The U.S. Department of War’s Fiscal year 2027 Procurement Programs document has confirmed that the U.S. Air Force is set to receive 38 F-35A fighters under the new defence budget request, as the previously planned procurement rate of 48 per year continues to be missed due to new budget priorities. This compares to just 24 aircraft requested in 2025 for Fiscal Year 2026, the year the F-47 sixth generation fighter program was announced, and 40 aircraft requested for the preceding year.
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The French Air Force has deployed Rafale fighters to Siauliai Air Base, a facility located 130 kilometres from Russian territory, to take the lead in NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission in Lithuania. Rafales at the airbase are capable of firing air-to-air missiles deep int Russian airspace, and can easily conduct cruise missile strikes deep into the country including thousands of kilometres beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The U.S. military surged more than 150 aircraft deep into Iran’s territory this weekend in a search-and-rescue mission President Donald Trump initiated to recover an airman who hid in a mountain crevice for almost 48 hours to evade being captured after ejecting from his F-15E fighter jet that was hit by enemy fire.
When it was struck Thursday night, that F-15E — known by call sign Dude 44 — marked the first confirmed shootdown of an American military aircraft by Iran since the war began a little over a month ago.
Donald L. Miller spent years tracking down the men of the Eighth Air Force; haunting reunion halls, poring over diaries at England’s Mass Observation Archive, and sifting through declassified records at Maxwell Air Force Base. He wasn’t thinking about slipcovers or gilt-blocked cloth bindings. He was thinking about the 25-year-olds who climbed into B-17 Flying Fortresses at 25,000 feet, without long-range fighter escort, and somehow kept doing it until they had flown 25 missions or died trying.
The Air Force is asking for nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2027 to initiate procurement of the first Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones, according to newly published budget documents.
The Trump administration released a record-breaking $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal Friday, comprising $1.15 trillion of discretionary funds for FY27 and $350 billion from a future reconciliation bill. The request would allocate $30.6 billion in total for Air Force aircraft procurement, which for the first time includes the CCA program.
The Defense Department is asking Congress for about $20.2 billion in the next fiscal year for a loan program designed to help eligible companies working in certain technology areas of interest.
The funding request for the Defense Strategic Capital Credit Program, which is overseen by the Office of Strategic Capital, was included in fiscal 2027 budget documents recently released by the Pentagon and seeks to boost spending on the initiative by more than an order of magnitude.
The program was allotted less than $1.5 billion for fiscal 2026, according to budget documents.
The Marine Corps awarded a second prototyping phase for its Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV) program last week, driving an expensive, high-stakes competition between two major defense companies to replace a decades-old platform and shape part of the service’s amphibious repertoire.
The Marine Corps announced April 1 that General Dynamics Land Systems and Textron Systems “will be building and delivering” three pre-production variations of the ARV by 2028: a command and control model with drone capabilities, one with a 30mm autocannon and a third for logistics.
A new Pentagon policy for veterans still in the Individual Ready Reserve puts a sharper tone on how the Pentagon views inactive soldiers, moving from a last resort to a backup source for manpower.
“First and foremost, the [Individual Ready Reserve] is a mobilization asset. Deliberative plans will be in place that account for the use of the IRR, especially in plans for full mobilization,” according to a Department of Defense instruction released March 23.
A Tomahawk Costs $2 Million — The LUCAS Drone Does the Same Job for $35,000, and the Pentagon Can Build Hundreds for the Price of a Few Missiles
Nothing demonstrates the greatest military superpower like having to reverse-engineer a drone from the Islamic Republic of Iran. But that’s exactly what the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) is.
It’s a dynamic, deadly, and cost-effective system.
Cheaper is Better in Modern War
A one-way attack “Kamikaze” drone is designed to loiter then dive into targets. They are built to be cheap, mass-producible, and expendable.
China Launched 10 Nuclear Submarines Between 2021 and 2025 — Surpassing the U.S. Production Rate for the First Time
A series of reports and analyses of satellite imagery of activity at China’s submarine construction facilities indicates that Beijing is accelerating the production of nuclear-powered submarines at a pace that is beginning to draw serious attention in Washington.
The expansion of infrastructure at shipyards like Bohai is part of a larger increase in output of both attack and ballistic missile submarines. It reinforces conclusions already laid out in U.S.