🇺🇸 LRASM and JASSM Production to Triple Under New US Air Force Contract

The U.S. Air Force now anticipates buying more than 11,000 new JASSM and LRASM cruise missiles over the next five to seven years according to a notice of intent published Friday, dramatically expanding the Pentagon’s JASSM and LRASM topline inventory objectives for both weapons that have had their objectives periodically increased over the past decade.

The move comes amid large-scale reconstitution in the wake of Operation Epic Fury, as well as major demand signals from the Pentagon to push suppliers towards internal investments to support higher production rates of key weapons needed for a potential conflict in the Pacific.

The planned procurement would span JASSM Lots 27–33 and LRASM Lots 13–19, covering up to 11,200 missiles in multiple variants over the next five to seven years. The expansion would also increase sustainment capacity, missile repair infrastructure, software support, and production at Lockheed Martin’s two existing manufacturing facilities, with deliveries expected to begin 27 months after contract award.

The contract covers all current and future variants of the LRASM and JASSM, including the new LRASM-ER and JASSM-XR — two new variants of the shared missile family that add some of Lockheed Martin’s newest anti-spoofing and survivability equipment.

The LRASM-ER also includes a series of sensor upgrades that Lockheed Martin considers “the key to the future growth of [LRASM]”, according to a Lockheed Martin spokesperson who provided comments to Naval News during the Sea Air Space Symposium in April.

Air Force officials acknowledged that expanding production to support the larger procurement will require substantial upfront investment and an extended manufacturing ramp-up. The notice also says government-owned production equipment remains committed to Lockheed Martin’s existing JASSM and LRASM contracts in the interim, supporting the company’s initiative to begin investing heavily into its supply chains and current production lines to meet new production demands.

Lockheed Martin has already met that demand with heavy investments across its supply chain and major manufacturing centers.

🔗 https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/07/lrasm-and-jassm-production-to-triple-under-new-us-air-force-contract/

🇺🇸 New $500M Artillery Shell Plant Failed To Produce Any 155mm Parts

A scathing new Pentagon Inspector General report found problems at the plant delayed the Army's 100,000 round-per-month goal.

The inability of a munitions plant in Mesquite, Texas, to build a key part set back the U.S. Army’s plans for ramping up production of 155mm shells to 100,000 rounds per month, according to a scathing new report by the War Department’s Office of Inspector General (DOWIG). Despite receiving close to $500 million from the U.S. Army funded through supplemental spending bills from Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD-OTS), failed to make a single subcomponent needed to produce the badly needed shells as of last March.

“Without the 30,000 additional projectile metal parts anticipated from the Mesquite facility, the Army will be unable to reach its monthly capability goal of 100,000 155-mm artillery rounds,” the report concluded. “As of March 2026, the CPE A&E [Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics] officials have not developed a plan to produce the additional rounds that are supposed to be produced at the Mesquite facility.”

At present, the Army is only producing 36,000 rounds per month, inspectors revealed.

Through modernization efforts and two new facilities, the Army expects to exceed the 100,000-round-per-month goal significantly by the end of next year. The initial goal was established by Congress in the wake of the U.S. providing millions of rounds to Ukraine.

Still, the report highlights the challenges U.S. arms makers face in trying to meet tighter timelines to produce more weapons. This all comes as the U.S. is increasingly concerned about stockpiles of a wide array of munitions after heavy usage in past and current conflicts and donations to partners like Ukraine, as well as foreign military sales. These are issues that we raised long before and during the current war with Iran, but they have become major headlines in the aftermath of the initial stages of that conflict.

🔗 https://www.twz.com/land/new-500m-artillery-shell-plant-failed-to-produce-any-155mm-parts

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 U.S. president Donald Trump, signals a return to the hot phase of the 3rd Gulf War saying that the U.S. will hit Iran "hard tomorrow, and even harder tomorrow night".

Trump also reused his threat to "take out" Iran's power plants and bridges, contradicting CENTCOM's claims about the pure military nature of the places targeted by the USAF while also signalling that the conventional weapons the USAF possesses are ineffective on Iran's missile cities hence why they haven't been targeted since the 40 Day hot phase of the 3rd Gulf War ended.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚡️ — Senate Democrats blocked the annual National Defense Authorization Act in a 50-46 vote, arguing Congress should not advance a $1.15 trillion defense bill as President Trump continues the war with Iran.

➡️ Democrats also opposed measures deepening U.S.-Israel military ties, including expanded intelligence sharing, defense technology cooperation and greater integration between the two militaries.

🇮🇷⚔️🇯🇴🇺🇸 U.S. military assets have again been repositioned to King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, Jordan.

Satellite imagery shows five USAF C-17A airlifters alongside what appear to be three U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft relocated from Bahrain.

🔗 EGYOSINT

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 Around 2 hours ago, U.S. aircraft struck for a 2nd time in a week the Chabahar lighthouse, southeastern Iran.

Moment of the strike was captured by Iranian TV.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 CENTCOM released footage of last night's U.S. airstrikes against Iran, claiming to have hit "coastal defense systems" and "cruise missile storage and launch sites" but the only footage they could provide was that of a truck being destroyed.

@CIG_telegram

🇮🇷🚫🚢 A review of commercial vessel traffic in the Strait of Hormuz from July 13th to July 14th shows 35 verified crossings virtually all going through Iran's lane.

From UKMTO and other media reports we know that several tankers coordinated by the U.S. tried to cross the Strait using the southern Omani lane with their AIS turned off, one is partially sunken after being hit by Iranian projectiles and a few others are disabled.

Its unclear how many vessels successfully transited the Strait using the southern lane, but regardless, the number is too low for the Strait to be considered "free and open".

🔗 MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic)

🇺🇸🤝🇮🇶 All remaining U.S. troops deployed in Iraq will leave the country by September 30th ending a 23 year old mission

U.S. president Donald Trump presented this decision as a sign that the Iraqi state has "become strong enough to stand on its own" and is no longer vulnerable to Iranian influence.

Iraqi prime-minister, Ali al-Zaidi, echoed this vision, declaring that the Iran-backed Shia militias who refused to disarm last month would no longer have an excuse (the U.S. military presence) to remain as separate entities from Iraq's security apparatus.

Trump said the U.S. partnership with Iraq would shift away from military cooperation toward investment and energy development, while al-Zaidi said: "The 30th of September, the U.S. forces would be out of Iraq. While U.S. companies will be inside Iraq."

"We don't think we need the military there anymore," Trump said. "We're there to help them. We're there to protect them if need be. But we don't think that's going to be necessary."

He argued Iraq's security environment had fundamentally changed because Iran had been "very much destabilized" and its military was now "just a tiny fraction" of what it had been four months ago.

About 2,500 U.S. troops remained in Iraq prior to the beginning of the drawdown in September 2025, down from a peak of about 170,000 during 2007 at the height of the Iraq war. Nearly all U.S. forces departed in 2011 before about 5,000 returned in 2014 to fight ISIS.

U.S. troops in Iraq were the most exposed out of all U.S. garrisons to Iranian and Iraqi Shiite attacks during the 3rd Gulf War.

🔗 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-reveals-when-us-military-leave-iraq-after-23-year-mission

🇺🇸⚡️ — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pursued sweeping efforts to dismantle decades of U.S. vaccine policy, including proposing $5 billion for research into a "vaccine-autism link" and privately considering eliminating the entire federal childhood immunization schedule, Reuters reports.

Kennedy ultimately reduced the recommended schedule by removing vaccines for six of 17 diseases, though a federal judge later blocked the changes. He has also ended some mRNA vaccine programs and altered CDC language on vaccines and autism.

Officials said Kennedy relied heavily on longtime allies Stefanie Spear and vaccine litigator Aaron Siri, often sidelining established government experts.

🇦🇷 Argentina is preparing to scrap restrictions on foreigners buying rural land, with President Javier Milei arguing the reforms will attract investment, create jobs and accelerate economic growth.

Israelis have been caught multiple times in the past years setting fire to forests in Patagonia in what appears to be a deliberate land clearing attempt in preparation for the building of future settlements.

In November 2025, Javier Milei and Benjamin Netanyahu opened direct flights between Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv, a sign of the good relations between the two leaders and their respective countries, as part of the Isaac Accords, the Latin American version of the Abraham Accords, meant to increase Israel's diplomatic outreach and reduce its international isolation in the wake of the Gaza Genocide.

The direct flights came as a result of most EU countries announcing they would enforce the ICC war crime related arrest warrants on Israeli politicians who wanted to access Argentina without the risk of being detained when changing flights at a European airport.

Argentina is home to a 300k strong Jewish community, the largest Jewish community in Latin America. In recent years there has been a massive influx of Israeli "tourists" to Patagonia which coincided with the worst wildfires the region has seen in its entire history. Local Argentinians blamed the Israeli "tourists" for the wildfires. The wildfires of January 2026 destroyed 77,000 hectares (190,000 acres) of land. Argentine authorities arrested an Israeli citizen in relation to the wildfires.

In the late 19th century, there was a plan by Zionist leaders to establish a Jewish state in Patagonia as an alternative to Theodore Herzl's plan to colonize Palestine. The plan was created by Jewish-German banker, Maurice de Hirsch who founded the Jewish Colonization Association and was the biggest sponsor of Jewish emigration to Argentina. This colonization attempt came to be known in Argentina as "Plan Andinia" and is labelled by the ADL as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".

While the Jewish state in Patagonia never came to fruition, without Maurice de Hirsch's activism, Argentina would not have had its Jewish community

🔗 Europa.com (@europa)