drone

Libya’s National Oil Corporation warns it may halt operations at the country’s largest operating refinery if drone attacks continue.

Firefighters in Libya are battling a massive blaze at the Zawiya refinery following a drone attack, with the country’s national oil company warning it may declare a force majeure and shut down operations if attacks continue.

Libya’s Ambulance and Emergency Service said in a statement on Tuesday there were no “serious injuries” from the fire, with most patients treated for smoke inhalation.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed huge flames and thick black ‌smoke billowing over the facility, the largest operating refinery in Libya with a refining capacity of 120,000 barrels per day.

It is located about 40km (25 miles) west of the capital, Tripoli.

The National Oil Corporation (NOC) said in a statement on Facebook that the fire broke out on Monday evening at tank number 402-T, belonging to the Brega Oil Company.

It said the tank, which contained about 4.5 million litres (1.2 million gallons) of gasoline, was “directly targeted, resulting in a severe fire before the tank completely collapsed”.

The NOC said the attack followed drone strikes on a water desalination plant at the refinery on Sunday and on a naphtha reservoir on Saturday.

The company declared a “maximum emergency” in the region and urged authorities to launch an investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, and the company did ‌not say who they believed was behind them.

In a statement hours later, the NOC said the refinery was “still being subject to sabotage attacks” with a drone targeting an oil blending and filling ⁠plant operated by the Zawiya Oil Refining Company.

It said the drone fell near its main oil tank and a pipeline network used to produce oils for the domestic market, without causing any casualties or damage.

“The company’s board of directors also confirms that if these attacks continue, it will have to declare a state of force majeure and suspend operations at the refinery,” it warned.

The Brega Oil Company, meanwhile, appealed to “all parties to stop the fighting and stay away from oil facilities and depots”. It said “oil facilities are vital infrastructure and owned by all Libyans” and that “protecting them is a national responsibility that does not tolerate any negligence”.

The attacks highlight the continuing security challenges in Libya, where rival administrations and armed groups have retained influence despite a ‌2020 ⁠ceasefire that halted major warfare. The country split in 2014 after a NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar ⁠Gaddafi in 2011.

Two governments are currently vying for power: the United Nations-recognised administration in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and a rival in the east backed by military commander Khalifa Haftar.

In a statement, the Tripoli-based government said Dbeibah held a meeting earlier in the day with key officials, including the interior minister and the chiefs of some armed groups in the capital, “to follow up on the latest security developments”.

Dbeibah “stressed the need to deal firmly with any transgressions or actions that threaten security or harm vital facilities and installations”, the statement said.

Separately, a Libyan parliamentary panel condemned the attack and called for stronger protection of oil installations.

“The House of Representatives’ Energy and Natural Resources Committee condemns in the strongest terms the criminal attack targeting the Zawiya Refinery, one of the most vital facilities in the oil and gas sector that is a cornerstone of the national economy,” it said in a statement.

Drones of an unknown origin were reportedly sighted over the remote joint U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia installation located deep in the Indian Ocean. As we have frequently reported, this island base has long been a highly strategic operating location for the U.S. military. Beyond its large airfield that has been an epicenter of bomber operations over the decades, it plays many roles for the Pentagon. These include hosting Space Force operations, serving as a key port for U.S. Navy vessels, including nuclear submarines, and its lagoon provides shelter for a Sealift Command Prepositioning Ship Squadron.

The installation was targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles during the Epic Fury operation, but the threat posed by drones is even more plausible for the island outpost, especially at this extremely tense time as the standoff between the U.S. and Iran grinds on.

The issue of reported drones over Diego Garcia highlights a plausible threat of sea-launched drones that TWZ has been drawing attention to for years now. It also again raises concerns about the danger to critical infrastructure and aircraft parked in the open at Diego Garcia and many other U.S. installations. This is another issue TWZ has been highlighting for years.

“We are aware of reported sightings of drones (UAS) over Diego Garcia,” the U.K. Defense Ministry (MoD) told us Monday morning. “We are unable to provide any details about a situation which may affect the security or operation of the joint U.K.-U.S. base on Diego Garcia.”

“The U.S. and U.K. Commanding Officers on Diego Garcia consider and implement appropriate measures to ensure the security and safety of the base and the safety of the personnel on the island,” MoD added.

U.S. officials were less forthcoming.

“As a matter of operational security, we do not discuss specific force protection measures or security procedures at U.S. military installations,” an official from U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) told us on Friday. “We remain vigilant in protecting U.S. personnel and facilities.”

Neither MoD nor PACOM would say what kinds of drones were sighted, when they were sighted, who was operating them or what, if any, defensive measures were taken as a result. Both military organizations were responding to our questions about an Aug. 7 posting on the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, an unofficial social media channel that posts about service topics.

“Inbox: ‘Diego Garcia. Drones spotted near fuel farm. Base on 0700 to 1900 curfew until further notice’ Note: message us if you have further information, thanks,” the post read.

On Sunday, the page published a second post on the topic titled “Diego Garcia Curfew reportedly due to Drone Threats.” The post displayed what the page purported to be an official listing of curfew times for various locations around the installation.

We cannot independently confirm the accuracy of these posts and have reached out to MoD and PACOM for details. MoD did not specify who reported the drone sightings over Diego Garcia, so we have asked for clarification. Making this an even more unusual event, Diego Garcia is essentially a closed island with no significant general population or tourists around to be operating drones on a recreational basis. So seeing one or more over the base would certainly raise alarms.

Though Diego Garcia is about 1,000 miles from Sri Lanka, the nearest large landmass, its remote location does not rule out the possibility of drone incursions by an adversary.

During the run-up to the launch of the Epic Fury operation against Iran, the FBI sent out an alert warning about the possibility of an Iranian drone attack on targets in California using uncrewed aircraft launched from ships off the coast. Though the alert was based on raw, unverified intelligence, and was sent out of an abundance of caution rather than any fears of an imminent action, the overall threat of drone attacks from ships is very real. You can read our feature about this very real threat vector and its relation to that questionable intelligence release here.

Generally speaking, there are long-standing concerns that Iran and/or other actors operating on its behalf could seek to launch asymmetric attacks on targets in the United States, as well as elsewhere outside of the Middle East, in retaliation for large-scale strikes or even in an unprovoked manner. The risks of Iranians deciding to take such action have historically been seen as especially high in any scenario where there might be an existential threat to the regime in Tehran.

There were enough concerns about an Iranian attack on Diego Garcia that F-16s were deployed there in February, before the war erupted, for protection primarily against one-way attack drones and cruise missiles. F-15Es were first deployed to Diego Garcia for this same purpose last year, in what appeared to be a first of its kind force protection change. As noted earlier, Iran clearly sees the installation as a top target, as it has long been something of a refuge for U.S. forces to fallback from the Middle East from, if need be. Iran subsequently launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia during Epic Fury; however, neither struck the base.

The threat from drones launched by ships is not just limited to Iran. Russia is suspected of sending drones over key European military installations from vessels.

Long-range one-way attack drones with endurance measured in many hundreds of miles, if not more than a thousand miles, are increasingly a staple in military arsenals globally, and have also been proliferating to non-state actors. Yet the drone threat isn’t just limited to these kinds of weapons for remote locales like islands. Ukraine has carried out devastating attacks on Russian radars and other targets on Crimea and elsewhere using short-range aerial drones launched by uncrewed surface vessels (USVs). This same capability set is proliferating around the globe, allowing for the USV to work as a relatively low-cost delivery system for highly precise and relatively inexpensive short-range drones that can then execute near-field attacks. The U.S. and others are also developing similar capabilities for its submarines and future uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), which could even more easily sneak into close proximity to targets ashore before launching their deadly drone munitions.

The following video shows a Ukrainian USV launching drones against Russian targets:

Iran-backed Houthis have resumed attacks on Yemen’s al-Makha port in the Red Sea, striking Saudi weapons depots with missiles and drones. Yemen’s military says at least seven people were killed.

The latest Houthi attacks come less than 24 hours after an earlier barrage struck al-Makha (Mocha) and its commercial port.

Yemen’s Houthis have launched a new wave of missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea port city of al-Makha (Mocha), extending an assault on government-held areas along Yemen’s western coast and killing at least 11 people.

The latest attacks came on Sunday evening, less than 24 hours after an earlier barrage struck al-Makha and its commercial port. Yemeni government forces said air defences intercepted six drones during the renewed assault, while two ballistic missiles fell into the sea without hitting their targets.

Footage broadcast by the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV showed several ballistic missiles and drones being launched. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the operation targeted Saudi troop concentrations and weapon depots in the area, according to the Reuters news agency.

At least 11 killed

Earlier on Sunday, Attacks on al-Makha killed at least 11 people, including eight military personnel and three civilians, and wounded 32 others, according to the latest toll cited by the AFP news agency.

The strikes also caused extensive damage at al-Makha’s port. Government authorities said buildings and commercial facilities were hit, while The Associated Press reported damage to port infrastructure, commercial goods and food supplies.

Government forces also said they intercepted and destroyed an unmanned explosive boat approaching the commercial port.

During the renewed attacks later on Sunday, the National Resistance Forces, which are aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognised government, urged residents of al-Makha to remain indoors, accusing the Houthis of carrying out indiscriminate shelling.

Houthis say Saudi military buildup prompted attack

The Houthis said the operation involved a large number of ballistic missiles and drones and was launched in response to an alleged continued Saudi military buildup, including the reinforcement of allied forces with weapons and equipment along Yemen’s western coast and in Taiz province.

Houthi political council member Hizam al-Assad separately claimed that continuing explosions, fires and columns of smoke from the port were caused by large quantities of weapons and military equipment stored there.

Attacks extend to al-Khokha

The escalation was not limited to al-Makha, but also targeted the al-Khokha district, south of the coastal city of Hodeidah.

Al-Jumhuriya television, which is affiliated with the National Resistance Forces led by Presidential Leadership Council member Tareq Saleh, said the government-appointed governor of Hodeidah, al-Hassan Taher, survived an assassination attempt on Sunday after a Houthi ballistic missile struck his residence in the district.

Espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, and covert operations are a ‘constant reality’, says Germany’s interior minister.

Germany is facing daily “hybrid warfare” attacks from abroad, an official has said, days after an explosive-laden drone was discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the local newspaper Bild am Sonntag on Sunday that foreign powers wanted to subdue Germany politically and socially by stirring up fear.

“We’re not at war, but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare,” Dobrindt said.

“Espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, or covert operations by foreign powers aimed at destabilising Germany or inflicting direct harm are a constant reality.”

He did not identify any countries behind the alleged attacks.

The minister’s comments come after a drone loaded ‌with explosives was discovered at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany on Tuesday.

Some German lawmakers pointed the finger at Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine since its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

The Russian embassy in Berlin on Friday dismissed the Leipzig event as a “fabricated provocation”, saying it was another example of unsubstantiated accusations against Moscow.

Germany plans to boost anti-drone capacity

Germany is planning to strengthen its ability to counter drones amid concerns over the threat, Bild reported, citing government sources.

The newspaper said Dobrindt’s ministry wanted to double the federal government’s team of anti-drone experts from 150 to 300 and increase its network of related bases from four to eight.

Germany’s armed forces said on Saturday that two drones were spotted late on Thursday over a German military base site in Mechernich, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Separately, a drone exploded on Saturday in Bulgaria near the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.

Bulgaria’s defence ministry said there was no reason to suspect the incident was intentional. Ukraine said it was working with Bulgarian authorities to clarify the circumstances.

The drone incidents across Europe have renewed concerns that Russia’s war in Ukraine could increasingly affect neighbouring NATO states.

NATO and European Union officials have blamed Russia for previous drone sightings. Russia has rejected all the allegations.

The Nimitz class USS Theodore Roosevelt has become the first U.S. Navy supercarrier with an Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC) fully capable of supporting the forthcoming MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone. This marks another step toward the Navy finally reaching initial operational capability with the MQ-25, now set to come in 2029 after years of delays. There is still a lot of work to be done before the Stingray can be fully woven into routine carrier flight operations.

The new details about the Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC and other information about the MQ-25 are contained in a Modernized Selected Acquisition Report (MSAR) that the Pentagon recently released. The report itself is dated April 21, 2026, and it was produced as part of work on the U.S. military’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget.

“In March 2026, the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) UAWC became the first fully operational/deployable MQ-25 capable aircraft carrier,” according to the report. “The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) UAWC is planned to be operational/deployable at the end of Aug 2026.”

“In August 2024, the first test Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC), where Air Vehicle Pilots will control future MQ-25 airborne operations, was installed and tested aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77),” the report also notes.

The USS Ronald Reagan and USS George H.W. Bush are also Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The Navy publicly announced the integration of the UAWC on the George H.W. Bush, a first-of-its-kind development, back in 2024. It is unclear why Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC has now become the first to be fully certified to support MQ-25 operations. It has been previously reported that the Navy’s plan is to deploy Stingrays first on the Theodore Roosevelt.

As mentioned, the MQ-25 program, overall, has been beset by delays, as well as cost growth, for years now. The Navy originally hoped to see the Stingray reach initial operational capability (IOC) in 2024. The IOC timeline subsequently slipped to July 2027 and has now been pushed even further to the right to February 2029. The first production representative example only made its maiden flight this past April. An earlier MQ-25 demonstrator, also known as the T1, has been flying since 2019.

The Navy currently plans to acquire a total fleet of 76 Stingrays, which will offer critical range extension for current and future aircraft in its carrier air wings. The aim, in turn, is also to eliminate the need for crewed F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to fly in the tanker role, which accounts for a significant portion of their sorties while deployed. This will free up those aircraft up for other missions and reduce overall wear and tear on the airframes. The new drones will also have a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability from the start.

“The MQ-25 Air System is integrating a Ground Control Station (GCS) managed by the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS) program within UCA [the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program]. The UMCS program is a separate ACAT II [Acquisition Category II] program that integrates with multiple networks and systems both afloat and ashore,” the recently released MSAR also notes. “The MQ-25 and UMCS programs are synchronized to provide complete capability to the aircraft carrier.”

While Boeing is the prime contractor for the MQ-25 drone, Lockheed Martin has been leading work on the UMCS, and has described it previously as a “system of systems.” The central element is the MD-5E GCS, which consists of operator stations with arrays of monitors, tablet-like devices, and other computer hardware. What has been seen of the MD-5 system to date in terms of the physical hardware is fully in line with other known GCS designs, including ones the U.S. Air Force has used over the years to operate MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers.

The UMCS also includes the Multi Domain Combat System (MDCX), an “autonomy platform” developed by Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works advanced projects division. The company has told TWZ directly in the past that MDCX “provides uncrewed vehicle autonomy, mission planning, and command and control (C2) capability.”

“In October 2025, MQ-25A and the UMCS connected for the first time during air vehicle and Ground Control Station (GCS) Integration Checkout testing, allowing the Lockheed Martin GCS to establish command and control of the aircraft, which was critical to achieving First Flight,” per the recently released MSAR.

“The first Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) Operational Network Evaluation test event was also conducted in collaboration with the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72),” the report also highlights. “This test event transmitted representative-network traffic between an at sea-configured aircraft carrier and a remote MQ-25 surrogate through operational C4I paths that include satellite communications links and the Navy’s primary tactical wide area network.”

The Navy has previously disclosed testing of the UMCS in conjunction with General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger drone to demonstrate the control system’s ability to support other uncrewed platforms beyond the MQ-25. The Navy does envision its future carrier air wings eventually incorporating multiple types of drones, including ones capable of attacking enemy forces at least 1,000 nautical miles away, as you can read more about here. A year ago, the service awarded contracts to Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman for work on concepts for future carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type designs. Navy officials have said in the past that the composition of the service’s carrier air wings could eventually become 60 percent or more uncrewed.

Beyond the important additional capabilities the MQ-25 will bring to the Navy’s carrier air wings, the Navy has long described the Stingray as a foundational “pathfinder” for its broader uncrewed aviation plans, something the new MSAR reiterates. As TWZ has explored in detail in the past, the MQ-25’s design and baseline performance, especially its extreme endurance and low-signature design, open the door to the Stingray itself being adapted to strike, advanced ISR, and other missions in the future.

There is more work still to be done before the MQ-25 can enter operational service, including demonstrating the ability of Navy carriers to launch and recover the drones. The service has laid at least some of the groundwork for that years ago with extensive testing involving a pair of X-47B stealthy demonstrator drones, which achieved many firsts for carrier-based uncrewed aviation. That very promising work was done under the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program, which subsequently morphed into the radically different Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) effort in the mid-2010s. The reasons for that shift are still not entirely clear, as you can read more about in detail here. CBARS ultimately led to the MQ-25.

Northrop Grumman’s X47-B Completes 1st Carrier Catapult Launch

The Stingrays will have to be further integrated into routine flight deck operations, including just making sure they can be safely moved around with everything else going on. As we have previously written:

“Carrier decks are very constrained environments physically, and present very different conditions to operate in compared to bases on land. This is true even for crewed aircraft operations, where individuals onboard can provide additional situational awareness. A wearable glove-like system that personnel could use for deck handling was notably used during testing of the X-47B. A different kind of portable control device has been used in testing of the T1 MQ-25 demonstrator in the past, as well. The video released today does not appear to offer any major new insights into how the Navy plans to maneuver the Stingray around on carrier decks.”

It is still unclear what the Navy will be using to manage operational MQ-25s on carrier flight decks when the drones enter service.

The Navy has already been working to establish new units and training pipelines to support the future MQ-25 fleet. The Stingray force structure is set to be deeply intertwined with that of the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft.

With the USS Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC now deemed fully able to support MQ-25 operations, the Navy has moved at least one more step closer toward finally fielding the Stingray.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Aug. 6 (UPI) — The Leipzig/Halle Airport in Schkeuditz, Saxony, Germany, resumed flights on Thursday after a drone fitted with an explosive device was discovered there a day before.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Wednesday that the discovery of an explosive device points to a “new threat scenario” facing Germany.

“Drone sightings, drone threats including in a hybrid context, are something we know from the past,” Dobrindt said. “That a drone armed with explosives is at an airport is a new threat scenario. We are dealing with a competition here which may also include foreign powers.”

The drone was discovered near a Ukrainian cargo plane, causing several flights to divert to other airports. In a separate incident, a DHL cargo plane collided with a drone during, causing it to abort its landing.

There were no injuries reported from either incident. The plane that collided with a drone suffered mild damage to its nose.

Germany is the largest national supporter of Ukraine‘s military operations.

“Any speculation on these matters may not be heading in the right direction; could simply be completely wrong,” Dobrindt said. “The priority right now is to investigate in all directions.”

After the explosive device was discovered on the drone, its detonator was safely removed by a bomb disposal robot.

German newspaper Bild reports that a technical malfunction may have been the only thing that stopped the explosive device from detonating.

Two drone-related incidents at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany represent the most serious threats yet in the wave of small drone incursions that have plagued Europe for the past few years. German police say an explosive-laden drone was located on the ground near a Ukrainian cargo jet and that there was a midair collision between an object and another cargo aircraft. 

This marks the first time that a drone with explosives has been found in Europe far from the Ukrainian border, The Guardian noted. The incidents, which spurred the opening of a counter-terror investigation and temporary closure of the airport, have raised the level of concern about these incursions and the threats to parked aircraft, issues TWZ has frequently covered for years.

That the drone was carrying explosives “is a new quality of danger,” German Interior Minister Armin Schuster told reporters.

German officials have not said who was operating the drones, but Ukrainian officials are blaming Russia.

“During the night of August 4 to 5, 2026, an airport employee discovered a drone carrying an unknown explosive device in the security area of the cargo flight operations, near the ‘South Runway takeoff/landing strip,’” the Saxony State Criminal Police said in a release. “The object was examined with the support of the Federal Police and a bomb-disposal robot. The Federal Police’s IEDD (improvised explosive device disposal) unit removed the detonator from the explosive device.”

The explosive-laden drone was found near a massive An-124-100 Ruslan (NATO reporting name Condor) cargo jet. As we have previously reported, Antonov, which operates the aircraft, is now using Leipzig as its headquarters after its facilities at Hostomel Airport in Ukraine were destroyed in the opening days of the Russian all-out invasion. The airport is also used by NATO and the German military for transport.

In the context of a Russian threat, the Condor, in particular, represents an unsurprising target. Ukraine’s An-124s are a source of national pride and a big flying symbol of the country’s defiance and survival. They also provide much-needed revenue to Ukraine and strategic airlift to support the conflict. Ukraine’s An-124s have long provided charter cargo services for western militaries, companies and NGOs. Since the war began, Antonov Airlines An-124s have been used to deliver war materiel bound for Ukraine. So, these giant aircraft really check a lot of boxes if Russia was looking to drastically escalate to executing such brazen attacks in European countries. While they are clearly the logical suspect in this case, we still have no proof who was behind these incidents.

In addition to the drone on the ground, “a presumed second, unknown flying object collided with a cargo aircraft after it aborted its landing and went around again due to the previously imposed runway closure,” the Saxony State Criminal Police added. “After landing in Hanover, the aircraft was found to have sustained minor damage.”

The cargo jet in the midair incident reportedly belonged to DHL. It should be noted that in 2024, Western security officials said they believed “that two incendiary devices, shipped via DHL, were part of a covert Russian operation that ultimately aimed to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft flying to the U.S. and Canada, as Moscow steps up a sabotage campaign against Washington and its allies,” according to The Wall Street Journal at the time. However, there is no clear connection between these situations at this time.

“Leipzig Airport is part of our critical infrastructure,” stated State Minister of Justice Prof. Constanze Geiert. “Attacks on these structures must be pursued by the law enforcement authorities with full force and severity. It is therefore welcome that the investigation has been taken over by the Central Office for Extremism Saxony (ZESA), the Dresden General Prosecutor’s Office, and the Saxony State Criminal Police Office, and is now being conducted under high pressure and in close coordination with the federal security authorities.”

As noted earlier in this story, German officials have yet to point the finger at anyone, but Ukraine’s officials say Moscow is behind it.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, blamed Moscow. “Who else could it be but Russia?” he told German media, without offering any proof. Ukraine’s strategic communications center took a similar stance.

“New footage of yet another act of Russian terrorism on EU soil, showing the drone loaded with explosives on the tarmac at Leipzig/Halle Airport, just meters from a Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft,” Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications posited on X. “According to German authorities, the drone was carrying an improvised explosive device. Bomb disposal specialists rendered it safe after determining the detonator had malfunctioned, preventing the device from exploding. In a separate incident the same night, a DHL cargo aircraft reportedly struck an unidentified object shortly after departure—possibly another drone—before diverting safely. The aircraft landed without injuries, though inspectors found minor damage.”

While it is unknown how the UAS came to be found near the Condor, or what countermeasures are in place at the airport, if any, when taken at face value, it has all the hallmarks of an attempted near-field attack via short-range drone. This is the same kind of strike Ukraine famously pulled off last year during its Operation Spiderweb campaign against Russian strategic aviation. In that operation, Ukraine remotely launched drones, hidden in trucks parked near airfields across Russia, to hit parked bombers and other critical aircraft. Spiderweb hammered home a threat TWZ had raised for years — even the most important aircraft on earth largely sit vulnerable on the ground to large scale attacks by low-end drones launched nearby.

You can see a video of one of the Operation Spiderweb attacks below:

An airport employee spotted the drone carrying what authorities described as ‘an unknown explosive device’.

German authorities have launched an investigation after police removed the detonator from an explosive device attached to a drone found at Leipzig/Halle airport.

The airport’s north runway reopened on Wednesday after being closed for about two hours, while the south runway remained out of use due to scheduled maintenance.

Several flights, including a passenger aircraft, were diverted to other airports after a flying object was reported near the airport shortly before midnight. Police deployed an explosives-disposal robot to examine the object.

Authorities later said an airport employee discovered the drone near the runway carrying what they described as “an unknown explosive device”. Police examined it and removed its detonator, but did not provide further details about the nature of the device.

The probe is being led by prosecutors in the eastern state of Saxony who are responsible for politically motivated and “extremist” crimes, although authorities have not identified any suspects or attributed responsibility.

Meanwhile, an apparent second flying object collided with a freight aircraft after it aborted its landing because the runway was closed.

The aircraft diverted to Hannover airport, where officials found slight damage during an inspection. Authorities have not said whether the second object was connected to the drone found near the runway.

Authorities said there was no danger to travellers or airport employees, and flights were operating normally on Wednesday.

Photos from the scene showed police technicians working with an explosives-disposal robot near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft parked at the airport, although authorities have not indicated the aircraft was the intended target.

A Ukrainian man has relived the moment a suspected Russian drone chased him before it blew up. The video, which made headlines round the world, shows Yurii, the vegetable seller, being attacked in Kerson.

During a long-endurance trek across the Pacific, a small uncrewed surface vessel (USV) owned by a California company had an encounter with a Chinese guided missile destroyer near the Philippines. The Lightfish USV, owned by Seasats, came close enough to the Type 052D guided missile destroyer that it was able to capture the warship on video. Reuters was the first to report about this event.

The incident highlights the growing presence of USVs, and especially in some of the world’s most contentious locales. The USV coming so close to the Chinese surface combatant also underscores the potential danger USVs can pose even to an advanced warship, a fact TWZ has frequently reported on. It also raises questions about the rules of engagement navies, and even some merchant vessels in troubled areas, will have to adopt for when they happen upon USVs that come close without explanation or clear intent.

The incident in question took place about 73 miles northwest of the Philippine island of Luzon, Seasats CEO Mike Flanigan told TWZ. The Luzon Strait is one of the world’s most strategic waterways and a potential flashpoint. It sits south of Taiwan and north of the Philippines, in a channel that provides access from the greater Pacific to the South China Sea and vice-versa. This is an area that is highly trafficked in the air, sea and undersea by major military players in the region and commercial shipping. If a conflict were to break out over Taiwan, this area would be turned into a super weapons engagement zone. In a future war, due to its unique littoral geography and importance, it would be a prime hunting ground for USVs of many kinds.

The encounter involved a Lightfish USV, a 12-foot-long, 305-pound USV that can travel great distances for up to six months with the help of its solar power panels paired with its hybrid powertrain, according to the company. Lightfish is not a speed boat. It prioritizes extreme endurance over anything else, so it couldn’t have ‘chased down’ the warship in question, but many other USVs are very capable of doing just that.

“The Lightfish tracked the Chinese vessel on radar from a range of ~10 nm and visually to a minimum range of several hundred meters,” Flanigan explained in an email. “It took place in the evening Pacific time on June 15th and our team was alerted to it immediately by our watch team that monitors vessel traffic in the vicinity of our deployed USV fleets.”

The Chinese destroyer spotted the Lightfish and took evasive action.

“We don’t know the intent, but we were able to observe the vessel altering course and generally observing the Lightfish USV,” Flanigan noted.

The company discussed it with the U.S. military after the event, but Flanigan declined to offer any details.

The company shared with us two videos of the Lightfish’s view of the Chinese warship. In it, the destroyer appears to be moving very slowly if at all.

The videos are eerily reminiscent of scores of videos released by the Ukrainian military showing its USVs attacking Russian warships, although in this case, the Lightfish had no such capability or intent.

You can see one of those Ukrainian videos below.

As we have reported extensively, Ukraine has demonstrated the devastating potential of USVs against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Magura family of drone boats, among others, has been central to that campaign, and has taken on a wide variety of roles. Repeated successful strikes against Black Sea Fleet vessels and naval infrastructure forced Russia to relocate much of its fleet from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of bases in mainland Russia.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels were at the forefront of employing kamikaze USVs operationally prior to Ukraine. We first reported on the capability in January 2017, after an explosive-laden Houthi drone boat struck a Saudi frigate. The modern version of this concept traces back to Iran, which developed a variety of rudimentary one-way attack USVs before transferring the capability to its Houthi proxies, who became the first to use them successfully in the Red Sea in 2017. They have since used them repeatedly, targeting shipping during their intervention following the events of October 7th and Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

Fast forward to the present, with the U.S. military employing USVs as offensive strike weapons in combat for the first time on July 12. The strikes, which involved Saronic-built Corsair USVs, occurred amid an escalating exchange of attacks between the United States and Iran centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Among the targets of the drone boat attacks was an Iranian Ghadir class diesel-electric midget submarine.

The following video captures some of those strikes.

Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea… pic.twitter.com/bOM2kmgRxz

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 13, 2026

More recently, the U.S. Navy showed off the danger its USVs present to potential enemy warships when one of its Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) USVs took part in its first live-fire training exercise. The kamikaze drone boat was employed during RIMPAC 2026, attacking the ex-USS Peleliu in one of the operation’s high-profile sinking exercises (SINKEX). You can read more about that here. The highly-publicized inaugural drone boat strike against Iran’s port and the use during SINKEX at RIMPAC clearly sends a message that the U.S. Navy is now aggressively pursuing this new form of kinetic surface attack. 

Amazing Footage from USV’s as they Attack the USS Peleliu (LHA 5)

These lessons are not lost on Seasats.

“The Ukrainians have definitively proven the threat that small USVs pose to surface ships,” Flanigan proffered. “With the Lightfish’s range — 8,000+ nm — we’re showing that the entire ocean is ‘in range’ for small USVs and that they aren’t just limited to coastal/littoral assets.”

The June 15 encounter was one of several Seasats USVs have had with Chinese warships. In May, the Lightfish came upon a Chinese Type 056 Corvette while transiting the Taiwan Strait earlier on this journey, Flanigan said. 

“This isn’t our vessel’s first run-in with a Chinese warship,” he noted in a company media release at the time. “But the location and timing make this encounter notable. It’s generally understood that the PLAN aggressively projects its vessels into the sovereign waters of smaller neighbors, but the opportunity to capture and share geolocated photographic evidence of it is unique.”

None of these incidents have resulted in China firing upon the drone boat. Still, these close encounters at sea raise questions about how warships should respond to such sightings, especially given what has taken place in the Black Sea, Red Sea, and more recently, near the Strait of Hormuz.

“This would be a better question for a military end user,” Flanigan answered when we asked him what the rules of engagement should be for these encounters. “I’d imagine it’d depend on the context and region (eg in the Black Sea presumably all USVs are assumed armed and dangerous). For commercial mariners, USVs would probably be treated with caution similar to other maritime hazards, with the level of caution depending on how well and predictably they (the USVs) are signaling their behavior.”

This is important, given the frequency of Lightfish sightings. 

“We have commercial shipping encounters on a nearly daily basis,” Flanigan said. “They happen so often that mariners don’t notice, or if they do, they are curious.”

This is especially true for fishing vessels, he pointed out.

Seasats Lightfish – Autonomous Drone Carrier

“Generally we follow two rules of thought” when it comes to other vessels, Flanigan stated.

The first is that “robotic systems should all fall secondary to human-piloted vessels. Meaning USVs should always avoid human vessels, and safety at sea rules should also bias towards giving right of way and safety of navigation to a piloted vessel,” Flanigan suggested.

The second is that “USVs should comply with COLREGs [International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea] and general navigational policies wherever possible,” he added.

Still, these are not crewed ships with people onboard that can communicate in some fashion. AIS identification is not proof of anything. And there is no way of knowing for certain if a curious USV belongs to a friend or foe. Hanging a flag onboard and painting a service name on the drone boat’s hull is in no way a definitive signal. How much risk will sailors take as the potential threat posed by these systems rapidly evolves and is already firmly in the hands of non-state actors?

It’s also worth noting that destroying a clearly uncrewed drone boat is a much lower threshold of escalation than doing so with a manned vessel, obviously. We have seen this reality played out repeatedly in the air, where an adversary will take a shot at a drone but not a crewed platform during times of tension but not outright war. Regardless of the international norms, taking out a drone boat that gets too close to a warship could become common place based on these factors, as well as the threat picture in the region and the status and proliferation of the technology.

Once again, in this case, the slow and small Lightfish may have been recognized as not a major danger to the destroyer, but as USVs become more common place in all forms, and especially in arsenals of militaries and potential nefarious actors alike, this equation will become more complex.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Tens of thousands have been killed since April 2023 in the war between RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and his former ally, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

At least 35 people were killed, and several others wounded, when Sudanese army drones struck a traditional court in western Darfur, a rights group has said.

The Emergency Lawyers group, which has documented abuses by both sides of the three-year civil war in Sudan, said the strike on Sunday hit a court in the village of Garra al-Zawaya in North Darfur state at about 1pm local time (11:00 GMT).

It said civilians had “gathered to attend hearings on local cases and disputes” when the attack took place.

The village is under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the war began in April 2023 between supporters of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and his former ally, Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

The court building, which serves as a traditional institution for resolving local and tribal feuds, was also damaged in the strike, Emergency Lawyers said.

“The court session was being held under a tree with the participation of local community leaders,” a witness from the area told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

Among those killed were “four tribal leaders and two RSF commanders”, the witness added.

Garra al-Zawaya lies near the town of Kabkabiya, about 150km (93 miles) west of el-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in Darfur, which the RSF captured after a bloody offensive in October last year.

United Nations investigators have said violence linked to the RSF siege and capture of el-Fasher bore “the hallmarks of genocide”.

Following its takeover of the city, the RSF – which emerged from the government-backed militia known as the Janjaweed, accused of atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s – consolidated control over much of the region.

Since that campaign, both sides have increasingly relied on drone warfare. According to the UN, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes during the first five months of this year.

The conflict has also displaced millions and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Egyptian officials have now confirmed that the port facility of Damietta was hit by a drone strike yesterday, the first public acknowledgment that the country has come under fire during this conflict. Though Cairo did not say who launched the attack, it raises the specter of another part of the region being brought into fighting that is largely centered on the flow of energy supplies.

The attack came as the Houthis began to consider imposing tolls on shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, where they have already established a blockade on Saudi shipping and attacked its vessels and energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Iran continues to lob missiles and drones across the region as tit-for-tat strikes have resumed after a short pause.

“Following the successful containment of the fire, the relevant authorities conducted initial investigations into the incident, which indicated that a drone was responsible,” the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement on Thursday, according to state-funded Middle East News Agency. The cabinet added that “no party has claimed responsibility for the attack.”

“The competent authorities are continuing their investigations to determine the full circumstances surrounding the incident and to take the necessary measures to safeguard Egypt’s interests and national security,” the official government outlet added.

As we reported yesterday, the Ambrey maritime security firm said two vessels were struck by drones at Damietta. One of the ships was a U.S.-owned and operated, Marshall Islands-flagged liquefied natural gas (LNG) floating storage facility and the other was a Greek-owned and operated, Bermuda-flagged LNG tanker, Ambrey stated.

A maritime security specialist told us that the U.S.-owned and operated, Marshall Islands-flagged floating gas storage facility was the Energos Winter while the other ship was the Gaslog Salem.

While there has been no official claim or attribution, U.S. President Donald Trump hinted that it was an Iranian attack.

Asked during a press conference whether Iran was behind the drone attack on the Egyptian port, Trump said “it’s a little more of the same, but it’s going to be straightening out, it’s going to be straightening out. But in the meantime, we are going to be hitting them very hard, because it is our turn to hit ’em. They know it’s coming, they are asking us not to do it.”

“We’re going to hit them very hard.”

President Trump warns adversaries that the U.S. is prepared to respond forcefully following a drone attack on an LNG tanker off the coast of Egypt.

Trump signaled that retaliation is imminent despite requests from adversaries to hold back.… pic.twitter.com/SMOUuj5qGT

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 29, 2026

The New York Times later reported that two Iranians, who asked not to be named to discuss security matters, “said the explosion was a drone attack designed to show that global shipping and energy supplies could be more deeply disrupted if Iran chose to escalate. The individuals did not say whether Iran or an Iran-allied militia in the region had launched the attack, or from where.”

The Iranians are not the only ones targeting energy facilities in the region. Several of their proxies have as well. It is part of a larger effort to impose cost on the U.S. and its allies.

The Saudis claim their oil infrastructure has been attacked by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq in addition to actions by the Houthis in Yemen. That in part prompted a joint U.S.-Saudi strike on militia targets across that country. It was the first publicly confirmed instance where U.S. and Saudi forces worked in concert.

The Iranian-backed Houthis, who, as we noted above, are striking Saudi oil infrastructure, on Thursday denied involvement in this incident.

“There is no truth to the rumors about Yemen targeting a ship in the port of Damietta in the Arab Republic of Egypt,” the group stated on Telegram. “The Yemeni position is clear, declared, and explicit, and it only targets the Saudi regime for its unjust blockade and ongoing aggression against the Yemeni people.”

A senior political official from Yemen’s Houthi movement has denied reports that the group plans to impose fees on commercial ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Hizam al-Assad, a member of the political bureau of the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah), said in a… pic.twitter.com/PtSGc5XOPj

— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) July 30, 2026

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, deferred questions about the incident to Egypt.

Regardless of who attacked Damietta, expanding the conflict to Egypt’s Mediterranean ports marks a significant potential escalation. The region’s two main sea arteries for energy shipments are already being choked off. The Iranians have largely closed down the Strait of Hormuz and there is an ongoing U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. The Houthis, as previously noted, have halted Saudi transits through the BAM, which has had a cascading effect on other nations not wanting to risk attack.

As the Iranian threats to the Strait of Hormuz increased, the kingdom diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to the hostilities in the Persian Gulf. 

That workaround served its purpose until the Houthi blockade, at which point Saudi Arabia began boosting shipments through the Suez Canal. Exports via that route “rose 106% for the week of the embargo announcement to 1.06 million barrels per day, up from the week starting July 13, according to Kpler data,” The National News recently noted.

The port of Damietta, where yesterday’s attack took place, is 33 miles west of Port Said, which is at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal. Closure of the canal, or even a significant drop in traffic through it, would add to the pressures on the global economy already reeling from what is taking place in the Strait of Hormuz and the BAM.

In a post on X, the Windward maritime intelligence firm called the attack on Damietta “a third front, separate from the Gulf and Red Sea.”

“The strike is assessed as separate from the Houthi Saudi-blockade campaign. Iranian state television had named Damietta as a retaliation target two days earlier, citing Ukraine’s strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea, pointing toward an Iranian-directed operation rather than a Houthi one,” Windward explained in a related analysis.

A drone struck ENERGOS WINTER, a U.S.-managed LNG unit at Damietta, Egypt on July 29, with fire spreading to a second tanker alongside. Iranian state TV had named Damietta as a retaliation target two days earlier. This is a third front, separate from the Gulf and the Red Sea. pic.twitter.com/6bmWtST9XH

— Windward (@WindwardAI) July 30, 2026

Operation Aspides, the European-led task force created to provide security to shipping in the Red Sea region, told us it is monitoring reports that the Houthis are considering placing a toll on transits through the BAM, similar to what Iran has tried to impose in the Strait of Hormuz.

“At this moment, there has been no official statement from the Houthis confirming such a measure,” a spokesman told us Thursday morning. “We continue to monitor developments closely and are going to implement our mandate within our means and capabilities.”

On Thursday, Aspides posted an image of one of its member warships, the Italian frigate Bergamini, escorting merchant vessels in the Red Sea region.

The Italian 🇮🇹 Frigate BERGAMINI operating under EUNAVFOR ASPIDES provided support to merchant vessels, crossing the Area of Operations.

ASPIDES plays a crucial role in safeguarding shipping and supporting the safe passage of vessels through critical maritime routes. pic.twitter.com/9FNQL6Y00C

— EUNAVFOR ASPIDES (@EUNAVFORASPIDES) July 30, 2026

Meanwhile, Iran is continuing to lash out across the region.

Kuwaiti officials said one person was killed in an Iranian barrage today.

“The sinful Iranian aggression targeted a building belonging to one of the Chinese companies in the north of the country, resulting in the death of one worker and causing serious material damage to the building,” the Kuwait Defense Ministry (MoD) stated on X. “The Armed Forces affirm that they will continue carrying out their tasks and duties with high efficiency, and taking all necessary measures to protect national sovereignty and preserve its security and stability, in coordination with the competent authorities, in a way that safeguards the safety of citizens and residents.”

The Jordanian military said it foiled an Iranian attempt to target the kingdom with five missiles. There were no casualties, officials said.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed missiles made it through and that three F-35 Joint Strike Fighters were destroyed and three more damaged at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base (MSAB) in Jordan. The IRGC said it was in response to deaths caused by yesterday’s attacks by CENTCOM. However, the IRGC frequently fabricates claims or greatly exaggerates them and we cannot independently confirm this one.

As we have pointed out in the past, the base has been frequently targeted by Iranian missiles and drones. Three U.S. Army soldiers were killed in a strike there on July 17.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps released a video of what they say were missiles launched by their naval forces targeting US aircraft at Jordan’s Al Azraq air base, in retaliation for US strikes on Qeshm Island that killed three people. pic.twitter.com/HRxGlWC6AN

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) July 30, 2026

We reached out to CENTCOM for comment, which a short while later put out a statement on X denying the IRGC claim.

Over the past few hours, Iranian state media have continued to report false claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – three in particular.

🚫 FIRST CLAIM: The IRGC (again) claims free and open routes through the Strait of Hormuz are dangerous for commercial… pic.twitter.com/J34ILmDvyk

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 30, 2026

Regardless of the claims, the constant Iranian bombardment is beginning to stir unrest in Jordan, where public dissent is banned.

“Hundreds of Jordanian political, legal and other figures signed an open letter last week calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Jordan,” The New York Times reported. “People who signed the letter said they were driven by a sense of national responsibility and concern that the troop presence endangered Jordanian sovereignty.”

“We maintain that their presence exposes Jordan to security, political, and economic risks that serve no national interest and increases the likelihood of our country being dragged into a regional conflict to which it is not a party,” the letter said.

🇺🇸🇯🇴 “Hundreds of Jordanian political, legal and other figures signed an open letter calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Jordan in a rare public challenge to the government, after Iranian attacks on bases”https://t.co/yYYutkRzEU via @NYTimes @MazMHussain @GerardAraud

— Karim Emile Bitar (@karimbitar) July 30, 2026

As this conflict drags on, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper, “has prepared an option for a punishing air campaign against Iran that could take up to two weeks,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

“Now, as Trump moves to strike back after Iran’s surprise missile attack Tuesday, the president will decide how far to go,” the newspaper noted. “He could greenlight Cooper’s option of 10 to 14 days of intensive airstrikes intended to cripple Iran’s missile capability despite warnings that the U.S. is running low on air-defensive munitions. Or, he could opt for a more limited military strike in the hopes diplomacy could be pursued.”

Cooper has prepared an option for a punishing air campaign against Iran that could take up to two weeks, people familiar with the matter said.

Now, as Trump vows to strike back after Iran’s surprise missile attack Tuesday, the president will decide how far to go. W @mgordonwsj…

— Lara Seligman (@laraseligman) July 29, 2026

Iran, working to rearm as the fighting continues, is expected to receive “a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers,” Reuters reported, citing three sources familiar with the deal.

“The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air defenses since the outbreak ‌of its war with the U.S. and Israel, which exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure,” the outlet noted.

China isn’t just buying Iranian oil— it’s re-arming the regime.

We need to enforce the sanctions against China now. https://t.co/qvasMaBkOa

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) July 29, 2026

That’s it for now. We’ll update this when there is more information to share.

UPDATE: 4:58 PM EDT –

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addressed the drone strike on Damietta. In a post on X, he hinted at Israeli involvement but did not explicitly deny that Iran carried it out.

“Egypt is considered a friend and important partner in the region, and its security constitutes an utmost priority for us,” Araghchi stated. “We must all remain vigilant toward Israeli schemes and ‘false flag’ operations that aim to undermine regional peace. The threat is clear, shared, and fears Muslim solidarity.”

تُعدُّ مصر صديقًا وشريكًا مهمًا في المنطقة، ويُشكّل أمنُها أهميةً قصوى بالنسبة لنا.
يجب علينا جميعًا أن نكون يقظين تجاه المخططات الإسرائيلية وعمليات “العَلَم الزائف” التي تهدف إلى تقويض السلام الإقليمي.
إن التهديد واضح، ومشترك، ويخشَى تضامن المسلمين.

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 30, 2026

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

July 30 (Asia Today) — Residents near South Korea’s border with North Korea were briefly ordered to evacuate Thursday after the military detected an unidentified aircraft that was later confirmed to be a U.S. drone involved in a training exercise.

South Korean troops detected the aircraft south of a general outpost in northern Gyeonggi province and responded in accordance with established operational procedures, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

“After checking, it was confirmed to be a U.S. drone participating in training,” a Joint Chiefs official said.

The aircraft was detected by South Korean personnel using thermal observation equipment. The military initially could not determine whether it belonged to South Korea, North Korea or another operator.

Residents living north of the Civilian Control Line near Cheorwon in Gangwon province received emergency messages at about 2:30 p.m. telling them that a drone had been detected and instructing them to move to nearby shelters or leave a restricted checkpoint area.

The Civilian Control Line marks a restricted zone south of the Demilitarized Zone where civilian access is limited for security reasons.

The military identified the aircraft as a U.S. drone about an hour after the warning was issued and ended the emergency response.

U.S. Forces Korea later said the incident occurred during combined training involving U.S. Marines and South Korea’s 1st Marine Division.

“The U.S. Marine Corps is assessing the circumstances surrounding the incident and remains in coordination with the Republic of Korea Marine Corps and relevant local authorities,” U.S. Forces Korea said.

It remained unclear whether the drone’s flight plan had been shared in advance with all South Korean units responsible for monitoring the border area.

South Korean military officials said further investigation was needed to determine the aircraft’s specific unit and why its operation was not immediately identified.

The incident raised the possibility that incomplete communication about the U.S. training exercise caused confusion among South Korean troops and local authorities.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260730010011478

AMMAN, Jordan — When Iranian ballistic missiles repeatedly struck Jordan last week, killing three American service members and wounding dozens of others, it brought the spotlight on a U.S. military presence the government of this desert kingdom has long worked to downplay.

Jordan has been a decades-long military and counterterrorism partner with the United States, opening its territory over the years to U.S. and other Western troops in their engagements throughout the region. But faced with a population that is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian and suspicious of the U.S. for its all-out support of Israel, the government had kept those relationships at a low profile.

But now, Jordan’s growing role in the United States’ war with Iran — and the intensifying Iranian retaliation that role invites — is spurring uncomfortable conversations for the government.

“Jordanians are trapped in a dilemma: They’re being dragged into a war they didn’t want, but the cause of that war is ironically the ally they bargained with to protect them in the first place,” said Sean Yom, a professor of political science and Jordan expert at Temple University who wrote the book “Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible.”

“So they’re asking what’s the wisdom of having this geopolitical bargain with a patron like the U.S. when one of the sources of our instability is the relationship that’s supposed to guarantee our security.”

Since the ceasefire broke down July 8 and the U.S. began launching near-daily waves of strikes on Iran, Jordan has been targeted on nine occasions, with ballistic missiles and drones hitting U.S. assets and facilities and endangering some 4,000 service members at a number of Jordanian military bases across the country.

One of those salvos, on July 17, hit a housing unit in Muwaffaq Al-Salti, a Jordanian base in the country’s east, killing three U.S. service members and wounding at least four others. Also attacked were King Faisal Airbase, Prince Hassan Airbase and the airport in Aqaba.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes not only killed and wounded dozens of U.S. military personnel, but also damaged drones, helicopters, F-15 preparation hangars, radar sites, missile defense systems and munitions depots.

More worryingly for Jordan, the IRGC issued statements thanking “honorable people” in Jordan for providing “sincere cooperation and precise information,” which it said enabled it to target and kill “dozens of American terrorist forces.”

“Seize every opportunity to dismantle American institutions and expel the American occupation army from Jordan,” one of the statements said.

As word of the attacks spread, Jordan’s government, normally reticent about foreign military deployments in the country, embarked on damage control.

Officials and members of parliament swiftly condemned Tehran for violating the country’s sovereignty, while the foreign ministry summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and demanded Iran cease attacks on the kingdom. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, meanwhile, rejected Iran’s claim that the U.S. has bases in the country.

“There are no American bases in Jordan. We have American troops that are in Jordan as part of our long-standing military cooperation,” he said at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this month. Safadi was referring to the 2021 defense agreement that allows U.S. forces unfettered access to 12 facilities in Jordan, including five air bases; the agreement was approved via royal decree and bypassed parliament.

“Their presence is governed by a defense agreement that fully respects our sovereignty,” he said.

Yet government statements didn’t do much to allay concerns. Though many Jordanians have little love for Iran, more than 300 politicians, academics, lawyers, retired military officers and tribal leaders signed an open letter last week calling on the government to withdraw from the defense agreement and keep Jordanian installations neutral — a bold move in a country where opposition to government policies (especially in security matters) can be a red line.

“Jordan is not a party to this war. Its people should not have to bear the consequences or pay the price for policies that do not serve the nation’s supreme interests,” the letter said.

“We urge the avoidance of the dangers associated with aligning ourselves under the American umbrella; this requires adopting a policy of genuine neutrality, based on refraining from any military or logistical involvement that serves any party to the conflict.”

Another sign of popular anger came Sunday: When one member of parliament exhorted the body to send condolences to Congress for the killing of the U.S. service members, others shouted him down, saying the legislature wasn’t a funeral parlor to console “criminals” and “child killers,” in reference to the United States’ support for Israel in Gaza.

Jordan grapples with questions similar to those facing its gulf neighbors, all of which rely on the U.S. security umbrella that has exposed their nations to Iranian attack. But those countries’ oil riches afford them leverage to push back on the U.S. presence, while Jordan — a resource-poor nation of some 11 million people — cannot.

The conflict, meanwhile, has only compounded Jordan’s economic woes. Tourism, which official figures say accounts for almost 15% of the country’s GDP and had just begun to recover from the 2023 Gaza war, has cratered since the start of military operations against Iran. One month after the war, gas prices rose by 11%, a body blow for Jordan’s perpetually anemic economy.

All that has made the kingdom ever more reliant on U.S. largesse. Washington gives Amman roughly $1.45 billion annually, including around $800 million that go straight to government coffers for budgetary support. It would be hard pressed to substitute that level of support from Europe or elsewhere, experts say.

At the same time, Jordan has become a vital nerve center for U.S. forces. The U.S. military has since 2019 spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades for Muwaffaq Al-Salti and other facilities, according to U.S. federal contracting documents, laying aircraft aprons, taxiways, munitions depots and other infrastructure.

Satellite imagery of those bases from 2019 onward show significant construction and an increasing presence of U.S. assets, including F-16s, F-18s, drones and helicopters.

Now, with U.S. troops deployed in gulf nations proving vulnerable to Iranian barrages, Pentagon planners have transferred assets to locations farther away from Iran, especially Jordan.

In recent days, despite a pause in operations against Iran, flight tracking sites showed brisk U.S. military traffic, with logistical aircraft — including the massive C-17 Globemaster and KC-35 fueling tankers — making repeated trips between Jordan and U.S. military hubs in Europe.

Balloon-maker Aerostar says recent tests of its Lightning design as a launch platform for a single surveillance drone open a path to a larger “mothership” concept. The company envisions its high-altitude balloons carrying multiple high-endurance uncrewed aircraft that could search for targets and otherwise monitor broad swaths of the battlespace, and do so persistently for days or even weeks on end. These balloon motherships could also carry payloads configured for other missions, such as electronic warfare jamming, signal relay, or even attacking targets. These are capabilities the U.S. Army and other branches of the U.S. military are actively pursuing, and that other countries, including China and Ukraine, have been developing and fielding to varying degrees, as well.

Aerostar put out a press release last week regarding the testing of the Lightning balloon paired with the Apollo-R from drone-maker Icarus. TWZ subsequently reached out for more information.

“In the current test configuration with the Aerostar Lightning balloon, it’s one Apollo UAS [uncrewed aerial system] per balloon — the Lightning is our smaller, tactical micro-balloon designed to carry a single payload. However, the architecture is scalable,” Russ Van Der Werff, Aerostar’s Vice President of Stratospheric Solutions, told TWZ. “Our larger Aerostar Thunderhead platform can serve as a ‘mothership,’ carrying multiple Apollo-R’s (or other payloads).”

The balloons in Aerostar’s portfolio are modern high-altitude designs with GPS-assisted navigation systems that can transit to areas of interest and then, in many cases, hold their general position despite prevailing winds. By moderating their altitudes, they can remain on station persistently for long periods at a time. Control is exercised via satellite communication suites and/or line-of-sight links, the latter of which can also be used in relay as part of a mesh network made up of multiple balloons.

The Lightning design is capable of operating for up to three days while soaring at typical altitudes between 50,000 and 78,000 feet, and can carry payloads weighing up to 45 pounds, according to a company fact sheet. The larger Thunder has similar altitude performance (typical operations at between 55,000 and 75,000 feet), but can stay aloft for 60 days or more and has a payload capacity of up to 200 pounds.

The Apollo-R drone is a solar-powered, glider-like design that is also optimized for high-endurance flights at very high altitudes. The exact capabilities of the R model are not entirely clear, but Icarus has said in the past that the baseline Apollo design can fly up to 60,000 feet and remain airborne for weeks at a time.

“The Apollo-R is a powered UAS – not a one-way munition – so it’s designed to be recovered after completing its mission. It flies under its own power after separation from the balloon and can land at a designated recovery point,” Aerostar’s Van Der Werff also told us. “This recoverability is part of what makes the system cost-effective for ISR and communications relay missions, where the UAS can be reflown and payloads be recovered and reused. Should the mission dictate, the Apollo-R could be used in a one-way capability, with its price point in the low-six figures, this could be an attractive use case for certain end users.”

Aerostar Thunderhead Balloon System Full Video Updated 1 5 23

“In this case, the Icarus Apollo uses its own BLOS [beyond-line-of-sight] radio so it doesn’t need the balloon for comms after drop. However, in support of other UAS, the Aerostar balloon systems can also serve as a stratospheric communications relay node,” Van Der Werff added. Aerostar’s platforms carry mesh-networking radios that provide high-bandwidth, line-of-sight data links with ranges exceeding 100 miles and throughput up to 40 Mbps. The UAS communicates with the balloon’s onboard radio, and the balloon relays that data back to ground stations — effectively giving the drone a much longer communications reach than it could achieve on its own at lower altitudes.”

“The balloon essentially acts as a high-altitude communications tower, extending the UAS’s effective operating range far beyond what a ground-based radio link could provide for normal military operations,” he also noted.

As already mentioned, Van Der Werff made clear that Aerostar sees the Lightning/Apollo combination as a step toward a larger capability set, and that the company’s Thunderhead could carry several Apollo-R drones on a single mission. The same scalable architecture could potentially support “deploying multiple effects from a single, persistent stratospheric platform,” which might include “multiple ALE kits,” he said.

ALE here is the abbreviation for “air-launched effects,” a term the U.S. military now commonly uses to collectively talk about air-launched drones configured for a wide array of missions. The ALE umbrella encompasses designs that can be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare tasks, or signal relay, as well as act as a decoy. It also includes loitering munitions, also often referred to as kamikaze drones, capable of carrying kinetic attacks. The ALE term has also been broadened more recently to just “launched effects” to cover uncrewed systems that can also be launched from platforms on the ground or at sea.

Aerostar’s Van Der Werff also highlighted benefits that using high-altitude balloons can offer in terms of flexibility, especially in the context of expeditionary and distributed operations where access to traditional runways that support crewed or uncrewed aircraft may be limited or unavailable entirely. There are also certain advantages in terms of survivability and cost.

Thunderhead Balloon System Launch

“An Aerostar Lightning balloon with an Icarus UAS can be launched by a small team from almost anywhere – no runway, no fixed site. It operates in the stratosphere, above conventional air defense threat envelopes, and provides persistent coverage measured in days or weeks rather than hours,” he explained. “For distributed operations, this means a forward-deployed unit can establish its own organic sensing and communications relay capability without depending on theater-level ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] assets or vulnerable fixed infrastructure.”

“The system is inherently survivable because it’s small, operates at extreme altitude, is difficult to detect and target, and is inexpensive enough to be treated as attritable if necessary — unlike a[n RQ-4] Global Hawk or [MQ-9] Reaper [drone] that represents hundreds of millions in sunk cost,” he added. “You can distribute many of these across a theater and create a mesh of persistent sensing that’s resilient to individual node loss.”

TWZ has been drawing attention to the military utility of high-altitude balloons for ISR and other missions for exactly these reasons for years now. Aerostar has a long history now in this market space, too, but is not the only company advancing these kinds of capabilities, which are themselves not entirely new.

Just last month, the U.S. Army also demonstrated the ability of Apollo-R to be launched from a different high-altitude balloon from a company called Urban Sky during Exercise Valiant Shield 2026 in the Pacific. The Army has directly supported Apollo-R’s development through its xTech innovation challenge initiative.

Earlier in the year, during Exercise African Lion 26, high-altitude balloons carrying drones were also launched from the Army’s General Frank S. Besson class Logistics Support Vessel (LSV) USAV Maj. Gen. Charles P. Gross off the coast of Morocco. This also underscores the aforementioned points about the flexibility of where balloons can be deployed from.

The U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. special operations community, and other elements of the U.S. military are also actively pursuing high-altitude balloon-based systems to perform various missions. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) notably conducted extensive testing of drones launched from single high-altitude balloons in the 2010s as part of a project called Close-in Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft (CICADA). Those tests also demonstrated a tiered capability in which slightly larger drones launched the smaller CICADAs after being released from the balloons.

This being said, the Army has been a clear leader in the U.S. military in this regard. The service has previously outlined a vision for establishing “persistent, all-domain sensor architecture for the Indo-Pacific theater” in which high-altitude balloons are a central component. The Army has also talked in the past about using high-altitude balloons to deploy swarms of drones and loitering munitions, as well as seed remotely-operated sensors on the ground, deep inside enemy territory.

Last year, the Army disclosed plans to launch as many as 100 high-altitude balloons, and maybe even more, in an upcoming exercise. In that instance, the service also highlighted how these lighter-than-air platforms could offer a hedge against the loss of critical space-based capabilities.

“Our primary goal is to demonstrate autonomous swarming capabilities that generate a persistent, cost-effective presence in the stratosphere,” Andrew Evans, Director of Strategy and Transformation with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, or G-2, told Breaking Defense in an interview in August 2025. “Once operationalized, this type of capability will enable us to conduct a range of military operations including enhanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), the extension of tactical communications, and the rapid reconstitution of on-orbit capabilities when space is denied or degraded.”

These are capabilities that U.S. forces, among others, could employ beyond the Pacific region, too.

“The challenge on the eastern flank [of NATO in Europe] is fundamentally one of persistence, survivability, and logistics. Legacy ISR approaches – manned aircraft, large UAVs, fixed ground sensors – are increasingly vulnerable in contested environments with advanced integrated air defense systems,” Aerostar’s Van Der Werff told us, outlining another regional use case. “They require significant ground infrastructure, large runways, and complex logistics chains. In a distributed operations concept across vast areas like the Baltics or Eastern Europe, those dependencies become liabilities.”

Balloon-launched drones are already seeing use to a degree in the conflict in Ukraine, where lighter-than-air platforms are also being used for surveillance and as decoys. Driven heavily now by the threat of spillover from the fighting in Ukraine, Poland is in the process of establishing a new early warning radar network utilizing tethered aerostats, too.

TWZ has previously outlined major investments in balloon-launched drone swarm capabilities in China, as well, as you can read more about here. High-altitude-balloons, in general, became a global cause célèbre after a Chinese intelligence-gathering type passed over parts of the United States and Canada, before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean, in 2023.

For Aerostar, the company now sees ‘drone mothership’ as another important role on the horizon for its Thunderhead high-altitude balloon. The smaller Lightning design paired with the Apollo-R drone is providing a stepping stone toward that concept, while also capability that could still be valuable, if more limited, in the near term.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Just weeks after the U.S. military publicly acknowledged using kamikaze drone boats in combat for the first time, the Navy has confirmed that its Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) uncrewed surface vessel (USV) took part in its first live-fire training exercise. The kamikaze drone boat was employed during RIMPAC 2026, attacking the ex-USS Peleliu in one of the operation’s high-profile sinking exercises (SINKEX). You can learn more about this latest round of SINKEXs here.

On July 24, the Navy released a video showing USVs taking part in the SINKEX in the Pacific Ocean, which targeted the decommissioned Tarawa class amphibious assault ship, but it was hard to tell what the USV in question was. The event itself had taken place on July 17 and saw the former USS Peleliu pummeled by multiple U.S. and allied assets. The video shows significant damage already inflicted on the assault ship, especially around the waterline, and water already being taken onboard. The footage was captured by the second drone boat, as it inspected the damage done by all the fires.

Amazing Footage from USV’s as they Attack the USS Peleliu (LHA 5)

Yesterday, Sarah Weinstein, a Surface Warfare Officer currently serving as the first commanding officer of Unmanned Surface Vessel Division 32, posted on LinkedIn, stating that she was “honored that USVDIV-32 was given the opportunity to execute the Navy’s first GARC Live Fire during RIMPAC 2026.”

A product of Baltimore-based BlackSea Technologies, the GARC is the major platform used by USVDIV-32, a unit that was established early this year. According to the Navy, USVDIV-32 is “tasked with maintaining and implementing unmanned vessels … the division’s sailors regularly conduct exercises and training with multiple platforms, with the most common being Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC.”

GARC: The Most Proven Tactical USV

“It was incredible to watch my team execute with precision, and we were thrilled to provide a perspective of the former USS Peleliu that isn’t often captured in a SINKEX,” Weinstein added.

A source familiar with the SINKEX operation today told TWZ’s Howard Altman that there were two GARCs present at the SINKEX, but only one was used destructively in an end-to-end attack. The USV used a full autonomy package, in the shape of Anduril’s Lattice. It carried a 1,000-pound payload, although it remains unclear how much of that weight was accounted for by the warhead. We have reached out to RIMPAC officials and others for additional details.

Other specifications of the GARC include a length of around 16 feet, a full-load displacement of 4,800 pounds, and a range of 700 nautical miles at a speed of 22 knots.

USVDIV-32 took its GARC drone boats to exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) 2026 last month. On that occasion, the USVs operated alongside the Blue Ridge class command and control ship USS Mount Whitney. The Navy confirmed that USVDIV-32 was providing realistic counter-USV training to NATO allies while in the Baltic.

“The first difficult part is spotting the USV,” Weinstein said at the time. “What does it look like? What are the telltale signs that it might be a USV? How to tell if it’s coming inbound, and its different behaviors that it’s able to display as it gets closer to the ship”

A defining feature of USVDIV-32 is its inclusion of a new rate, Robotics Warfare Specialist (RW), who are trained to operate and maintain vessels such as GARCs.

In a Navy release last month, Chief Robotics Warfare Specialist Christian Butler explained: “I think most commands, if not all commands, are going to have some component of RWs. Just because there’s no going away from unmanned systems at this point, they’re only going to grow in scale, and you’re going to need RWs to carry that weight.”

Before USVDIV-32 stood up, the GARC took part in maneuvers in the Atlantic Ocean during the UNITAS multinational maritime exercise in September 2025. This was part of an effort that tested the ability of “unmanned and remotely operated vehicles and vessels [to] extend the capability of interconnected manned platform sensors to enhance capacity across the multinational force,” the Navy disclosed.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels were at the forefront of employing kamikaze USVs operationally. We first reported on the capability in January 2017, after an explosive-laden Houthi drone boat struck a Saudi frigate. The technology traces back to Iran, which developed a variety of rudimentary one-way attack USVs before transferring the capability to its Houthi proxies, who became the first to use them in combat in the Red Sea.

As we have reported extensively, Ukraine has demonstrated the devastating potential of USVs against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Magura family of drone boats, among others, has been central to that campaign, and has taken on a wide variety of roles.

Repeated successful strikes against Black Sea Fleet vessels and naval infrastructure forced Russia to relocate much of its fleet from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of bases in mainland Russia.

The U.S. military employed USVs as offensive strike weapons in combat for the first time on July 12 during a wave of attacks against “dozens” of Iranian targets, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The strikes, which involved Saronic-built Corsair USVs, occurred amid an escalating exchange of attacks between the United States and Iran centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Among the targets of the attack was an Iranian Ghadir class diesel-electric midget submarine.

Earlier this month, another Saronic Corsair USV rescued the crew of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache that crashed in the Gulf of Oman after it was downed by Iran. That was the first known instance of a drone boat being used to recover personnel as part of a search and rescue mission, and further underscored how the U.S. Navy’s use of drone boats in combat is really ramping up.

As we have discussed in the past, the U.S. military’s employment of drone boats in a kinetic strike role sets a new precedent not only for operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, but also for potential conflicts elsewhere. The U.S. Navy now has this capability and is gearing up to employ it in the Pacific, which will be yet another threat to deal with for adversaries. With exercises like RIMPAC, the Navy can evolve its playbook for the employment of USVs as kinetic weapons.

With a mission that includes helping the Navy and its allies counter the growing USV threat while refining offensive concepts of operation for one-way attack drone boats, USVDIV-32 appears poised to play an increasingly important role here. As the service pushes toward a hybrid fleet of crewed and uncrewed vessels, GARC is also emerging as one of its most significant new capabilities.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Drones launched at Saudi, Jordan and Iraq suggest Iran, or linked groups, may be testing US as it mulls new strategy.

Saudi Arabia has reported intercepting drones that targeted oil facilities in its eastern province and Riyadh.

Saudi’s Foreign Ministry said it “reserves the right to respond” to the attack, which it attributed to Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq.

Separately, Yemen’s Houthi rebels said in a statement on Monday that they had targeted Saudi crude oil transport infrastructure.

It remains unclear whether the two incidents were coordinated or separate.

The attack comes amid a lull in hostilities between the United States and Iran, with mediators suggesting the chances of a return to negotiations have risen.

Following two weeks of intense hostilities, US officials have spoken of a change in strategy, and Washington has paused strikes on Iran.

Iran has said it has also paused its attacks on US allies across the Gulf region.

However, the drone attacks on Saudi and elsewhere suggest that Tehran may be testing the new US stance, and that the armed groups believed to be linked to Iran are not ready to follow suit.

Aside from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq also reported drone attacks on Monday. Amman said it shot down two drones, while Iraqi security sources reported strikes on camps housing Iranian-Kurdish opposition fighters in the country’s north.

The officials did not identify the source of either attack, but Jordan and northern Iraq were locations in which four US service members were killed over the past fortnight of conflict.

The Houthis announced later on Monday that nine of its fighters had been killed amid escalating military confrontations with Yemeni government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition in recent days.

Anduril has revealed a new hybrid-electric-powered tiltrotor combat drone called Thunder, which it has developed in partnership with Archer Aviation. Thunder is envisioned as a highly autonomous pilotless wingman able to fly fast and low in formation with crewed helicopters and tiltrotors like the AH-64 Apache and MV-75 Cheyenne II. The drones could help hunt down targets, including fleeting ones, while allowing their human teammates to stay further away from threats. Thunder is also being designed to help provide an extra layer of close-in defense for friendly rotorcraft, including against the growing threat of air-to-air drone attacks. All of this is part of a detailed teaming concept Anduril has outlined to fill what it says are critical operational gaps in current and future conflicts.

Anduril and Archer rolled out Thunder today, around the biennial Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom. A mockup, which Anduril says reflects a “mature” outer mold-line of the design, will be on display at the show.

“Thunder is very much an attack aircraft, so it is designed for very high performance, [and] low-level [flight],” Shane Arnott, Senior Vice President of Maneuver Dominance at Anduril, told TWZ and other outlets during a press call ahead of today’s announcement. “Very much in that Apache space, say, versus a high-flying surveillance aircraft.”

At the time of writing, Anduril has only released relatively broad details about the expected performance and other specifications of the drone, which has been under development for around three years now. A first flight is currently targeted for some time next year, and full-scale production could be underway by the end of the decade, depending on demand. The company has also already been working on Thunder together with “government customers,” but has explicitly declined to name any of them.

It’s also worth noting that a version of Thunder configured for commercial applications is also in the works, with Archer Aviation set to release more details on that later this week.

What we know about the Thunder design

Thunder is a clean-sheet design with a relatively traditional tiltrotor layout featuring a high-mounted, straight main wing on top of the fuselage. The wing has a single tilting rotor pod at each tip. It also has a V-tail.

In terms of overall size and performance, Anduril describes Thunder as a Group 5 design. The U.S. government breaks uncrewed aerial systems into five categories. Group 5 is the highest tier, covering anything with a maximum takeoff weight of 1,320 pounds or more, and that can fly at altitudes of 18,000 feet or higher. 

“It will have the ability to work at that at [18,000 feet], but the intent is for it to be nap-of-the-earth for most of its life,” Anduril’s Arnott noted. “That’s where it’ll be spending its time. Think about the Apache kind of profile. So you’ll hit certain altitudes to get your ferry ranges, etc. But when you’re in the AO [area of operations] and in combat, you’re as close to the dirt as you can get.”

Arnott also described Thunder as having the same general top speed and range as the MV-75 Cheyenne II, which is now under development for the U.S. Army. The Army is reportedly expecting the MV-75 to boast a top speed of 320 miles per hour and have an unrefueled range of 920 miles. This is far above the range and speed offered by any current Army helicopter. Beyond teaming with Apaches and similar attack helicopters, being able to keep pace with the Cheyenne II could be an especially important feature for the Thunder, as we will touch on again later.

Anduril has also described Thunder as being smaller than the Apache and able to be broken down for transport inside a standard 40-foot shipping container. As an aside, it is unclear exactly how much time is necessary to get the tiltrotor drone out of a container and flying again. Getting it loaded in the first place does require separating the wing structure from the fuselage, at least in the design’s current form, according to the company. The drone will also have the speed and range necessary for self-deployment.

When it comes to propulsion, “a series hybrid-electric powertrain enables Thunder to achieve significant range and endurance, while still maintaining the necessary precision to closely optimize power through the full range of flight conditions,” according to a press release from Anduril. “Meanwhile, Optimum-Speed Tiltrotors (OSTR) vary rotor RPM [rotations per minute] to maintain efficiency across flight regimes, reducing power demand and fuel burn in cruise and minimizing acoustic signature to enhance survivability during low-altitude ingress.”

“From a survivability standpoint, one of the big tells for helicopters today, is just they’re very noisy, and the threat can hear when they’re coming,” Anduril’s Arnott also added when speaking to TWZ and other outlets. “We’re at orders of magnitude below the sound level with this particular system than the current systems that are out there today.”

The partnership with Archer Aviation, a company whose public profile is focused on crewed fully electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, has been key here. Anduril also cited Archer’s motor technology as being a key feature of the hybrid-electric Omen tail-sitting vertical takeoff and landing drone, which was unveiled last year.

Tech Short | Midnight’s Proprietary eVTOL Engine Dynos

During the press call ahead of today’s unveiling, Chris Brose, Anduril’s President and Chief Strategy Officer, said that he felt that leveraging the immense investment by companies like Archer in the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) development space had “made Thunder possible in a way today that it just wouldn’t have been possible five, 10, certainly 15 years ago.”

“So this is not electric, this is a hybrid-electric system,” Anduril’s Arnott also stressed. “But in doing so, it actually reduces the complexity of the drive trains, etc.”

Rotor technology for another firm, Karem, has also been leveraged in the development of Thunder. Karem has a long history in the tiltrotor design space, including work done for the U.S. Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

“Karem’s military-grade rotor systems are among the most advanced Army-validated technologies in the world,” Adam Goldstein, Archer Founder and CEO, said in a press release about a new collaboration between the two companies in December 2025. “Integrating them into our next-gen hybrid VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] platform positions Archer to move faster and deliver capabilities that legacy systems simply can’t match.”

The unnamed “next-gen hybrid VTOL platform” at the center of Archer’s December announcement has now been confirmed to be Thunder.

Modular capabilities and advanced autonomy

Capability-wise, Thunder is a highly modular design with reconfigurable payload bays in the nose and the center of the fuselage.

The drone can carry up to 10 air-to-ground missiles, 16 ‘launched effects,’ four 19-shot pods holding a total of 76 70mm laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets, or a mix thereof, on launchers that extend to either side from the main bay, according to Anduril. Air-to-ground missiles here could include AGM-114 Hellfires, AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM), or Anduril’s Barracuda-100M.

The term launched effects is used today to collectively refer to drones configured to perform a variety of missions, including serving as loitering munitions, which can be fired from air, ground, and/or maritime platforms. Anduril specifically mentioned its ALTIUS-600 design as one potential option for Thunder. ALTIUS-600 can be set up to perform surveillance and reconnaissance and electronic warfare tasks, act as a decoy, and launch kinetic attacks.

The company has also specifically highlighted the ability of the bay in the nose to hold launchers for kinetic interceptors to take down incoming drones, something we will come back to later on. It is worth noting that APKWS II is already a combat-proven, lower-cost counter-drone weapon, including in the air-to-air mode. However, it is employed in more traditional counter-air applications, like intercepting one-way attack munitions and cruise missiles, not for defending the shooting platform itself against incoming high-speed anti-aircraft drones.

Both the nose and main payload bays could accommodate other systems, such as electronic warfare suites, additional sensors, and/or communications packages. Each Thunder will also have its own built-in sensor suite to support surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as target acquisition tasks.

In addition, Thunder will have passive sensing capabilities to support general operation and navigation. This will be especially important for enabling high-speed nap-of-the-earth flight profiles. It will also be essential for providing situational awareness and flight safety margins while operating in relatively close proximity to crewed teammates, as well as other drones.

“We’ve spent the last couple of years working with technologies that are coming out of the self-driving car industry, plus some of that are coming out of the Anduril sensor/imaging kind of groups, in order for us to detect a terrain, [and] do that in a passive sense, so we’re not giving away our position,” according to Anduril’s Arnott. The sensors will also “be able to detect weapons coming at us, power lines, that type of thing, and have it such that you can have three to six of these things flying with a two-ship [group] of Apache, for instance, to provide that loyal wingman nature.”

“Thunder’s multi-modal machine perception stack and sensor suite combines passive and selective active sensors with onboard computer vision, map data, and edge compute, enabling Thunder to continuously detect, classify, and track terrain, obstacles, and threats,” Anduril has also explained in a blog post accompanying today’s announcement. “That sensor data provides the inputs necessary to facilitate the visual navigation, inertial positioning, and terrain feature mapping that enable Thunder to remain on course when GPS, visibility, and communications are degraded or denied.”

“With sophisticated onboard machine perception, vehicle autonomy, and flight-proven collaborative mission autonomy software, Thunder can maneuver with the formation, share data in real time, coordinate effects, and act on pilot intent, delivering a trusted autonomous wingman that can keep up with, defend, and empower the pilots flying the most congested airspace on the battlefield,” the blog post adds.

Anduril’s Lattice proprietary artificial intelligence-enabled software package will underpin Thunder’s overall autonomous capabilities. The company says other autonomous software could also be integrated to meet particular customer demands. Anduril has already conducted testing of some components of Thunder’s autonomy and sensing systems using unspecified surrogate aircraft.

Lattice for Mission Autonomy: An Unfair Advantage for Unrivaled Deterrence

Just one part of a full concept of operations

What has been shared so far about Thunder’s capabilities brings us to the larger concept of operations Anduril envisions for the drone. The company says the war in Ukraine has had an especially heavy influence on its thinking around the design. This is very interesting, as this particular conflict has prompted serious questions about the future relevance of traditional helicopters on modern battlefields where the threat ecosystem continues to grow in scale and scope.

Anduril acknowledges the breadth of dangers that helicopters and tiltrotors already face. This is perhaps best evidenced by the touting of Thunder’s ability to defend against air-to-air drone attacks, something the ongoing fighting in Ukraine has shown to be a real threat, as seen in the video below. Anduril’s Arnott also explicitly mentioned the threat posed by shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), while speaking to TWZ and other outlets.

At the same time, Anduril argues that there are critical missions rotorcraft perform today that cannot be fully transposed onto other kinds of platforms, and that drone wingmen like Thunder will therefore be an essential addition to the equation. The company has not yet shared a projected unit cost for the drone, but has also stressed that it fits in with a broader understanding of a need for platforms that are lower cost and more readily producible to create sufficient operational capacity, or ‘mass,’ for forces to succeed in future conflicts. Anduril’s Brose said that Thunder will be a “fraction” of the cost of something like an Apache or an MV-75, and operators will be able to “afford to lose it if you have to.”

“Many of the things that we’ve designed and engineered into Thunder are really based on the lessons that the United States and our European allies are learning in Ukraine, and this whole question of how do you bring mass to the battlefield in a tactical environment where you have to be able to engage in the deep fight,” Brose explained in more detail about Anduril’s overall thinking around Thunder. “We’re looking at the proliferation of robotic systems, and drones, and sensors, and that’s all very good and very important. But you also raise the question of, well, how are you going to get that stuff farther downrange into the environments where you need it to be able to conduct those more sophisticated and more challenging missions, again on behalf of U.S. and NATO militaries?”

To meet those operational needs, “you have to have the ability to launch and recover combat power without runways. You have to be able to do this in expeditionary environments,” he continued, underscoring the value of a VTOL platform. “When your runways get cratered, you have to have the ability to conduct the mission.”

Runway independence, or at least reducing dependence on traditional runways, has become an increasing mantra across the U.S. military, in particular, in recent years, as TWZ regularly highlights. The U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force, as well as the special operations community, have put particular emphasis on this in new and still evolving concepts of operations in recent years.

So, “in terms of how you then get a greater quantity of sensors and weapons into the fight to support those manned systems, to support the ground force to be able to conduct those long-range missions from a maneuver warfare standpoint, and really make maneuver central to warfare again, we really see this system in Thunder being absolutely central to that,” Brose added.

Brose specifically took aim at the idea that lower-cost, long-range one-way attack drones could fill the same kinds of mission requirements. The U.S. military just recently began fielding this capability in the form of the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) drone, which made its official combat debut in Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

“A lot of those longer-range one-way attack missions, they’re going after fixed targets,” he said. “They’re slower flights out. It’s [the total duration of the strike mission] going to play out over a longer period of time. They’re hitting critical infrastructure, military installations, production capacity, et cetera. Basically, GPS points that aren’t moving.”

“What this is focused on is the ability to transit through the operational environment,” he continued. “To survive and then to persist once you get there, so that you can provide effects to attack aviation elements in the air that are conducting missions or ground forces that are conducting missions on the land. That immediately gets into a time-sensitive, dynamic targeting kind of mission space that a system like this has to be able to survive and persist and operate effectively in.”

It is important to note here that new targeting capabilities have already been emerging in the realm of longer-range one-way attack drones. LUCAS and many Ukrainian designs now have satellite communications-enabled man-in-the-loop functionality, allowing them to hit dynamic/moving targets. Driven by advances in artificial intelligence-driven technologies, drones are set to steadily gain greater ability to find and choose targets autonomously, something TWZ has previously explored in detail. This being said, they are still single-use weapons that offer very different capabilities from what Anduril is aiming for with Thunder.

Anduril’s Arnott also questioned the relevance of existing higher-flying armed drones to meet these kinds of operational needs. The MQ-9 Reaper has been very much in public consciousness recently due to its heavy use in the conflict with Iran, but also substantial combat losses. The U.S. Air Force has described the MQ-9 as a star player in operations against Iran, despite having lost dozens of them.

“As we got further and further up and higher and higher, [we] got comfortable because we own the air, but things have changed,” Arnott said. “We’re seeing that in [Operation] Epic Fury, the Iranians, etc. have got systems that are just knocking that type of CONOP off its feet, and it’s just not relevant anymore. So that’s why we’ve gone back to the surface. That’s where the survivability is for these types of systems, to fly low and fast.”

“Right now, we don’t see another solve [sic; solution] for that, and this is probably the ugliest of all the warfighting domains, where you still need a human … to do the sorting of the targets on friend and foe, etc,” he added. “The only way you can do that is to have a quarterback, say, with an Apache, and then these loyal wingmen, if you will, to enable their survivability, but also to project a lot more mass in the deep [fight].”

Despite all the talk of lessons learned from contemporary conflicts, Anduril has made clear that its view of future ‘deep fights’ goes well beyond Europe and the Middle East. He said that Thunder’s speed and range, and the basic choice of a tiltrotor conflict, were also intended to make it very relevant for a conflict in the broad expanses of the Pacific. The U.S. Army’s decision to acquire the MV-75 was notably driven by the same general factors.

“This is a gap. There is actually no way when you fast forward into full theater conflicts in the Pacific, even the Taiwanese, if you play through the war games and things get entrenched, there isn’t a way in other than these types of techniques,” Arnott told TWZ directly in a separate interview about Thunder ahead of today’s announcement. “If Russia does start their activity into the High North [in and around the Arctic region,] as well as China, you get to the same situations. You can’t do all your warfare from 30 or 15,000 feet. It just does not work, apart from the fixed targets.”

A more detailed notional Thunder vignette

Anduril’s Arnott also described more detailed notional operational scenarios involving Thunder to us during that interview:

“The concepts to date have been primarily driven around that you’ve got a two-ship [of] Apache, very traditional formation. You would then, depending on the mission, whether it’s a protective mission for the two ship, whether it’s a deep strike mission, or an ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] type mission, you’d have between three and six thunders for every two ship ARH [armed reconnaissance helicopter], and the intent there being that that’s a lot of metal in the air and a lot of things to manage.”

“So very much for it to be the command as opposed to control, where in effect, the way that the team presents to the Apache cockpit, whoever’s kind of got the leash, is it looks like another Apache. So it basically comes across [on] very similar data links to what the aircraft has. We call this concept ‘polite participant.’ So we don’t force any new software onto the host aircraft, or the mothership, or the quarterback, I should say. And in doing so, those teammates or wingmen are smart enough to be able to navigate and aviate in such a way that you don’t get in the way to be able to give them the similar level of command that you would to a wingman, wing person, if you will, and that they’re able to array themselves.”

“And whether it’s a chevron formation in front, whether it’s some sort of formation around the outside at cardinal points around the aircraft for a protective – a force protection mission, where you’re utilizing the counter-UAS systems that are on thunder and also electronic protection. But basically, you would put them into postures, and you command these postures that reflect themselves in formation, and then activation of various payloads that they have on board, and that may change also through the mission.”

“So you may have a setup where you’ve got the Apaches at the FOB [forward operating base]. You’ll have either at the FOB or somewhere nearby the Thunders. These guys come together and they form up. They move out. Initially, you’re just in [a] train, so you’re tracking into the AO [area of operations]. You come into … the forward line of troops. You then may move into a configuration where you’re at the cardinal points around the outside of the Apache, because part of the problem with the land domain is that the threats can come at any angle to you, and [you] have activated the counter-UAS systems and the electronic protect systems, for instance. So the Thunders would be either radiating or waiting for irradiation [sic] from an electronic attack standpoint, based on certain signals, or having their doors open as it relates to the counter-UAS, the kinetic kill payloads, that are on there, as you then transit through certain areas.”

“That may then change, where the counter-UAS payloads are in the nose, for instance, they would close, and then you go into the direct attack, which would be the main payload bay that you’ve seen the doors that are coming out. They may be fitted with direct attack weapons like Hydras [70mm unguided rockets], APKWS, or Hellfires, for instance, and then be in fire support to the Apaches in a similar way that the Apaches work together to – one set of aircrew can designate and shoot off the other[‘s targeting data]. For instance, it’s a very similar workflow, so it’s not a new workflow for direct attack.”

“Or it could be, ‘hey, I need to go and find something out there.’ So today, they’ll use the M-TADS [Modernized Target Acquisition and Designation Sight] for the video. They’ll use the fire control radar to scan an area. It’s a similar kind of workflow where they’re like, “Hey, I need to find out about something out there. The Thunders could release launched effects, for instance, like the ALTIUS product that we have, but it could be [an AeroVironment] Switchblade, it could be something else, and they would then talk back to the Thunders. So we’d have that concept of tiering out in front. The ALTIUS are then out there, and they’re finding targets autonomously with their computer vision. They’re then providing back a track picture, so icons, if you will, that come back to the Thunder. The Thunder then talks back to the Apache via the Apache data link, and the symbols appear on their map display or their FCR [fire control radar], just like they would if they were self-identified or coming from one of their formation, as well.”

Apache Fire Control: Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor

Boeing AH-64D Longbow Apache

“So the intent is these workflows are exactly the same. How it presents to the warfighter is the same. It’s just more. You can see further. You can shoot more. But the workflow, in effect, is effectively the same. So that is the whole concept of this polite participant construct that we have.”

Arnott stressed that his use of Apache here was as a generic example and that this overall concept could work with other helicopters serving in the quarterback role. Anduril also envisions command and control of the Thunders being executed by helicopter crews through existing cockpit displays rather than a tertiary device, such as a tablet. There has been much debate over the years about the physical user interface that is most suitable for use on crewed aircraft of any kind to direct uncrewed teammates.

Competition in a growing market space

Anduril is certainly not alone in seeing a market space emerging for this kind of teaming with existing and future crewed helicopters and tiltrotors, at least in broad strokes. Boeing and Sikorsky (a subsidiary now of Lockheed Martin) both unveiled vertical takeoff and landing capable loyal wingman-type drone designs around the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual conference last year. Boeing’s Collaborative Transformational Rotorcraft (CxR) is also a tiltrotor.

In addition, almost a decade ago now, Bell announced it was working on a Group 5 tiltrotor drone called the V-247 Vigilant. The V-247 was originally developed in response to a U.S. Marine Corps requirement, but Bell has since shown renderings depicting it operating together with versions of its crewed V-280 Valor tiltrotor design, on which the MV-75 was based.

“So, last fall, we actually asked industry what they can provide for a Group 4 VTOL/STOL [vertical takeoff and landing/short takeoff and landing] perspective,” Brig. Gen. David Phillips, head of the Army’s Program Executive Office for Aviation (PEO-Aviation), said at a roundtable at AUSA. “So we use that as a great set of information on what the state of the art of technology is from a range, speed, payload, and really effects perspective. What can we bring to bear, given modern technology versus some of our older UAS [uncrewed aerial systems].”

The only difference between the Group 4 and Group 5 drone categories is operating altitude, with the designs in the former tier not being able to fly above 18,000 feet.

“When you look at a CCA role for – really linked to rotary wing, that is a different dynamic than you have at 20-to-30,000 feet,” Brig. Gen. Phillips added at that time. “So it’s a whole set of different behaviors, a whole set of different capability you need to marry that up with an aircraft that’s flying at 100 feet, at 150-plus knots, at night. So that is what we’re really looking at, is what is the state of technology right now to develop a requirement that we can deliver.”

In the context of the U.S. Army, specifically, the concepts of operations Anduril has outlined for Thunder have also prompted comparisons to the previous pairing of Apaches with crewed OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed scout helicopters. The Army retired the very last of its OH-58Ds in 2017 without a direct replacement. Several unsuccessful attempts were made before and after the Kiowa’s retirement to find a direct successor, the most recent of which was the Future Attack Recon Aircraft (FARA) program. The Army cancelled FARA in 2024 as part of a larger shakeup of aviation programs that put renewed emphasis on new uncrewed capabilities.

“We’re looking to recreate similar concepts to be able to enable deep strike missions, all the things that Apache was originally designed for with the Kiowa,” Anduril’s Arnott said.

Thunder, like the other designs emerging in space now, could also be of interest to the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. special operations forces, which are facing the same kinds of operational realities. The Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is already in line to acquire a version of the MV-75, which could also benefit very much from a drone wingman able to keep pace in terms of range and speed. The 160th has already been working to expand crewed-uncrewed teaming concepts using its existing helicopters and the MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone.

This all goes beyond the U.S. military, too. Last year, the U.K. Ministry of Defense also picked Anduril and three other companies to develop drone demonstrators that could be paired with British Army Apaches. Anduril’s press release at the time mentioned a partnership on that effort, which is called Project NYX, with Archer Aviation and several other firms. Anduril has explicitly declined to confirm or deny whether Thunder is its offering for that program.

The Apache, in particular, has a substantial and still growing global operator base, opening the door to other potential customers for drones like Thunder. As already noted, uncrewed wingmen could be valuable for extending the operating reach and reducing the vulnerability of other helicopter types, too.

Anduril is clearly putting a major foot forward in this space with Thunder, and the detailed concepts of operations it already has in mind to go with it. At the same time, the company has never built a tiltrotor, let alone a full-size helicopter, at least that we know of, unlike some of the other companies already in this space. Pairing with Archer and Karem on this project does offer major benefits. Archer has yet to bring an aircraft to production, as well.

Still, these same issues were often highlighted when Anduril joined the competition for the extremely high-profile and critical first phase, or Increment 1, of the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Anduril had submitted a design called Fury, which TWZ previously explored the full history of in an extensively detailed feature you can find here. Widely considered an underdog in the competition, Anduril was subsequently chosen as one of two firms in the final Increment 1 down-select, with the other being General Atomics. The Air Force has now decided to order production examples of both Increment 1 designs.

Now we’ll have to see if a similar story repeats itself for Thunder, as competition in the market space for drone wingmen for crewed helicopters and tiltrotors continues heating up.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

A new hybrid-electric heavy-lift cargo drone has been unveiled by the defense arm of U.S. company BETA Technologies. The MV250 debuted in the static display at the Farnborough International Airshow 2026, taking place in England this week. The vehicle shown at the airshow hasn’t flown, BETA Technologies confirmed, although it is described as being built using “all-flyable components.”

The new drone is a military adaptation of BETA Technologies’ Alia 250 electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which can carry five passengers or an equivalent load of cargo, plus the pilot. TWZ and other journalists today spoke to officials from BETA Technologies at Farnborough.

“The basic physics of the MV250 enable significantly longer range, higher speed, and a lower cost of operations when compared to tiltrotor and legacy platforms,” said Kyle Clark, founder and CEO of BETA Technologies. However, the claim that the MV250 exceeds the performance of a tiltrotor doesn’t stack up, based on published figures. “I believe we should be offering our military the most robust and best equipment in the world to maintain superiority and thus deterrence,” Clark added.

The uncrewed MV250 is primarily intended for cargo transport, with freight loaded and unloaded through an upward-opening nose visor. It can also deploy air-launched effects (ALEs) from a set of side-mounted launch tubes. A similar concept is currently being pitched by Sikorsky, with its uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter, dubbed the U-Hawk, which is also intended to be able to fire dozens of ALEs, such as surveillance and reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions.

Other roles include casualty and medical evacuation, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

BETA Technologies has also proposed that the drone can be used as a forward-located tactical power source, providing up to 500 kilowatts to troops on the ground for command and control, counter-drone, electronic warfare, or directed energy weapon applications.

In terms of cargo capacity, the MV250 has a cabin volume of 250 cubic feet for a payload of 2,000 pounds.

Published performance specifications include an operational radius of more than 250 nautical miles, a cruising speed in excess of 170 knots, and a ferry endurance of 12 hours at 20,000 feet.

The propulsion system involves four fixed-pitch propellers which provide for the VTOL capability. These are mounted on long booms that connect the 50-foot-span wings with the V-shaped tail.

Meanwhile, forward propulsion is provided by a single variable-pitch pusher propeller mounted in the rear of the fuselage.

Since it has a hybrid-electric drive, the turbine engine — mounted above the rear fuselage — doesn’t directly power the various propellers. Instead, it directly feeds a high-voltage bus, recharging the batteries, and powering the electric motors that spin the propellers. The engine can also be stopped, and the battery can provide power, which is highly reliable.

The MV250’s turbogenerator has been developed with GE Aerospace and is compatible with a range of NATO-compatible fuels.

Proving hybrid-electric concepts in military aviation has long been a goal, as operators seek to harness the benefits promised by the combination of fuel efficiency, reduced emissions, and enhanced operational flexibility. The last of these points is reinforced by the reduction in the number of moving parts compared to more conventional configuration, including losing the traditional drive train, reducing the risk of component failure and easing the burden on spare parts and maintenance man-hours.

Hybrid-electric propulsion offers inherent advantages when it comes to reducing infrared and acoustic signatures.

The drone relies on Sikorsky’s MATRIX system to provide full autonomy. At a minimum, the MV250 should be capable of autonomously navigating along predetermined routes using programmed waypoints, establishing a practical baseline for uncrewed logistics operations. Beyond this, more advanced autonomous capabilities — such as dynamically replanning flight paths and responding in real time to emerging threats, obstacles, or changing mission conditions — would significantly enhance operational effectiveness, particularly during resupply missions in contested or high-risk environments.

BETA x Sikorsky

Like other disruptors in the defense sector, BETA Technologies is looking to leverage its experience in the commercial realm to shake up the development cycles that the U.S. Army, Marines, and Air Force have previously relied on.

“Those organizations would wait years for external defense government funding to then build a very complicated and expensive, bespoke defense-only project,” Larry Smith of BETA Technologies said. “That typically will result in it being over schedule and over budget. Well, alternatively, what BETA is doing is using internal funding to rapidly create viable prototypes, not mockups, based on our commercial core technologies.”

Also speaking today, Kyle Clark emphasized how BETA Technologies can use advanced design and manufacturing techniques to influence the speed and scalability of production. He described “a really thoughtful composites integration,” in which all the components are bonded using something much like “a big panini press.” Clark continued: “There are no fasteners in that fuselage, so we can make it inexpensively and meet the demands of the military. When the call comes and says, ‘Can you give us 600 of these aircraft?’ The answer is yes, and the cycle time is graduated in hours and not months.”

As an example of how the design and manufacturing process has been refined, Clark noted how the company went from 14,000 fasteners and 580 parts in the wing, to fewer than 300 parts and zero fasteners. Consequently, the manufacturing time was cut from six weeks to a matter of hours.

Although distinguished by its hybrid-electric propulsion system, the MV250 enters an increasingly crowded market for VTOL-capable cargo drones.

Established helicopter manufacturers also have a stake here, with conversions of existing crewed rotorcraft.

These include the MQ-72C Lakota Connector, which is stated to carry a maximum payload of around 4,000 pounds, including slung loads, and the Airbus U145, adapted from the H145 light helicopter, with a payload of up to 2,600 pounds. You can read more about the MQ-72C in our previous coverage of that aircraft, here and here.

At the smaller end of the scale is the R66 Turbinetruck, based on the proven Robinson R66 airframe, which can carry a load of 1,300 pounds internally, or external loads supported via a cargo hook. The Turbinetruck uses the same MATRIX autonomy system as used in the MV250 and others. In a similar category to the Turbinetruck is the Uncrewed 505, a development of the Bell 505. Both those aircraft are set to be tested by the U.S. Marine Corps as that service seeks to field platforms that can rapidly resupply Marines in contested environments.

Robinson Unmanned | The Future of Autonomous Rotorcraft is Here

Based on published figures, the MV250 would seem to fall between the Lakota Connector and the U145 at one end of the scale, and the Turbinetruck and Uncrewed 505 at the other.

As for the Marines, they have been very much at the forefront of exploring the potential of uncrewed rotary-wing aircraft for use in future fleets of autonomous cargo drones. The Marine Corps considers uncrewed aerial and seagoing logistics “connectors” to be critical enablers of future expeditionary and distributed operations, particularly in a potential high-end conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific.

The U.S. Army is also looking at similar concepts, albeit currently at the larger end of the scale. Work includes optionally crewed and uncrewed versions of the H-60 Black Hawk series. The U-Hawk demonstrator, a fully uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter, is intended to carry cargo and deliver launched effects and features clamshell doors in the nose. At the heavier end of the scale, Boeing has said its future plans for the H-47 Chinook include creating a path toward an uncrewed version of the aircraft.

Introducing the S-70UAS™ U-Hawk™

However, these capabilities are also attracting growing interest from military services around the world.

Based on a commercial design, the MV250 — or a version of it — also has significant potential in the civilian space. Missions here could include disaster response and firefighting, but it would be equally well suited to cargo transport, particularly for remote resupply operations and logistics support to offshore platforms and isolated inland locations.

Overall, this is another example of emerging eVTOL capabilities bleeding into traditional rotary-wing defense segments, and we are likely to see much more of it in the future.

While the MV250 remains in the prototype stage, it reflects a broader shift in military aviation toward autonomous logistics platforms derived from commercial technology. As armed forces seek faster, more flexible ways to sustain distributed operations, aircraft like the MV250 could help redefine how cargo, supplies, and even combat capabilities are delivered on future battlefields, but it will also be entering an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

BAE Systems revealed the Brontanax today, a new collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) loyal wingman drone designed for use by the U.K. Royal Air Force. Its unveiling comes less than a week after the service launched its new CCA program, named Storm Fighter, as it seeks to build what it describes as “Europe’s first sixth-generation air force.”

The Brontanax prototype was presented today at the Farnborough International Airshow in England, during an event attended by the United Kingdom’s newly appointed Defense Secretary Wes Streeting. The prototype — rather than a technology demonstrator — was built in secret at BAE Systems’ facility in Warton, Lancashire.

The aircraft is now being prepared for ground-based testing at Warton prior to flight testing within U.K. airspace, and there are reports that it could take part in a NATO exercise as early as next year.

The appearance of the Brontanax also comes a day after BAE Systems revealed details of how it’s exploring using the Eurofighter Typhoon to control CCAs as part of a broader effort to roll out new capabilities for the jet. Ultimately, however, it appears that the Brontanax effort will also, at the very least, inform the kinds of drones that will also accompany the U.K. F-35 and the future Tempest combat jet into battle.

BAE Systems says the Brontanax is roughly the size of its Hawk advanced jet trainer, which is around 41 feet long, with a wingspan of approximately 33 feet. The manufacturer did not, however, provide details of its planned performance, nor of its critical autonomy system, and the degree to which it will be able to perform missions and functions, absent from human control.

The name Brontanax means “thunder king” in ancient Greek.

We had already gotten a look at the outward appearance of the Brontanax when BAE Systems published a rendering of a pair of the drones when the Storm Fighter program was launched last week.

As we stated at the time, the notably stealthy aircraft has some features reminiscent of renderings of the Tempest, including large-area trapezoidal wings and cropped outward-canted vertical stabilizers. There is a prominent chine line and a faceted fuselage. It also features a shovel-like nose plus low-observable apertures. The drone has a wedge-shaped ventral air intake, partially shrouded by a prominent ‘lip,’ and this feeds a serpentine inlet. The end result is not likely to be a very low observable (VLO) overall design, but certainly low observable (LO) one.

Now that we have seen the finished Brontanax, it is also apparent how deep the fuselage is, suggesting generous internal space for fuel and stores. The landing gear, with a twin-wheel nose unit and substantial mains, looks notably robust to deal with heavier loads, likely with an eye toward carrier launch and recovery and austere airfield operations.

A front view of the drone reveals a blister in the nose, likely housing a camera for flight testing, and there are data probes for the same function. It looks like there is a low-observable aperture behind that blister, which could accommodate an infrared search and track system, or other sensor, in an operational configuration.

Initially, the Brontanax prototype is fitted with a Williams turbofan engine, but thought is also being given to using Rolls-Royce’s Orpheus powerplant family.

In terms of missions, BAE Systems says the Brontanax is intended to provide electronic warfare, precision strike, and air-to-air capabilities. Previously, Luke Pollard, the U.K. minister for defense readiness and industry, had said that the Storm Fighter program would “deliver guardian angel and attack dog drones.”

BAE Systems has also described an experimental scenario in which CCAs armed with very long-range Meteor air-to-air missiles extended the reach, effectiveness, and the combat mass of Typhoons in the air defense role. BAE Systems officials confirmed today that the Brontanax drone’s internal weapons bay is compatible with all weapons currently in service with the Royal Air Force.

The focus on electronic warfare reflects growing U.K. interest in this area, with other examples including Storm Shroud, which will provide the Royal Air Force with a new uncrewed electronic warfare drone that will enter service this year. Last week, the Royal Air Force announced another new EW drone, named Storm Chrome.

StormChrome is likely to be a longer-range stand-in electronic warfare drone with similar capabilities to the current Tekever AR3-based StormShroud, but much longer range – able to support deep strike missions by crewed aircraft and drones. Leonardo BriteStorm payload is likely. pic.twitter.com/JNzCXk4Pri

— JamesFennell MBE (@FennellJW) July 18, 2026

Surprisingly, the ability of the Brontanax, or a variant of it, to operate from aircraft carriers is not referenced beyond a short clip in a BAE Systems video. Under Project Vanquish, the Royal Navy plans to demonstrate a fixed-wing, short takeoff and landing autonomous collaborative platform (ACP) from a Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier before the end of 2027. The ACP terminology has been used in the United Kingdom in the past and is broadly equivalent to CCA, and BAE Systems may well plan to adapt the Brontanax for this naval requirement, or a follow-on one, too.

Simon Barnes, the group managing director of BAE Systems’ Air sector, provided more details about the Brontanax, including the fact that, as well as being operated by a Typhoon pilot, the drone can be controlled by a mission commander on the ground.

An open architecture and modular design are intended to future-proof the Brontanax, making it easier to adapt to meet evolving threats, while maintaining operational relevance.

Although it hasn’t commented on its level of ‘attritability,’ BAE Systems is clearly looking to offer a lower-cost air combat platform that can also be produced at scale, if required. According to The Telegraph, the company says the Brontanax will come with a price tag around a quarter of that of the Typhoon. The unit cost of a Typhoon varies dramatically depending on where you look and from what time period. If using a general figure of $115M each, the drones would cost around $28.5M each. This is in line with the cost of CCAs being developed in the U.S., for instance. Still, all this depends on how the cost of the Typhoon is being calculated, and the price range can be pretty vast.

“We recognize armed forces are being challenged to meet the demands of speed, adaptability and scale,” Barnes said. “Our collaborative combat aircraft will provide the ability to extend the reach of crewed aircraft, generating greater combat mass at lower cost, while keeping pilots out of harm’s way.”

On an industrial level, the new CCA has been designed and built by BAE Systems’ FalconWorks, its rapid prototyping team, paid for using the company’s own research and development budget.

Cognizant of the fact that other companies, including more established CCAs, will also be competing for the Royal Air Force’s Storm Fighter requirement, BAE Systems is stressing the homegrown nature of its Brontanax.

“This capability represents a significant company investment in the U.K.’s future of air power and builds on our long-standing commitment to innovation,” Barnes explained. “Alongside supporting defense priorities, it will strengthen the U.K.’s sovereign defense ecosystem by creating opportunities for SMEs, suppliers and partners across the country.”

Competition is still likely to come from the United States, in particular, including the Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, in which BAE Systems is also involved, and the British firm is also working in collaboration with Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, which is also heavily involved in CCAs. Other U.S. pitches could come from Northrop Grumman, Kratos, or General Atomics, which has pitched to the United Kingdom a carrier-capable member of its highly modular Gambit drone family.

In its Defense Investment Plan, published last month, the U.K. government confirmed a $406-million investment in the Storm Fighter CCA program.

Since BAE Systems is already working alongside the Royal Air Force on its CCA effort, the Brontanax would appear to be well placed to win a domestic order, if the U.K. government is serious about fielding a sovereign loyal wingman capability as well as supporting local industrial capability. When it comes to low observable capabilities and stealthy drones, BAE Systems’ experience dates back many years, including a proof-of-concept UCAV testbed called Taranis.

BAE Systems – Taranis Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) First Flight [1080p]

Speaking today, Defense Secretary Streeting heralded the Brontanax as“a testament to the extraordinary talent and innovation across our sovereign defense industry.”

The Chief Of The Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Harv Smyth, described the Brontanax as “a major step” toward the Royal Air Force’s ambition to become Europe’s first “sixth-generation air force.” He also said that the Brontanax prototype is expected to fly next year.

At this stage, the “sixth-generation air force” rubric is somewhat unclear, although Smyth described it in terms of an ecosystem in which “uncrewed air systems integrate seamlessly with our crewed platforms, exponentially increasing our survivability, our lethality, and ultimately our conventional deterrence.”

Whether the Brontanax ultimately enters Royal Air Force service remains to be seen. BAE Systems is entering an increasingly crowded field where other CCA developers already have years of flight-testing and autonomy work behind them, while integrating uncrewed aircraft with crewed fighters remains a major technical challenge. Australia, China, the United States and even Russia are ahead in terms of actual flight testing collaborative drones for fighter aircraft, so the pressure is on for the United Kingdom, especially as it grapples with fighter fleet-size constraints, which could be at least partially alleviated with the introduction of CCAs. At the same time, this drone could give the UK a banner sovereign airframe to export to allies around the globe, which could be extremely lucrative in the years to come.

All told, the appearance of the Brontanax is the clearest sign yet of Britain’s ambition to field a sovereign collaborative combat aircraft capability, underscoring the central role uncrewed systems are expected to play in the Royal Air Force’s future airpower vision.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The incident adds to concern that Moscow’s war on Ukraine risks spilling over to entangle neighbouring NATO states.

A Romanian fighter jet has shot down a drone, suspected to be Russian, that breached the country’s airspace.

The incident on Friday marked the first time the Eastern European country has intercepted an intruding aircraft since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, President Nicusor Dan noted.

However, concern that Moscow’s war on Ukraine risks entangling neighbouring NATO states is on the rise. Romania is one of several alliance members to confront repeated stray drones recently, as Russia and Ukraine launch hundreds of drones daily.

Dan reported that a Romanian F-16 jet shot down the drone after it entered the country’s airspace, adding that the fighter had shot over an uninhabited area.

A Romanian military source told the Reuters news agency that Russia was the suspected point of origin, given the pattern of previous incursions in the region.

Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said a radar first detected the drone about 20km (12 miles) east of the Black Sea port of Sulina, before it crossed into national airspace on a path through Braila, Fetesti and Buzau county.

Two Italian Eurofighter Typhoon jets, deployed to Romania under NATO’s air policing mission, were joined by two Romanian F-16s. One F-16 engaged the target with an air-to-air missile, downing it over unpopulated ground near the village of Padina. No casualties or injuries were reported.

Romania, an EU and NATO member sharing a border with Ukraine, has recorded dozens of drone incursions since the war began. This incident marked the first successful interception.

In late May, a drone struck an apartment building in the city of Galati, injuring two people – the first time such a strike hit a populated area in a NATO country.

NATO and European Union officials condemned the incident. The European Commission said it showed Russia’s war had “crossed yet another line”.

A month later, a Ukrainian sea drone exploded at the port of Constanta. Kyiv said that it had launched the vessel, which had been knocked off course by Russian jamming.

The Baltic states have also reported repeated airspace violations in recent months, incursions that contributed to the collapse of Latvia’s government in May.

NATO chief Mark Rutte has said Moscow’s “reckless behaviour is a danger to us all”. United States ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, has pledged the alliance will “defend every inch” of its territory.