🚁 Border task force says cartel drone tactics keep changing

The Army awarded a Palantir subsidiary a $48.1M contract for software that consolidates nine legacy ammunition management platforms into one system.

The tool tracks munitions from procurement and storage through expenditure and disposal, and won a three-phase, six-week competition.

Palantir has 12 months to build it, then five years of support, as the Army works to retire legacy systems and improve audit readiness.

Northrop Grumman fired 50mm Raid Hunter test rounds from an XM913 Chain Gun at Virginia's Potomac River Test Range; the company says nearly every shot returned flight data matching predictions.

Northrop reported no interception; the data will inform a proximity-fuzed 50mm round meant for cruise missiles, drones, and other aerial threats.

Raid Hunter pairs the gun with networked controllers and battle management software, and its palletized design fits C-130 transport, with vehicle-mounted and container versions planned.

More than 100 exhibits are on display at the Pentagon's Energy Sentry expo, running Sept. 22 to 24, spanning Army, Navy, and Air Force projects.

Assistant Secretary Dale Marks said the wall between installation and operational energy is gone, and named Golden Dome, nuclear, space, and energy superiority as priorities.

The department is accelerating tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuel to supply the Army's Janus microreactor program and the Air Force's Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations effort.

Joint Task Force-Southern Border officials say cartel drone threats on the U.S.-Mexico border are "very real," and that cartels keep adapting their tactics.

Officials declined to share drone counts, payloads, or ranges, but said cartels use surveillance drones to track service members and agency personnel and to scout crossing routes.

The task force counters with layered systems, including the handheld DroneBuster and the Pitbull jammer, as U.S. Northern Command runs its Falcon Peak 26.2 counter-drone exercise.

The Navy's principal cyber advisor, Anne Marie Schumann, told industry at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit that the service wants expeditionary cyber, especially offensive capabilities or those that support offense.

She did not specify the capabilities sought, saying only the goal is to meet the Secretary of War's intent for robust cyberspace effects options.

Services are building tactical cyber units, from the Army's 11th Cyber Battalion to Navy non-kinetic effects teams, because battlefield targets are less likely to be online.

MSI-Defence Systems introduced TERRAHAWK RAPTOR, a counter-drone remote weapon station that carries a 7.62mm or 12.7mm machine gun, with an optional 40mm automatic grenade launcher.

MSI calls it the lightest counter-drone gun mount in its portfolio, built in the UK for British forces and compact enough for tactical vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles.

MSI designed it against explosive first-person-view (FPV) drones in Europe and plans to adapt it into a compact modular launcher for interceptors, rockets, and other small munitions.

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