🔷 Saved Rounds! 1.16.24

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

👉 OOPS Apparently, the “strategy without resources is simply a hallucination” that we quoted sounded a bit too similar to a variation from “vision without execution is hallucination,” a quote often attributed to Thomas Edison….which is itself a variation from an ancient Japanese proverb: "vision without action is a daydream”…maybe. BL: No Ivy League presidents were harmed in the making of this quote.

📺YOUTUBE: Don’t miss our exclusive interview with defense titan Norm Augustine, the first CEO of Lockheed Martin. Watch it on YouTube or download the podcast on choice. Spotify, Apple, Pandora, iHeartRadio, etc.

🎧 LOWDOWN: Something new for ‘24 we’re trying: we just dropped a short audio-only episode that summarizes the intel crammed in our weekly newsletters. We may keep it—or kill it—depending on feedback. Check it out using the links above.

They Said It
“I do not want a from-scratch software development program. The Army has enough failed software-development programs.”

— Mark Kitz, Army PEO for C3T, on the service’s commercial, modular, consortium-based approach to overhauling Army software (AFATDS) that coordinates firepower

PEO C3T: Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical

Zoom in

Boeing won the KC-46 program based on a low-risk approach that leveraged the company’s 767 airplane—yet it’s lost $7B (and counting) on this program.

Zoom in here to learn why.

In that Number

$5.5B

Turkey’s defense and aerospace exports totaled $5.5B in 2023, up 25% from the year prior.

 Supported by Scale

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Saved Rounds

• Estonia received Polish Piorun MANPADS as part of a 300-missile $113m order

• Estonia is establishing an industrial complex to produce ammunition

• South Korea’s indigenous KAI KF-21 fighter jet is set to go into production

• L3Harris is providing SOCOM next-gen tactical radios under a $479m deal

• Microsoft inked a deal with the Space Force for mixed-reality training

• Germany removes its block of selling Eurofighters to Saudi Arabia

• Raytheon signed a $34m deal to support Sea Sparrow missiles with the US, Chile, and Japan

• Spain stood up a Space Command, formalizing the new Spanish Air and Space Force structure

• Raytheon has completed the technical review of the Navy’s HALO hypersonic weapon prototype

• Adani unveiled India’s first medium-altitude, long-endurance MQ-9-like spy drone

• BAE Systems delivered the first production-ready Amphibious Combat Vehicle C2 variant (ACV-C2) variant to Marine Corps

• Aerojet Rocketdyne (L3Harris) signed a 10-year agreement with the Navy to increase production of solid rocket motors

• Rafael tested a new version of its Spyder air defense system, using a ground-launched Python air-to-air missile to shoot down a target drone (video!)

• The Air Force is holding a competition to develop low-cost cruise missiles ($150k per unit in bulk)

• Raytheon’s Barracuda sea-mine killer drone is achieved another development milestone (started in 2018, deploys in 2026)

• France placed a $5.5B order for 42 Rafale fighters

• Indonesia signed a deal to buy 18 more French Rafale fighters

• Rheinmetall tested its Skyranger 30, a remote control 30mm cannon mobile air defense system

• Tanzania ordered 2 C-27J airlifters from Italy

• Lockheed Martin signed a deal with Jordan for 12 F-16 Block 70 fighters

• NASA and Lockheed Martin debuted the X-59 quiet supersonic demonstrator (pics!)

• Australia was cleared to buy $250m in RTX Tomahawk cruise missiles

• Asisguard (Turkish defense firm) tested a drone equipped with a six-barrel rotary grenade launcher (video!)

• The Army tapped Viasat for commercial high bandwidth SATCOM to connect its HAWKEYE III LITE terminals

And Finally…

• The Air Force and Raytheon tested a new portable AESA radar for the NASAMS missile system.
  Spoiler: THIS IS OUR NEXT PODCAST!

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