Tell us a little bit about that.

Right.

Well, before we get into the biblical sermonizing of this podcast as our natural feature of our podcast, I did want to just give you a little vignette because I think it kind of paints a picture.

I'm in the AUSA press room.

I'm trying to work through stories and notes and interviews and scheduling and that sort of thing.

But I did a video clip that just came across my attention.

I forget how, but it was a clip that had just been posted the day before by Ukraine's 115th Brigade.

I mean, what's your outlook for that program? Is it going to make it?

So what do you make out of this announcement? And kind of just give us your thoughts on what's going on and perhaps even kind of my skepticism about the value of these standalone commands.

Well, sure.

Yeah.

So, I mean, first of all, Project Agincourt, you know, I can't, I'm somebody who can't think of Project Agincourt or the Battle of Agincourt without thinking of the St. Crispin speech from Shakespeare's Henry V, where he says, we band of brothers, this one is going to be the we band of robots.

And this is something we talked about or wrote about several months ago when we first saw the line item in the reconciliation bill for $54.6 billion for this group that really nobody had heard of really at that point called the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.

And I did speculate in a column at that time, this was back in April or May, that this would make sense if they're asking for $54.6 billion in this bill, which is almost the same as the annual budget of the U.S. Marine Corps, that this would be to stand up a command, an autonomous warfare command at the joint level.

And so we called it.

data

And there is an issue about – as the US military pivots to the Asia-Pacific, There's some really long ranges that they're concerned about, and this tanker certainly would fill a gap there, would it not?

Well, yeah.

I mean, more gas is always better, especially when you're trying to cross the Pacific Ocean.

But I mean, there's again, several caveats in addition to the ones that Guy talked about.

The biggest of which is that it's not clear the U.S. Air Force wants a new tanker or at least anytime soon.

There was a brief moment in the fall of 2024, I guess, when they elevated the next generation air refueling system or in gas to the top of their priority list for modernization.

But that ended very quickly and as a new leadership, entered the government and entered the Air Force, and they actually put that program almost at the bottom, if not the bottom, of the modernization priority list, and instead elevated a next-generation airlifter, something that would carry cargo and personnel, and replace the C-17 and C-5.

Tell us how.

But if you look at the Army even more broadly, what do you think is going on there right now?

So Army Aviation is sort of in hover mode, shall we say, at the moment across the portfolio.

Not quite in vortex ring state.

Some of you might know the reference there.

But it's looking very tenuous and perilous, to be honest.

If you just look at the procurement process, budget this year they're going from four billion dollars in fiscal 2026 to 1.9 billion in fiscal 2027. it's a 50 cut in procurement authority um that's being requested right that still has to be adjudicated by congress within that you know that includes the the the output essentially of the army transformation initiative which affects the entire Army, but it fell really hard on Army Aviation because the idea was we were going to take money out of procurement and use that money to fast track MV-75, even though it does appear MV-75 is struggling to keep pace with that acceleration already.

So the effect of that, the plan was to stop buying A-64s, divest the the aerial cavalry squadrons in each combat aviation brigade, basically the old armed scout role that had been sort of moved over to the AH-64Ds in partnership with the MQ-1C Grey Eagles, but just essentially eliminate that.

So I just feel like maybe it's a good time to get us caught up, one of you, Brian or Steve, on where things stand there.

Now, how do you see it now that we actually have a, uh, a, uh, an answer to who is behind F/A-XX?

Yeah.

So, uh, just to kind of put a, a finer point on how long we've been waiting, I went back into my Google Drive to try to find this, but, um, the RFI from the Navy for an F/A-XX was published on April 17th, 2012.

So this process got started about 14 years ago, 14 and a half years ago, really, and, uh, has finally come to fruition.

That's how long it took just to get to the contract award.

[chuckles] You know, now we still got to wait to get into production and all that.

But it's a big deal, right? Because we're talking about the remaking of naval aviation and carrier-based naval aviation for long range, you know, strike, for long range air to air, you know, basically turning that carrier into a long range killing machine, right? The, the knock on carriers for the last couple decades has been, yeah, it's got a lot of firepower on it, but not very long range.

Steve, what do you think? Anything struck you?

Steve, what's afoot?

Well, we're trying to figure that out.

It's a pretty exciting story to get wrapped into over the last couple of days, just because, I don't know, Graham and people like me just get pretty excited about anything to do with any suggestion or hint that the SR-71 might be returning to flight.

I have to admit that.

It was clear bias to seeing that happen.

But the fact is, I'll tell you what we kind of know and what we don't know.

And to start right off, NASA has not confirmed that they are taking SR-71 back to flight.

So whoever wants to start, you know, picking out that...

So kind of why don't you fill us in a bit?

Yeah, so we got really introduced to this new program, the Mass Modular Aircraft, which is a new aircraft.

But what I really picked up from this show was a much deeper understanding of what a fundamental change this kind of represents and how to do that sort of mission.

But also this new leadership and how they're willing to take certain risks in the near term to see this to fruition, perhaps, right? So what I'm talking about, if you start with the aircraft that's doing this role today is the MQ-9.

And in a way, it's like the old monolithic standalone type aircraft.

It's got the sensors and the weapons to see the target by itself, track it, and then use a missile to take out that target and complete what they call the kill chain all by itself without asking for anybody else.

Now, sometimes they get help from other platforms, either with the sensing or the shooting, but it's designed to complete that kill chain by itself.

right steve let me bring you in here what else

What's your expectation as you head over this time?

Oh, thrills and excitement and all kinds of things.

Yes.

So I want to I kind of want to do kind of a big picture state of the Air Force thing, because as I go into this AFA, I try to kind of rebalance myself with where things actually are with the Air Force and their force structure and where they want to go and where they are.

And this AFA is going to be, you know, the AFA.

there's a fact that's in the background that probably will not be spoken about or addressed, but influences everything about what's happening in the Air Force today.

And a hat tip to Jim Damasio at Congressional Research Service, our former colleague who came out with a report last week that confirmed that Troy Mank has reported to Congress that not only does the Air Force report non-compliant with a congressional statute for a minimum amount of tactical aircraft, that they have no plan to actually meet that congressional threshold, the legal threshold for the size of the crewed fighter fleet.

So are we now looking at something much more, you know, what are you and Brian hearing? What is the, are we looking at something More LO, but then perhaps more expensive? I mean, where's the thinking right now?

But I'm intrigued about the US Navy angle on all this because, I don't know, coming from the UK where we've been looking at CCAs from carriers for a little while, it seems the US Navy are playing catch up or am I completely wrong about that, Steve?

Well, no, I mean, absolutely.

I mean, we've been waiting for the Navy to say anything about what they wanted for CCAs for years.

Now, to be fair, the MQ-25 Stingray may not be an autonomous combat aircraft in its initial form, but as a carry-based refueling aircraft, it is quite collaborative with the aircraft that it's refueling.

So in a way, it does have some latent capability there.

and maybe where they're going with CCAs.

I guess we can just get into it because that's the other major development in the CCA world this week was that the Navy, out of the blue, dropped their initial request for information for a carrier-based CCA with an initial look at some of the requirements that are on the unclassified side of this program.

with.

And then the Navy expanded on a new... self-protection, inner boundary, air-to-air missile program called CAM, which I know Steve is very keen

on.

Sure.

Well, both of them.

Just also on MACE, I mean, the context of that is that it essentially becomes the replacement for HALO.

The Navy had a program for basically an air-to-surface weapon, basically an anti-ship missile that would be hypersonic and scramjet powered.

And the idea was to take what the Air Force was doing with their program called HACM, scramjet powered cruise missile, and adapt it for the FAA team.

about

Fair, although the budgets are, you know, having to go all through Congress at the same time.

Uh, right, right, right.

And but it also has more range than those, uh, than JASSM and LRASM.

And then on the lower end of the s- uh, spectrum, there is, there's a ton of land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles that are being developed with an objective price point and about a tenth of what, um, a Tomahawk costs.

But, um, these are smaller missiles, about half or even a quarter of the size of, of what Tomahawk gives you, and they are designed, uh, to not be nearly as effective.

Um, you know, so their guidance systems are not quite as reliable, uh, in all conditions.

And but th- you know, that, that trade-off was made intentionally, um, because you just want, in this day and age, as we've seen, it can be effective not to throw the most advanced missiles and the most ex- exquisite missiles at a country, but just overwhelm their air defenses with volume.

Any wild cards out there?

Okay, and just what is this mission autonomy thing? Is it the Uber software that will run everything in the Air Force? Is it something much more narrow? Is it a sing, simple task that they're supposed to do? I mean, it, it, it sounds super vague.

I could try to help out with that.

So I've got my iPhone here.

Let's use that as the comparison.

We were talking about this earlier.

So the iPhone has the iOS operating system.

On this operating system, it's an Apple-defined set of interfaces and standards with their hardware.

How does that play into this? Is that gonna be-- Is that part of the government reference architecture, or how, what's the setup there?

So there's a lot of questions there.

So I would amplify that or even expand on it and broaden it to even the US market, where we've seen mixed feelings about sixth generation fighters, right? Two years ago at this moment, the Air Force Next Generation Air Dominance Program was paused by Frank Kendall, who is then Secretary of the Air Force.

And it wasn't just a pause to review it and to make sure they had everything correct.

That's sort of how it started out.

But within a couple months, it became very clear that Kendall was steering the US Air Force away from the F-47.

And in fact, he withdrew the funding for what became the F-47 and diverted all of that money to a next-generation air refueling system, a large, stealthy tanker.

And...

Steve, speaking of US CCAs, you got a bit of an update from General Atomics on what happened with their vehicle in the US program.

As you wish

... you know, well, I, I'd say the, the, uh, the biggest one by far is the Family of Affordable Mass Munitions, uh, otherwise known as FAM.

Uh, there's FAM lugged and FAM palletized, um, the two different variants of that.

Uh, lugged is sort of a traditional cruise missile that you stick under the wing of a fighter or a bomber or like it, or an internal weapons bay.

Uh, you've got two contractors working on that.

Uh, that's, uh, Zone Five Technologies and CoAspire, and then their palletized version, which you would load into the back of a C-130 or C-17 and then eject it, uh, or drop it, uh, from the back of the cargo hold, uh, and it would, uh, launch while still in air, um, uh, multiple, uh, missiles at a time.

Between those two, uh, they account for twenty-seven thousand projected orders or estimated orders in the Future Years Defense Program, um, which, you know, uh, is just a mind-bogglingly large quantity f- uh, for a few companies to, to tackle over the next five years, especially, uh, in the case of CoAspire's brand new companies, uh, you know, at least in the missile business.

Anyway, Steve, how about, uh, how about on your end? What struck you at Modern Day Marine?

The Air Force bought an extra B-21 or did it?

This is a tough one, right? In the first quarter earnings, Northrop Grumman said that they had delivered the agreement that they reached with the Air Force.

Now, that is the first time that we had heard that there is a company-funded test asset.

It clarified that with the Air Force, but, you know, Northrop's term was asset, but the Air Force said asset is an aircraft.

So there's a, there's another aircraft out there that is either in production or has been built that has now been sold by Northrop to the Air Force within the low rate initial production phase.

Now, at the same time, the Air Force says that they are not increasing the overall number that they had previously established for that low rate initial production phase, which they had never disclosed.

Although, I think in, at, at contract award, they said it was 21 aircraft within the first five lots of low rate initial production.

Steve, Peru, what's going on there?

Could you just touch on that real quick for our audience? I think that historical aspect is very interesting.

Yeah, so I love history.

And so it's great to be on this podcast.

And especially that intersection of military history and journalism history is fascinating to me.

And the story of what happened there in World War II between the press and the military doesn't really get told very well, but is absolutely fascinating.

So I'm sure your audience remembers December 7th, 1941.

And then I think it was about a week later, there was the War Powers Act signed in Congress.

That would just make things so much easier to operate the carrier in that environment.

So, Steve, why don't you kick us off? What did you pick, and why did you pick it?

Sure, thanks.

You know, it was a rough year overall.

I mean, you talked about the wars.

There's also all the program delays, cost of runs, cancellations.

Those are the things we typically write about.

But I chose something that was not necessarily a failure, at least yet, at least in the U.S. weapons acquisition development world that I think is really interesting.

How do they do it?

So they're clearly, you know, well ahead in the game if someone even ordered it now among the neighbors.

Not only that, but they also get special treatment with certain communication and electronic warfare upgrades that they can do.

And they're the only international partners allowed to do that.

So they're taken care of.

But In the process, the UAE was looking to acquire the F-35 that entire period.

And they came very close up to the point where the first Trump administration in November of 2020.

Yes, that's right.

to do some breakthroughs in

listeners will have to read all the amazing copy you filed from there to get the full picture i think but maybe you can give them a glimpse some of the highlights of what you thought was particularly fascinating during your trip there

well sure yeah thank you and greetings from uh jinju south korea i'm just outside of sachon where korea aerospace industries actually assembles the kf-21 borrome they're the new fighter that they've been developing and now producing And I was just at ADEX in Seoul for the earlier part of the week.

And yeah, so it's kind of an interesting story about what's going on in CHI right now and all the activities sort of swirling around it with KF-21 sort of at the centerpiece.

The good news is KF-21 is in production.

The Block 1 version is on the final assembly line.

There are eight aircraft on the assembly line.

Actually, the first aircraft is in paint, and the next seven aircraft are in final assembly.

So, Steve, do you want to maybe start

I gave a pretty high-level overview at the start, so before we get into it, Steve, could we back up maybe a little and can you talk about those two missions in 1945?

Yeah, sure.

Obviously, these are sort of fraught things to talk about when you're talking about the deployment of nuclear weaponry, and it was even at the time.

Notwithstanding that, to get into the details, there was a lot of things preceding this.

Obviously, the Manhattan Project was what led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

The demonstration at Trinity test site the month before proved that this theory of splitting an atom, creating fission, and harnessing the energy to generate this type of explosion, because it proved it could be done, that gave Truman the confidence to go to Potsdam, where he met with Stalin and Churchill, and they issued the famous Potsdam Declaration, where they warned Japan to surrender immediately or face significant dire consequences.

Japan did not heed the warning, nor did they believe that there was anything like an atomic bomb in development.

I know I interrupted you.