Russian Military Thought
Throughout the Cold War period, the Soviet Union saw itself as the spearhead of a historical struggle that would lead to a confrontation between the “capitalist” system and “progressive forces.” This perception of a permanent and inescapable war led the Soviets to study war in a quasi-scientific way, and to structure this thinking into an architecture of military thought that has no equal in the Western world.
The problem with the vast majority of our so-called military experts is their inability to understand the Russian approach to war.

The J-31 has been related to the Chengdu J-20 in technical comparisons, although with notable differences. An interesting aspect is adopting a double-wheel landing gear in the nose, suggesting its possible use on aircraft carriers.

A detailed analysis of Pakistan’s possible acquisition of the J-31 to renew its air fleet and its strategic implications.

Pakistan Air Force Modernization: A Pivot Towards Chinese Technology
Modernization of the Pakistan Air Force continues with firm and determined steps.

Ukrainian State Emergency Services photos
Ukrainian sappers have been very busy during this conflict and on Friday found themselves working to disarm the warhead of a Kh-47 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile. It was one of 10 that were claimed to have been shot down over Kyiv on January 2nd.
The Mobile Rescue Center’s explosive ordnance disposal team (DSNC) from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) worked in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district to neutralize the warhead, the service said.

USAF. USAF
U.S. Special Operations Command has laid out requirements for a new bolt-action Extreme Long Range Sniper Rifle that could replace its existing .50 caliber precision rifles. American special operators currently use variants of the iconic Barrett semi-automatic .50 caliber rifle and the less well-known bolt-action McMillan Mk 15 in the same caliber.
Special Operations Command’s (SOCOM) Special Operations Forces Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Center (SOF AT&L) first put out its sources sought notice for the Extreme Long Range Sniper Rifle (ELR-SR) in December.

In the realm of defense technology, 2023 witnessed the emergence of outstanding weapons and military equipment, each making a mark in its own right. Let’s delve into the winners across various categories, from the highly anticipated to the unexpected, and explore the effectiveness, scarcity, and cost of these remarkable assets.
1. The Most Anticipated: F-16 Fighter Jets

In the spotlight of anticipation for 2023 were the F-16 multi-purpose fighter jets.

Four crew members of an Air Force B-1B supersonic bomber safely ejected before their aircraft crashed Thursday during an attempt to land at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. Photo by Photo by Tech. Sgt. Chris Hibben.
Four crew members of an Air Force B-1B supersonic bomber safely ejected before their aircraft crashed Thursday during an attempt to land at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. 
The bomber was assigned to the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth, which is one of the Air Force’s two B-1B bases. The bomber crashed at approximately 5:50 p.m.

Chinese internet
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) says it’s lining up a purchase of Chinese-made Shenyang FC-31 stealth fighters, a move that could make it the first operator of the medium-weight combat aircraft and which would add another type to an already highly diverse inventory.
Preparations to buy the FC-31 were announced by the PAF boss, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Sidhu, during a recent ceremony to showcase newly acquired types (not including the FC-31) at an undisclosed airbase in Pakistan.

The Space Force is on the cusp of releasing its first-ever strategy that outlines exactly how the service plans to buy from and partner with the commercial space sector for its missions.
“We are days away, hopefully, from signing a commercial strategy,” Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber and nuclear, said during a Mitchell Institute webinar Friday. The strategy will offer guidance for how commercial technology can be integrated into the Space Force and which capabilities industry can provide as a service.

John Davies – CYOW Airport Watch via Wikicommons
You gotta be shitting me (YGBSM) – no student would ever do that?!
At about 2,500 feet above ground, upside down, with the speed decaying below 100 knots (kts), the stick started to shake as our CT-114 Tutor jet trainer started to stall. In the right seat, my hands left my lap and hovered just inches away from my set of controls, but not quite ready to take over – unless things got worse than being out of speed, inverted.
Then, things got worse. Way worse.
“Okay, forced landing checklist: Throttle off.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has found no evidence of any crime behind a video that spread in 2023 of Marine Sgt. Jonathon Fehr claiming he helped bury a body after a murder at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.(Screenshot/TikTok).
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has found no evidence of any crime behind a video that spread last year of a Marine claiming he helped bury a body after a murder at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, an NCIS official said.

Maj. Gen. Lorna Mahlock assumed command of U.S. Cyber Command’s elite Cyber National Mission Force in a ceremony Friday.
Mahlock, the first Marine Corps officer to lead the CNMF, takes over for Maj. Gen. William Hartman, who will assume the deputy commander role at Cybercom and pin on a third star.
The CNMF’s chief mission is to defend the nation from significant cyber threats. It is made up of 39 joint teams and thought to have the Department of Defense’s most talented cyber operators at the cutting-edge of their profession.

Nick sat down with Mike Kofman to discuss where the Russo-Ukrainian conflict stands at the start of 2024. They talked through the situation on the front lines, naval developments in the Black Sea and Russia’s cynical diplomacy, as well as Moscow’s growing munitions advantage and what went wrong with the Ukrainian offensive. Don’t forget to listen to “All Quiet on the Second Front,” an amazing new show that supported this episode to receive a promo code for a limited number of free War on the Rocks memberships.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has received a solid boost to its comprehensive combat capabilities amid a deteriorating security environment, experts said on Wednesday, after China’s aviation industry ended 2023 with a warplane production that exceeded expectations.
Focused on empowering the military with high-end equipment and development, subsidiaries of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), including Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co Ltd.

The Mauser C96 is a semi-automatic pistol, one of the first to be widely used by militaries, that was introduced in 1896. Although over 1,000,000 examples were produced, including unlicensed copies, the vintage firearm can sell for thousands of dollars depending on its condition. A non-functioning, modified C96 sold for over a record-setting $1,000,000 in 2022. Of course, it was used by Han Solo in a galaxy far, far away.

Houthi militants appear to be ignoring US warnings about their repeated attacks on ships in the Red Sea, launching an unmanned naval vehicle on Thursday that came within “a couple of miles” of US merchant ships and combat ships before detonating.
U.S. naval officials said the so-called unmanned surface ship was launched from Houthi territory in Yemen and traveled about 50 miles in busy shipping lanes before exploding. They said it is unclear who or what the Houthis were trying to attack, adding that the explosion caused no damage or injuries.

NewsCenter1 capture
We have our first look at the B-1B bomber that crashed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota last night. The Air Force says the mishap occurred when the B-1 attempted to land at the installation, which is also its home. You can read more about what is already known about this mishap in The War Zone‘s initial reporting here.
The images of the crashed B-1B come from a webcam in the city of Box Elder, which is situated just to the southeast of Ellsworth. The webcam is operated by NewsCenter1, part of KNBN, a local television station primarily affiliated with NBC.

In order to fully exploit the information environment, the Marines’ new information-focused command requires a common tool to be able to visualize it and understand it for commanders.
Activated last January, Marine Corps Information Command (MCIC) is designed to more tightly link the service’s information forces — including cyber, intelligence and space — in theater with the broader joint force.

Welcome to Mid-Afternoon Map, our exclusive members-only newsletter that provides a cartographic perspective on current events, geopolitics, and history from the Caucasus to the Carolinas. Subscribers can look forward to interesting takes on good maps and bad maps, beautiful maps and ugly ones — and bizarre maps whenever possible. Editors, like hungover readers, appreciate a clear thesis statement. So I was particularly pleased this morning to open Ignatius Donnelly’s 1882 book Atlantis: The Antidiluvian World and discover 14 of them.

Yoav Gallant’s proposal promises Palestinians would control Gaza – further dividing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s war cabinet.

Astor Defence, a company that specialises in military packaging, has showcased its latest technology at its new facility on the South Coast.

BAE Systems are building titanium M777 Howitzer structures for the US in anticipation of a restart of production yet to be negotiated.

The four additional Istanbul-class frigates will complement four already under construction. First-of-class
Istanbul
(pictured) commenced sea-acceptance trials in June 2023 and is shortly due to be commissioned.
(Turkish MoD)
The Turkish government has given the green light to build four additional Istanbul (TF-100)-class frigates and to progress plans for an aircraft carrier to the design phase.

Aynne Kokas, the C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center and an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, spoke about her book Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty. Kokas explained how the asymmetry in digital regulations between the United States and China, along with practices of private industry, have helped empower Beijing’s broader effort to control digital data. Image: Wikimedia Commons
The post China’s Digital Data Trafficking appeared first on War on the Rocks.

One of the Bayraktar TB2 UAVs that was displayed during the reception ceremony on 4 January. (Presidence Mali)
The Armed Forces of Mali (FAMa) held a reception ceremony for another consignment of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on 4 January.
Media coverage of the event showed five TB2s, some of them armed with MAM-L laser-guided bombs, lined up on the apron next to the presidential pavilion at Bamako’s Modibo Keita International Airport. The FAMa released a photograph showing one had the serial TZ-17D.

Quarterhorse Mk 0, Hermeus’ ‘dynamic iron bird’. (Hermeus)
Hermeus has completed tests of its first Quarterhorse hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – a ground test article dubbed “Mk 0”, according to a statement by the company. The ground tests are intended to pave the way for flight-testing later in 2024.
Testing of what the company calls its “dynamic iron bird” took place at the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tullahoma, Tennessee, over a 37-day time span.

Lithuania acquires Thales GM200 MM/C radar systems in a deal with the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. (Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Lithuania)
Lithuania has acquired new Thales Ground Master 200 Multi-Mission Compact radars (GM200 MM/C) to strengthen its artillery capabilities.
The deal, struck between the Lithuanian and Netherlands ministries of defence, is valued at EUR126.7 million (USD138.6 million) for an undisclosed number of GM200 MM/C radar systems, the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence (MND) announced on 3 January.

The NSPA ordered up to 1,000 PAC-2 GEM-Ts from COMLOG on 3 January for Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Spain (photo of German Patriots deployed to Sliač Air Base in Slovakia in March 2022). (Janes/Nicholas Fiorenza)
The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) has ordered up to 1,000 Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) Guidance Enhanced Missiles-Tactical (GEM-Ts) from MBDA-Raytheon joint venture COMLOG for Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Spain, the NSPA and COMLOG announced in a joint press release on 3 January. In addition to missiles, the USD5.

DS
Marine Corps Information Command is looking to mature regionally first, with eventual aspirations for global integration.

Sandboxx N.
One of the US special operations community’s most important programs might be in jeopardy according to the government watchdog’s latest assessment.

Army Technology
The contract focuses on the continuous procurement of next-generation tactical communications radios, emphasising the role of these technologies in modern military…

Jack Detsch, FP
It’s not just one war or two.

Justin Overbaugh, Responsible Statecraft
A lack of truth and accountability tends to have a bad effect on trust, and as it turns out, recruitment, too

Finland has exercised part of the option to order 40 more 6×6 CAVS vehicles under the agreement for 91 vehicles signed by the Finnish Defence Forces Logistics Command and Patria in June 2023. (Patria)
The Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) is procuring 40 more 6×6 Common Armoured Vehicle Systems (CAVS), prime contractor Patria announced in a press release on 4 January. The FDF was exercising part of the option for 70 vehicles in the agreement for 91 vehicles signed by the FDF Logistics Command and Patria in June 2023.

The global surge in cybersecurity jobs owes itself to several Russian-Ukraine events, one being SSU’s ability to withstand cyber threats.

The announcement of the production of the millionth Ukrainian drone suggests that the year 2024, like the past 2023, will be marked by intense competition in drone warfare.

President Zelensky announced plans to deliver one million drones to the  Ukrainian Armed Forces, marking a major strategic shift. Ukraine is determined to change the landscape of drone production and use compared to Russia.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech on New Year’s Eve,  one million drones are planned to be delivered to the  Ukrainian Armed Forces by the end of 2024.

The North Korean leader requested to speed up the production of rocket launch vehicles, emphasizing that this is a mission to prepare for “a military battle with the enemy”.

Today, North Korea’s central news agency KCNA announced that leader Kim Jong-un visited the factory manufacturing ammunition vehicles and rocket launchers (TEL), confirming the production process of TEL types for strategic weapons. Tactics are a key task to strengthen the country’s nuclear deterrence capacity.
“Mr.

The tactical communications contract with a potential value of $479m was granted to L3Harris Technologies Inc. by the USSOCOM.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said Ukraine has received more than 203 billion USD in support along with more than 5,200 armored vehicles and 23,000 UAVs from 54 Western countries.

On January 4, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a report on military activities in 2023, including statistics on foreign assistance to Ukraine since the conflict broke out in February 2022.
According to this agency, over the past two years, Ukraine has received financial and weapons support from about 54 Western countries, with a total value of more than 203 billion USD.

The American B-1B Lancer bomber encountered a problem and exploded while landing at the base in South Dakota; the crew ejected to escape safely.

“The B-1B Lancer plane crashed at about 5:50 p.m. today while landing at the base,” a spokesman for Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota state, USA, said on January 4.
Images on social networks show the B-1B bomber exploding after crashing and causing a large fire. The US military said the plane was performing a training mission when it crashed, and all four crew members ejected to escape safely.

A news broadcast with file footage of North Korea’s artillery firing, at a railway station in Seoul on 5 January 2024. North Korea fired more than 200 artillery shells near two South Korean islands that day, said the South Korean government. (Jung Yeon-je /AFP via Getty Images)
North Korea fired more than 200 artillery shells into waters near the Seoul-controlled Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands early on 5 January, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) spokesperson Colonel Lee Sung-jun disclosed in a statement to reporters on the same day.

Thailand’s earlier approval for the Boeing AH-6i light attack helicopter has now been firmed up into a confirmed sale. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has confirmed the sale of eight Boeing AH-6i light attack and reconnaissance rotorcraft to Thailand, with a related contract notification posted in late December 2023.

On Sept. 16, 1920, a horse-drawn wagon slowly made its way down New York City’s Wall Street. It came to a stop at the Financial District’s busiest corner, just opposite the J. P. Morgan bank headquarters. And exploded. Thirty people were killed and nearly 150 others wounded. For most of the ensuing century, bombing was the preferred terrorist tactic in the United States. During one 18-month stretch between 1971 and 1972, there were an astonishing 2,500 bombings.

As of December 27, 2023, the United States has sent 198 155mm howitzers to Ukraine. Over half of these guns were M777 towed artillery pieces. In addition to the U.S., Canada and Australia have provided M777s to Ukraine. With so many howitzers sent to Ukraine from allied stockpiles, the Army signed an agreement with the manufacturer of the M777 to put it back into production.
Marines fire an M777 on exercise in Latvia (U.S. Marine Corps)
On January 4, 2024, BAE Systems announced the production of major structures for the M777 under an Undefinitized Contract Action limited to $50 million.

U.S. Air Force Video by Airman Adam Olson (video frame)
Details are extremely limited at this time, but there has been a major incident at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. A B-1B crashed while attempting to land at the base this evening, with all crew ejecting safely. Ellsworth is one of two master bases that house the B-1B ‘Bone’ bomber fleet.
The statement from the public affairs office for the 28th Bomb Wing, the main unit at Ellsworth, reads:
“An Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to Ellsworth Air Force Base crashed at approximately 5:50 p.m.

(Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
The Houthis have introduced unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to their current array of threats to Red Sea shipping. While the Yemeni militant group has used crude drone boats before — they actually pioneered the operational use of kamikaze USVs years ago — these weapons have not appeared in the current crisis until today.
The USV “detonated in international shipping lanes,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), told reporters, including from The War Zone.

PHOTO © 2024 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION
China has constructed a new aircraft carrier target on a sprawling range in the northwestern end of the country that is a dead-ringer for the U.S. Navy’s newest supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. The target underscores the People’s Liberation Army’s continued focus on expanding and refining its ability to engage American carriers and other warships over long distances, which includes a growing arsenal of anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles.

This article delves into the dynamic landscape of military technology, highlighting seven cutting-edge missiles that nations worldwide are actively developing. These are the Top 7 Hypersonic and Cruise Missiles In Development
1. CAKIR (Turkey)

Cakir is a new-generation cruise missile that can be launched from land, sea, and air platforms with a range of more than 150 kilometers. It is designed by Turkish rocket and missile manufacturer RoketSan.

For the first time since the Pentagon launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to counter intensifying Houthi-led attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, the Iran-backed rebel group on Thursday sent a maritime drone on a kamikaze mission into international shipping lanes on that crucial trade route, according to a senior military officer.
“Fortunately there were no casualties and no ships were hit” when that unmanned surface vessel exploded after transiting about 50 miles into the Red Sea shipping lanes, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks recently selected a small number of “capabilities” that the Pentagon will prioritize for the initial tranche of her Replicator unmanned systems initiative. However, specific platforms haven’t been chosen yet, a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop.
Hicks announced Replicator in August, and the military services have proposed systems for consideration. In November, she told reporters during a Defense Writers Group meeting that she would “select the candidates” in the weeks following.

Hermeus
Quarterhourse, the uncrewed hypersonic test aircraft project, from aviation startup Hermeus, has completed ground testing in its ‘dynamic iron bird’ form, a ground-based test rig used to prove various systems and their integration. The milestone comes as Hermeus works toward a planned first flight before the end of this year.
Hermeus announced today that it had finished test work involving its dynamic iron bird, also known as Quarterhorse Mk 0, which it describes as its “first fully integrated vehicle.