Read the latest articles from The War Zone (Page 74)

In a cloud of smoke the Russian destroyer Admiral Levchenko leaves Portsmouth for operation FRUKUS.
Russian Navy

Russian Destroyer Fired Warning Shots At Norwegian Fishing Boat: Report

The Admiral Levchenko is said to have opened fire to force the fishing boat out of international waters during a large-scale naval drill.

Satellite Images Show Massive Devastation At Russian Ammo Storage Sites Struck By Ukrainian Drones
Russia

Satellite Images Show Massive Devastation At Russian Ammo Storage Sites Struck By Ukrainian Drones

Before and after satellite images of the Oktyabrsk, Tikhoretsk and Toropets munitions storage facilities show the recent results of Ukraine's long-range drone operations.

China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, arrives in Hong Kong waters on July 7, 2017.
People's Liberation Army Navy (China)

All Three Chinese Aircraft Carriers Were At Sea For The First Time

More signs of China's naval power projection capabilities rapidly evolving, with two operational carriers and one undergoing trials all out to sea at the same time.

Plans to slash F-16 aggressors at Nellis Air Force Base highlight broader questions about the future of the Air Force Viper fleets.
F-16

Aggressor F-16 Fleet Set To Be Slashed By Air Force

Planned cuts to F-16s at Nellis Air Force Base point to a looming aggressor gap and raise questions about the Viper fleet's overall health.

Tu-143 Hezbollah
Israel

Hezbollah Converted Soviet Tu-143 Jet Recon Drone Into Cruise Missile Says IDF, Just Like Ukraine

Israel has distributed video of a strike on what appears to be a Tu-143 hidden in a home in Southern Lebanon.

JSOW Ukraine
F-16

AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon To Equip Ukraine’s F-16s: Report

JSOW was always the most likely standoff munition to equip Ukraine's donated F-16s and it can provide precision attack capabilities over about 70 miles.

A private group bomb shelters, dug into San Francisco's seven hills by house-holders and apartment owners, came into realistic use as air raids and blackouts entered the city's life, December 11, 1941. Bettmann via Getty Images.
Bunker Talk

Bunker Talk: Let’s Talk About All The Things We Did And Didn’t Cover This Week

It's bunker time!

Collins Aerospace has put forward a vision for what a high-end air combat engagement between the U.S. and Chinese armed forces, with the American side employing crewed fighters and Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone wingmen, could look like in the future.
Loyal Wingman

What American Fighters And Their Drone Wingmen Fighting Chinese Jets Might Look Like

A recent Collins Aerospace video offers an interesting take on how fighters will control and otherwise work together with future drones.

An Israeli F-16I fighter jet taking off at an unidentified location.
Israel

Israeli Airstrikes In Lebanon Intensify

Multiple Hezbollah commanders were reportedly killed in an airstrike on Beirut, as the possibility of a wider conflict looms large.

Future offensive electronic warfare
F/A-18

How EA-18G Growler’s Next Generation Jammer Actually Works And The Future Of Offensive Electronic Warfare

Raytheon's Chuck Angus talks Next Generation Jammer, the state of play in offensive electronic warfare and how it might look in the future.

The U.S. Air Force says the once-secretive Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) drone program has been fully folded into the service's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) effort. General Atomics has already disclosed that its current CCA design is derived from the XQ-67 drone it developed for OBSS.
Loyal Wingman

Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program ‘Ingesting’ Modular Chassis Concept Pioneered By XQ-67 Drone

The USAF is very interested in the idea of a common 'chassis' with landing gear and core systems that can equip different CCA airframes.

A man holds an Icom walkie talkie device after he removed the battery during the funeral of persons killed when hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 18, 2024. Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on September 17, killing at least nine people and wounding around 2,800 in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.
Around The Globe

How Israel Turned Hezbollah’s Pagers Into Exploding Trojan Horses

It's becoming clear that Israel executed a highly complex, years-long espionage operation unlike any we have seen before to weaponize Hezbollah's communications against them.

The U.S. Air Force's top special operations officer says AC-130J Ghostriders will continue being armed with 105mm howitzers for the foreseeable future despite the gunships evolving to as focus shifts to preparing for high-end fights.
AC-130

AC-130J Ghostrider Gunships Will Keep Their 105mm Howitzers, For Now

With a pivot to the Pacific and needing to keep the AC-130 relevant, its armament may change, but its Howitzer will stay put for the time being.

The U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman have expanded testing of the B-21 thanks to two ground test articles, which are being used to evaluate the bomber's core construction and the time it takes before certain parts break. The tempo of flight testing of the initial pre-production Raider is also growing, with the jet now sometimes taking to the skies twice a week.
B-21

B-21 Ground Test Airframes Join Flying Pre-Production Raider

The B-21 Raider test force is growing as trials accelerate with an operational date by the end of the decade still the goal.

Walkie Talkie exploded in Lebanon
Israel

More Electronics Explode In Lebanon As Israel Declares ‘New Phase’ Of War

The detonation of thousands of devices along with other developments may be a precursor to a full-on Israeli military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The U.S. Air Force has released new video footage of its first pre-production B-21 Raider stealth bomber undergoing flight testing.
B-21

New Look At B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber Flight Testing Released

B-21 Raider testing is progressing at Edwards Air Force Base ahead of the planned fielding of the bombers toward the end of the decade.

The U.S. Air Force is pushing ahead with experimentation that could lead to the transformation of KC-135 tankers into optionally crewed aircraft, as well as the development of other autonomous aerial refueling capabilities. U.S. military interest in autonomous airlifters, an area where China has been notably surging forward in the past few years, is also growing.
KC-135

Work Toward KC-135 Tankers That Fly Themselves, Uncrewed Cargo Aircraft Pressing Ahead

Autonomous tankers and cargo aircraft could be key in a high-end fight with China, which is working on its own drone airlifters.

A huge explosion has rocked the Tver region, in the west of Russia, with initial reports indicating that Ukrainian long-range attack drones targeted an ammunition depot there. Videos and pictures on social media from the scene show an initial explosion, with a very large fireball, followed by a significant visible shockwave, then several minutes’ worth of secondary explosions illuminating the night sky.
Russia

Massive Russian Weapons Depot Still Burning After Ukrainian Drone Attack

Strikes in the Tver region targeted warehouses full of rockets and missiles, reportedly including some delivered to Russia by North Korea.

Lockheed Martin's losing entry in the first increment of the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone program was a very stealthy design, the head of the famed Skunk Works advanced projects division has disclosed. The company is now expecting future CCA increments to revolve around proposals that might lean closer to not just being lower-cost, but maybe even expendable, to support a concept of operations that requires tolerance for very high losses.
Loyal Wingman

Skunk Works’ Losing Loyal Wingman Drone Was Very Stealthy “Gold Plated” Design

Lockheed Martin is now exploring optionally expendable designs to propose in an attempt to win the second round of the CCA program.

The U.S. Space Development Agency, or SDA has outlined the progress made so far in demonstrating a satellite-based Link 16 network to transmit data directly from space, as well as the potential of laser communications to connect satellites together, and to use those same satellites to conduct missile tracking from low Earth orbit (LEO).
Air

Link 16 Coverage From Space, Laser Communications Relays Make Major Advances

The Space Development Agency is seeing major promise during testing of new low-cost Link 16 datalink, laser communications, and missile tracking satellites.