The British defense giant unveiled BlackThorn, a new family of modular warheads built specifically for the current wave of cheap, mass-produced weapons reshaping modern warfare, from autonomous drones and one-way attack munitions to counter-drone interceptors, missiles and unmanned ground vehicles. BAE Systems designed the warhead family to be modular, meaning the same core technology can […]

BAE Systems, Boeing and Saab announced they have signed a formal teaming agreement to jointly pursue the UK’s next generation pilot training program, built around Boeing’s T-7 trainer jet, and the deal commits the companies to building a brand new final assembly and integration facility inside Britain. Advanced fast jet training currently runs through the […]

BAE Systems announced at the Farnborough International Airshow that it has signed a licensing agreement with an unnamed strategic defense partner to support local manufacture of the Light Gun artillery system inside Ukraine, giving Kyiv’s defense industry direct access to the technical know-how behind a weapon British and Commonwealth forces have relied on for half […]

The U.S. Air Force wants to install a network of microphones at one of its most secretive bases in England, built specifically to hear enemy drones coming before anyone ever sees them. A newly published Air Force solicitation reveals that the 352nd Special Operations Wing at RAF Mildenhall is seeking a passive acoustic drone detection […]

Teledyne FLIR Defense announced it will begin assembling its Star SAFIRE line of thermal imaging camera systems at its facility in West Malling, Kent, after more than two years of planning and formal approval to produce the advanced surveillance systems locally for the UK Ministry of Defence. Star SAFIRE is a family of gimbal-mounted camera […]

BAE Systems announced that its FalconWorks advanced projects division has partnered with Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works to develop Blizzard, a modular, uncrewed aircraft built to carry out electronic warfare and attack missions, with the option to launch it from the ground, the air, the sea, or the back of a large military transport plane. […]

A 17-meter robotic ship built to patrol the ocean alone for nearly two months at a stretch has just rolled off a British production line, and its arrival says as much about where naval technology is headed as it does about the vessel itself. ZeroUSV, a Plymouth-based maker of uncrewed surface vessels, confirmed that its […]

Britain’s military just handed itself a $536 million-a-year budget and a five-point checklist for turning laboratory ideas into battlefield equipment faster than its notoriously slow defense bureaucracy has managed in decades. UK Defence Innovation, the Ministry of Defence’s newly consolidated innovation arm known as UKDI, announced Wednesday the five core themes that will guide how […]

The British military’s newest helicopter fleet finally has an engine, closing a question that even reporters covering the program in real time couldn’t get UK officials to answer for months. GE Aerospace announced July 14 that Leonardo selected its CT7-2E1 engine to power all 23 AW149 helicopters being built for the UK Ministry of Defence’s […]

Babcock International has finished building the last of 123 Jackal 3 high-mobility vehicles for the British Army, with the final vehicle, a six-wheeled Extenda variant, rolling off the production line at the company’s Devonport facility in Plymouth and now heading into testing before it joins the Army’s operational fleet. The Jackal has been a fixture […]

German defense giant Rheinmetall has secured a contract worth just under €1 billion (roughly $1.1 billion) for its role in overhauling how the British Army trains its soldiers, part of a broader £2 billion (approximately $2.7 billion) government program that will replace traditional live exercises with a blended system of virtual, synthetic and data-driven training […]

OpenWorks Engineering, a counter-drone specialist based in Northumberland, England, announced this week that it recently attended an industry-focused counter-unmanned aircraft systems, or C-UAS, event at the British Army’s Larkhill Garrison, where the company demonstrated its Vision Pace targeting system to defense and security partners. Larkhill sits on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire and has served as […]

A British firm building uncrewed patrol boats for NATO navies just crossed the billion-dollar valuation mark, with Kraken Technology Group announcing the close of a $175 million Series B funding round on July 9 that values the company at $1 billion. The round, led by Digital Transformation Capital Partners, or DTCP, arrives less than a […]

An uncrewed patrol boat just fell out of an airplane at 1,300 feet and splashed down ready to go to work, and the company behind it says nobody has ever pulled that off before. Kraken Technology Group and Capewell announced on July 8 that they completed the world’s first extracted-load airdrop of an uncrewed surface […]

A Russian surveillance plane flew dangerously close to Britain’s flagship aircraft carrier and dropped a swarm of underwater listening devices nearby before ignoring repeated radio calls, forcing two fighter jets to scramble and chase it away. The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed that while operating in the Norwegian Sea as part of Operation Firecrest, the […]

A next-generation stealth fighter that nearly stalled out over a funding dispute severe enough to cost two British officials their jobs has received a $6.1 billion vote of confidence from the three countries building it. The Global Combat Air Programme, known in Britain as Tempest, awarded an 18-month, £4.6 billion ($6.1 billion) contract on July […]