Mood today. Awake for close to 36 hours, two flights, two trains, several busses.

This NYT piece is full of deliberate exaggerations and a bit of misinfo. For example, stretching the definition of what counts towards the "70% of remaining missiles" they discuss here.

Accidentally left the test render on Apple ProRes, the little 4 min video is now 12GB.

B-52 and B-70 hardened shelter study. I'd love to live in one of these.

The missile hunting stuff is probably the least problematic aspect of the war. Im much more startled by the amount of munitions that we seems to have expended on honestly irrelevant targets.

The Iranians traded the survival of their launchers for being able to attack the US/ISR. Entirely reasonable ofc, but this meant their tempo fell off. But seeing how firing 500+ missiles in less than 4 days did little to US/ISR ops, saving launchers for after the war was (probably) more important

I mean people were doing Scud hunting with Mk 1 eyeball and really low-quality 1980s TV pods. FLIR was new and ISAR/SAR capable aircraft were rare. That is why Scud hunting was shit. Even by these "metrics", the 12 day war and Epic Failure have had better outcomes than the Scud hunt in 91.

In case any of you want access to hi-res versions of my work (stills and renders), early access & some behind the scenes stuff, i have a patreon for $5/m. No pressure ofc, but the support genuinely helps me patreon.com/Vrmillion

The aircraft totals if you include two seater JAS 39Ds and F/A-18Ds that do trainer missions.

Updated my 2024 "Defenders of the North" air forces map. New changes include the Danes parting with all F-16s and taking delivery of 15 F-35As, the Norwegians getting all 52 F-35As they ordered and the Swedish Air Force inducting Gripen Es into service with one of their units in Southern Sweden.

🇺🇦 A list of countries that have allocated funding for the procurement of American weapons for Ukraine through the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative. Last updated on 06/05/2026 (+ 🇨🇦 171 million € ) Total allocated funds: 4,45 Billion € 1/2

In case any of you want access to hi-res versions of my work (stills and renders), early access & some behind the scenes stuff, i have a patreon for $5/m. No pressure ofc, but the support genuinely helps me patreon.com/Vrmillion

The only image of the PAC-1/2 seeker I have been able to find. Some Jane's Land-Based Air Defense issues have images of the TK-1 seeker which is very close.

Ever seen the insides of a PAC-2?

Some stuff I was cooking few weeks back. Reported IAF sorties compared against IRGC BM attacks.

Once the SAMs are dead you get to the real soft bits inside.

Adversary SAMs getting SEAD and DEAD'ed

While this is bad, it should be noted that, combined, all of this pales in comparison to what the US gives Israel through FMF (roughly $3.5-4B a year) and the amount of approved arms transfers/sales exceed a multiple of this on a yearly basis. For wpns there is little coming from Europe to Israel.

You just know Nasrallah and Soleimani are cooking the shit out of Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld rn.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that there's no way any of the parties are fully agreeing to the Iranian 10-point deal without massive final changes. Just to start, $2M per ship to cross the Hormuz Strait would mean nearly $70-80B in revenue for the Iranians per year.

As I understand the situation, 1.) Trump says they agreed to his terms 2.) Iran said he agreed to their different set of terms 3.) Both sides are shameless liars whose self-preservation instincts and hardons for violence are constantly battling one another so who knows?

IMO everyone is tapped out. The Israelis won the most out of this. The strait being closed is a double-edged sword, the Iranians haven't had any of their ships cross in enough numbers to be relevant, same goes for the rest of the GCC. Iran doesn't have a choke hold on the strait anymore than the GCC

F-15E was brought down by a regular MANPAD. We saw some of the IRGC guys in the area where it was shot down carrying Iranian MANPADs.

There are a bunch of comments saying "Well that's because we used so many long-range systems" which misses the fact that most of the weapons we see on aircraft and on the ground are JDAM/LJDAMs. These are not stand-off weapons.

These numbers seem sus. The delivery schedule for USAF in 2025 was 525+ JASSM-ERs, which would have brought the total inventory to 2935~ JASSM-ERs delivered by Jan 2026 (so pre-war inv in reality is 635 higher). The delivery plan for 2026 is 600~ JASSM-ERs and 150~ LRASMs.

$7B for Space-based AMTI. I hope Congress slashes it to $500M.

>$30B for Army missile procurement >a $20B+ increase >check inside >$11B for 857 THAAD missiles >$12B for 2,798 PAC-3 MSE missiles

Feast your eyes

And the USAF FY27 plans for the E-7 are.......nothing

While this is true, and the Israelis are probably very low on interceptors (which is what prompted the mods to DS), it still doesn't matter much on the scheme of Iran striking useful targets in Israel. It has been memory holded but the April and October 2024 attacks involved 330+ missiles.

That's some odd framing on the part of the author I think, because this stuff is fully briefed up fwiw this particular incident wasn't 358s but EO/IR cuing of bona fide SAMs (you wouldn't need to pull many Gs to get away from a 358 in a fighter)

The confirmed pre-2024 inventory of MRBM launchers was around 470. Between June 2025 and now, more than 200+ launchers are visually confirmed to have been struck, many while loaded. Nonetheless, many more are likely buried (in tunnels) and cant be used.

Well we now know why Operation Rough Rider kept having so many close-call leaks to the media. The whole thing started with a disastrous command change. A Navy seal overseeing air operations done by the USAF over an active war zone.

Look at my boy go

The cost of neutrality on paper even is that the Finns were counting on nobody and the events of a full-scale war would have probably unfolded much like the opening days of prior conflicts where there are last minute attempts of support for them but nothing would ultimately show up.

Some afternoon reading on the CIA reading room. This afternoon, we are looking at some reports released in the mid-1980s assessing forces around Europe. This one is on the Nordic forces. To start some really nice maps on where everyone is: File over at: www.cia.gov/readingroom/...

Between the SOUTHCOM, SOCOM, and CENTCOM shit all of this year and last year. If there isn't going be a purge of the mid to senior ranks when a new Admin rolls in, then the DoD is truly fucked for good.

I highly recommend @tonystark.bsky.social et al and the latest Second Breakfast with Frank Kendall on this. He literally walks the dog on the role industry plays in responding to requirements, not evading them or inventing their own for profit. Solid thread from you too Zach.

Don't get me wrong. The defense industry needs to be under fire for a whole variety of reasons from IP/TDP issues where they claim work developed under taxpayer money to overcharging/heavy restrictions on right to repair and a ton of other shit that comes with being a multi-billion dollar company.

The argument or the claim from Congress/WH for why this is a good idea is because it will force companies to invest in R&D/production rather than "make big profits and do nothing", but companies invest based on signals from Congress/DoD. If the vibe from either is rancid then why invest?

why don't they build the entire plane out of SOF?

The US has been at the forefront of innovation on UAS and using drones to support manned craft since the 1960s.

The real bet on the upcoming budget

Whether or not the recent E-3 loss completely fucks over longterm USAF AWACS plans comes down to what the FY27 budget shows (which comes out next week) and what Congress does in response. The USAF will get two E-7 prototypes next year. But longterm procurement has been stalled by the OSD.

This is just more gizmo cult shit In big boy war against an opponent with missiles you lose planes on the ground, this is why you don't do dumb big boy wars of choice against opponents with missiles, but there's nothing you can do to avoid it and really only a couple things to somewhat mitigate it

This is the worst possible way to say "Yeah Ukraine is building a ton of drones, but our company is relevant because we will have the capacity of build hundreds of tanks. Which both Ukraine and Russia sorely want"

1965-1966 a total of 510 manned aircraft were lost in air operations against N. Vietnam. Of these 457 were combat losses. Only 40 or less than 10 percent of the losses were due to SAM attacks. MIGs accounted for 13 of the losses. Antiaircraft and GROUND FIRE accounted for 404 of the combat losses.

I think the losses in this war ofc need to be understood in a broader context of the past. The Iraqi AD did more damage to the allied coalition than Iran is doing here. The USAF also lost more aircraft in the ground to mortar attacks in Vietnam than you would imagine (more than to enemy fighters).

The real question wrt to the E-3 and more KC-135 losses is why these platforms are still parked at PSAB in the same area KC-135s were hit on the ground by fairly accurate Iranian SRBMs (vs the highly inaccurate MRBMs) prior.