🔷 Cargo Drones

In That Number

45

Brave1—Ukraine's defense accelerator—has attracted 45 international companies to test and improve military technologies on its front lines.

The idea is to enhance real-time feedback and deepen international defense cooperation..

On the Radar

New logistics drone startup. Grid Aero exited stealth mode with an unveil: an ultra-low-cost autonomous cargo drone. The Lifter-Lite drone is designed for simple assembly and rugged operations, targeting contested logistics for the US military. The startup has raised a $6M seed fund, has an AFWERX SBIR Phase II contract, and plans ground testing next month.

• The Merge’s Take: Yes! While not huge, its size is very intentional. The ability to move 1,500 pounds over 1,500 miles in austere conditions is probably the number one thing preventing several US military CONOPS from being real—think Air Force ACE and Marine Corps EABO inside the 1st-island chain. There are almost no other cargo aircraft on the market that are optimized for these 2 numbers, and by purpose-building for low-cost, rugged operations, Grid Aero is creating a strategic moat. OBTW, they also plan to network them together for distributed autonomous supply operations.

• Side note: The twin-engine front-loader design is very similar to China’s YH1000, which first flew 3 months ago, and both are branded as ‘pickup trucks of the skies.’

Another tanker RFI. The Air Force kicked off another round of market research to figure out what to do with its Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) program. The service is trying to figure out how to create survivable air refueling.

• The Merge’s Take: The Air Force appears to be taking the long road here. They upped funding to buy KC-46s, but NGAS is only funded ($13M) to explore options, and they want to cut funding from the only other funded novel airframe concept: JetZero’s Blended Wing Body. We say fully fund JetZero and see what happens, but also throw some pennies at that supersized MQ-25, and might as well throw in a B-21 modular tanker kit concept for good measure. “KC-21” is an unused aircraft designation, just sayin…

China drone parade. In the coming weeks, China will conduct a massive military parade. Imagery of some of the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) drones has emerged, providing a glimpse into what they’re cooking up. Some are near-copies of Western designs, but others are novel and new, and there are quite a few of them.

• The Merge’s Take: Expect headlines and higher-quality pictures this week—they often parade emerging tech as a signal-inject to the US calculus. Some of it is mature, some of it is rough R&D stage, but it all looks compelling in a parade—and that’s what matters when signaling. And it’s not just aircraft tech—check out the size of this XLUUV that is also expected to make an appearance.

CCA 1st flight. Pentagon sources have said that the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) 1st first flights are imminent. Both should complete first flights no later than the next few weeks.

• The Merge’s Take: Expect headlines when this happens—maybe before China’s CCA parade?

Can AI fix HQ? Commanding and controlling a battle requires some sort of C2 function, and traditionally, this means a large, static battle management headquarters element. The bigger the fielded force, the bigger the headquarters to control it. One of the novel applications of AI—and agentic AI—is to break this correlation and streamline battle management with a small, lean, and maybe even distributed network. Boom, no more juicy C2 target.

• The Merge’s Take: This is mostly theory and concept, but it’s something that needs to be on the radar (see what we did there ;)). Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to present at the National War College on a very similar topic: use AI tools and simple workflows to demo how to execute Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) and the Joint Planning Process. It’s been less than a year, and we aren’t even good at any of this, but the AI has already made considerable leaps in this area—and it’s only going to get better.

• The Merge’s Spicy Take: A great forcing function might be to simply start reducing the number of people assigned to staff and headquarters, then provide the remaining personnel with the tools to be more productive.

TRIVIA

Which board game did the British government use during WWII to help POWs escape by hiding real money, maps, and escape tools in specially made versions?

A) Clue
B) Monopoly
C) Chess

They Said It

“Effective immediately, commence the disestablishment of JCIDS and direct the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) to cease validating Component-level requirement documents to the maximum extent permitted by law.” 

— Office of the Secretary of Defense, in a memorandum announcing the Pentagon’s decisive reform to dismantle the decades-old requirements system, aiming to cut bureaucracy, accelerate fielding of new warfighting capabilities, and prioritize real operational needs over red tape

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Knowledge Bombs

• The Air Force's 500th F-35 is now operational

• Airbus & Shield AI conducted the first flight test of an autonomous H145 helicopter

• Anduril Industries won a $1M contract to study a rocket cargo delivery vehicle

• Saronic Technologies won a $392M Navy deal to produce autonomous maritime drones 

• Israel plans to buy 2 more Boeing KC-46 aircraft to expand its tanker fleet

• X-Bow and the Army are investing $13.9M to develop a new rocket motor for the GMLRS

• The Army demoed a “first-of-a-kind” drone-on-drone takedown using a quadcopter armed with a claymore mine (IG pic)

• Kratos unveiled its new pickle fork-like drone concept

• X-energy won a Pentagon contract to advance its XENITH nuclear microreactor

• General Atomics acquired Achates Power's key assets

• SNC unveiled the Freedom Trainer, its competitor in the forthcoming Navy T-45 replacement program

• Red 6 is partnering with SNC on the Freedom Trainer

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ANSWER
B) Monopoly. During WWII, the British intelligence agency MI9 worked with the company that produced Monopoly to create special versions of the game. These boards contained hidden items, such as real currency, silk maps, and even small tools to aid in POW escapes.