DefenseNews

India puts domestic industry at heart of new military equipment orders

NEW DELHI — India will source nearly all of $11.6 billion worth of recently approved military hardware from domestic manufacturers, underscoring New Delhi’s push to reduce dependence on foreign arms suppliers as it modernizes its armed forces. The Defense Acquisition Council headed by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh granted “in principle” approval, which is essentially a green light to…
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DefenseNews

Iran likely to reverse-engineer captured US underwater drone

Iran’s capture of a U.S. military underwater drone gives Tehran an opportunity to study and potentially reverse-engineer the vessel, delivering a setback for the Pentagon and drone maker Anduril. The U.S. military and Anduril have downplayed the significance of the drone…
DefenseNews

NATO allies foil Russian subsea cable sabotage plot

LONDON/WASHINGTON — Deep in Arctic waters near the remote Svalbard archipelago this spring, NATO allies caught Russian subs training to unleash a secret weapon designed to disable critical undersea cables without leaving any fingerprints. The clandestine Russian operation, described to Reuters by two Western officials, was carried out by Moscow’s GUGI undersea warfare directorate, which used…
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DefenseNews

Defense startup’s AI aims to make every munition count

When Andy Markoff deployed to Mosul with the U.S. Marine Raiders in 2016, one of the challenges they faced as they pushed ISIS fighters back along a hundred-mile front was that they never had enough munitions, he said. Markoff explained that calling in air support was an…
DefenseNews

South Korea supercharges defense budget to record levels

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — South Korea will spend more on its military in the year ahead than it ever has before. The country’s defense budget is set to rise 8.2%, after government leaders announced the increased expenditure on Sept. 3. The boosted defense spending of KRW 73.28 trillion – around $53.9 billion – comes amid deepening security concerns about North Korea, China and…
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DefenseNews

US Air Force seeks air-defense guns to protect overseas bases

In the wake of Iranian attacks that devastated U.S. bases in the Middle East, the U.S. Air Force wants portable air-defense guns that can destroy drones and cruise missiles. The Ground-Based, Medium-Caliber Gun Weapon System project is aiming for a weapon “that fires…
DefenseNews

The Army shut down a specialized drone unit. Legislators want to know why.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing the Army to explain why it is shuttering a specialized drone battalion less than a year after establishing it, a move that comes as conflicts across the world have become increasingly defined by unmanned aerial systems and electronic warfare. The 600-member “Unmanned Assault Battalion,” created as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, was charged with…
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