🔷 Saved Rounds 3.17.26

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

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In that Number

1968

The United States Army approved the M111 Offensive Hand Grenade for operational use, marking the first time the service has adopted a new lethal hand grenade since 1968.

The M111 replaces the asbestos-bodied Mk3A2 design with a plastic-bodied system that utilizes blast overpressure to neutralize threats in confined spaces while reducing the risk of fragmentation to friendly forces.

Zoom in

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) updated its global database, identifying 5,564 foreign components across 192 weapon units used against Ukraine.

Zoom in here to see the supply chain teardowns.

They Said It

“The government is going to jealously focus on safety, I think…They’re going to meet where it’s safe, but they’re going to narrow it down to the few concepts that the government and industry knows it’s safe, and industry is saying we could rapidly produce this.”

— Ben Harris, Executive Director of the National Armaments Consortium (NAC), discussing the new effort to help standardize drone fuzing technology.

 ICYMI

Saved Rounds

• iRocket successfully tested its iRX-100 missile from an Arnold Defense launcher

• The US approved a $151M emergency sale of 12,000 bombs to Israel

• Yank Technologies won a $2M Army contract for wearable wireless battery charging

• CACI completed its $2.6B acquisition of ARKA Group to expand space-sensing capabilities

• AIRCO won a $15M Air Force award to develop mobile fuel systems 

• Lux Aeterna closed a $10M seed round for its satellite reentry infrastructure

• Scout Ventures closed an oversubscribed $125M Fund V for national security

• Anthropic sued the Trump administration over a supply-chain risk designation

• The Air Force issued a sources sought notice for the Stand-in Attack Weapon

• Collins Aerospace won a $174M contract for Army SOF aviation software modernization

• RTX successfully tested its hybrid-electric aviation system at full power

• Lockheed Martin won a $53M Air Force contract for LRASM production ramp-up

• The Army launched Project ARIA to fast-track artificial intelligence adoption

• Merlin completed a preliminary design review for its C-130J autonomy program

• Robinson Helicopter Company established Robinson Unmanned for autonomous aircraft

• Lockheed Martin made a $150M investment in its Alabama production facility

• EagleNXT made a strategic investment in Israeli loitering munition innovator Aerodrome

• Canada committed a $663M investment to boost drone and aerospace defense research

• Ondas announced it received $6M in orders for its counter-drone systems

• ENPULSION secured $26M in growth funding to expand its US market presence

• Ocius won a $126M Royal Navy contract for 40 Bluebottle unmanned surface vessels

• DroneShield established a counter-UAS manufacturing line in the European Union

• Thales launched SkyDefender for multi-layer protection against air and missile threats

• Diffraqtion secured additional pre-seed funding to scale its quantum imaging capabilities

• Mantis Space raised over $10M in seed funding for orbital energy infrastructure

• Leonardo announced plans to test its Michelangelo air defense dome in Ukraine

• DIU & the US Navy tapped Anduril to prototype Dive-XL autonomous submarines

• York Space Systems acquired Orbion Space Technology to strengthen its supply chain

• Japan released the first official photos of the EC-2 Stand-Off Jammer aircraft

• Voyager launched a new space tech hub in Long Beach, CA

• Voyager Technologies made a strategic investment in Max Space for lunar habitats

• Havoc acquired Mavrik and Teleo to advance all-domain collaborative autonomous systems

• Boeing won a $2.34B Air Force contract for E-7A Wedgetail development

• MizarVision released AI-processed imagery tracking US military assets in the Middle East

• The US approved a $930M foreign military sale of HIMARS launchers to Sweden

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