🔷 Saved Rounds 11.19.24

Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.

🚨 UKRAINE was approved to employ US-provided ATACMS long-range missiles against targets in Russia following its largest airstrike in three months, targeting Ukraine's power grid. The decision comes amid reports of North Korea potentially sending 100,000 troops to aid Russia.

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They Said It
“The authors also could not identify any compelling strategic military value.”

— a CSIS think tank study on cislunar space, the area of space between the Earth and the moon

Zoom in

The Pentagon released the implementation plan for its National Defense Industrial Strategy.

One thing the 93-page plan barely mentions is domestic raw materials, and there are no signs of an on-shoring plan to be found—which might be the biggest blind spot of the entire industrial strategy.

This chart sums it up well—it’s sourced from annual mineral reports from the US government.

In that Number

68

In 2023, Congress appropriated $1B to offset inflation in Pentagon programs.

This was subsequently allotted to 68 programs, with the top 2 consuming about half of it: The Navy’s Constellation-class frigate ($310m) and the Air Force’s F-15EX ($154m)

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Saved Rounds

• General Atomics’ Gray Eagle STOL drone is operating on a Korean amphibious assault ship

• North Korea is starting to mass-produce kamikaze drones

• Hermeus integrated Starlink onto its Quarterhorse supersonic test drone prototype

• ABL Space Systems pivoted from space launch to missile defense

• Sweden blocked the construction of offshore wind farms over concerns that they would interfere with radar detection of a Russian low-altitude cruise missile attack

• Sweden selected Embraer’s C-390 as its C-130H replacement

• Spire sold its space-based ship-tracking business to Kpler, a Belgian trade intelligence business, for $241m

• Canada joined the F-35 international reprogramming lab, called the ACURL (the “C” stands for Canada, and the C has been there since it was opened years ago)

• Colombia is buying Saab Gripen fighter jets

• Airbus’ A321MPA won France’s maritime patrol aircraft competition

• Firefly Aerospace closed a $175m Series D fundraise to scale their response space launch business

• Turkey is close to buying 40 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets

• The Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant high-speed coaxial helicopter prototype was sent to a museum in Alabama

• The Pentagon allotted $160m to boost semiconductor manufacturing

• Kratos was awarded a $116m SDA contract to develop a ground system for LEO missile defense satellites

• Kongsberg won a $900m contract for anti-ship missiles, its biggest-ever missile deal from the US Navy

• Taiwan received the first batch of ATACMS missiles from the US

• Airbus delivered another A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft to the UAE (one more to follow)

• The Pentagon failed its 7th audit in a row but thinks it’s on track to pass in 2028

• AUKUS partners are setting up a data-sharing framework for electronic warfare

• India flight-tested a 600-mile cruise missile

• France plans to surpass 600 rocket-boosted bombs to Ukraine by the end of the year (they send an average of 50 per month out of aging stocks)

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