief warrant officer for 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), said in a release, adding that the new specialists will be able to leverage their specific field of knowledge within robotics to help the force as a whole.The new 390A technicians will be assigned to tactical formations at the brigade and group level. As experts in autonomous warfare, they will advise commanders on how best to deploy autonomous systems during operations. They will also be required to think quickly in the field to instantly propose solutions to any problems that may arise with robotics in the field, and to use their expertise to come up with innovative ways of using drones to reach objectives. To prepare them for this role, 390A candidates are required to complete a 19-week course, where they must build drones from scratch that do not require GPS or radio frequencies to navigate.The Army stated in a release that robotic systems assembled during the course will rely primarily on artificial intelligence and machine learning to navigate to targets. Fiber optic cables also provide a way for drones to reach targets while being invulnerable to external signal interference, such as jamming. Known as “tethered drones,” cable-linked unmanned aircraft systems can use artificial intelligence for targeting and navigation while having a direct physical connection to their operator. At the time of publication, the Army had not responded to questions about whether 390A candidates would be learning to build and field tethered drones.“The Army is implementing changes in force structures, adding a multi-domain task force equipped with autonomous long-range fires,” Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, said in a statement. “These technical experts will help command teams understand integration across the force. We are scaling this across the Army.”

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— Lockheed’s New PAC-3 Edge interceptor aims for agility

 

at 10/12/26 12:11pm

The latest iteration of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 family of missile interceptors is designed to bring extreme agility to bear against a diverse array of missile threats, Defense News learned. The defense giant unveiled the PAC-3 Edge this Friday and debuted it at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., today.“This missile is capable of being launched from the traditional M903 launcher. It’s capable of being launched from the containerized launchers that are being sought after domestically and internationally, as well as our HIMARS FLEX, which is the offense and defense configuration of our traditional HIMARS vehicle,” Jason Reynolds, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Integrated Air and Missile Defense, told Defense News. Lockheed in January announced a seven-year framework agreement to increase annual PAC-3 interceptor production from approximately 600 to 2,000.Designed to defend against hypersonic and advanced missile threats, the unveiling of the PAC-3 Edge comes as the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptors against cheap munitions, particularly those deployed by Iran during Operation Epic Fury, has come under increased scrutiny over the past eight months.The new PAC-3 Edge missile builds on the foundations of the PAC-3 MSE, Lockheed’s baseline missile, and pushes its abilities farther. The Edge system is longer and features a larger diameter, increasing its range. “It also goes higher in altitude and has more agility. It has attitude control motors, which are located near the front of the missile and basically divert the missile in flight,” Reynolds explained. “This has additional attitude control motors that give it additional agility.”While the PAC-3 MSE uses a two-pulse solid rocket motor to speedily approach moving targets, the new system has multi-pulse motor designed by Northrop Grumman. “It has a third pulse to the motor, so that means the motor will fire three times during its flight, giving it additional agility to kill the target,” Reynolds said. The weapon is designed not only for unprecedented maneuverability but to be easily integrated with both present and future missile defense networks. It is compatible with Northrop’s Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, a command-and-control network the Army uses to mesh air and missile defense sensors into a central hub. The company intends to begin testing the PAC-3 Edge in 2027 and have it ready to deploy by 2031, although Lockheed aims to have it ready earlier, Reynolds added. “The U.S. Army’s timeline is 2031. We, Lockheed Martin, are trying to pull that in and deliver this capability sooner, so around the turn of the decade,” he said.

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— 3 US soldiers awarded Purple Hearts after March missile attack on Saudi Arabia base

 

at 10/12/26 11:32am

Three U.S. soldiers were awarded Purple Hearts for their efforts assisting fellow service members despite their own injuries after a missile attack hit their air base during Operation Epic Fury.On March 27, when a missile hit Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Spc. Nicholas Cabo and Sgt. Xavier Jones, all with the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division Artillery, sprang into action.A 550-pound ballistic missile exploded yards from a bunker on base, filling it with dust and debris.“We’re sitting there talking, and then all of a sudden, we didn’t hear anything, no sound at all. Everything went black, so we were hit,” Mitchell said in a recent release.While expecting just another missile warning, the soldiers were thrown from their position and slammed against the opposing interior wall, forcing all three to lose consciousness. They had their initial medical evaluation later that day at the Role 2 Medical Facility on base.“Woke up, checked on them. They were good. At that time, we heard screams from the opposite side of the bunker. Two Soldiers, I’m not too sure who they were, who had significant injuries; ran over there, applied tourniquets, T Triple C (Tactical Combat Casualty Care), everything,” Mitchell recounted.Mitchell, Cabo and Jones applied a tourniquet to a severely wounded soldier, treated another with a neck injury and helped keep a disoriented soldier safe until it was safe to evacuate the bunker, per the release.Despite their own injuries, the trio continued to assist others, carrying others out to an ambulance and helping a soldier whose leg was severely damaged, speculating that the soldier could have lost their life if not for the group.Capt. Tyler Ritter, commander of 6-56 ADAR, 1st Cav. DIVARTY, received messages from the injured soldier saying, “Sir, your Soldiers saved my life. I thank God every day that these gentlemen survived. Their actions brought great credit upon the 6-56 Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division and III Armored Corps. These Soldiers are my heroes. May God bless them.”Mitchell, Cabo and Jones’ service, described as the “ultimate description of what we mean when we talk about warfighting, readiness, grit and taking care of our Soldiers,” earned them each a Purple Heart during an Oct. 1 ceremony at the III Armored Corps headquarters building at Fort Hood, Texas.“So honestly, it’s kind of cool,” Jones said in the release. “I don’t think any of us was like going for a Purple Heart because it actually sucked. Like that situation was horrible … When I saw it on my STP (Soldier Talent Profile), I was like, man, I never would have thought I would have got a Purple Heart. I never thought I was going to see anything like we saw.”

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— ‘Noticeable shift in warfare’: US Army under secretary on the lessons of modern combat

 

at 10/12/26 11:00am

The U.S. Army is entering unprecedented territory. Demand for exquisite munitions has skyrocketed as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine — and an ever-tense Indo-Pacific — continue to redefine stockpile demand. So, too, has there developed an insatiable market for cheap systems and interceptors capable of balancing scales that, in regions like the Middle East, have been encumbered by cost-per-kill ratios as lopsided as 114-1 — in the case of a PAC-3 interceptor versus a Shahed-136 drone. If that weren’t enough to consider, there’s the lightning-quick speed of AI integration and unmanned systems into formations, and the reality of having to rethink a simple concept — hiding — that was seldom given a second thought due to the total air superiority of the Global War on Terror. Such frenzied developments, meanwhile, come against a backdrop of new Pentagon policy that aims to eliminate the antiquated red tape of the acquisition process and speed development to the battlefield. A daunting cluster of problems to solve, no doubt. But if encountering such a catalog of to-dos is stress-inducing, one would not know it when speaking to U.S. Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal, who finds himself at the center of many of these discussions. From his office and out on the trail, Obadal oversees the service’s business operations, acquisition strategy, and manpower and personnel systems, among myriad other duties. Obadal assumed the position after a stint in the private sector, which followed a military career that included time as a Special Operations officer, the status of Master Army Aviator and qualifications in nine different aircraft. Obadal spoke to Military Times about how he and the Army are approaching these seismic shifts in warfighting philosophy, and how this year’s AUSA exposition reflects the blistering pace of innovation that catalyzes them.There are many examples of individuals without military experience working in consequential positions within the Pentagon. You are not one. How has your military experience shaped how you approach this role?What I try very hard to do is not let my experience drive the way I do things. I want it to inform the way I do things, whether that’s my experience working with the interagency and seeing how other executive branch agencies operate, my experience in the conventional military or in other parts of the military, doing joint work, working with partners and allies or going out into corporate America. I don’t want any one of those things to be the driver of how I make decisions and conduct myself in the business of the Army, but I do want all of it to come together and inform it. So, it’s certainly very helpful for me when I talk to soldiers or when I look at programs or weapon systems. The biggest thing it helps me with is understanding that there’s no single weapon system that operates by itself anywhere. They are all part of a joint force, and within that, you have a maneuver Army that is reliant — tanks are reliant on infantry, infantry is reliant on fires, all of it is reliant on aviation, medical and logistics. All those components work together as a chain, and you have to make sure every link in the chain is as strong as possible. That’s one of the biggest things that I take away from being in the military: an understanding that all of these things have to work in synergy, and there are no easy solutions.We continue to watch the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran unfold. What do you expect to see at an event like AUSA that reflects what America has learned from them?If you walk around the hall at AUSA, it’ll give you a good indication of the Army’s priorities. Our priorities are reflected in what we’re procuring. Going back several years, when we were in the Middle East and we first saw adversary drones — counter-drone systems became a really important topic. It kind of started in the special operations and then expanded into the larger Army. Ukraine has not just reinforced that counter-UAS is a critical part of operations today; it’s cemented it. So, if you walk around AUSA, you’re going to see an immense number of not only drones but also counter-UAS. That’s a reflection of the procurement and the budget, not just in the Army but in the Pentagon. That’s number one. Number two is software. Being able to see, sense and integrate to understand what your positional advantage is, and understand the adversary and their vulnerabilities. That’s just military operations, but today it’s looking at how we apply the best sensors and best software to bring all of that together to give decision advantage to our commanders. The third one is fires, and when you look at current conflicts, the importance of long-range precision fires is highlighted. So, what you’ll also see at the conference is a reflection of our investment portfolio in our magazine depth, but also the variety of munitions. Expanding out the optionality that commanders have beyond just one or two exquisite munitions, with everything from longer-range artillery, one-way attack and loitering munitions, up into our higher-end missiles. All of those represent our fires portfolio, but that’s just for offensive operations. When we get into the defensive side, we’ll be seeing everything from ballistic missiles down to Group One drones. If you look at those three areas — drones and counter-UAS; software and sensors; and the fires portfolio — and were to roll back the clock to AUSA 10 years ago, the difference is remarkable. At that time, the focus was very vehicle-centric, armor-centric, pieces of kit for individual soldiers. All of those things are important and are continuing to advance, but these newer investment areas represent a noticeable shift in warfare.These conflicts are obviously influencing the speed of acquisition. But that process includes an emphasis on both cost-friendly and exquisite munition stockpiles. What is the best balance to ensure success?The conflicts are definitely influencing and accelerating the way the Army — and certainly the broader Department — are innovating, prototyping, procuring and then fielding different capabilities. If you were to roll back a decade or even less, you would see very traditional models that go from experimentation into writing an initial requirement document, then into prototyping, then selection, then low-rate production and then finally into fielding and high-rate production. That’s years long. That process is very deliberate, and it built our military to where it is today, which is still the most dominant, but with a number of vulnerabilities because of technical innovation in the commercial market that adversaries are able to take advantage of. So, where can we compress this cycle and get it more into a process where we ask the commercial industry to experiment on their dime? A lot of this has to do with private capital being interested in the defense market. They’re making a bet that they can get through some of the experimentation, and then we can follow on with prototyping and quickly get into low-rate and high-rate production before fielding.Fielding then allows us to get immediate feedback that goes back into industry. That is essentially what had to happen in Ukraine because it’s existential to them. So, when we say wartime footing, Ukraine is on the ultimate wartime footing, and there are lessons to draw from there. What are the unnecessary steps in the acquisition process? Where can you smartly accept risk? Probably one of the biggest drivers of speeding things up is acknowledging that we’re willing to accept risk. We know that if we get a tighter innovation cycle, we’re accepting more risk on the battlefield, but we’re also driving down risk on the battlefield because we’re getting it to them much sooner. So, then we get into how that translates to fires. Exquisite versus low cost. It’s a balance, or a high-low mix, essentially, where we have to have both offensive and defensive exquisite weapons. We have to have certain stockpiles to be able to counter the exquisite weapons of our adversaries and have our own effects. Then you get into mass, which comes when we start going beyond the first few days of a conflict, and we’re in protraction. We have to have affordable mass. The cost curve needs to come back in our favor.While balancing the above, how much of a difference has the surge in domestic manufacturing made in having these pre-positioned elements assisting efforts? A massive difference. The Infantry Squad Vehicle is a perfect example. That’s a Chevy Colorado chassis; the drivetrain and suspension are a little different, but it’s nothing unusual. Essentially, it then goes to a detailer that puts the military-specific equipment on top of it. It’s everything that we need it to be. As with anything, it has its vulnerabilities. We’re sacrificing heavy armor and survivability, which we needed throughout the GWOT years, for mobility, transportability and ease of repair.But using this model also allows us to sustain it far more easily because so many of the components are commercial. It especially matters when you get into keeping the ISV — or domestically made equipment — in the decades ahead and needing improvements over the years. With the ISV, as Chevy makes improvements to its chassis and drivetrain, that immediately feeds back into the production line of ISVs. So, we’re now getting upgrades that are just byproducts of the commercial market.With acquisition, there’s a major emphasis on AI. What are you discussing with tech companies to ensure the human-in-the-loop element equates to maintaining final say despite the speed of the tech?Every company that deals with this emerging technology and the military is of the same mindset, which is that the human-in-the-loop factor has to be the default. There are workflows and cycles that human commanders can say, “I need this to run in the background, and I don’t need to see it or be on it.” But when it comes to kinetic kill chains and making decisions on the battlefield, the workflows that enable commanders have to have very hard stops. It’s not just a commander saying yes or no. It’s far more complicated and nuanced. It’s presenting options based on a tremendous amount of computing analysis and saying, “Here are all the courses of action based on the priorities that you gave, based on the environmental factors that the agents have been able to ingest and all of the long-term planning that goes into it. That allows the commanders to then take highly complex tasks like mission planning and distill it down into areas where they can consume it more easily, and then apply what only humans can do, which is context and reason. That context and reason part is what the tech companies that work with us are very focused on enabling, as opposed to taking over entire workflows. Autonomy is important, really, in three areas when it comes to warfighting.Think about combat breaching. That’s one of the most dangerous things we ask a human to do: to breach a linear minefield or barrier. If we can automate that, that removes something inherently dangerous. The second is highly complex, like command and control. How do you distill what would take human staff officers hours or days into seconds, and give a commander not only several options, but the analysis behind it and the confidence in the product being presented? The third is the ability to remove repetitive and mundane things human soldiers are doing. Resupplying via trucks, for instance. If we can automate that, we are removing that task from our logistics soldiers and allowing them to apply their talents to solving real problems with a clear vision and mindset. Beyond weapon systems, something as simple as staging — or hiding — equipment or personnel requires a vastly different strategy than even 10 years ago. How does something as simple as saying, “How do we hide this helo?” impact your conversations with industry?It’s not something that we’ve had to truly consider as an Army for 40 or 50 years because we were guaranteed air superiority. We don’t have air superiority at this point because of long-range fires and precision targeting from space. So, you go back to dispersion, displacement of assets and disaggregation of large headquarters. As you remember from recent decades, a division headquarters would be a massive entity with satellite dishes and other assets in the open. Those days are gone. We now have to consider how we bring in technology from the companies to allow us to displace 10-foot satellite dishes and 20 miles of wire, and actually have small-scale edge compute and transport systems that can disaggregate everyone. That’s incredibly important. Certainly, camouflage comes into play. Other classified capabilities come into play as well, and that’s all just the visible element. Then you get into electronic warfare and the ability to monitor. So, how do you disaggregate some of that? Those are all things that we are actively moving — and coming back to — in a more modern stance.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

— Mangroves and mud: Inside the Army jungle school’s notorious ‘Green Mile’

 

at 10/12/26 10:33am

Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón, Panama — A howler monkey looked down from his perch atop the lush canopy before unleashing a bellow so guttural that it seemed to temporarily swallow up the jungle’s hum.To his likely irritation, hordes of uniformed soldiers had gathered beneath the petite primate, filling his muddy underbrush with the heaving sound of heavy rucksacks and the smell of body odor that had been brewing in the moist terrain for days. The soldiers, some wearing days-old green face paint, had congregated amongst the moist fauna to complete their final task in the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama: The Green Mile. The notorious event — in the thick of Panama’s “Green Hell” — is the 18-day course’s culminating exercise, testing participants’ newly learned jungle maneuver techniques, survival measures and fighting skills. By that point in the course, the soldiers had run a days-long jungle reconnaissance and attack operation. That portion of the field exercise was complete, and perhaps to the howler monkey’s dismay, so were the soldiers’ attempts to stay quiet. The course in 2025 returned to Panama at Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, formerly known as the U.S. Army’s Fort Sherman, decades after it was originally shuttered. The new course is a joint U.S.-Panamanian partnership, with Panamanian instructors leading lessons on jungle survival. With staggered start times, each squad took off running down a soggy, uneven path. Squads in the September course had participants from across the U.S. force, including those from the Army, Marine Corps and Space Force. Some squads had Panamanian soldiers. Other countries, such as Colombia, have expressed interest in sending soldiers in the near future. In classes with Panamanian students, instruction is given in English and Spanish. When the course is English-only, the duration shrinks to 12 days, but without partners, officials say U.S. students can miss out on opportunities to connect with other forces. Spc. Duncan Vaupel, a member of September’s jungle school course, said he talked with and learned from Panamanian troops who described treating soldiers who had lost legs and fighting gun battles in the jungle that stretched into the night. “These guys not only teach it, but they live and breathe it, too,” he said. The squad’s first major Green Mile task was to carry some of the service members’ rucks in a litter made from whatever they could find. Logs or long branches coupled with issued wet weather equipment — a poncho — did the trick. During the course, participants are provided instructions on jungle first aid. They also practice with medical evacuation helicopters, transporting a casualty to some sliver of open sky where a medical team can send a rappel line down to hoist the injured soldier up. Jungle landing zones are few and far between. Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Reeves, a combat medic and an instructor at the school, said that heat injuries are common because of the oppressive humidity and temperature. Animal-related injuries are also widespread, he said. Wild, territorial bees are sensitive to loud noises and will defend their hives by attacking the camouflaged intruders. “We do have wild bees down here that tend to get a lot of the students as they move throughout the jungle,” Reeves said. “I know we’ve had to evac a handful of students before to the aid station for bee stings, scorpion stings and a variety of insect bites.” Once the section of muddy pathway came to an end, there was the sea to deal with. Muddy boot after muddy boot sank into the swirling sand beneath unforgiving waves. Soldiers were instructed to file one behind the other, sometimes sinking waist-deep into the water as they skirted rocky outgrowths and navigated dense mangroves. Fewer troop formations work in a jungle environment, said Lt. Col. Andrew Eagan, who oversees the Jungle Operations Training Center. Wedge formations, for example, do not work, he said. “Here you fight in a column, you fight in a line, and the reason for that is the environment,” Eagan said. “The environment is so punishing.” When the Green Mile took the service members back inland, the soldiers traded the wet coastline for brutal terrain. Their next challenge? A hill so steep that it required crawling on hands and knees. With a grade impossible to climb with waterlogged rucks, the scrappier soldiers scaled ahead, breathlessly anchoring a rope bridge from the top so other soldiers could cling to it as they ascended while lugging the squad’s wet gear. Soldiers slipped, ripping pants and filling scraggly fingernails with brown mud. Weapons became caked with slippery earth as they reached the peak. During Eagen’s interview, he said Panama’s environment was the part of jungle school that U.S. students underestimated most. During The Green Mile, the true magnitude of the jungle’s hazards was revealed — relentlessly. There was no walking down the other side of the hill, for instance. Course participants scooted or slid down on their rears, praying that their nether regions would not cross the path of a black palm — one of the treacherous plants students learn about in the jungle, in addition to the school’s flora and fauna blocks of instruction. With pointy spikes that can reach up to 8 inches long, flaring from every inch of its trunk, soft flesh is no match for nature’s black needles. Other plants, students learn, are edible and can help them survive in such harsh environs. Some of nature’s bounty, however, keeps the jungle students’ digestive systems unusually active. 2nd Sgt. Rubén Rodríguez, a Panamanian instructor for the course, said American students are often particularly hungry. They love to pick and eat coconuts for extra nourishment, he said. Though delicious and healthy in moderation, coconuts can be laxatives in large quantities. The Americans’ frequent snacks, Rodríguez said, send them straight to the jungle bathroom.As the troops progressed through the course, lanewalkers added full water jugs and ammo cans to soldiers’ loads. The extra weight pushed boots even deeper into the muddy ground. Red-faced and exhausted, the squad hoisted the extra weight over and under the first leg of an obstacle course that represents the final, brutal stretch of the Green Mile. The squad dragged themselves — and their equipment — through sticky, brown goop as they low-crawled beneath barbed wire. Soldiers tossed gear over a high wall before hurling their own bodies over after the dumped equipment. Before the finish line, the squad trekked up another uneven hill — even more slowly than any hill they had summited before. Once they hit concrete — and the familiar terrain near the schoolhouse’s campus — the jungle-battered squad had just minutes to sprint the last stretch of what was actually a four-plus-mile endeavor. The instructors imposed a time cap on the event (because what is Army training without the addition of some artificial stress?).As the afternoon sun beat down on the squad, the sprint slowed to a heavy shuffle. One participant, who had been carrying extra weight, stifled a gag as he trod onwards. In a haze of instructor-cracked purple smoke, the squad finished, collapsing in a heap under the shade of a cluster of trees. Some soldiers emptied the water jugs over each other’s heads. Others lay spread-eagled in a lukewarm puddle of mud. Two participants — one with a ripped pant seam exposing a dirty, pale leg — reveled in their success. “It was a good time,” one said, looking at his friend. After a millisecond of hesitation, the friend responded.“Nah,” he said, shaking his head with a smile.

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— ‘We’ve drowned ourselves in buzzwords’: Acting US Army secretary gives sermon-like first speech

 

at 10/12/26 9:35am

One year ago, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll eviscerated bureaucratic delay and acquisition roadblocks in a profanity-laced public address. On Monday, his successor, Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, took things back to the biblical book of Genesis in his first public speech to troops since assuming the role.“Controlling land is fundamental to humanity,” he told a packed ballroom at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting. “The Army does it better than anyone, and it’s on us, the people in this room, to keep it that way. Humanity’s connection to the land is biblical, and it even transcends faith, since the dawn of creation, as recorded in Genesis.”Telle, who previously served as the assistant secretary of the Army for public works, enlisted the Old Testament to preach a message of simplicity of purpose, invoking the sacred ground of past battlefields and the Army’s long history of protecting American territory.“It makes me wonder why the United States Army, again the most lethal and dominant institution in human history, struggles to explain in common terms who we are in 2026, who we really are,” Telle said. “We’ve drowned ourselves and the public in buzzwords, strategies, slideshows, government acronyms and bureaucratic doublespeak — things that are advertised as revolutionary. But the Army’s value proposition is actually too fundamental for goofy corporate jargon.”Though Telle’s rhetorical approach differed from Driscoll’s, he quickly made it clear that the Army was holding the course set by his predecessor, who resigned Aug. 31 over growing disagreements and friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.Telle hailed the Army’s work to streamline acquisition and reduce roadblocks to getting soldiers the gear they need, citing the Army’s work to reduce service “fiefdoms” from thousands to a few newly named portfolio acquisition executives. The service, he said, is moving away from what he called “compound self-interest,” or bureaucratic risk avoidance.“We’re empowering a small number of teams to address our biggest mandates to make difficult trade-offs around speed, manufacturability and supply chain realities early, often and together,” he said. “This is how you generate compound soldier-interest. That’s the opposite of compound self-interest.”He demonstrated the Pentagon’s new small drones online marketplace, likening it to Amazon.com and showing how soldiers could access it on their smartphones and leave reviews for future soldiers based on how well their gear worked. Likewise, he compared the Army’s new online test range reservation system for industry, initiated under Driscoll, to the hotel reservation site Booking.com. The site, he said, is like a “white-glove concierge service that allows innovators to get a reservation on the range faster.” Officials have previously said the new system can accelerate companies’ range-testing schedules from as much as 18 months to 30 days.Telle also reasserted the Army’s commitment to what the military has called a “right to repair,” meaning that it will demand open-architecture systems from all future vendors and limit industry’s ability to control intellectual property and charge a premium for fixes and spare parts.“Right now, we’re sprinting to field low-cost interceptors with open architecture built in from the outset. We need these low-cost interceptors to shoot down missiles and drones headed our way,” Telle said. “We know we need thousands of these things, but they have to seamlessly connect to our network.“If the data is trapped behind proprietary moats, and we have to call a contractor to decode the data, our superintelligent command and control doesn’t matter,” He continued. “Everything we buy from here on out will have open architecture; it’s non-negotiable.”A ‘manufacturing rodeo’Next, he said, the Army will launch a new project: a “manufacturing rodeo,” to be held early next year, that will put the service’s industrial base suppliers in competition with each other.“We’ve invested a lot in our organic industrial base. Now we need to strain it in the nation’s larger industrial base,” Telle said. “We’re going to stress-test the supply chain, the manufacturing processes and see where it breaks.”Telle did not provide specifics, such as the precise mechanism for competition or the challenges in which companies would be asked to compete.“We’re going to learn by doing, not by sitting around postulating at the Pentagon,” he said. “We’re going to find the weak links. We’re going to make them stronger, and we’re going to keep iterating.”Telle did not refer to Driscoll or allude to the fact that the service has no current Army secretary nominee. He did, however, address the “beautifully chaotic” system of American government, saying that while it wasn’t efficient, it centered human freedom and allowed for creativity and innovation.“The United States Army laid the groundwork for that, and will continue to guarantee that it’s never extinguished. Meanwhile, the other team’s human spirit, its imagination, is bounded and boxed and regulated,” Telle said. “The United States of America is where the magic happens, where brilliant people turn science fiction into science fact, and you can’t flip a switch to turn that on.“The Army’s work over the course of history has been so fundamental, so successful that the American spirit it unleashed is now the most important and potent force we have,” he continued. “It’s a potent force that the other guys don’t have.”

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— US Army, GM Defense agree to add 12,000 Infantry Squad Vehicles to fleet

 

at 10/12/26 9:30am

GM Defense announced on Monday that the Army has expanded orders for the Infantry Squad Vehicle, or ISV, from the initial 649 to nearly 12,000. The announcement, made at the annual exposition for the Association of the United States Army, means the service will be increasing its fleet of ISVs by roughly 1,750%. Company President Steve duMont praised his GM Defense’s ability to deliver on the fast-paced needs of the Army, touting the company’s ability to meet the demands of the “modern defense landscape” with “advanced capability, rapid fielding and sustainable scale.” “By transferring GM’s world-class engineering, supply chain and manufacturing scale directly to the service member, we are transforming customer needs into mission-ready capability faster than ever before,” duMont said. To illustrate the pace at which it operates, the company referenced how it delivered PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement housing components to Lockheed Martin in just 22 days. The company said the feat shows how “GM’s advanced casting and precision-fabrication capabilities can immediately scale” to deliver critical components. Ahead of development of the ISV, GM worked closely with the Army to identify “a clear operational gap,” according to the company. It then used the information to self-fund the creation of an ISV-Utility prototype. In turn, the GM Defense delivered seven prototypes of the “highly versatile five-soldier variant” for unit-level assessments “at no cost” to the Army. The company added that those variants will be fielded across 39 active-duty and National Guard mobile brigades. Unlike traditional combat vehicles, the ISV does not have armor. In fact, the standard design doesn’t even have doors or windows. The ISV and ISV-Heavy, which are modeled after GM’s Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 and Chevrolet Silverado HD 3500 ZR2, respectively, are designed to be adapted to changes on the battlefield rather than specific mission sets. Using lessons learned from Ukraine, Army officials say the ISV will serve as a platform for newly established Mobile Brigade Combat Teams, or MBCTs, which are designed to quickly respond to evolving threats and the demands of large-scale combat operations.At AUSA, GM Defense also unveiled concepts for an unmanned ground vehicle, or UGV, and an expeditionary energy storage system.The UGV uses what the company described as “Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD dual-rear-wheel skateboard architecture” and is intended for “silent logistics and casualty evacuation.” GM Defense aims to begin testing the vehicle in 2027.The company also showcased the EPIQ Hybrid prototype, an Army-inspired expeditionary energy storage system. According to GM Defense, the 60-kilowatt, 100-kilowatt-hour system is paired with an onboard generator designed to reduce thermal and noise signatures.

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— Airport training site in Laos extends China’s clout in Southeast Asia

 

at 10/12/26 8:31am

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — China’s design to use a Laotian airport for joint military training has put much of Southeast Asia on guard about how far the People’s Liberation Army will extend its reach.The China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center at Ban Keun Airport some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Lao capital Vientiane and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy kicked off in September, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said on its website.China’s role at the military airport, which had just finished major upgrades and features a 2,000-meter runway, suggests that the People’s Liberation Army intends to springboard into other parts of Southeast Asia – a land-border neighbor where several countries have territorial differences with China – experts say.“As China in reality aspires to be a major power, it has to gradually and in a low-key manner build up military bases, albeit for training or other seemingly innocuous purposes,” said Oh Ei Sun, principal adviser at the Pacific Research Center think tank in Kuala Lumpur.“Laos has long been considered to be a close ally for (China) in Southeast Asia and it is of course no surprise that China’s first base in Southeast Asia is located there,” he added.The two countries share a border, a Communist Party leadership and a recent history of economic cooperation led by large Chinese infrastructure projects such as a railway line.The defense ministry in Beijing said the training center, to be jointly maintained and operated, is aimed at helping Laos strengthen the training of its air force pilots.Ban Keun will allow a “continuous” Chinese presence and primarily be used to “steer procurement to Chinese equipment” and support PLA air operations, the China Global South Project media platform says in a study.The ministry website says China’s role at the airport is “not directed against any third party”, contributing instead to improving “practical military cooperation.”But instead, China may be increasing its military foothold “deep inside mainland Southeast Asia” after earlier establishing a naval presence at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a political scientist at Fulbright University in Vietnam. Mainland Southeast Asia includes Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand as well as Laos and Cambodia.Chinese operational military presence and privileged access at the Cambodian base grew from 2019 through 2025, Asian mainstream media reports have said.China is keen on Laos now “because the Chinese feel it’s time to complement the naval facility in Cambodia with nearby air power capability,” said Denny Roy, a ­senior fellow at the East-West Centre think tank in Hawaii.Using both its navy and air force, Beijing has shored up its South China Sea claims over the past two decades by building artificial islands, often for military use. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam dispute parts of the sea with China.Sporadic China-Vietnam incidents have occurred in the waters since the 1970s. China and the Philippines are jousting for control over tiny islets west of Luzon and Palawan islands.“Vietnam is probably the most sensitive, as Laos has long been its strategic buffer, and for now the foothold looks more like China asserting leverage over Hanoi and Phnom Penh,” said Hangyu Lee, East Asia Pacific analyst at the nonprofit organization Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. He said Ban Keun and Ream “together could look like a wider Chinese security network.”Myanmar, Lee added, could be “indirectly affected” if the airport improves China’s ability to monitor activity across continental Southeast Asia. Myanmar, with its own Chinese border, has been in civil war since 2021.China’s presence at the Laotian airport has been linked to its first confirmed overseas base, in the East African country Djibouti. The People’s Liberation Army uses it as a support base. The African base and now Ban Keun mark China’s gradual, low-key buildup of bases, Oh said.But the Laotian site “represents a new air-centered model” distinct from Djibouti and Ream in Cambodia, the China Global South Project study says.“Eventually it can be a pre-positioned base for PRC aircraft as needed,” Roy said. “It could also be expanded to accommodate more and larger aircraft.”

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— Powerus unveils fully autonomous drone interceptors

 

at 10/12/26 8:20am

The South Carolina-based startup Powerus unveiled a fully autonomous version of its Guardian interceptor on Monday at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting.Brett Velicovich, the company’s president and co-founder, said in an interview with Military Times that logical product upgrades have been key to the company’s success. He explained how the company’s growth, the evolution of its interceptors and rising U.S. military demand for drone-defense systems amid the war in Iran have converged.“You know, the U.S. government had a big problem at the beginning of the Iran war, when they sent a bunch of Ukrainian interceptors to the Middle East thinking that it was going to solve a problem,” he said. According to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. used roughly two-thirds of its inventory of certain missile-defense interceptors by Aug. 1 to stop drones like Iran’s Shahed. Because rebuilding the supply could take years and cost billions, the government has sought quicker and cheaper solutions like those used in Ukraine, but implementing them hasn’t been easy. “When you go to Ukraine, most of the interceptors, believe it or not, are manually controlled,” he said, explaining that Ukrainian operators are highly skilled at finding and stopping one-way attack drones in the air. “And that’s great for Ukraine, where you could probably throw a rock and hit a drone pilot.” The problem with the government’s initial thinking, according to Velicovich, was that Ukraine has a “proper drone army,” as the country has “entire brigades that are pilots. So those guys have extreme combat experience in knowing how to take a drone and send it into another drone. In other countries, they don’t.”With that understanding, Velicovich explained how Powerus provided the U.S. with the Guardian 1 — modeled after manually controlled Ukrainian drone interceptors — to the semi-autonomous Guardian 2, which, when paired with a radar to detect threats, will launch the interceptor in the direction of a drone. “It’ll know the speed and the telemetry. It’ll launch it in that direction, but you still have to do that final phase of manual kill,” he said. And finally, Powerus developed the fully autonomous Guardian 3. He explained that when the radar cues it, the system launches in the direction of the threat and can detect and strike using artificial intelligence and navigation systems. “So you kind of take the human error out of it,” he said. Velicovich credits this strategy, which he and his team derived from first-hand experience in the military and using drones in combat, to the company’s recent success. In about one year, Powerus has transformed into a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of nearly $390 million. On Oct. 1, it completed a merger with Aureus Greenway Holdings Inc., a golf course holding company backed by the two eldest Trump sons.As the U.S. government looks for ways to find low-cost drone interceptors, it’s also looking for low-cost missile interceptors. Power has partnered with the Netherlands-based defense company Destinus to help meet that challenge. “Destinus brings this just overwhelming, incredible ownership of the technology,” Velicovich said, adding that Powerus will be its “business development channel in the U.S. to sell systems that otherwise had not really been sold here yet.” He added that Powerus received the demand signal from the Pentagon and aims to deliver. “We know you’d be crazy not to buy these products because of just how effective they are on the battlefield,” he said.

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— US Army helicopter pilots test new in-flight ‘relief’ system

 

at 10/12/26 5:28am

U.S. Army Helicopter pilots in the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade are evaluating a system designed to let them relieve themselves in flight. Soldiers will evaluate whether it can help address a problem pilots face during prolonged missions: limiting fluid intake to avoid restroom breaks.The brigade completed the Army’s first-ever helicopter test flights using the Advanced Inflight Relief Universal System, or AIRUS, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, from Oct. 5 to 7. The testing examined the system’s airworthiness for use on Army helicopters.Aircrews from 1-101 Attack Battalion “No Mercy,” 6-101 Assault Helicopter Battalion “Eagle Assault” and 7-101 Heavy Lift Battalion “Eagle Lift” completed human-factors surveys, checked AIRUS for fit and tested its ability to let them relieve themselves in flight. The crews believe AIRUS will help them stay in the air longer.The brigade’s Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, team sought out AIRION, the aerospace medical systems company that developed AIRUS, to help reduce the number of pilots purposefully dehydrating themselves to limit the need for restroom breaks during missions.“We had pilots tell us they tactically dehydrate,” Capt. Gena Baisa, lead dietitian for the 101st CAB H2F team, said per an Army release. “So, we thought, how can we get a system specifically designed to allow them to use the bathroom in air so they can stay hydrated and optimize their performance?”Chief Warrant Officer 2 Collin McAllister, an AH-64 Apache pilot who tested AIRUS, said the system differs from previous systems that used bags containing coagulant, according to an Army account of the testing.“As we look to fight in contested environments where we will need to stay a lot longer to support the ground force, this could be a great contribution,” McAllister said in the account.Representatives from Redstone Arsenal observed the test to provide recommendations on AIRUS’ flight suitability. A critical aspect of the evaluation involved assessing how aircrews with different body types could move while wearing the system.“We tested AIRUS to see its airworthiness and started with egress testing,” said Elizabeth Rhonenus, a human-factors engineer with the Aviation Flight Test Directorate, in the release. “We took our smallest participant around the fifth percentile and our largest around the 95th percentile and saw if they could get in and out of the aircraft safely.”The testing marked a developmental milestone, transitioning the system into the Army’s rotary-wing fleet, according to the Army. It was AIRION’s first time testing with the Army and its first time testing the system on helicopters, according to Colt Seman, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.“We tested to get the system integrated into the Apache, Black Hawk, and Chinook helicopters,” Seman said per the release. “The pilots were able to put on AIRUS, wear it, and be able to use it. It was comfortable, and it worked.”Baisa said the brigade is preparing for upcoming missions, including the Long Range Large Scale Air Assault concept and the new MV-75 Cheyenne II helicopters’ ability to stay in flight longer.“We are setting the foundation now to support the upcoming missions our Soldiers will face,” Baisa said. “Looking at L2A2 and the new MV-75 Cheyenne II helicopters’ ability to stay in flight longer, we want to improve Soldier readiness. The AIRUS is a capability that could help us achieve it across the enterprise.”

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— US Army gets first mobile cannon to replace M777 howitzer, officials say

 

at 10/12/26 4:00am

The U.S. Army has taken delivery of its first Korean-made mobile tactical cannon less than a year after first issuing a solicitation, service officials said Thursday.Speaking to reporters ahead of the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting, the Army’s leader for offensive fires said that the mobile tactical cannon, made by Hanwha Defense USA, was on display at a first-of-its-kind “Army Modernization Day” held on Capitol Hill earlier this month.“We’re excited to have that and get ready to test it,” said Brig. Gen. Robert J. “RJ” Mikesh Jr., portfolio management executive for offensive fires. “And get that soldier feedback, that we think is so important.”The Army in August announced it had entered a prototyping contract with Hanwha for the Mobile Tactical Cannon, a 155mm self-propelled howitzer intended to replace the legacy M777 155mm howitzers that have been in service since 2005. The four-year contract, worth up to nearly $263 million, covers procurement of up to 18 of the systems for “rapid prototyping, testing, and Soldier experimentation,” the Army said in August. It calls for “accelerated delivery” of the first six system prototypes and allows the Army to execute options for up to a dozen more.While the service hadn’t released full details about the testing regimen, officials said a series of operational experiments would take place to ensure the systems could perform reliably in “realistic combat conditions.”The Mobile Tactical Cannon, which was contracted through an Other Transaction Authority agreement, is based on Hanwha’s K9 mobile howitzers, which have been employed by the South Korean military since 1999 and now have variants operating in 10 other countries, making up more than half of all self-propelled howitzers in service around the world.The company announced at the time of the contract award that it was building an integration and test site in Opelika, Alabama, to develop and roll out the cannons.“What enabled that was this close partnership under the PAE construct and trying new and novel ways of contracting,” Mikesh said Thursday. “In this case, we were not going after a clean-sheet design; we were looking for mature and available technologies. We opened our aperture for companies around the world, knowing that they’d have to onshore production within two years. That howitzer is now on contract.”The Army has said in budget solicitations that its fielding effort for the new self-propelled howitzers will focus initially on Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, followed by Mobile and Infantry Brigade Combat Teams. And while the solicitation that received the Hanwha contract is for a wheeled self-propelled howitzer, the Army in late August published a new solicitation for a tracked variant of the Mobile Tactical Cannon. Hanwha officials told Breaking Defense they’re seeking to fill that requirement as well. Army budget request documents for fiscal 2027 illuminate an additional testing role for the Mobile Tactical Cannon: It will facilitate work in the Army’s 155mm Artillery Propulsion Modernization project, designed to improve range and performance by pursuing novel propulsion technologies and advancements in “propelling charge, modular charge, ignition systems, propellant, and packaging solutions.” “Solutions will be integrated into a system of systems capability to ensure interoperability, closing fires capability gaps to destroy or neutralize artillery targets out to 70 kilometers,” the document states.The M777 has an effective range of under 24 kilometers, or about 15 miles, and up to 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, with the extended-range Excalibur round. The K9, a 52-caliber system, has a range of more than 60 kilometers, or about 37 miles.Army leaders have said they want to field a ready version of the Mobile Tactical Cannon by 2031.

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— Vector, Nammo expand push to mass-produce armed drones

 

at 10/12/26 3:00am

Defense companies Vector and Nammo Defense Systems announced Monday at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting that they had expanded their partnership to integrate munitions into small drones for U.S. military use.The companies first teamed up earlier this year to pair Nammo’s munitions with Vector’s unmanned aircraft. The expanded agreement aims to scale that work to help address what the companies describe as a growing need for drones that can deliver more than just explosive payloads. Andy Yakulis, Vector’s chief executive officer and co-founder, called the partnership “highly complementary” because together they produced a system that reflects “the realities of how warfighters will employ them.” “The battlefield is demanding unmanned systems that can do more than simply carry a payload,” he said, adding that their systems will be produced at scale and “continuously improved based on real-world requirements.”According to Vector’s website, the Utah-based company launched in 2024 with three veterans, including Yakulis, as well as the founder of Teal Drones, which was later acquired by Red Cat and awarded millions in military contracts for short-range reconnaissance drones.Vector also supplies a High Voltage Electronic Safe Arm Device, or HV-ESAD, that serves as the electronic interface between the drone and its munition. According to both companies, the device enables the safe integration and controlled use of compatible munitions.Vector has a drone listed on the Defense Department’s Blue List, which includes unmanned aircraft systems that have undergone the department’s relevant assessment and approval process for military use.The company also placed in the top five in the latest round of the Defense Department’s Drone Dominance program, a billion-dollar initiative to procure affordable small drones that can be manufactured at scale.Andy Schreiner, the president and general manager of Nammo, said the “expanded agreement will benefit warfighters defending freedom globally” because it combines “Nammo’s proven expertise in munitions, energetics, and advanced manufacturing with Vector’s unmanned systems capabilities.” Nammo, a Norwegian defense manufacturer with U.S. operations headquartered in Arizona, specializes in ammunition, shoulder-fired weapons and rocket motors. According to its website, its products range from small-arms ammunition to tank rounds.“We are bringing together complementary strengths to accelerate the development and production of integrated solutions that can evolve with warfighter requirements,” Schreiner said.

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— Pentagon, Raytheon sign $6.3B deal to replenish US missile interceptor supply

 

at 10/9/26 2:17pm

The Pentagon inked a five-year contract with Raytheon for the steady production of ballistic missile interceptors that use force to destroy targets, rather than explosives. The $6.3 billion contract, which provides two additional option years, will see Raytheon provide the Defense Department with a continuous supply of Standard Missile-3 Block IB interceptors manufactured primarily in Tucson, Arizona and Huntsville, Alabama. “SM-3 Block IB has proven its relevance in combat and this contract helps ensure we can replenish inventories and keep pace with the evolving threats the U.S. Navy, MDA and their partners face around the world,” Raytheon President Phil Jasper said in a statement. The SM-3 Block IB interceptor belongs to a larger family of “hit-to-kill” SM-3 missile interceptors, which seek and destroy incoming ballistic missiles using sheer speed and momentum. The Block IB type can be used by land forces and ships and is frequently deployed on vessels due to its range and highly flexible steering. The interceptor tracks flying targets with a two-color infrared seeker and propels itself towards them in short bursts, giving it accuracy at high speed as it homes in on targets. It is designed to knock short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles out of the sky when they are halfway to hitting their targets, and has long striking reach. It was used in combat for the first time in 2024 when the U.S. Navy destroyers USS Arleigh Burke and USS Carney fired them to intercept Iranian missiles aimed at targets in Israel. The Center for Strategic and International Studies named the SM-3 Block IB among “seven critical munitions” in an April report detailing ammunition shortages, alongside Patriot missiles, Precision Strike Missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles, Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and others.The contract for more SM-3 Block IBs, announced by Raytheon on Thursday, was among five framework agreements the defense giant signed with the Pentagon this February. The deal comes at a time when the DoD is seeking to avert diminishing munitions stockpiles. National security specialists, defense analysts and foreign policy pundits cautioned in March that the U.S. military’s increased use of missile interceptors during the war with Iran poses strategic risks to integral defense capabilities if fighting spills into a long-term conflict. Raytheon stated in its release that the contract for SM-3 Block IB supply “supports urgent replenishment of missile defense inventory that has been successfully used in combat and remains central to protecting U.S. forces, allies and critical infrastructure.”

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— Soldiers intervene on roadside to save children from alleged knife attack

 

at 10/9/26 12:29pm

When they saw a car on its side, three soldiers — traveling independently — pulled over to help. But when one soldier approached the vehicle, the threat changed. Suddenly, treating any injuries from the car crash became secondary to disarming a knife-wielding woman attacking her two children at the scene. During his Monday morning commute to work at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Hytower spotted the crash on Interstate 5 and pulled over to assist. Then he saw the weapon. “I just jumped up, it was just instinct,” the practical nursing specialist instructor said in an Army release published Wednesday, adding “that’s when the training kicks in.”Another soldier, Sgt. Ricardo A. Nunez, a soldier in the 7th Infantry Division (Multi-Domain Command-Pacific), arrived at the crash and helped Hytower disarm and restrain the woman. Meanwhile, Sgt. Alex McKay, a Washington National Guard medic, got to work caring for one of the injured children, who she later described as “very afraid, but also very, very brave.” McKay said she did exactly what she trained for. “As a medic, my number one priority was pulling the child a safe distance away from the immediate threat, where she would be safe and not have to see the aftermath,” she said in the release, later sharing gratitude for the other two service members. “Also knowing that I can trust the service men and women to my right and left with my life and my safety,” McKay said. “If it weren’t for the quick reaction of Soldiers, this would have ended in tragedy. It makes me proud to wear the uniform.” Hytower also credited the trio’s success to their training. “With both my Soldier and medical training, you’re taught to quickly figure out what needs to be done and prioritize what’s most important,” he said. “When the situation suddenly changed, we were able to react quickly and make sure everyone was safe. A lot of that comes from the training we’ve received and being able to fall back on it without really having to think about it.”According to local reports, both children were hospitalized but expected to recover from their injuries. Investigators said their mother, Janieka Ellington, 35, intentionally rammed the car into a concrete barrier while traveling southbound on the interstate, local news reported, and court records showed she may have experienced suicidal thoughts while under the influence. A judge has ordered a mental health evaluation and Ellington is being held without bail.

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— Air Force bases along Gulf Coast relocate aircraft ahead of Hurricane Isaias

 

at 10/9/26 11:47am

Ahead of Hurricane Isaias approaching the U.S. Gulf Coast, some Air Force bases are evacuating personnel and aircraft in anticipation of its expected landfall this weekend.Bases in Florida and Mississippi have changed their hurricane condition statuses and sent aircraft to other bases for safekeeping as maintenance teams prepare on base.Florida bases such as Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field and Tyndall Air Force Base, as well as flying units from Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, have recently relocated their aircraft and issued warnings.Hurricane Isaias has strengthened into a Category 3 major hurricane and is expected to hit areas along the Gulf Coast Friday night, with power outages, storm surges and high rainfall anticipated through the weekend.Eglin updated the base’s limited evacuation order on Thursday, ordering service members, Department of Defense employees and their dependents in specific county zones to evacuate. The base closed its Child Development Centers, hospital, pharmacies and commissary, but emergency operations such as labor and delivery and all inpatient services will remain available. Eglin’s aircraft departed the base as officials declared Hurricane Condition 1, meaning there is a possibility of destructive winds of 58 mph or greater within 12 hours. Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, confirmed it received aircraft from Eglin and Hurlburt.A base spokesperson told Military Times that it cannot release aircraft numbers and details due to operational security, but confirmed the aircraft include F-15s, F-16s and F-35s.On Wednesday, Hurlburt Field’s 1st Special Operations Wing issued a mandatory targeted evacuation for around 1,000 residents of Hurlburt’s privatized military housing and FAMCamp effective no later than Thursday at 5 p.m. “out of an abundance of caution.”“This is a targeted decision based on the unique utility infrastructure supporting base housing and does not indicate a broader evacuation requirement for the installation or surrounding county,” the notice says.A Hurlburt spokesperson told Military Times that all flyable aircraft, including their AC-130J Ghostrider and MC-130J Commando II, were relocated to Little Rock, while aircraft undergoing maintenance were secured in protective hangars at Hurlburt Field.Tyndall’s aircraft have either been evacuated or secured, a base spokesperson told Military Times, including F-35s from the 325th Fighter Wing.“Due to operational security considerations, we are not releasing specific quantities, relocation locations, or movement timelines,” the spokesperson said.Keesler’s Reserve 403rd Wing’s two flying units relocated its aircraft to Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, to ensure they were out of the hurricane’s path and could still conduct weather reconnaissance for the National Hurricane Center, according to a Thursday release.

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— How the US military plan to livestream an execution compares with global practice

 

at 10/9/26 11:38am

The U.S. military plans to livestream the Dec. 3 execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.If carried out as planned, death penalty experts said it would mark the first known broadcast or livestream of a lawful execution.Executions are generally conducted behind prison walls, and internet platforms and governments have spent years trying to limit the circulation of violent execution footage.Has a lawful execution ever been livestreamed or broadcast to the public before? Death penalty experts consulted by Reuters said they were unaware of any previous lawful execution that had been livestreamed or broadcast to a public audience.Execution footage has occasionally emerged after the event. The hanging of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2006, for example, was seen around the world after official and unofficial recordings circulated online and through broadcasters, though it was not shown live.Broadcasts and livestreams today are common for court proceedings, parliamentary debates and other state functions, but not for judicial executions.How unusual is this compared with modern execution practices around the world? Public executions have become rare worldwide, with most countries that retain the death penalty carrying out executions away from public view.According to Amnesty International, public executions recorded in recent years have largely been concentrated in Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan.The execution would also be notable in the United States. Public executions largely disappeared during the 20th century, and death penalty experts cited by Reuters said the last legally sanctioned public execution took place in 1936.Hasan’s execution would be the first carried out by firing squad by the U.S. military since the 1945 execution of Eddie Slovik, who was convicted of desertion during World War II.How has the internet changed the circulation of execution footage? The internet has transformed execution imagery from a local event into content capable of reaching global audiences within minutes.Militant groups, such as the Islamic State, became notorious for producing professionally edited execution videos that were distributed online as propaganda and recruitment tools.Criminal organisations, including Mexican drug cartels, have also circulated violent footage to intimidate rivals and project power.The ability of users to rapidly copy, repost and redistribute content has made it more difficult for governments and technology companies to control the spread of such material.What has been the reaction from governments and tech companies? Governments and technology companies have generally moved in the opposite direction, attempting to reduce rather than expand access to graphic execution footage.Major social media platforms have spent years removing execution videos linked to extremist organisations and other violent groups.One of the first public governmental reactions came from New Zealand, whose chief censor said authorities would have little practical ability to prevent residents from accessing a livestream while it was taking place.Livestreams pose particular challenges for platforms because footage can be viewed, copied and redistributed before moderation systems can intervene.Even countries that still conduct public executions have often restricted filming and broadcast rights. Saudi Arabia historically carried out public executions before spectators, but recording them was prohibited, and such public executions had largely ceased by 2019.

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— US Army activates new multi-domain task force to ‘deny, disrupt’ enemies in Indo-Pacific

 

at 10/9/26 11:15am

A new U.S. Army multi-domain task force, one of five recently established or under development by the service, was activated this week with a ceremony at Fort Carson, Colorado.The 4th Multi-Domain Task Force will focus on synchronizing long-range precision fires in the Indo-Pacific region “to deny, disrupt and disaggregate adversary capabilities” and create advantages for other units in the joint force, the Army said in a release. The task force includes four battalions and is planned to grow to 2,100 soldiers. Col. Hugh W.A. Jones assumed command of the task force during Thursday’s ceremony. He previously commanded the 2nd Stryker Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, leading the brigade when it deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border last year.“While we build this formation to deter aggression and preserve peace, if war comes, we must be prepared to fight and win,” Jones said during the ceremony. “We owe those in harm’s way every advantage we can give them, while leaving our enemy nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.”The task force reports to the 7th Infantry Division at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. In June, the Army combined the 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force at Lewis-McChord into the 7th Infantry Division (Multi-Domain Command-Pacific), which serves as the multi-domain operational headquarters. Its mission is to integrate “maneuver, fires, air defense, cyber, space, electronic warfare, intelligence, unmanned systems, sustainment and command-and -control in support of the joint force across the Pacific,” the Army said in a release. Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington, commander of the 7th Infantry Division, attended the activation ceremony at Fort Carson. “You are driving the change our nation demands today, to meet the changing character of war, to prevent conflict, and to maintain a free and open Pacific alongside our allies and partners,” Harrington told soldiers assigned to the new multi-domain task force.The establishment of the 7th Infantry Division (Multi-Domain Command-Pacific) and the 4th Multi-Domain Task Force are part of a broader transformation initiative “to counter near-peer adversaries in an increasingly complex global landscape,” the Army said. The initiative includes the service establishing five multi-domain task forces by 2028, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The Army activated the 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force in 2021 at the Clay Kaserne installation in Germany, and stood up the third in Hawaii in 2022. A fifth is planned for Fort Bragg, North Carolina.The units are designed to operate across all domains — land, air, sea, space, cyberspace and information — and “provide combatant commanders with a versatile and potent array of options,” according to the Army.“As we build this formation, we must never forget that technology earns its value in the hands of well-trained and disciplined soldiers,” Jones said Thursday. “A soldier who solves a difficult problem here may make the difference for an American fighting far beyond the horizon.”

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— Daddy’s home!: 122 sailors aboard the Abraham Lincoln meet their children for the first time

 

at 10/9/26 11:10am

For 122 sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, docking in San Diego after a 321-day deployment carried extra meaning — these men were about to meet their children for the first time.“Ten and a half months is a significant amount of time away from home. The mission required that sacrifice, but it does not make up for missed birthdays, anniversaries and other important family milestones,” Lt. Cmdr. Tyler Barker, USS Abraham Lincoln’s public affairs officer, said during a news conference Thursday. “There are 122 new dads that are going to walk off the ship today. From the air wing and from my ship, they’re waiting to meet their children for the very first time.”As thousands of sailors poured off the aircraft carrier to thunderous cheers and distant cowbell clangs, some of the first to touch solid ground were those 122 sailors, making a beeline to embrace the babies they had “met” via screens but never physically touched. Among those sailors was Brent Ledbetter, an air traffic control center officer, whose son was born shortly after the Lincoln’s Nov. 21, 2025, departure. “I just want to hold him, play with him,” Ledbetter told NBC News. “He’s crawling around now, so I’m excited to chase him around the house and give him all the love that, that, you know — has been kind of withheld for the last 10 months. I’m so excited.”According to the outlet, Ledbetter’s wife was also assigned to what would become a storied deployment, but the sailor had relieved his wife shortly before her birth due to Navy regulations that they can’t be on the ship at the same time. Ledbetter’s wife, also an air traffic controller, will now swap positions with the sailor and deploy, while he will stay home with their son. Ledbetter has served in the U.S. Navy for 13 years and deployed two other times on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower; once to the Red Sea and another time, in 2020, was 206 days at sea, NBC News reported. In November 2025, the Lincoln departed San Diego for a routine six-month deployment, which was extended twice after the U.S. jointly launched Operation Epic Fury with Israel on Feb. 28. For Mackenzie Adkins, she and her husband Alex had planned to start their growing family around his deployment schedule, but the path to conceiving is often not linear. Adkins found herself giving birth 10 weeks ago — with Alex video-calling in. “I’m feeling a little bit of everything,” Adkins told KFMB. “I’m excited above all else, just so ready to have my husband back, to have him finally meet his son. I’m nervous, just the excited nerves of, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s finally happening’ after we thought it was going to happen so many other times, but this is finally it, and so [I’m] extremely happy.“We were ready to start our family, and so we took the original return home date and used that to plan the pregnancy, and with military life, things just happen,” she said. “And well, here we are 10 weeks later, and he’s finally going to get to meet his son.” On Wednesday, as the Abraham Lincoln and elements of its carrier strike group neared the California coast, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the carrier strike group had been awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the military’s highest unit-level valor award.Hegseth announced the award to the 5,000 sailors aboard the Lincoln, citing the “historic mission” that included completing “3,693 combat flights, sinking 64 Iranian warships, launching 450 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and shooting down 77 one-way aerial attack drones.”“Congratulations to @CNV_72 and all of CSG-3 on this well-earned Presidential Unit Citation for their extreme heroism over the last 10 months in defense of our homeland,” Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao wrote on social media.That defense included 40 days in combat and an “ironclad maritime blockade against Iran in support of Operation Epic Fury,” according to the citation.

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As of 10/13/26 6:46am. Last new 10/12/26 2:54pm.