Just weeks after winning $1.6 billion to build more Q-53 artillery-tracking radars, Lockheed Martin is pushing the Q-53 hard as a triple-threat solution to drones and manned aircraft as well. AN/TPQ-53s, to use their full name, have already been tested successfully against drones, helping Lockheed win a $28 million contract to upgrade their software to do… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “You get whacked a lot.” Those are the words of someone who should know, the leader of the aggressor squadron at Red Flag, the man who tries to kill U.S. forces. Lt. Col. Tyler Lewis, commander of the 57th Adversary Tactics Support Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, echoed comments we’ve heard before, that… Keep reading →

FARNBOROUGH: For much of the last few years when one thought of electronic warfare, one tended to think of Raytheon. After all, they’re building the Next Generation Jammer, right? BAE Systems would like to change that and is beginning to take a guarded but more public stance. For years, Air Force officials have declined to… Keep reading →

From lasers to jammers to snipers, the US military has tried lots of technologies and tactics to get rid of enemy drones. But before you can shoot it, you have to see it — preferably far away, before its cameras spot your troops and, say, dive-bomb them or relay their position to a battery of… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: After 14 years of guerrilla war, the Army has underinvested in defeating high-end threats, the service’s acquisition chief said today. That puts a premium on modernizing missile defense despite tight budgets, from upgrades to the venerable Patriot to new offensive missiles to revolutionary technologies like lasers. “We need to enable ourselves to operate… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: It’s been a big week for arms exports. But sometimes the big story isn’t what you think. While headlines have focused on the US government’s decision to allow limited exports of armed drones, arguably the most important export policy change involved a material called gallium nitride (GaN). “The gallium nitride story is an under-reported… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Raytheon’s Next Generation Jammer underwent its first test flights at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake as the electronic warfare association’s annual conference got underway in October. The tests were performed to judge whether the system could successfully jam and disrupt enemy threat radars. This marks the first tests of the pod itself, the AESA… Keep reading →

For years, the news about the most expensive conventional weapons system in US history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has been driven by its enormous cost, design, and schedule screw-ups. The Pentagon and Congress and the public have rarely spoken about what the F-35 would do, how effectively it could destroy an enemy’s air defenses,… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: While the Air Force and the Marines stake their future on a great leap forward to the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Navy is taking what one officer called “baby steps” into the future: a careful, incremental upgrade of electronic warfare systems to jam enemy radar instead of just hiding from it. The… Keep reading →