Author: Michael

Italian company Leonardo has reported that its new orders in 2022 increased 20.7% to €17.266bn, and 21% on a like-for-like perimeter.
The growth has been attributed to contributions from Defence Electronics and Security in the company’s US component.
Revenue for 2022 increased by 4.1% to €14.713bn and 4.7% on a like-for-like perimeter, compared to the previous year.

The rise was driven by the performance of Helicopters and Defence Electronics in both its European and US components. Leonardo’s European component contributed the largest portion of revenue.

12 Squadron will continue as a joint UK-Qatari Typhoon unit until 2025. (Crown Copyright)
The Qatari and UK governments are to continue 12 Squadron as a joint Eurofighter Typhoon, overturning an earlier decision to revert it to being a Royal Air Force (RAF)-only unit after 2023.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced the decision on 9 March, saying the bilateral nature of the squadron will continue until 2025.

The all-volunteer force may finally have reached its breaking point. During the first years of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many military experts worried that the constant deployments would “break” the force since they expected that fewer young Americans would volunteer to serve in a wartime military. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Yet a […]
The post Addressing the U.S. Military Recruiting Crisis appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Late in 2022, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy issued a joint declaration outlining their intention to work together to create a sixth-generation fighter. The joint plan, called the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP), is expected to debut an airframe in 2035.
If everything goes according to plan, GCAP will be the most extensive joint effort between Japan and Europe in military aviation history.
According to the BBC, the emerging sixth-generation Tempest will eventually replace Britain’s fleet of aging FGR4 Typhoon fighters.

The first of the five Lockheed Martin C-130J-30s ordered by Indonesia arrived in the country on 6 March. (Indonesian Ministry of Defense)
A Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Super Hercules aircraft ordered by Indonesia has arrived in the country and has been handed over to the Indonesian Air Force (Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Udara:TNI-AU) for operations.
The aircraft arrived at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, East Jakarta, on 6 March. Its handover to the TNI-AU was conducted on 8 March, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Defense (MoD).

US President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget request would continue developing the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. (US Navy)
US President Joe Biden has asked Congress to approve a fiscal year (FY) 2024 government budget request that includes USD842 billion for the US Department of Defense (DoD), up 3.2% or USD26 billion from the FY 2023 enacted level and nearly USD100 billion above the FY 2022 actual level, the Biden administration announced on 9 March 2023.

The 341st Missile Security Operations Squadron carry out security drills at a launch facility, near Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana. (US Air Force)
The US Air Force (USAF) has contracted US information technology company Persistent Systems to provide mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) capability to the service’s security forces, tasked with protecting major intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fields and installations in the continental United States (CONUS).
Officials from Air Force Global Strike Command inked a USD75.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the US Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, was designed to be capable of winning a potential conflict with China. The new class of nuclear-powered ships will replace the aging US aircraft carriers one by one, eventually taking the place of the Nimitz-class ships.
The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group embarked on its maiden deployment this past October, sailing across the Atlantic and successfully operating with numerous US allies and partners.

Kremlin photo

A large Russian missile barrage on Ukraine Thursday included the biggest single-day volley of 9-S-7760 Kinzhal (Kh-47) hypersonic quasi-air-launched ballistic missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.
Of the 81 missiles fired into Ukraine by Russian forces, six were Kh-47s, the Ukrainian Air Force says. At least 11 people were killed and more than 20 injured during the overnight attacks, according to CNN, citing preliminary information from regional authorities.
“There was no case of allocation of this number of” Kh-47s before, Col.

Ukrainian forces have captured Russian tanks and repurposed them for defensive reasons from the beginning of the war, or at least since the Russians suffered disastrous defeats in the weeks after the invasion and were forced to evacuate from their positions in Donbas and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Video showing Ukrainian farmers dragging Russian tanks from the battlefield and delivering them to Ukrainian forces for repair or reuse has gone popular online.
Now, more than a year after the start of the war, the Ukrainian armed forces continue to use captured Russian tanks.