#himars-and-atacms

#himars-and-atacms

"To accelerate current weapons development timelines, DARPA is considering an alternative development paradigm to increase the nation's magazine depth and breadth."

German media reported that transistors made by the German company Infineon Technologies were found in a Geran-5, along with other foreign-made components. The information had been published on a web portal called War and Sanctions, which is run by Ukraine's military intelligence service HUR. It includes a detailed list of all foreign components found to date in Russian military equipment.

CENTCOM's Task Force Scorpion Strike-for the first time in history-is using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury. These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran's Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution.

The US Army is taking lessons from Ukraine's drone war and pushing soldiers to design, build, and 3D print their own systems. At the Army's first annual Best Drone Warfighter competition held this week at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the participating soldiers were encouraged not only to bring their own drone builds and modify them on-site but also to share tips and tricks across the service.

A ballistic munition launched from Iran, which was detected passing through Iraqi and Syrian airspace and heading towards Turkish airspace, was engaged in a timely manner by NATO air and missile defence assets stationed in the eastern Mediterranean and rendered inactive, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Russia often mixes up how it attacks Ukraine with ballistic and cruise missiles - from firing decoys to tweaking trajectories midflight - and Kyiv says it's funneling that battlefield intel to US Patriot interceptor makers to inform upgrades for better performance. "They are trying to use different tactics and make some adjustments for their ballistic missiles," Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, said of the Russian strikes.

Hydrogen-powered unmanned aerial vehicles are not a new concept. Drones running on hydrogen fuel have been in experimental forms for over a decade, but this is for the first time, a drone has been fully designed and deployed on full-scale combat duty in an active war zone. The drone is a hybrid version of the Raybird USA developed by Skyeton and is deployed with the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

Facing an existential crisis, the Ukrainians had to develop a way to counter hostile forces cheaply yet with mass. That meant figuring out how to turn inexpensive drones into weaponry, a step that quickly and fundamentally changed how the war was being fought. Now, drones carry out 80% of all battlefield hits and are responsible for most combat casualties.

North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia are still causing problems for Ukrainian forces more than a year after they were first deployed in support of Moscow's war. The North Korean soldiers who were deployed to Russia's Kursk region to thwart a Ukrainian incursion were initially tasked with brutal infantry assaults that resulted in high casualties. Their role has since shifted to drone reconnaissance and artillery operations.

Swedish defense prime Saab is exploring the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System as a cheaper armament option for its JAS 39 Gripen fighters, firm executives told Business Insider this week. "The APKWS is in interest because other platforms are now integrating 70mm guided rockets. So we are, of course, eyeing that capability now," Jussi Halmetoja, operations advisor for Saab's air domain, said at the Singapore Airshow. Halmetoja said the company was looking at ways to integrate the weapons system, which uses a guided version of the Hydra 70mm rocket, onto its older Gripen C and latest Gripen E models.

With the fight evolving quickly, arms companies in Ukraine and Europe say that they can't afford to start from scratch and completely redesign entire systems each time conditions shift. Instead, companies making aerial drones and ground robots told Business Insider that their focus is now on creating weapons that can be upgraded by simply changing parts or software rather than overhauling the whole system. Designs are modular, like Lego pieces, with parts being easily swapped out as new mission demands arise.

It's anything but easy to keep guns, drones, and other equipment in the right conditions far above the Arctic Circle, where temperatures routinely drop below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and the heavy snow brings unwanted moisture that can cause jamming and other problems. NATO military personnel training in northern Finland told Business Insider during a visit to the region in late January that they can't afford to let their guns get too warm if they want them to work in this climate.

The Oreshnik, a medium-range (non-intercontinental) ballistic missile that flies at hypersonic speed and is designed for nuclear warfare scenarios, has been deployed again by Russia in its latest offensive against Ukraine. The missile reaches a suborbital altitude and can carry up to six warheads, either nuclear or conventional. Its high speed and the very short time frame for attack make it extremely difficult for air defense systems to intercept.

There was a certain amount of awareness, there was kind of a frustration with the missions that we were being called on to carry out, the people flying the missions, they knew that we were kind of wasting drones. For militaries that have the luxury of time and maybe the luxury of money, I think moving into sort of something a little bit more sophisticated makes more sense.