Author: Michael

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces screencap

In some of the most intense footage we have seen since Russia began its all-out invasion of Ukraine 16 months ago, a team from the Ukrainian 73rd Naval Special Operations Center (NSOC) is seen wiping out Russian troops in a trench somewhere on the southern front of the ongoing counteroffensive.
The video shows combat strikingly reminiscent of the brutal close-quarters fighting that took place in the trenches of France during WWI. The video looks more like a scene from 1917 then from a modern battlefield.

NATO plans to invite Ukraine to join the new NATO-Ukraine Defense Council as a full member, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference in Brussels today.
Stoltenberg has indicated that details of the council will be announced next month at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
At the meeting, the leaders agreed to boost defense production and standardize munitions and command and control interoperability between NATO nations and Ukraine.
As stated by Stoltenberg, NATO is also focused on a way to move Ukraine closer to joining the alliance.

The Paris Air Show opened on Monday with last-minute negotiations over aircraft orders and supply chain headaches vying for attention with rows of missiles, drones and futuristic transports.
The largest air show in the world, which alternates with the British one in Farnborough, is held in Le Bourget for the first time in four years after the 2021 edition fell victim to the pandemic.

Youtube Screencap

Russia appears to now be packing nearly antique T-54/55 tanks with explosives and pointing them at Ukrainian positions on the battlefield, before detonating them under remote control in an attempt to blast their way through. A recent video seems to provide the first confirmation of a T-54/55 tank being rigged for this purpose, as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), although exactly how effective this effort was is open to debate.

Ukraine announced on Monday that its forces had recaptured Pyatykhatky, a town located on the highway leading to one of the most heavily defended areas in the Russian-occupied south and that they had recovered 113 square kilometers of land in the last two weeks.
Ukrainian soldiers displayed yellow and blue national flags in a video posted on social media, saying they were inside Pyatykhatky, the eighth town in the southeast that Kyiv claims to have liberated.
“Today, June 19, the forces of the 128th assault brigade drove the Russians out of the village of Pyatykhatky.

(Photo courtesy the National Park Service).

More than 70 years ago, Lieutenant John R. Fox was penned in on the second-floor of a building in an Italian village. German soldiers had overrun the town just before Christmas, 1944, leaving Fox and a few other forward observers as the only Americans left. Over the radio he was directing an artillery strike that put several Nazis but also Fox himself in the crosshairs.
“That was just where I wanted it. Bring it 60 yards!” he told artillery soldiers.

Elbit Systems Nano SPEAR displayed at the Paris Air Show 2023. (Janes/Olivia Savage)
Elbit Systems has launched a new airborne electronic countermeasure (ECM) system called Nano SPEAR (Self Protection Electronic Attack and Reconnaissance) at the Paris Air Show 2023, held from 19 to 25 June.
Nano SPEAR is a miniature countermeasure system designed to protect aircraft against radar-guided air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles.
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Each year, Americans celebrate Juneteenth on June 19, the anniversary of the day General Gordon Granger issues his emancipation order.
The post The military roots of Juneteenth and why we celebrate it first appeared on Sandboxx.
The post The military roots of Juneteenth and why we celebrate it appeared first on Sandboxx.

Being developed for the UK NMH requirement, the H175M is also being pitched to the wider international market. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)
Airbus is looking to add international partners to the H175M medium-lift helicopter that it is developing for the UK New Medium Helicopter (NMH) requirement.
Speaking to Janes at the Paris Air Show 2023 on 19 June, Lenny Brown, managing director of Airbus Helicopters UK, said that while the UK remains its focus, international interest in the H175M has already been received.
“We have been talking to other nations to bring them into the programme.

Introduced between 2002 and 2005, the four De Zeven Provinciën-class ships are planned to remain in commission through to 2032–35. (US Navy)
The Netherlands government has confirmed its intention to upgrade the inner-layer hard-kill defences on two of the Royal Netherlands Navy’s (RNLN’s) four De Zeven Provinciën-class air-defence and command frigates (Luchtverdedigings en commandofregat: LCF).