🔷 Saved Rounds 6.25.24

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

They Said It
“Whether it's driven by concerns over the budget, or concerns over technology, or uncertainty on the future of manned fighter designs—there's a bunch of open questions here.”

— Doug Royce, an aviation analyst with Forecast International, on the Air Force’s recent tone shift in committing to the 6th-gen Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft program

Zoom in

Affordable mass and attritable systems from the affordable-but-plentiful school of thought are wildly popular. But like all things in strategy and military forces, it’s not binary.

Zoom in here to read about the strategic importance of superior-performing weapons in modern warfare and their role in virtual attrition—degrading enemy efficiency through psychological and operational pressures rather than physical destruction.

In that Number

126

Rheinmetall is pitching a containerized launcher packed with 126 kamikaze drones.

Mike and Jake host Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar to talk about software-defined warfare, defense modernization, and all the things we’d change to drive innovation to help the warfighter.

No topic was off limits—including the time when Palantir sued the Army.

Even though Shyam is a software tech executive, we spent most of the time talking about culture, leadership mentalities, history, and structure changes that are as relevant in the Pentagon as they are in any other industry.

Of course, no episode would be complete without some lively banter and spicy takes!

Check it out!

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Saved Rounds

• OVES Enterprise, the Romanian tech firm that makes the AI guidance for the UK’s Storm Shadow cruise missile, may extend it to other weapons to help Ukraine after seeing promising battlefield results

• Boeing’s new Air Force One (VC-25B) first flight slipped to 2026

• Kongsberg unveiled a new mobile ground-based air defense system that shoots AIM-9Xs

• KNDS and Leonardo’s multi-national European tank agreement collapsed

• The Air Force’s re-engined B-52 bombers won't be operational until 2033—a three-year slip

• Lockheed Martin & Rheinmetall unveiled a new Global Mobile Artillery Rocket System (GMARS)

• Redwire’s SabreSat drone was tapped by DARPA to test electric propulsion that harvests ambient, low-density air for satellite operations in very low-Earth orbit (VLEO)

• Synspective (Japanese radar imaging company) ordered 10 launches from Rocket Lab, the largest contract in the history of the launch provider

• Leonardo’s new AW249 gunship was unveiled

• Israeli defense exports hit a record $13B in 2023

• The Space Force tapped 4 firms for a $100m laser network program

• Starlab Space added Palantir as a strategic partner on its commercial space station project

• L3Harris is opening an office in Italy to support increased European demand

• MatrixSpace was awarded a $1.25M AFWERX Direct-to-Phase II SBIR to develop a prototype low SWaP-C multi-function, multi-band antenna payload that supports the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative

• Congress lifted a hold on a $18B sale of 50 F-15s to Israel

• France plans to build Europe’s most powerful classified supercomputer to apply it for AI defense purposes

• Rheinmetall received a record $9.1B artillery ammo order

• Nigeria announced plans to buy 50 military aircraft to fight terrorism, including 24 M-346 light combat jets

• Ens Dynamics released its first product—an electrically propelled guided interceptor to neutralize Group 1 and 2 drones

• Taiwan is interested in buying tankers and C2 aircraft from the US and France (E-2 Hawkeye, KC-46, and Airbus’ A-33 MRTT)

• Honeywell is acquiring CAES for $1.9B

• Australia demoed its first laser weapon designed to counter high-speed drones

• Red Cat is acquiring FlightWave Aerospace (makes small ISR tricopter drones)

• Red Cat unveiled a low-cost family of small ISR & strike drones

• Isar Aerospace raised an additional $70m to scale up production of its small satellite launch vehicle

• Lockheed Martin won a $2.2B contract to build next-generation weather satellites

• Israel’s Aeronautics Group unveiled a new variant of its Orbiter 2 one-way attack drone that combines surveillance and precision strike capabilities

• X-Bow received Navy contracts to build Standard Missile rocket motors

• Northrop Grumman delivered the Army’s first full IBCS (Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS)

• The Air Force flight tested Lockheed Martin’s Mk21A ICBM reentry vehicle

• Australia received its first MQ-4C Triton

• ExoTerra raised $8m to expand production of microsatellite propulsion systems

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