Military

The crew of a B-52H Stratofortress that had a near-miss with a civilian airliner near Minot International Airport last Friday told air traffic control they were nearby, but were not informed a passenger jet was in the area, the Air Force said.
The passenger jet, flight 3788 from SkyWest Airlines, was on approach to land at the Minot airport the evening of July 18 when it had to veer sharply to avoid the B-52. Both planes ultimately landed safely. A passenger took video of the pilot’s explanation of what happened afterwards, which was widely shared online.
“Nobody told us about” the B-52 in the area, the pilot told passengers. “There’s no radar here. The tower does everything visually. … This is not normal at all, I don’t know why they didn’t give us a heads up, because the Air Force base does have radar, and nobody said, ‘Hey, there’s also a B-52 in the pattern.’”
A commercial airline pilot flying over North Dakot..

The U.S. Air Force recently conducted an exercise in which AI was used to recommend targets in a high-pressure combat scenario.
Called “Experiment 3,” the four-day exercise took place last month and was described in a service release as the debut of “a novel planning and execution methodology, one never before executed” by the Air Force.
The 805th Combat Training Squadron, also known as the Shadow Operations Center — Nellis battle lab, saw participants use AI software to accelerate their decision-making and targeting processes over four days in a simulated battle space.
“We’re not just testing software, we’re challenging assumptions, validating tactics and shaping the operational architecture the Air Force and our allies will rely on in future conflicts,” Lt. Col. Shawn Finney, commander of the 805th, said in a release. “This was a proving ground for the kill chain of tomorrow.”
The unprecedented exercise was designed to speed up ..

TOWNSVILLE, Australia — U.S. paratroopers made the most dramatic entrance possible to Australia during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025. Flying 14.5 hours nonstop from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, they parachuted from the night sky into the Australian countryside on July 14.
“We landed right on the X,” Col. Brian Weightman, commander of the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) of the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division, told Defense News during an interview in Townsville.
The commander said he was the first to jump onto the drop zone.
In such a parachute operation, casualties of up to 10% are anticipated, he explained.
“We’re very comfortable with that if we land and 90% of the force is able to continue on,” Weightman said.
Luckily, this nighttime airdrop resulted in only three minor injuries, one of which was caused by a midair parachute entanglement in the dark.
Their 6,800-mile flight was only the beginning of the unit’..

WARSAW, Poland — As numerous Eastern European allies pursue acquisitions of infantry fighting vehicles, Romania and Poland are advancing plans to boost their tracked vehicle fleets, yet with different strategies towards foreign suppliers and technology transfers.
In Romania, the country’s government decided on July 10 to launch its much-awaited program to replace outdated Soviet-times MLI-84 tracked infantry fighting vehicles with new gear. Bucharest aims to purchase some 246 vehicles along with simulators and a logistics package over an eight-year period after a deal is signed, earmarking close to €2.55 billion ($2.96 billion) for this acquisition. In the program’s potential second stage, a further 52 vehicles could be ordered.
Local observers say Romanian Ministry of National Defence is to select between Germany’s Rheinmetall with the Lynx, the CV90 made by BAE Systems Hägglunds in Sweden, South Korea’s Hanwha with the AS21 Redback, and General..

The U.S. Army has picked Anduril to be the lead integrator to build its next-generation command-and-control prototype, or C2, awarding the tech company a $99.6 million contract to deliver it in less than a year, according to statements from the service and company.
The prototype architecture will consist of “integrated and scalable” C2 capabilities using hardware, software and applications through a common data layer, the Army stated in a July 18 announcement.
The Army’seffort to overhaul its command-and-control ecosystem, dubbed Next-Generation C2, is one of the top priorities for Army modernization — if not the highest.
The capability will be delivered to the 4th Infantry Division, the service said.
The prototype will be “integrated onto compute nodes aboard multiple different types of mechanized vehicles” throughout the Division immediately upon award of the contract, Anduril noted, and will be continuously developed working directly with soldiers.
The..

The U.S. Air Force and commercial airline SkyWest Airlines are trying to learn more about a July 18 incident in which a North Dakota-based B-52 Stratofortress may have had a near miss with a passenger plane.
SkyWest said in a statement to Air Force Times that its flight 3788 was flying from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, on Friday evening. Air traffic controllers cleared flight 3788 to approach Minot International Airport for a landing when “another aircraft became visible in their flight path,” SkyWest said.
The commercial plane aborted the landing and circled above the airport, before landing safely at the airport, the airline’s statement said. SkyWest said the company is now investigating the incident.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed a B-52 from Minot Air Force Base held a flyover of the North Dakota State Fair that evening, but stopped short of confirming the near miss happened or saying an investigation was underway.
“We are aware of the recent rep..

The U.S. Air Force and commercial airline SkyWest Airlines are trying to learn more about a July 18 incident in which a North Dakota-based B-52 Stratofortress may have had a near miss with a passenger plane.
SkyWest said in a statement to Air Force Times that its flight 3788 was flying from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, on Friday evening. Air traffic controllers cleared flight 3788 to approach Minot International Airport for a landing when “another aircraft became visible in their flight path,” SkyWest said.
The commercial plane aborted the landing and circled above the airport, before landing safely at the airport, the airline’s statement said. SkyWest said the company is now investigating the incident.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed a B-52 from Minot Air Force Base held a flyover of the North Dakota State Fair that evening, but stopped short of confirming the near miss happened or saying an investigation was underway.
“We are aware of the recent rep..

The White House has nominated Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, to be the service’s next vice chief of staff.
The Pentagon announced Bussiere’s nomination Friday, and said Lt. Gen. Stephen Davis — now the Air Force’s inspector general — has been nominated to receive his fourth star and succeed Bussiere as head of Global Strike.
The White House has also nominated the Space Force’s Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton to be vice chief of space operations. Bratton is now deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements.
If confirmed by the Senate, Bratton would succeed Gen. Michael Guetlein as vice chief of space operations. The Senate on Thursday evening confirmed Guetlein to head the Pentagon’s massive Golden Dome missile defense project.
Bussiere would succeed former Air Force Vice Chief Gen. Jim Slife. President Donald Trump fired Slife without explanation in February, alongside former Chairman of the Jo..

WIESBADEN, Germany − As the U.S. and its allies in Europe pledge to ramp up defense spending amid mounting global threats, the supreme allied commander of Europe is calling on industry to deliver real capabilities to the field in record time.
“We can tell industry exactly what it is that we need for all the leaders that are out there. It’s our job, I think, to hold industry accountable to deliver quickly and to hold ourselves accountable for giving industry the ability to deliver quickly through our acquisition processes,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said July 17 during his first public speech since taking command at the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.
“We’ve got to do this fast. We need real capabilities and we need them delivered as soon as possible. We can’t afford to wait, future pledges are no longer enough,” he said. “To do this, the defense industrial base on..