British and German Air Forces escorted three Russian military planes over the Baltic Sea on Friday, the Royal Air Force said in a statement.
Eurofighter Typhoons from IX (B) Squadron RAF and 71 ‘Richthofen’ Wing of the German Air Force were deployed to intercept and visually identify several unidentified aircraft flying close to NATO airspace. The two forces are currently working side by side as part of Operation Azotize to protect the eastern flank of the NATO border.
Author: Michael
Courtesy John Phelps
The Pentagon has finally provided a statement on the Russian T-90A tank from Ukraine that wound up parked for two days at a Louisiana truck stop.
“The tank’s explosive reactive armor was inert, it was not armed or carrying any dangerous material, and at no point posed a risk to the public,” Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in an email to The War Zone on Tuesday in the Defense Department’s first comments about an ordeal that garnered international attention. You can read our original story about the tank in question here.
The United States and South Korea conduct massive air exercises while the Chinese military escorts the US Navy destroyer USS Milius in the Taiwan Strait.
United States: Destroyer escorted by China
Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Zone Combat Command spokesman Shi Yi reported that China organized detachments to escort and guard the destroyer USS Milius during its passage through the Taiwan Strait.
Shi Yi said the Chinese military maintains a high degree of combat readiness in order to resolutely uphold national sovereignty and security as well as regional stability.
USAF
According to the Air Force, the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber fleet remains grounded, with exceptions at the discretion of the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, over four months after one of these aircraft suffered a mishap last December. The bomber in question made an emergency landing that resulted in a runway excursion at its home base in Missouri.
Significant damage was done to the aircraft, which caught fire, and subsequently sat wing-down partially off the runway for days. This incident came just over a year after a similar mishap occurred.
A photo of US-supplied M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA IFVs (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) painted in Ukrainian camouflage colors has surfaced online. The author on Twitter Ukraine Weapons Tracker, which since the beginning of the war has been following the performance and delivery of war platforms to Ukraine, claims so.
Pictured are two M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA IFVs. One is painted dark green, while the other is camouflaged in shades of green, from light to dark. The publisher cannot confirm whether these two vehicles are currently in Ukraine.
Just today, a video of Bradley in desert colors appeared online.
Army Spc. Justin Rein (L) and Capt. Luke Ebeling (R) won the 2023 Best Ranger Competition. (U.S. Army photo).
The 2023 Army Best Ranger Competition wrapped up this weekend, with a team from the 75th Ranger Regiment taking home the title for the third year in a row. Captain Luke Ebeling and Spc. Justin Rein were this year’s winners, besting 55 other teams across three days and 32 individual events designed to push the mind and body to its limits.
The Navy is replacing aging and legacy navigation radars across its surface combatant fleet with a software-configurable technology called Next Generation Surface Search Radar, or NGSSR.
Justification documents for the Defense Department’s fiscal 2024 budget request confirm that this major modernization effort and the commercial production of NGSSR have “been accelerated as a result of the” 2017 investigations conducted in the aftermath of the separate, fatal collisions involving the USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — U.S. Space Command is on track to reach full operational capability before the end of 2023, its commander announced Tuesday.
Having been reestablished in August 2019, Spacecom is the Defense Department’s newest combatant command and is responsible for military operations throughout the space domain. The organization reached initial operational capability in August 2021 and immediately began working towards full operational capability.
Lockheed Martin
Berlin has delivered a Patriot air defense battery and missiles to Ukraine, the German Defense Ministry (MoD) announced Tuesday on its website.
The Patriot system, along with additional trucks, was added to the category of “delivered” military assistance this week as part of Germany’s $2.41 billion commitment of lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.
Now this is serious. Germany delivered first PATRIOT air defence system to Ukraine. pic.twitter.
The Israel Aeronautics company, in conjunction with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Stolero Aeron, reached an agreement to supply Orbiter 3 drones to Greece.
The contract with Greece
The contract, part of a 370 million-euro ($404 million) sale package for Rafael’s Spike missiles, will see the delivery of “dozens” of drones to the Greek Defense Ministry.
The Orbiter 3 is an unmanned aerial system with a maximum takeoff weight of 32 kilograms (71 pounds) and a flight range of up to six hours, ideal for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.