Caleb Larson

Queen Elizabeth-Class Aircraft Carrier Royal Navy

Aerospace & Defense

Britain budgeted £3.9 billion for two aircraft carriers, spent about £7.6 billion, then watched HMS Prince of Wales break down days after leaving Portsmouth, wreck a 22-ton propeller, and sit in the yard for nine months — at times the Royal Navy has had neither ship available

Two aircraft carriers were meant to guarantee one always at sea. Breakdowns have left the Royal Navy with stretches of none instead.

Caleb LarsonSeptember 17, 2026

Neptune Anti-Ship Missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Aerospace & Defense

Ukraine’s Fire Point Is Building 2 Ballistic Missiles of Its Own. The FP-7 Reaches 200 Kilometres With a 150-Kilogram Warhead. The Longer-Ranged FP-9 Could Strike 600 to 800 Kilometres Into Russia Within Minutes.

Fabian Hoffmann of the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies put a number on it: around 50 FP-9s a month, accurate enough to hit high-value...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 14, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Ukraine Has Received Its First RCH 155 Wheeled Howitzers Nearly 4 Years After Ordering Them. The Vehicle Fires While Driving, Carries 2 Crew Instead of the PzH 2000’s 5, and Ukraine Is the Only Country on Earth Operating It — Ahead of Germany, Britain, Qatar and Switzerland.

A NATO-standard 155mm/L52 gun on a Boxer 8x8 hull: 40 kilometers with base-bleed rounds, roughly 54 with V-LAP, eight rounds a minute, 30 rounds...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 13, 2026

Su-57 artist rendering. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Aerospace & Defense

Russia’s Su-57 Felon Has Exactly 1 Confirmed Export Customer: Algeria, Which Has Taken Delivery of 2 Aircraft. Estimates Put the Fighter’s Frontal Radar Cross-Section Between 0.1 and 1.0 Square Meters Against Roughly 0.0015 for the F-35A.

Russia ordered 76 Su-57s for delivery by 2027-2028. By early 2026 some estimates put the operational fleet at twenty to thirty. Moscow's defense industry...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

General Dynamics Is Delivering All 250 M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams Tanks to Poland in About 24 Months. Warsaw Ordered Them for $4,750,000,000 Along With 17 Bridge Layers and 26 Recovery Vehicles.

Poland ordered 250 M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams in April 2022, weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in a $4,750,000,000 package that also included 17...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 10, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

The Government Accountability Office Reviewed All 13 Programs in the US Air Force’s $21,000,000,000 B-52 Modernization and Found 10 of Them in Trouble. The Engine Replacement Went From $3,000,000,000 to $15,400,000,000.

The Government Accountability Office examined all 13 programs inside the US Air Force's roughly $21,000,000,000 B-52 modernization effort and found 10 of them running...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 10, 2026

Aircraft Carrier At Sea Creative Commons Photo

Aerospace & Defense

$850,000,000 Australian Submarine ‘Sank’ $5,500,000,000 US Navy Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier By Evading US, Japanese, Canadian, Chilean, Korean, and British Forces — 6 Navies — and Photographed the Supercarrier

Australia's Collins-class submarines were noisy, unreliable and a national embarrassment for most of the 1990s. Then HMAS Waller went to US-led war games off...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 9, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Ukraine’s FP-5 Flamingo Cruise Missile Carries a Bigger Warhead Than an American Tomahawk, Flies 3,000 Kilometers Into Russia, and Costs About $600,000 — Roughly 1 Sixth the Price.

The FP-5 Flamingo is nearly 40 feet long, weighs 6 tons, carries a 1,150-kilogram warhead — heavier than a Tomahawk's — and is credited...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 9, 2026

An artist's conception of the X-43A Hypersonic Experimental Vehicle, or "Hyper-X" in flight. The X-43A was developed to flight test a dual-mode ramjet/scramjet propulsion system at speeds from Mach 7 up to Mach 10 (7 to 10 times the speed of sound, which varies with temperature and altitude).

Aerospace & Defense

NASA Spent About $230,000,000 Over 8 Years on the Mach 9.6 X-43A Hypersonic Scramjet. It Flew 3 Times, the First 1 Was Destroyed by Its Own Booster, and the Engine Ran for Roughly 11 Seconds.

NASA's Hyper-X program ran 8 years and cost roughly $230,000,000, and it produced exactly 3 flights of the X-43A. The first ended with the...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 8, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Russia’s Kilo-Class ‘Black Hole’ Stealth Submarines Were Sold in Batches to Both China and Iran

The Kilo-class earned the nickname "black hole" during the Cold War and has been trading on it ever since. Naval analyst H I Sutton...

Caleb LarsonSeptember 7, 2026

19FortyFive

Caleb Larson

Aerospace & Defense

Britain budgeted £3.9 billion for two aircraft carriers, spent about £7.6 billion, then watched HMS Prince of Wales break down days after leaving Portsmouth, wreck a 22-ton propeller, and sit in the yard for nine months — at times the Royal Navy has had neither ship available

Aerospace & Defense

Ukraine’s Fire Point Is Building 2 Ballistic Missiles of Its Own. The FP-7 Reaches 200 Kilometres With a 150-Kilogram Warhead. The Longer-Ranged FP-9 Could Strike 600 to 800 Kilometres Into Russia Within Minutes.

Aerospace & Defense

Ukraine Has Received Its First RCH 155 Wheeled Howitzers Nearly 4 Years After Ordering Them. The Vehicle Fires While Driving, Carries 2 Crew Instead of the PzH 2000’s 5, and Ukraine Is the Only Country on Earth Operating It — Ahead of Germany, Britain, Qatar and Switzerland.

Aerospace & Defense

Russia’s Su-57 Felon Has Exactly 1 Confirmed Export Customer: Algeria, Which Has Taken Delivery of 2 Aircraft. Estimates Put the Fighter’s Frontal Radar Cross-Section Between 0.1 and 1.0 Square Meters Against Roughly 0.0015 for the F-35A.

Aerospace & Defense

General Dynamics Is Delivering All 250 M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams Tanks to Poland in About 24 Months. Warsaw Ordered Them for $4,750,000,000 Along With 17 Bridge Layers and 26 Recovery Vehicles.

Aerospace & Defense

The Government Accountability Office Reviewed All 13 Programs in the US Air Force’s $21,000,000,000 B-52 Modernization and Found 10 of Them in Trouble. The Engine Replacement Went From $3,000,000,000 to $15,400,000,000.

Aerospace & Defense

$850,000,000 Australian Submarine ‘Sank’ $5,500,000,000 US Navy Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier By Evading US, Japanese, Canadian, Chilean, Korean, and British Forces — 6 Navies — and Photographed the Supercarrier

Aerospace & Defense

Ukraine’s FP-5 Flamingo Cruise Missile Carries a Bigger Warhead Than an American Tomahawk, Flies 3,000 Kilometers Into Russia, and Costs About $600,000 — Roughly 1 Sixth the Price.

Aerospace & Defense

NASA Spent About $230,000,000 Over 8 Years on the Mach 9.6 X-43A Hypersonic Scramjet. It Flew 3 Times, the First 1 Was Destroyed by Its Own Booster, and the Engine Ran for Roughly 11 Seconds.

Aerospace & Defense

Russia’s Kilo-Class ‘Black Hole’ Stealth Submarines Were Sold in Batches to Both China and Iran

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