WSJ
A search-and-rescue operation was under way after Iran shot down an F-15E. The other crew member was rescued earlier.

This video describes the military situation in

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has led an extensive purge of the U.S. Armed Forces leadership with few precedents in recent history, dismissing U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, and multiple other senior generals including David Hodne and William Green. Hegseth commented that George’s position needed to be filled by someone better able to “implement President Trump’s vision,” fuelling considerable speculation that opposition from the military leadership to plans for a ground invasion of Iran were a primary factor in the decision to replace them.

Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has stated that the country will not provide either of its two U.S.-supplied MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence systems to support the U.S.-led war effort against Iran. “Our Patriot batteries and their armament serve to protect Polish airspace and NATO’s eastern flank. Nothing changes in this regard, and we have no plans to move them anywhere! Our allies are well aware and understand how important our tasks are in this region. Poland’s security is an absolute priority,” he stated.

After today’s partially successful combat search and rescue mission in Iran, we thought it would be interesting to learn where these tactics were developed — the Vietnam war.
The Sikorsky HH-53 “Super Jolly Green Giant” is a version of the Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter for long-range combat search and rescue (CSAR) helicopters. It was developed to replace the HH-3 “Jolly Green Giant”. The HH-53s were later upgraded as MH-53 Pave Low series. The United States Air Force’s MH-53J/M fleet was retired in September 2008.

Images from Kuwait show a US Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter reportedly struck yesterday, reports Israeli journalist Amir Tsarfati.

During the combat search and rescue mission today which saw the shoot down of an F-15E, and two MH-60s damaged by anti-aircraft fire, a U.S. A-10 crashed while providing close air support for the search-and-rescue mission for the F-15E crew when it was hit by Iranian fire. 
The ‘Sandy’ A-10 aircraft made it to Kuwait but crashed after the pilot ejected, reported ABC.

The French Army has deployed Leclerc main battle tanks for live fire exercises in Romania, alongside French and Polish infantry units. The exercises have occurred as the United States has recently bolstered its presence in Romania with the deployment of M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks and AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, and at a time of high tensions between Russia and NATO over the ongoing war effort in Ukraine across Romania’s eastern border.

Big pharma executives and investors have gotten rich – very rich – off a system that makes people sick and keeps them sick. Nowhere is this broken and corrupt system more obvious than when it comes to anti-inflammatories.
Globally, the sales of anti-inflammatory drugs exceed $130 billion, and is expected to reach over $270 billion by 2034. This is an incredible lucrative pharmaceutical sector driven by aging populations and the disturbing rise in chronic inflammatory conditions like arthritis.

This video describes the military situation in

The Maven Smart System is increasingly at the heart of the U.S. military’s plan to fuse all its sensors and assets across a single, flexible network, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve ​Feinberg suggested in a March 9 memorandum that elevates Palantir’s widely-used software platform to an official Pentagon program of record.

The U.S. Navy Still Has 11 Carriers, Virginia-Class Submarines, and 250 Years of Combat Experience — None of That Stops the Decline
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is a highly capable force and the world’s largest navy by hull count. The service plays a key role in China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy in the western Pacific.

The PLAN has modernized rapidly in recent years. Its leading platforms include advanced, versatile destroyers, such as the Types 055 and 052D, as well as a growing submarine fleet.

CV-18 Fujian aircraft carrier from China.

The USS John C. Stennis Entered Newport News Shipbuilding in May 2021 — The RCOH Won’t End Until October 2026 at the Earliest
The USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) is named for Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi and is the seventh of the Nimitz-class of nuclear-powered supercarriers in the United States Navy.

She was commissioned on December 9, 1995. Her temporary home port is Norfolk, Virginia, for her scheduled refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH), which began in 2019. After her overhaul is completed, she is expected to return to Bremerton, Washington.

U.S. military officials have yet to publicly confirm any information about an F-15E that appears to have crashed in Iran on Friday or the status of the aircraft’s crew amid media reports that one of two airmen onboard may have been rescued.
Official silence from U.S. officials is fairly typical when U.S. troops are in active combat, and it would match reports that a major rescue operation to find the crew was underway by mid-afternoon on Friday in the U.S., well past nightfall in Iran.
Task & Purpose confirmed on Friday that a plane was lost.

Chandra Donelson has announced that she is leaving her position as the Space Force’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer.
“Over the past two years, I’ve been surrounded by the finest service members and civilians across our nation,” Donelson wrote Thursday in a LinkedIn post announcing her departure. “Together, we have remained focused on what matters most: the warfighter. We have modernized legacy systems, advanced AI-enabled capabilities, and enhanced space domain awareness to enable decision advantage. That mission has never been more critical.

President Donald Trump is requesting a large budget increase for Navy shipbuilding in fiscal 2027, including initial funding for a new class of battleships.
The White House Office of Management and Budget officially released documents about the administration’s spending proposals for fiscal 2027 Friday. The administration wants $65.8 billion for shipbuilding, including money for 18 battle force ships and 16 non-battle force ships.
By comparison, the fiscal 2026 budget request allotted just under $42 billion for new construction of 19 battle force ships.

The Zumwalt Was a $23 Billion Mistake With No Mission — Hypersonic Missiles Traveling Mach 6 Might Finally Give It One
The U.S. Navy has been developing the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic weapon for several years, and the service plans to arm its fleet of three Zumwalt-class destroyers with the missiles within the coming year.

the stealthy destroyers with hypersonics could breathe new operational life into that small, embattled fleet. It could greatly increase the speed and range of attacks from ships, as part of a paradigm-changing set of attack options.

The F-47 Will Quarterback a Swarm of Collaborative Combat Aircraft From Standoff Distance Using AI-Enabled Command and Control
The yet-to-be-fully-seen F-47 will operate an unprecedented number of drones from the cockpit, enabling aerial command and control in a way never before seen. While a manned host platform such as the F-47 remains at a standoff distance, its drones can test enemy air defenses, blanket areas with surveillance, or even launch attacks when directed by a human.

The U.S. military often can’t fix parts of jets, ships, infantry fighting vehicles, and other equipment because they are not allowed to under the contracts the Pentagon signs with manufacturers. Instead, only the manufacturer can fix the equipment, which is a problem in a combat zone or out on a far-flung training exercise. 
That means fighter jets worth tens of millions of taxpayer dollars wind up grounded for months on a deployment. The Navy pays millions to fly contractors out to sea and make repairs that sailors aboard those very ships could make themselves.

The director of operational test and evaluation is a senior adviser to the secretary of defense. As its name implies, the DOT&E office independently tests and evaluates warfighter systems to ensure that troops have the equipment needed to succeed in any environment.
DOT&E’s FY25 report provides an update on the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW), ammunition, and fire control that praises and critiques the new equipment.

No One Is Coming to Save You | Military Motivat

The Royal Air Force hadn’t won the Inter

Video of ongoing combat search and resue in Iran. You haven’t seen video like this since Vietnam.
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When most people picture the American Revolution, they imagine the thunder of cannon fire, the smoke of musket volleys, and the drama of decisive engagements like Saratoga or Yorktown.
Yet beneath the visible conflict ran a quieter war fought not with weapons but with information. Intelligence determined whether armies marched into traps or toward opportunity. Messages carried across occupied cities and contested countryside could alter the course of campaigns.

The post BREAKING: Iran Claims US F-15E Downed, Pilot May Be Captured, CSAR Aircraft Deployed For Rescue appeared first on Armed Forces Press.

The UK has over a thousand additional troops pr

Chinese state media footage released has shown the newly commissioned Type 055 class destroyer Anqing engaging targets during multi-ship training under complex electronic conditions. The destroyers Anqing and Dongguan were in early March confirmed to be the ninth and tenth ships of their class to enter service, and having been produced significantly later as part of a second batch of the ships, they benefit from a number of enhancements relative to their predecessors.

This video describes the military situation in

USNI News
USS Gerald R.

Military.com
Off-duty service members may soon be able to carry privately owned firearms on U.S.

WSJ
GEN Randy George was asked to step down on Thursday, before his expected retirement next year

Laura Heckmann, National Def.

Naval News
HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division successfully launched future USS George M.

What will the UK look to replace its ageing lan

Since the beginning of the year, President Donald Trump has enthusiastically reinstated regime change as a key tool of U.S. statecraft, despite previously campaigning against the military excesses of former presidents. This drastic foreign policy reversal owes much to his administration’s dramatic capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a successful raid and arrest on Jan. 3.

Three weeks into the joint American-Israeli military operation against Iran, a pressing question occupies Washington: What will ultimately follow these strikes? The attacks themselves are already degrading Tehran’s military capacity, but the more crucial focus is the aftermath — specifically, whether the pressures now weighing on the theocracy point to a negotiated settlement, prolonged attrition, or the collapse of the Islamic Republic from within.This month, I turn 40.

The United States Air Force has launched a combat search-and-rescue mission over Iran after the crew of one of the service’s F-15E Strike Eagle fighters ejected, following the shooting down of the aircraft by Iranian air defences.A concentrated aerial search over the suspected crash area has seen multiple Air Force aircraft deployed, with an HC-130J Combat King II personnel recovery support aircraft and two HH-60W combat rescue helicopters confirmed by footage to have been involved.

Footage from Iran has confirmed the shootdown of a seventeenth U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone, as the Iranian Armed Forces continue to take a toll on U.S. and Israeli aircraft operating in or near the country’s territory. MQ-9s are capable of both attack and reconnaissance operations, and have been involved in higher risk missions to penetration deep into hostile airspace to collect data as part of the broader air campaign launched on February 28.

L Todd Wood and former Special Mission Unit Commander Pete Blaber discuss Iran and Ukraine conflicts.
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Footage has confirmed the successful shootdown of an F-16 fighter aircraft by Iranian air defences near Qeshm Island on April 2, as the Iranian Armed Forces have continued to rely heavily on infrared guided short and medium range surface-to-air missile systems to engage hostile aircraft. The United States Air Force and the Israeli Air Force both rely on the F-16 as their primary workhorses for air offensives, leaving considerable uncertainty regarding which country’s fighter may have been destroyed. The U.S.

Public Domain

This story is developing…
General Randy A. George will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately.
Sources tell AFP that George was suspected of leaking information and resisting change directed by Pentagon leadership.
“I suspect he was shown to be the fraud and sycophant he is and probably doing Milley kind of stuff talking to the wrong people,” said one source.
The post Hegseth Demands Army Chief Of Staff General Randy George Retire Immediately appeared first on Armed Forces Press.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Gen. Randy George, the chief of staff of the Army, to step down and retire, according to a defense official who confirmed a Thursday CBS News report on the four-star’s ouster as accurate and the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson.
George’s removal as the Army’s top officer comes amid the war with Iran, which has surpassed its first month, and follows a string of senior military official firings by Hegseth since the beginning of the second Trump administration.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George has been asked to retire, according to news reports that were confirmed by a Pentagon official.
As the chief of staff, George is the highest-ranking uniformed official for the service. His removal at the behest of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was first reported by CBS News.
“We can confirm the CBS report is true,” a Defense Department official said in a statement. “Nothing further to provide at the moment.”
Chef Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell also issued a statement on Thursday confirming that George is retiring.

Level up, Forces!

The Space Force is consolidating developmental and operational testing phases for some of its new systems in order to accelerate fielding timelines, and is now looking ahead to recruit even more testers to meet the service’s demands, according to officials.
To get the new tech into the field faster, the Space Force is creating teams comprising acquisition officers, test officials and operators at the beginning of a program’s evaluation phase, Deputy Chief of Space Operations Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess said Wednesday.

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The Pentagon has placed increasing emphasis on adopting commercial tech to accelerate the pace at which the U.S. military can put the latest and greatest tools in the hands of warfighters.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect fit for every use case, a panel of Defense Department leaders said Thursday at the MongoDB Public Sector Summit, produced by FedScoop.

Since the war against Iran began on Feb. 28, the U.S. military has provided updates on how many targets have been struck, how many Iranian ships have been sunk, and how many combat sorties have been flown.
But no one in the U.S. government seems to be able to say how the war ends and what comes next.
We’ve been here before. U.S. troops routed the Taliban in 2001, but that wasn’t enough. They stayed for 20 years in a failed attempt to turn Afghanistan into a democracy, even though top U.S. officials knew the mission was hopeless. The U.S.

US AWACS destroyed on the ground in Saudi strik

The F-22 and F-35 Have What Might Be a Forward Basing Problem 
The United States built the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II to dominate contested airspace, and technically, both aircraft remain among the most capable fighters ever made. But the conditions they were designed for – secure forward bases and relatively short operating distances – are rapidly disappearing. In today’s evolving strategic environment, defined by long-range missile proliferation and vast operational theaters, the issue is no longer whether these aircraft can win in the air.

Healing through horses🐎
Soldiers in Woolwich