The Israeli Air Force said it has dropped about 6,000 bombs targeted at Hamas in Gaza since the war began, adding that it will continue the campaign as long as necessary. The airstrikes killed hundreds of Hamas militants and damaged the group’s military infrastructure, the Israeli Air Force said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A congressionally mandated commission on Oct. 12 released its final report on the U.S. nuclear posture, recommending an increase in additional assets as China rapidly expands its own arsenal. At the same time, the commission found the Pentagon and Energy Department are lagging behind their modernization goals, raising questions about the ability to develop additional nuclear assets.
The Pentagon calls it FrankenSAM—a project that cobbles together air defense weapons for Ukraine from an array of parts from around the world. But now, as congressional gridlock delays funding for the war in Ukraine, the Frankenstein-like program for surface-to-air missiles has become more of a life saver and a reliable way to get working weapons to the battlefield now. The rapid delivery of the systems comes as Ukraine tries to ward off Russian airstrikes and make as many gains as possible before troops are slowed down by weather.
As Gen. Eric Smith nears 100 days of leading the Marine Corps, he says his thoughts are focused on one thing: his people. “The first thing I think about when I get up in the morning, or the last thing I think about before I hit the rack at night, is Marines. How do I make them more capable, more lethal? How do I make it easier for them to have some control over their careers?” Smith told Defense One in his first interview since being confirmed as Marine Corps commandant.
California-based defense technology firm Shield AI on Oct. 9 launched a new drone swarming capability called V-Bat Teams—one it hopes the Defense Department might use for programs such as its Replicator initiative. V-Bat Teams, which grew out of Shield AI’s experiments with the Air Force’s AFWERX innovation unit that culminated in a demonstration this summer, has at its core the company’s artificial intelligence pilot software dubbed Hivemind.
Why didn’t the U.S. and its allies’ spy satellites catch Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel? In part, physics. Satellites in geosynchronous orbit are too far away to catch much detail, and there aren’t enough satellites in low-Earth orbit that can deliver constant, high-resolution imagery, according to industry experts.
U.S. Southern Command is spinning up a new program aimed at helping partner nations in the region train maintainers for their aircraft fleets with hopes it will improve both joint operations and military relations. The program, dubbed the Theater Maintenance Partnership Initiative, will focus on the C-130 cargo plane, which is flown by several nations in South America that have purchased them through foreign military sales or excess defense articles.
The Air Force Research Laboratory will conduct a set of demonstrations over the next few years that will seek to provide air- and ground-based military systems with ubiquitous connectivity using commercial satellite constellations. The demonstrations are part of AFRL’s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUSCI) program, which aims to leverage burgeoning commercial space internet services in order to establish resilient communications and data-sharing capabilities for warfighters.
Air Force investigators are raising the alarm over a significant increase in laser pointers being aimed at aircraft, with more than 9,000 incidents reported last year alone. Personal laser pointers, small beam projectors used for everything from professors during college lecture presentations to motivating your cat to exercise at home, can cause serious damage to a pilot's eyesight and result in distractions for aircraft, according to a press release from the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations this week.
Enlisted and commissioned leaders from the 8th Fighter Wing participated in a Lead, Develop, Care: Practical Leadership for Competitive Advantage educational course presented by Dr. Patrick Donley, Air and Space Forces Association Doolittle Leadership Center director, October 3-6, 2023. The Lead, Develop, Care course contains three key components for helping individuals develop stronger leadership skills. The course provides a framework for leaders to develop intentional proactiveness and offers a practical algorithm to help leaders realize when to take action.
Phone “phreaking,” or the use of artificial tones to manipulate phone systems ... led one of the phreakers, Airman 1st Class John Draper, to become a counterculture entrepreneur who inspired one of America’s most valuable companies: Apple.