You might hate on Alabama, but they aren’t the dirtiest players in college football, not by a long shot. In fact, the Crimson Tide are far from the top: 37th on Action Network’s list of dirtiest teams in CFB. But what’s even more interesting is who’s on the very bottom of that list. Or, to put it another way: who tops the list of cleanest teams.
It’s the Army Black Knights.

Ukraine says it has targeted the Russian fleet’s  “last major stronghold” in the Black Sea.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said overnight Ukrainian strikes on the port city of Novorossiysk were a “unique operation.”

T-84 Tank from Ukraine War. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Australia is sending 49 of its retired M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, a move that bolsters Kyiv’s armored firepower but raises significant questions about survivability on the modern battlefield.

Weeks ago, the United States proclaimed a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, as the world awaits negotiations on the waterway’s future. However, before dawn on Tuesday, U.S. forces fired on a ship seeking to run the blockade.

The Wall Street Journal reported that an American military helicopter had fired on the ship, which flew the flag of Panama, after its crew “ignored warnings from American personnel working to enforce the naval blockade of Iran’s ports.

Soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, can now buy beer and hard seltzers from the base’s new dining hall, Army officials said.
42 Bistro at Fort Hood is the first of the Army’s new dining halls to offer alcohol for sale. The bistro opened in February and is what the service is calling a “campus-style dining venue,” modeled off of college cafeterias and run by a private contractor.
“Our soldiers are adults, so we’re treating them accordingly,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Payton, a spokesperson for III Corps at Fort Hood.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spent much of last week promising “victory” in his war in Ukraine.

Those claims ring increasingly hollow as more details emerge of secret funerals for one – and at one time reported as potentially two – of his top generals.

Putin New Year’s Message. Image Credit: Russian Government.

Vladimir Putin Russian President 2019. Image Credit: Kremlin.

Those reported to have been killed were victims of what was a planned assassination attempt that occurred only a short distance from the Kremlin itself.

Roughly 250 active duty soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, are currently assisting with efforts to battle a wildfire in Washington state that has burned almost 58,000 acres since it began on July 17.
Most of the soldiers helping with the firefighting efforts are assigned to the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, said Lt. Col. Cain Claxton, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command.

A top German General says Russia is preparing to launch a wider war as it fights a full-scale conflict in Ukraine.

The Kremlin, he says, is using hybrid attacks to probe NATO’s defenses.

T-14 Armata Tank Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

T-14 Armata. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The warning comes from Gen. Carsten Breuer, the 17th Inspector General of Germany’s Bundeswehr.

In his position, he acts as the top military advisor to the German government and leads the nation’s ongoing military rearmament and strategic defense overhaul.

With the status of the Strait of Hormuz in much flux, there hadn’t been much attention in recent days on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where the Iran-allied Houthi militia had imposed a blockade on Saudi oil last month.

But that changed Wednesday, when the Houthis fired a missile at a ship in that Strait, killing six people.

An F-15EX Eagle II Fighter Jet assigned to the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, taxis out from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Oct. 21, 2021.

The world of Ukrainian missile defense advocates was euphoric when, during the early July NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, U.S. President Donald Trump stated he was willing to give Kyiv “the blueprints” needed to build its own Patriot missiles.

But the sense of optimism has since faded due to US technology releaseability issues.

Collins Aerospace has won a contract valued at up to $472m from the US Army to deliver engineering services for the CH-47 Chinook fleet.

Northrop Grumman announce the development of a 50mm gun-based platform during the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama

With Hurricane Sandy threatening the United States’ east coast, Robin Walbridge still planned to set sail.
Walbridge, captain of the HMS Bounty, intended to leave New London, Connecticut, on Thursday, October 25, 2012, as scheduled. St. Petersburg, Florida, was the ship’s destination. Being out on the ocean during a hurricane is dangerous for any ship, but Walbridge believed a vessel was safer at sea than it was tied up in port.

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Stars & Stripes
The Navy declined to say when Reagan might next be deployed.

T.

Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering
The Army wants to make its CH-47 Chinooks easier to upgrade as avionics technology changes.

Military Times
The deployment, which was anticipated to end in May, has been extended with no publicly announced return date.

Air & Space Forces
The Pentagon’s top research lab is interested in developing a hypersonic cruise missile prototype that provides “a revolutionary leap in operational performance”

Recent assessments of the China’s aircraft carrier program has indicated that it is increasingly developing around a different strategic concept to that of the U.S. Navy, with the People’s Liberation Army Navy expected to use carriers as components of a broader regional military system, rather than replicating the American model of globally deployed carrier strike groups. Brendan Mulvaney, director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute observed to this effect: “Just because they have the same kinds of equipment doesn’t mean they will use it in the same way as the U.S.

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Editor’s note: This is the eighth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.

When war changes, schools change. New technology, the politics of mass mobilization and campaign design, and novel tactics that defined Napoleonic warfare led to Gerhard von Scharnhorst’s reforms and the idea of lifelong education as a professional obligation. The pattern repeated itself in the interwar period. In 1929, James Carson Breckinridge, a Marine officer, published “Some Thoughts on Service Schools” in the Marine Corps Gazette, calling for a new educational paradigm consistent with John Dewey’s ideas about pragmatism and experiential learning.War is again changing.

Thai sources on August 11 widely reported the appearance of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force H-6 strategic bomber in the country, which appeared intended to participate in the Falcon Strike 2026 joint air force exercises. Other aircraft reportedly seen deploying to Thailand include the Y-9LG electronic warfare aircraft, KJ-500 airborne early-warning and control system, and what appear to be either J-11 or J-16 fighters, representing one of the most capable contingents ever deployed abroad by Chinese forces.

Russian Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter units have been reconfigured for drone interceptor operations, responding to the growing threat posed by Ukrainian unmanned aviation. The Ka-52 was designed to detect and engage small, low-signature ground targets at long range, and integrates electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensors capable of detecting drones, a laser rangefinder/designator already integrated for guided missile employment, and modern battlefield surveillance systems, which are well optimised for targeting unmanned aircraft.

The U.S. government raised its oil price forecast on Tuesday as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and the conflict with Iran continues to drain global inventories.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration now expects Brent crude to average around $85 per barrel through the third quarter of 2026 and $86.81 across the whole year.

Oil Platform. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Generic Oil Tanker Image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The agency estimates that roughly 5.

FORT IRWIN, Calif. — Spc. Christopher Frank donned bright white goggles that stuck out against the desert valley. The scouts were surrounded by rocky hills like the ones they had been humping new drone gear up over the past few days. It would be over 100 degrees by the afternoon, and the soldiers were already covered in a thin film of dirt and sweat.
Frank sat on a bulky black case, looking through the first-person view headset. He told Sgt.

The United States and Iran are once again moving closer to an agreement that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and pave the way to end the conflict, according to two regional governments involved in mediation efforts.

It’s not the first time such a claim has been made in recent weeks, but it is once again injecting some optimism into global oil markets and leaving Gulf governments hopeful that military action in the region may soon cease.

A B-2 Spirit soars after a refueling mission over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, May 30, 2006.

On the night of 8-9 August, Ukrainian drones destroyed an Almaz-Antey S-400 missile launch assembly.

That unit had been used to cover the airspace over one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s palatial residences from long-range missile and drone strikes.

German soldiers assigned to Surface Air and Missile Defense Wing 1 fire the Patriot weapons system at the NATO Missile Firing Installation (NAMFI) during Artemis Strike Nov. 7 in Chania, Greece. Artemis Strike is a German-led multinational air defense exercise. German soldiers Over 200 U.S.

CDR Salamander / Substack

One of the least helpful aspects of the modern-day battleship debate is the fact it has been so highly politicized.
Whenever an announcement of a milestone comes up, the first thing that has to be done in the search for useful information is to filter out the rabid partisans on the left and right who will support or oppose anything strictly through a partisan lens.

DAYTON, Ohio — While the Air Force is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence for its sustainment and maintenance needs, service officials say most efforts remain in experimentation or market research as they determine where the technology can provide meaningful gains.
Leaders from multiple portfolios told reporters at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Industry Days that they believe AI has wide-ranging potential to improve the service’s fleet availability — including predictive maintenance, supply chain management and broader decision support.

Guns on show 💪
It was all to pose for at a m

Crimea continues to be the punching bag of the Ukraine war as Kyiv ramps up its operations to make life tough for the Russian Army in the peninsula.

Originally annexed in 2014, reclaiming Crimea has been one of Ukraine’s main goals since the beginning of the war.

Putin in June 2016 Image Credit Russian Federation Photo

Since 2025, Ukrainian drones have been constantly harassing the Russians in the region, striking radars, air defenses, military installations, and pretty much anything else within their reach.

A recent Barak Ravid exclusive in Axios quotes US President Donald J. Trump as “low-key negotiating” with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

To be clear, the Iranian side denies having anything close to a direct negotiating link to the American administration.

M109 Artillery Creative Commons Photo.

The Iranian claims have been confirmed by the likes of Pakistan, a country whose leaders are very close with both the Trump administration and the Iranian regime.

Remember when U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in the Oval Office last year?

It was perhaps one of the most memorable and disconcerting episodes in the history of relations between the two countries.

Tim Murry, a foreign threats compound contractor, drives a T-72 battle tank into position to serve as adversary targets for a joint service exercise, Emerald Flag, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Nov. 30. Emerald Flag is a multi-service exercise aimed to unify information sharing across joint domain platforms. (U.S.

For Netflix, India is not just an important market for gaining subscribers, it’s now an “indispendible” investment. A new six-part series called “Operation Safed Sagar” is now streaming—and it’s said to be “a spectacle on the scale of ‘Top Gun.’”
Also Read: One of the world’s largest-ever tank battles was between India and Pakistan
To produce the new series, Netflix got unprecedented access to the Indian Air Force, filming air combat sequences at an altitude of 16,000 feet. To make it all happen, the streamer hired 1,200 local visual effects technicians.

Soldiers at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, are getting new food options and meal plans since dining options around the base amount to what officials have dubbed a “food desert.”
This is significant for the 500 soldiers at the small garrison because it hasn’t had a dining facility since 2012.
To fill in the gap, the Army opened the Culinary Outpost food truck last month, which feeds hundreds of soldiers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Meals cost between $7 and $10, and soldiers can also buy vacuum-sealed meals that they can refrigerate for the rest of the week, officials said.

Ukraine struck another major Russian oil refinery overnight, this time over 900 miles from the Ukrainian border.

The strikes, which took place overnight into August 11, are just the latest in a long string of attacks on Russian infrastructure deep behind the front lines.

Artillery Test Creative Commons Photo

The Ukrainian General Staff announced that its forces struck the Orsknefteorgsintez refinery in Orsk, in Russia’s Orenburg region near the border with Kazakhstan.

What if a 40-year-old WWIII novel doesn’t

The military of the Islamic Republic of Iran, we were told at the start of the Iran War, had essentially been obliterated by the United States and Israeli air campaigns.

Yet, that assessment was quickly changed by US intelligence officials.

Iran’s Drones That Russia Is Using. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Iran F-14 Tomcat Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Rather than mostly having been knocked out by sustained American and Israeli airstrikes, US intelligence experts assessed that maybe only 50 percent of Iran’s missile and drone launch capabilities were destroyed.

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The UK Government has published transparency data on MoD departmental spending using electronic purchasing cards, also known as ePCs.

“My main mighty machine” 🗣️
🦅 Captain &

Russia is ramping up its use of North Korean ballistic missiles in its missile attacks. On Monday, the Russians carried out an attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia, which utilized two North Korean Kn-23 (Hwasong-11A) missiles. Moscow has used missiles in some of its prior attacks on Kyiv in the past month. Previously, it was reported that North Korea planned to transfer at least 120 ballistic missiles to Russia along with six launcher platforms and its own personnel.

The Missile Defense Agency issued a presolicitation Monday for a new highly mobile, rapidly deployable sensor system that could help the U.S. military detect and track hypersonic missiles and other advanced airborne threats.
The Forward-Based Mode (FBM) Radar Next initiative is being spearheaded by MDA’s Mobile Land-Based Sensors Project Office, which aims to prototype the technology.
Notably, officials want to create a system that can be quickly transitioned into mass production amid growing threats in the air domain.

Trinzic has secured a cost-plus-fixed-fee task order estimated at $208m to continue supporting the US Army’s TAGM portfolio.

Ukraine, in recent months, has stepped up its drone strikes deeper inside Russia, a change in strategy that has resulted in a growing number of civilian deaths.

However, whether that changes Russia’s approach to the war is an entirely separate question, at least according to a New York Times analysis published on Tuesday.

According to The Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin was able to avoid mass civilian deaths, or even disruptions, in the earlier years of the war, at least away from the border regions.

Ukraine has said it targeted an oil refinery in Russia’s Orenburg Region in a “deep” overnight strike.

Ukraine’s armed forces have said that a fire broke out at the refinery, and damage is currently being assessed.

Iskander Missile Attack Creative Commons Image

Refinery Close to Kazakh Border Ablaze
The Orsk refinery is located some 1,500 kilometers from the front line, close to Russia’s border with Kazakhstan.

On Tuesday morning, Mayor Artem Vorobyov said the city had been attacked, and flights to and from Orsk Airport were suspended.

Following weeks of speculation about additional North Korean involvement in the war in Ukraine, Russia reportedly used North Korean ballistic missiles in a deadly overnight attack on Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the claim on Tuesday, August 11, saying it was evidence of the deepening military relationship with Pyongyang.

In the last few days, there hasn’t been much news to suggest hope for a deal between the U.S. and Iran to end their war. Talks between Iran and Oman over the status of the Strait of Hormuz have been reported as close to a deal for nearly a week, without any announcement of a final one, while at the same time Iranian officials have been clear that an Iran/Oman deal would not count as a “reopening” of the waterway.

Britain is changing the way it arms Ukraine.