🔷 Saved Rounds 7.22.25

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

💤 BREAK: Next week, there will be no emails—nada—so we can refuel. Expect laser-guided knowledge bombs back in your inbox on August 3rd!

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It’s a short video series that tells the epic stories behind some of the best military call signs out there.

This is a unique opportunity to share your story in an entertaining way!

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Zoom in

America’s ambitious unmanned fleet faces a hidden hurdle: financing the massive shipyards needed to build at scale. Without new industrial financing reforms and public-private partnerships, cutting-edge autonomous vessels risk remaining prototypes rather than a game-changing reality.

Zoom in here to get the full story.

They Said It

“It is our most stressed force element.”

— Gen. James Mingus, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, on the urgent need to expand and modernize the Army’s Patriot air defense battalions to address overwhelming operational demands.

 ICYMI

Saved Rounds

• L3Harris unveiled a pair of wolf pack munitions to be fired as swarms from a variety of platforms

• Firefly Aerospace filed paperwork to go public market approach

• Astrolight tested its laser comm terminal between naval vessels

• France announced its accelerating its $75B defense spending 3 years (2027 vs 2030)

• Norway was approved to buy 9 HH-60W helicopters (a deal valued at $2.6B)

• The Air Force flew GA’s XQ-67A with government reference autonomy in a recent flight test

• BAE Systems unveiled the final configuration of the UK’s Combat Air Demonstrator in a new image

• DIU launched a CSO looking for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) for maritime warfare

• L3Harris secured a contract to upgrade Morocco’s Royal C-130 aircraft fleet

• XTEND secured an additional $30M in funding for its autonomous drones

• South Korea plans to share its military data with industry partners to boost AI-enabled weapon development

• Colombia created its first-ever indigenous defense drone

• Solestrial won a $1.2M Space Force contract to develop novel arrays for small satellites

• Skydio received a $9.8M order to deliver X10D drones for the Norwegian Armed Forces

• Lockheed Martin cleared all of its F-35 jet backlog deliveries that were sitting due to software delays

• Stark is set to open a new drone manufacturing plant in the UK

• Auriga Space raised $6M to develop an electromagnetic launch track for space payloads

• General Atomics announced plans to produce its FQ-42 CCA drone in Germany

• Scientific Systems unveiled a new small Unmanned Surface Vehicle (sUSV) VENOM drone for high-speed maritime operations

• Avilus unveiled 3 new drones, including a 1,700lb ISR variant

• Northrop Grumman revealed that an upgraded E-2D Block II aircraft is in development and will be fielded in a few years

• Raytheon secured a $74M Navy contract to produce Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) systems, its largest order in decades

• Denmark will supply satellite communications to Ukraine's military using European-made receiver terminals

• Italy tested its Paveway IV bombs on Eurofighters

• The Air Force announced the two-year delay of its NGAP next-gen fighter engine initiative due to supply chain woes (F-47 engine program)

• York Space is acquiring ATLAS Space to bolster satellite manufacturing

• The Space Force started testing its first two OCX C2 software blocks for GPS satellites (the program is about 12 years behind schedule)

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