Tom Meyer

Around the time of the USSR’s collapse, work was carried out in parallel with Mi-28 improvements on a deep modernization of the Mi-24—designated the Mi-37, codenamed “Tungus,” featuring a day-and-night electro-optical system and a mast-mounted radar.

Patrol ship 609, 614 retired. 617 soon. 1. Ching Chiang class is an example of ROCN overloding ships instead of converting them for more fitting purposes (port protection, anti-inflitration, mining & even mine countermeasure). 2. Hope radars be scavanged for use later.

The Las Vegas Sphere making faces as F-35s land! 📹: @rampcheckglobal

Read more about Iran’s chemical weapons program, including its development of weaponized pharmaceutical-based agents like aerosolized fentanyl in my @FDD memorandum: fdd.org/analysis/2026/…

Terrible news: Journalist @shellykittleson kidnapped by 4 men linked to Iraqi Hezbollah in central Baghdad. Officials had prior tip. The car flipped after police chase; second car driving at a distance snatched her while injured. Driver arrested. Kidnappers headed toward Babel.

Yo, @Porsche! This driver split one of your cars in two tonight in Dunwoody, Georgia. The driver wasn’t seriously hurt!

Strengthening military capabilities in space has become a strategic priority for European countries against the backdrop of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, high dependence on and vulnerability of space-based capabilities, and a marked shift in US foreign and security policy. The latest IISS–Europe research paper examines what would be required for Europe not only to strengthen its military space capabilities, but also to share more of the defence burden with the United States or pursue full autonomy. Free to read | Advancing European Military Capacity in Space by Erin Pobjie, @alexbollfrass, @Ester_Sab1 and Annemiek Dols: go.iiss.org/4uVItvA

We just got this Force Majeure letter today from AirGas, our helium supplier (for our food science lab, where we have multiple mass-spec instruments that use helium). The letter says that helium supplies are cut off, and if you're lucky, you might be allotted HALF the helium you need. Even then, you will be charged extra for any helium you get. A LOT extra. So basically, every mass spec lab in America is about to go offline. AirGas is expressly invoking FM and saying they cannot meet their contractual obligations. Not their fault. Trump did this by attacking Iran. My lab is fine, of course, because I saw this coming and I ordered my lab staff to buy a one-year supply weeks ago. We already have it in place. So we're still up and running with plenty of helium. But very few lab science people are paying attention to the Strait of Hormuz, so they are getting blindsided by this. Trump's war is shutting down science labs all across the country right now. Don't dare call this "winning." It's a loss for America. And the world.

JASDF Scramble - Something I´d never seen before, if not for X (See? this is how you make PR videos: with actors and real planes, not lego CGI Ai slop)

He's talking about the Eagle 44 installation. Low res imagery up to 16th doesn't show signs of major destruction, but it really doesn't matter at this point as far as the aircraft go. If it has missiles stuffed in there still then yes. More on Eagle 44: twz.com/iran-unveils-u…

The other night in class we got a Passive RADAR demo by one of our academic partners :)

JUST IN: Twelve A-10C Warthogs landed at RAF Lakenheath on March 30th under callsigns TABOR71 through 86. Michigan Air National Guard. Spotter videos confirmed the arrival. The aircraft refuelled on British soil and continued toward CENTCOM for Operation Epic Fury. The A-10 carries a GAU-8 Avenger cannon that fires 3,900 depleted uranium rounds per minute. It loiters for two hours at low altitude with 16,000 pounds of ordnance. It exists for a single purpose: protecting troops on the ground while they are being shot at. Hegseth says there is no ground war. Trump says America is leaving in two weeks. And twelve tank killers just crossed the Atlantic. The A-10 has no function in a standoff air campaign. It cannot launch cruise missiles from 500 miles away. It cannot strike from 40,000 feet. It flies low, slow, and close to the people it is protecting, absorbing ground fire with a titanium bathtub that surrounds the cockpit and keeps the pilot alive while the cannon does the work. If you deploy A-10s, you are planning for a scenario in which American soldiers are close enough to the enemy to need a gun that fires 65 rounds per second directly over their heads. That scenario has a name. It is called a ground operation. The most credible target is Kharg Island. Eight square miles of infrastructure sitting 16 to 26 kilometres off the Iranian coast, handling 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports through a terminal with 30 to 34 million barrels of storage capacity. A rapid seizure by Marines and special operations forces, supported by A-10 close air support and carrier-based air superiority, could reopen Iranian oil flows without occupying the mainland. Take the island. Control the terminal. Force the negotiation from a position where America holds the one piece of geography Iran cannot afford to lose. But here is where the deployment collides with the methane paradox it was sent to resolve. Every day the war continues, the 200 cryogenic helium containers in the Gulf lose pressure. Every day the Hormuz toll system operates, the IRGC collects revenue that funds its resistance. Every day the strait stays closed, fertiliser does not reach Indian fields and the planting window narrows. The A-10 surge is designed to shorten the war by making ground options credible. But the ground option itself risks prolonging the war if the raid stalls on Iranian mines or triggers retaliation against Gulf energy infrastructure. The aircraft that protects troops could accelerate the molecular crisis that the troops are deployed to resolve. The contradiction is the strategy. Deploy enough force to make the raid credible. Make the raid credible enough to make the deal inevitable. Make the deal before the raid becomes necessary. The A-10 is not coming to start a ground war. It is coming to prevent one by making the alternative to negotiation visible from the cockpit of a plane that flies low enough for the enemy to read the tail number. Twelve aircraft. 3,900 rounds per minute. Designed in 1972 to shred Soviet armour. Deployed in 2026 to make a Pakistani diplomat in Beijing believe America will use them if the framework fails. One question: does Beijing close the deal before the cannon has to answer it? The last molecule standing does not care about the calibre. It cares about the clock. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

🚨🇨🇳 China has unveiled a new 600 kg heavy-lift drone, designed for stable flight even in harsh weather conditions, boosting its capabilities in next-generation logistics and autonomous transport. With increasing payload capacity and resilience, such drones are set to play a key role in rapid delivery, remote operations, and advanced supply missions. The future of heavy-lift aviation is going unmanned.

March 2026 will probably become the warmest March on record for the United States and the *warmest month compared to average* overall, pending final data. It was a remarkable 7 degrees above-average across the country as a whole.

Three young U.S. soldiers allegedly threw 20–30 illegal fireworks at passing cars on a federal road in Bavaria. Police stopped them after a 20 km chase near Grafenwöhr and found more illegal fireworks and smuggled e-cigarette liquids. They were handed over to U.S. military police. Source: n-tv

ATL airport Spirit Airlines gate turns into full Braveheart mode Dozens of passengers going full 'FREEDOM!' with punches, kicks, and hair-pulling over... what, a boarding dispute? They fought like Scots at Stirling, except nobody was yelling for Mel Gibson. Police showed up fashionably late as usual.

BREAKING: In a highly symbolic move, the Israeli Air Force has bombed the former U.S. Embassy building in Tehran, which had remained closed since 1979. According to emerging details, security forces of the Islamic regime had positioned personnel inside the compound, assuming that its historic diplomatic status would deter any strike. That assumption proved wrong. The building has been completely destroyed in the airstrike. #OperationEpicFury #OperationLionsRoar

🚨EXC: The captain of one of Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines has stepped back from his role this week after being investigated over his relationship with Joani Reid, the Labour MP whose husband has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China as.ft.com/r/dfb74254-809…

The Strait of Hormuz is not closed. It is sorted. Iran has built a three-tier access system for the most important waterway on earth. Tier one: allies transit free. Malaysia cleared seven vessels through diplomacy at zero cost. India negotiated zero-fee passage. Pakistan secured clearance for 20 ships. Iraq transits without charge. These countries proved geopolitical alignment and the IRGC waved them through the Larak corridor without collecting a rial. Tier two: compliant neutrals pay. At least two tankers, likely Chinese-linked, paid up to two million dollars each in yuan through Kunlun Bank intermediaries. COSCO container ships attempted the corridor, were turned back on first approach when documentation was incomplete, then succeeded days later with revised paperwork. These are the vessels that prove the system works. They submit IMO numbers, ownership chains, cargo manifests, and crew lists to the IRGC’s Hormozgan Command. They receive clearance codes. They are escorted by pilot boats through the five-nautical-mile channel between Qeshm and Larak. They pay in a currency that does not route through SWIFT. Every successful yuan transit is a live proof-of-concept for non-dollar energy settlement. Tier three: adversaries are denied entirely. The committee plan bans American vessels, Israeli vessels, and vessels from any country participating in sanctions against Iran. These ships do not get vetting. They do not get codes. They do not get escorts. They get the AL SALMI, burning off Dubai, as illustration of what the corridor looks like without permission. But the toll is not the real cost. War-risk insurance is. Premiums have surged from $40,000 per VLCC transit before the war to $600,000 to $1.2 million today, a 30-fold increase, now running five to ten percent of hull value. A VLCC carrying $50 million in crude oil can absorb a combined $3 million in toll and insurance as a fraction of cargo value. A container ship carrying $5 million in manufactured goods cannot. The insurance premium alone exceeds the profit margin on non-oil cargo. The strait has become an oil-only VIP lane. Crude flows selectively for those who can pay the combined cost. Everything else waits, reroutes around the Cape of Good Hope, or does not move at all. And the US Navy is not inside the strait. The Abraham Lincoln strike group operates from standoff in the Arabian Sea. Three Littoral Combat Ships sit in the Persian Gulf. Marine expeditionary units are positioned for contingency. But zero American warships have transited the strait or escorted commercial traffic since the war began. The Navy told the shipping industry it has “no availability” for Hormuz escorts. The world’s most powerful fleet keeps respectful distance from a waterway controlled by a country whose navy is 92 percent destroyed because the mines, drones, and shore missiles that remain make close-in presence prohibitively risky. The result is a geopolitical sorting algorithm operating at the molecular level. One hundred and eighty-one vessels transited in all of March. Pre-war traffic was 138 per day. Of those 181, roughly 70 percent were Iranian-affiliated. The remaining 30 percent were vetted allies or yuan-paying neutrals. The 20 percent of global oil that once flowed freely through this strait now flows selectively, conditionally, and in currencies chosen by Tehran. Iran lost its air force. It lost its navy. It lost two thirds of its production capacity. It retained the only thing that matters: 39 kilometres of coastline on both sides of the narrowest point. The US Navy will not enter. Chinese tankers will. And the sorting algorithm processes another vessel, collects another yuan payment, and demonstrates once more that geography is the one military asset that cannot be degraded by precision strikes. The strait is not closed. It is under new management. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Spent all day in DC talking to Navy and military sources. My Hormuz Hypothesis stands: the Navy appears to be in no rush to reopen the strait. The question remains: what is this administration trying to leverage? Nobody I talked to is even willing to discuss that until European politicians and media stop calling Americans war criminals and monsters. And guess what? Even most liberals I talk to are getting tired of it. The only people pleased with the anti-American rhetoric vomiting out of Europe are the far left and a large segment of PhDs in academia and think tanks. I have no idea when the strait will reopen. But if the price is a modicum of cooperation and respect for everything America has done for decades to keep Europe safe, the strait could stay closed for months, or turned into a toll booth for years, because the majority of Americans…. and the vast majority of Trump administration officials I’ve talked with… seem fed up with their arrogance.