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By Tyler Rogoway Jan 29, 2020

This Presentation On America's Secret MiG Squadron By The Man Who Built It Is Incredible

How the top-secret unit came to be is so outlandish that it sounds like fiction, but as this first-hand account details, it was anything but.
By Chris Harmer Jan 29, 2020

Flying The First Night Of War In Iraq Without A Wingman And Two Polish Snipers In Back

On the first night of the invasion of Iraq, securing Saddam's deepwater port was crucial. Here's an aviator's first-hand account of how it went down.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 29, 2020

Navy Missile Sub Has Begun Its First Patrol Armed With Controversial Low Yield Nukes

Proponents argue that the warheads give the United States added deterrent flexibility, but critics warn they lower the threshold for using nukes.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 28, 2020

Two Turkish Frigates Appear Off Libya Amid Reports Of Troops And Armor Landing Ashore

These developments point to a major escalation in Turkey's involvement in the conflict following abortive attempts to broker a ceasefire.
By Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway Jan 28, 2020

Details Emerge About The Secretive RQ-170 Stealth Drone's First Trip To Korea

Documents describe the unique planning that went into bringing the flying-wing reconnaissance drones to the Korean Peninsula and more.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 27, 2020

American Bradley Armored Vehicles Were Pulled Out of Syria After Less Than Two Months

The heavy armored vehicles were only on the ground for a matter of weeks after the U.S. government heavily promoted the deployment publicly.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 27, 2020

Highly Specialized Air Force E-11A Communications Aircraft Crashes And Burns In Afghanistan (Updated)

The aircraft is one of just four the service operates to provide critical data fusion and communications relay capabilities.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 26, 2020

Multiple Rockets Strike The American Embassy Compound In Iraq (Updated)

Despite months of similar strikes, this appears to be the first publicly acknowledged instance where any rockets actually hit the Embassy compound.
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 25, 2020

Bunker Talk: Let's Chat About All The Stories We Did And Didn't Cover This Week

We can talk about B-52s with ballistic missiles, stealthy target drones, geopolitics, Jean-Luc Picard—you know, no big whoop.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 23, 2020

The B-52 Almost Got An Ahead Of Its Time Air-Launched Ballistic Missile Named Skybolt

Air-launched ballistic missiles are back in vogue now, so it's worth remembering that the Air Force was looking to adopt one more than 50 years ago.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 22, 2020

New Zealand A-4s Flew Crazy Formation Rolls While "Plugged-In" To A Buddy Tanker

The Royal New Zealand Air Force's A-4Ks performed multiple variations of the unique and challenging maneuver at air shows for years.
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 22, 2020

Star Trek: Picard Is The Long Overdue Show We Desperately Need Right Now

No character delivers stunning moral clarity better than Jean-Luc Picard, which makes him more relevant now than ever before.
By Brett Tingley Jan 22, 2020

The Secretive Inventor Of The Navy's Bizarre 'UFO Patents' Finally Talks

Dr. Salvatore Pais has finally spoken to The War Zone concerning his seemingly out of this world patents filed on behalf of the U.S. Navy.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 21, 2020

British Streetfighter II Tank Has X-Ray Vision And Is All About The Urban Fight

The British Army has modified a Challenger 2 to be ideally suited for fighting tomorrow's wars in megacities.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 21, 2020

Russian Navy's Top Officer Says Shadowy Zircon Hypersonic Missile Has "Childhood Diseases"

The missile, details about which are scant, has at least some development hurdles to overcome and is still years away from entering service.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 21, 2020

Stratolaunch Was Crafting Hypersonic Vehicles Before Its Official Pivot To High-Speed Testing

This past work is more relevant than ever now that the company says it is switching from focusing on space launches to hypersonic testing services.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 20, 2020

Lockheed Job Listing Offers New Details About Long-Range Ground-Launched Hypersonic Weapon

The Operational Fires system is intended to be a tactical weapon for the Army and could help in clearing paths for follow-on air and missile strikes.
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 20, 2020

Did The Blue Angels' New Fat Albert C-130 Just Buzz San Francisco Bay? (Updated)

The team was supposed to get an ex-Royal Air Force C-130J to replace its previous Fat Albert transport very soon. 
By Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick Jan 18, 2020

The Pentagon May Finally Get The Fighter-Sized Stealth Aerial Target Drone It Badly Needs

Well over a decade in the making, we finally got our first look at the 5th Generation Aerial Target, or 5GAT, that is slated to fly soon.
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 18, 2020

Watch DARPA's Air-Launched And Air-Recovered "Gremlins" Drone Take Its First Flight 

The program aims to demonstrate the ability to launch and recover swarms of jet-powered drones in midair.
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 18, 2020

Space Force Is Preparing To Fight On Endor Judging By Its New Uniforms

Out of this world, they are not. 
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 18, 2020

Bunker Talk: Let's Chat About All The Stories We Did And Didn't Cover This Week

We can talk about one-off F-16 configurations, Chinese super bases, geopolitics, B-52s saying goodbye to the bomb—you know, no big whoop.
By Chris Harmer Jan 17, 2020

Jonny Kim Is The SEAL-Mathematician-Doctor-Astronaut We Desperately Need Right Now

With a resume that reads like fiction, it's pretty clear that this dude belongs in space.
By Joseph Trevithick Jan 17, 2020

Makers Of The Famous Minigun Give Us Our First Look At A .338 Magnum Gatling Gun

There is a growing interest in .338 caliber machine guns, which offer greater range than 7.62mm types, and this one would provide a high rate of fire.
By Tyler Rogoway Jan 16, 2020

This One Navy F-16N Aggressor Had An Electronic Warfare Suite Only Found On Israeli Jets

The unique countermeasures system found itself onto one of Topgun's F-16s during the 1990s and it happens to have a convoluted and colorful past.
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