Perpetua Resources wants to revive this abandoned mine in the US state of Idaho. (Perpetua Resources)
US-based Perpetua Resources Corporation is trying to revive an abandoned mine in the state of Idaho that it says could eliminate the US military’s reliance on foreign – and potentially unreliable – sources for antimony, a critical mineral used to make ammunition and missiles.
China and Russia produce most of the world’s antimony, which has commercial and military applications.
The Fleet Solid Support ship class will be built to a design provided by BMT, featuring commonality with the UK Royal Navy’s Tide-class tankers. (UK MoD Crown Copyright)
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a GBP1.6 billion (USD1.97 billion) contract to Navantia UK, leading the Spanish/UK industry consortium Team Resolute, for the manufacturing phase of the UK’s new Fleet Solid Support (FSS) ships.
Hensoldt’s TRML-4D multifunctional surveillance and target acquisition sensor system is highly mobile and can be deployed within 10 minutes. (Hensoldt)
Hensoldt is to equip the Ukrainian military with two new TRML-4D radars.
According to a company announcement on 18 January, Ukraine will receive the new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars to strengthen its air defences.
Valued in the “two-digit million-euro range”, the company is expected to deliver the radars in the next three months.
Rising inflation means that despite a slight nominal acceleration in North Korea’s defence spending in 2023, the budget in real terms will reduce for the third consecutive year. (Janes Defence Budgets)
North Korea has announced that it will spend nearly 16% of state expenditure in 2023 on defence. No monetary figure has been stipulated but the proportion is consistent with recent years.
Analysis of the expenditure byJanes Defence Budgets suggests that the country’s military spending will increase nominally but decline in real terms because of rising inflation.
One of the two Lockheed Martin-converted Kaman K-MAX optionally manned helicopters during a trial with the US Army Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC) at Fort Benning, Georgia. (Lockheed Martin)
Kaman Corporation announced it will end the K-MAX production line, citing “low demand and variation in annual deliveries, coupled with low profitability and large working capital inventory requirements”, according to an 18 January statement.
Pearson Engineering
The Pentagon has announced a new tranche of military assistance for Ukraine, valued at $2.5 billion. It includes many 8×8 Stryker wheeled armored vehicles, something that hasn’t been found in any previous U.S. aid packages for Ukraine, and landmine-defeating rollers to go with them. More tracked Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Avenger air defense systems, and a slew of other missiles and artillery ammunition, are also included, among other things.
This new aid package is a so-called “Presidential Drawdown.
Krauss-Maffei Wegmann photo
As Ukraine and Russia battle fiercely in places like Bakhmut and Kreminna, Kyiv’s allies are dealing with their own contentious issue – the ongoing to-be-or-not-to-be saga of sending modern tanks to Kyiv.
But this might all come to ahead tomorrow during the eighth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, where some 50 nations are gathering to determine how best to arm Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
There was action on tanks even before that meeting.
Real-world battles, such as that that defined in the world wars, is indescribably brutal. It’s why only participants can truly understand its terror. The carnage of “The Great War,” with its years spent in mud-packed, rat-infested tunnels and trenches, was punctuated with a whole set of new weapons. Gargantuan artillery guns rained death on millions of men hunkered in their holes. It’s no wonder “shell-shock” plagued armies on both sides, while political leaders dined on delicacies in their palaces.
Why do men fight when all is lost? It’s a question that calls out to history’s bravest. It’s about fighters on the battlefield realizing all is lost, but continuing on anyway. Physical courage, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote, cannot be dismissed by the lesser natures in our world. Too many actual stories spotlighting it still thrills us and inspires us, even the many of us that will never smell death on the battlefield. One such engagement is relatively well-known today in America, though many details are also more obscure, even jarring.
We’re not talking about Miss Cleo here. Russians are a deeply mystic people, and upwards of 60 percent of Russians believe in some form of magic. The heavy hitting decision makers at the Kremlin aren’t exempt. Their newest concern, according to leaked memos, is that the West will make a psychic attack on Russia, its leadership or its forces over the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The West has offered military support in many forms to the Ukrainian armed forces.
