Colton Jones
27 articles on The Defence Blog – Military and Defense News
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Articles27
Saudi Arabia cleared to buy 20,000 laser-guided rockets
The U.S. State Department approved a possible arms sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia worth an estimated $1.96 billion, covering up to 10,000 air-to-air guidance sections and up to 10,000 air-to-ground guidance sections for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, known as APKWS II, according to a congressional notification the Bureau of Political-Militar
U.S. Air Force wants 16,450 more long-range missiles, and fast
The U.S. Air Force has told its biggest missile maker to build thousands more long-range weapons than it planned even a week ago, and the jump says a lot about how worried the Pentagon has become about running out of precision missiles in a real war. An amended government notice posted Wednesday raised the planned […]
US sends Tunisia 110 tiny recon robots
A robot small enough to throw through a window and tough enough to survive a five-story fall onto concrete is headed to Tunisia’s military, part of a U.S. arms sale that will let North African soldiers see around dangerous corners before anyone has to walk into them. The U.S. Army’s Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving […]
Taiwan ATACMS deal expands island’s long-range strike power
The U.S. Army handed Lockheed Martin roughly $439 million to begin building the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, along with the launcher hardware needed to fire it, and once the two sides finish hammering out the final terms, the full agreement is expected to grow to nearly $900 million. ATACMS is a surface-to-surface […]
U.S. Navy awards $418 million contract to dismantle its first nuclear carrier
The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is finally getting torn apart, and this time the Navy is paying more than $118 million less than it originally planned to spend doing it. The U.S. Navy awarded NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services, based in Vernon, Vermont, a $418.5 million contract to completely dismantle, recycle, and dispose of the [
U.S. Air Force buys more Norwegian-made stealth missile
The U.S. Air Force awarded Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, the Norwegian company that builds the weapon, $98.4 million to produce the next batch of Joint Strike Missiles, with work taking place at Kongsberg’s factory in Norway and wrapping up by June 30, 2030. The Joint Strike Missile, known by its American designation AGM-184A, solves a […]
U.S. Navy taps Maryland firm for critical submarine listening gear
The U.S. Navy has committed up to $42.7 million to keep that cable, and the sensitive electronics packed inside it, working and improving for the next five years. The Department of War awarded the contract to L3 Technologies’ Chesapeake Sciences Division, a Millersville, Maryland-based company that has spent more than a decade building the Navy’s […]
U.S. Air Force taps consulting giant for secretive quantum research
The next major shift in military technology might not look like a stealth fighter or a hypersonic missile. It could look like a laboratory full of scientists trying to control particles so small and so strange that they can exist in two states at once, and the U.S. Air Force just paid one of its […]
U.S. Navy wants unmanned fighters that can fly 1,000 miles from a carrier
Somewhere on the flight deck of a future U.S. aircraft carrier, a jet could be preparing to launch into contested airspace nearly 1,900 kilometers (1,151 miles) away, refuel itself mid-flight if needed, evade enemy threats, and strike a target, all without a single pilot strapped inside the cockpit. That’s the future the U.S. Navy just […]
U.S. Air Force seeks a new engine for rockets that fly like jets
The U.S. Air Force has asked American rocket companies for their best ideas on an engine that could let a single missile take off like a rocket, cruise like a jet, and skip the giant fuel tanks that usually make that kind of flexibility impossible. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket and Space Propulsion Division, […]
Pentagon moves to expand wartime titanium and magnesium reserves
The Pentagon has told American metal suppliers it wants to know exactly how much titanium and magnesium the country would need to keep building fighter jets and military hardware if a real war cut off the foreign supply chains both materials currently depend on. The Defense Logistics Agency, the Department of War’s supply and logistics […]
U.S. Army hires consultants for millions to fix slow arms sales
A consulting firm best known for advising Fortune 500 companies on corporate strategy just landed a nearly $20 million contract to fix one of the U.S. military’s most persistent headaches: getting American weapons into allied hands faster. The Boston Consulting Group received a $19.9 million contract from the Army to help redesign how the service […]
US and Iran are trading strikes over a key oil route
U.S. Central Command finished its third round of airstrikes against Iran in a single week on July 11, hitting roughly 140 military targets after Iranian forces attacked another commercial vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil out of the Persian Gulf every day. The strikes, […]
USS Tucson fast-attack submarine relocates to Guam
The fast-attack submarine USS Tucson (SSN 770) slid into Apra Harbor on July 10, swapping its old home in Pearl Harbor for a new one at Naval Base Guam, in a routine-looking port call that carries real weight for how the U.S. Navy positions its undersea forces against a rapidly expanding Chinese fleet. Tucson, a […]
U.S. Navy wants fast fix for the F-35B’s sludge problem
The U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division posted a sources sought notice on July 9 seeking companies capable of building a deployable cleaning system to remove what officials call “clutch sludge” from the F-35B’s short takeoff and vertical landing lift fan clutch cooling system, with responses due within just seven business days, by July […]
Pentagon opens a new round in its hypersonic weapons race
The Pentagon just opened the door for private companies to pitch prototype hypersonic weapons capable of flying more than five times the speed of sound, releasing a formal Request for Solutions on July 9 that gives industry until August 10 to respond. The opportunity, titled Next Generation Hypersonics for the Department of War, runs through […]
U.S. Navy’s “doomsday plane” isn’t retiring anytime soon
If nuclear war ever broke out and every ground-based command center went dark, a fleet of aging jets built on a 1960s airliner design would still be able to relay the launch order, and the U.S. Navy just opened bidding on a decade-long contract to keep those planes flying. The Naval Air Systems Command posted […]
U.S. Air Force to upgrade plane missile defense system
A shoulder-fired missile streaking toward a military cargo plane has mere seconds to find its target, and the U.S. Air Force has paid $60.4 million to make sure the aircraft sees it coming even faster. Northrop Grumman won a $60,438,241 contract to develop an enhanced sensor called the Optical Detection and Identification Node, or ODIN, […]
Kongsberg secures $50M for U.S. Marine Corps’ ship-killing missile program
The U.S. Navy awarded Norwegian defense manufacturer Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace a contract modification worth roughly $50.3 million on July 2 to buy more launcher missile modules for what the Pentagon calls its “over-the-horizon weapons system,” the hardware behind a Marine Corps program that lets troops sink enemy warships from land without ever puttin
Years late: U.S. Air Force’s new trainer jet still isn’t ready
The U.S. Air Force jet meant to finally retire a training aircraft older than most of the pilots flying it is running years behind schedule, even as the service quietly started shopping for companies to upgrade the replacement before it has fully entered service. The Air Force posted a notice on July 8 seeking companies […]