Author: Michael

The US Air Force sent B-1 strategic bombers to participate in drills with Japan and South Korea after North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the sea.

South Korea’s military on March 19 announced that its F-35A fighter jets were exercised with B-1B strategic bombers and US F-16 fighters within the framework of the Freedom Shield joint exercise. However, South Korea did not say whether the activity took place before or after the North launched a short-range ballistic missile into the waters east of the peninsula.

As the Air Force begins shaping its new robotic wingman concept, there may be opportunities for the service to apply lessons learned from its allies in Australia who are developing similar platforms, the commander of the Pacific Air Forces component of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Monday.
The Air Force is planning to field drones known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) that will act as force multipliers by flying alongside manned fighter jets — like the F-35 and the forthcoming Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) system, and potentially other platforms.

The Air Force plans to spend more than $6 billion on a “collaborative combat aircraft” program and related projects over the next five years, according to newly released budget justification documents.
The CCA drones are expected to serve as robotic wingmen for Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter jets and other manned aircraft. The Air Force is currently planning for 1,000 such systems.
In fiscal 2024-2028, the service intends to invest about $5.

“The tempo of Russian offensive operations across the theater has slowed in recent weeks,” the Institute for the Study of War said.
The post Could Russia’s large-scale offensive in the Donbas be dying out? appeared first on Sandboxx.

North Korea has once again ramped up its missile launches against the backdrop of a new round of U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers. Significantly, the latest North Korean missile to have been fired was a short-range ballistic missile, or SRBM, which appears to have been launched from a ground-based silo, an important development that would increase the country’s ability to rapidly launch a nuclear strike against the South — or elsewhere, for that matter — with very little warning.

Staff Sgt. John Linzmeier

In a demonstration trailer designed to approximate the interior of the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, Boeing officials offered The War Zone and a handful of other reporters fascinating details about the E-7’s unique capabilities and painted a picture of why Air Force commanders can’t wait to get their hands on this jet. 
But that’s a few years off. Earlier this month, the Air Force signed a contract valued up to $1.

Boeing has been awarded a contract for producing and delivering 184 AH-64E Apache helicopters to US Army and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers.
Valued at approximately $1.9 billion, this is the third production contract for the Apache to be awarded to Boeing.
The initial AH-64E contract was awarded to Boeing in 2017, followed by the second multi-year award in 2019. The third multi-year contract now brings the total value to $2.1 billion.

With nearly 900 F-35s delivered to date, there are now more of these fighters in the sky than all other stealth aircraft combined.
The post There are more F-35s in the sky today than all other stealth aircraft combined appeared first on Sandboxx.

By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans
 

Transnistria owes its existence to a brief war in 1992 between Moldova and Russian-backed separatists who feared that Moldova would become part of Romania after the collapse of the USSR. The war ended when the Russian 14th Army, stationed in what was the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, intervened on behalf of Transnistria and defeated the forces of the newly independent Republic of Moldova.

China has been increasingly assertive in its claims over Taiwan in recent years, regularly conducting military exercises and sending fighter jets into Taiwan’s airspace. These aggressive moves have resulted in an increased Taiwan’s defence budget as Taipei seeks to modernise its military and acquire more advanced weapons systems to counter the threat from China.
Taiwan has refused to give in to the pressure and is consistently working with its closest ally, the US, to enhance its military capabilities.