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DISPATCH 03/26 · 25 Jul 2026

BATTLEPOLICY

Startup to front line. Strategy to consequence.

Reference · Major weapon systems

WEAPONS LEXICON

A detailed, cross-linked reference to the major weapon systems of the world's leading military powers — NATO and its allies, Russia, China, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East — each entry tracing development, capability, combat record and the battlefield story behind it.

500

Systems

8

Domains

8

Origins

Origin

Browse by domain

01

Air

Fighters · Bombers · Rotary · Support

Fighters · Strike · Attack

A-29 Super Tucano

The Embraer A-29 Super Tucano is the world's default light-attack aircraft — a $1,000-per-hour turboprop with 60,000 combat hours from Colombia's FARC strikes to Afghanistan and Nigeria, 290+ ordered by 20+ air forces, and a counter-drone role added in 2025.

The AT-6 Wolverine is the A-29 Super Tucano's perennial bridesmaid — Textron's armed version of the T-6 Texan II trainer, faster and with ejection seats, sharing thousands of trainers' logistics. Yet it lost every big competition to the A-29 and to the OA-1K, and only Thailand ever bought it.

China's tailless, trijet sixth-generation heavy stealth fighter prototype — a program accelerating faster than expected, challenging US NGAD timelines and upending assumptions about the future of air combat.

Dassault Rafale

France's omnirole 4.5-generation twin-engine fighter — operational from land and carrier decks, nuclear-capable, and a mainstay of French and several export air forces.

Eurofighter Typhoon

Pan-European 4.5-generation canard-delta multirole fighter — the air superiority and strike backbone of four NATO air forces, in service since 2003.

F-15EX Eagle II

The F-15EX Eagle II is a 4.5-generation heavyweight twin-engine fighter derived from the Strike Eagle / QA, built to haul extreme payloads of air-to-air and standoff munitions, and to serve as the USAF’s new homeland-defense and high-end missile truck.

F-16 Fighting Falcon

The world's most widely operated fourth-generation multirole fighter, continuously upgraded for over four decades, now fielded in its latest Block 70/72 "Viper" configuration with active electronically scanned array radar and network-enabled avionics.

The world's first operational fifth-generation fighter — an all-aspect stealth, supercruise, thrust-vectoring air-dominance jet that remains the US Air Force's premier air-superiority asset, from the 2014 ISIS debut to the 2023 spy-balloon kill and the 2025–26 Iran crisis.

F-35A Lightning II

The U.S. Air Force's fifth-generation multirole stealth fighter — a single-engine CTOL aircraft with advanced sensor fusion, internal weapons carriage, and a global user base exceeding 1,300 airframes across 19+ nations.

Israel's uniquely modified F-35A Adir — the world's most combat-tested fifth-generation fighter, spearheading long-range strikes against Iran with sovereign C4/EW capabilities and zero airframe losses.

The Boeing F-47 is the US Air Force's sixth-generation NGAD fighter — the planned F-22 successor, awarded March 2025, with a claimed 1,000+ nautical mile combat radius and Mach 2+ speed. The first airframe is in build in St. Louis; first flight is targeted for 2028.

F/A-18 Super Hornet

The US Navy's carrier-borne multirole workhorse — a twin-engine, supersonic strike fighter that succeeded the F-14 Tomcat and A-6 Intruder, with an extensive combat record and ongoing Block III upgrades.

FA-50 Fighting Eagle

The affordable fighter conquering the export market — KAI's FA-50 is a light, supersonic combat jet (born from the T-50 trainer) that delivers much of an F-16's mission at a fraction of the cost. Poland, the Philippines and Malaysia are buying it; Block 20 jets add AESA radar and aerial refuelling.

India's home-built fighter — four decades in the making — the Tejas is a light, agile single-engine delta jet that finally gave India an indigenous combat aircraft. The Mk1A adds AESA radar and beyond-visual-range missiles; the bigger Mk2 is coming. The flagship of India's defence self-reliance.

China's workhorse 4.5-generation single-engine multirole fighter — a delta-canard design with an AESA radar, active in PLAAF and Pakistani service, and credited with the type's first air-to-air kill in 2025.

China's homegrown heavy multirole strike fighter — a twin-seat, twin-engine Flanker derivative packing an AESA radar and very-long-range air-to-air missiles, and the PLAAF's primary deep-strike and standoff platform.

J-20 Mighty Dragon

China's first operational fifth-generation stealth fighter — a twin-engine, low-observable air-superiority platform fielded exclusively by the PLAAF, with a growing fleet estimated at over 200 aircraft and an emerging maritime-strike capability.

China's second fifth-generation stealth fighter — the land-based J-35A "Cloud Dragon" — complements the J-20, brings cross-service carrier capability, and marks Beijing's push to break the Western monopoly on fifth-generation airpower exports.

The Shenyang J-50 (J-XDS) is China's second sixth-generation fighter prototype — a tailless, twin-engine lambda-wing jet with swiveling wingtips, first observed 26 December 2024, the same day as the Chengdu J-36. Beijing has never acknowledged it; everything known is OSINT.

China and Pakistan's lightweight, low-cost multirole fighter — a 4/4.5-generation export workhorse with AESA in Block III, and the backbone of the Pakistan Air Force.

The TAI KAAN is Turkey's indigenous fifth-generation fighter — flown in prototype form in February 2024, contracted for its first 20 production jets in May 2026, and already exported: Indonesia signed for 48. Its schedule still hinges on US-supplied F110 engines.

South Korea's indigenous 4.5-generation twin-engine fighter—a semi-stealth, AESA-equipped multirole platform designed to replace legacy ROKAF jets and compete for export orders among nations that cannot obtain the F-35.

The Soviet lightweight fighter both sides fly — and the one Ukraine famously hot-rodded, bolting American HARM and JDAM and French Hammer onto a 1970s airframe with an iPad in the cockpit. Agile, short-legged, and attrition-heavy, it became an improvised SEAD jet over Ukraine.

MiG-31 Foxhound

The MiG-31 Foxhound is Russia’s Mach 2.83 interceptor and sole airborne carrier of the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ballistic missile — an irreplaceable Cold War asset that dominates high-altitude combat and triggers nationwide alerts with every sortie, yet cannot be built anew.

Russia's heavily delayed attempt to modernize the MiG-29 into a 4++-generation multirole fighter, hampered by small production runs, missing AESA radar, and a near-absence from frontline operations.

France's delta-wing, fly-by-wire multirole fighter — 601 built, flown by nine air forces, and now intercepting Russian cruise missiles and pounding frontline targets over Ukraine.

OA-1K Skyraider II

The OA-1K Skyraider II is the armed crop-duster that beat the A-29 Super Tucano for the US Armed Overwatch contract — an Air Tractor AT-802 turned into an L3Harris gunship with 10 hardpoints, Hellfires and a WESCAM sensor ball. It won the US buy the A-29 dominates the world without.

The turboprop that flies like a jet — Switzerland's Pilatus PC-21 trains fast-jet pilots at a fraction of a jet's cost by mimicking jet-like performance and cockpits, "downloading" expensive jet training onto a cheap propeller plane. The most successful Western advanced trainer of its generation.

Saab JAS 39 Gripen

Sweden's homegrown lightweight multirole fighter—a single-engine, canard-delta design built for dispersal operations and low operating costs, fielded in classic C/D and next-generation E/F variants.

The Soviet swing-wing bomber Ukraine turned into its hardest punch — a 1970s tactical strike jet improbably re-armed with British Storm Shadow and French SCALP cruise missiles, which it has used to gut Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The most obsolete airframe became the most potent strike system.

The Su-25 Frogfoot is a heavily armored Soviet-era close air support jet, now flying for both Russia and Ukraine. Rugged, simple, and armed with a massive 30mm cannon and up to 4,000 kg of ordnance, it has become the most attrition-heavy fixed-wing type of the Russia–Ukraine war, adapting from.

The big Soviet air-superiority fighter built to out-range the F-15 — and the parent of the entire Flanker dynasty. Ukraine's pre-war top fighter, now an outclassed but still-fighting workhorse that flew night intercepts in the war's first hours and later flexed into a Western-bomb truck.

The Su-30SM — Russia’s twin-seat, thrust-vectoring multirole Flanker — combines long-range strike and air superiority with a dedicated weapons-system officer, and forms the backbone of Russian and several allied air forces.

Russia’s heavy strike fighter-bomber — a side-by-side two-seat Su-27 derivative that became the principal launch platform for UMPK glide bombs over Ukraine and the most heavily contested Russian combat jet.

Russia’s most advanced operational 4++ generation air-superiority fighter — a thrust-vectoring Flanker derivative with a powerful PESA radar and heavy weapons load, and the backbone of Russia’s air war over Ukraine.

Russia's first purported 5th-generation stealth fighter, designed for air superiority and multirole missions. Despite a protracted development, it has entered service in limited numbers and seen restricted use over Ukraine, primarily for standoff strikes.

Su-75 Checkmate

Russia's "PowerPoint fighter" — a single-engine stealth jet pitched at export buyers as cheap fifth-gen without US strings. Unveiled as a mockup in 2021 with Putin watching, it has still never flown, lost its UAE funding, and has no customer. The story is non-delivery.

WZ-9 Divine Eagle

The WZ-9 Divine Eagle is China's giant twin-fuselage stealth-hunting drone — a high-altitude uncrewed radar aircraft built to spot F-22s and F-35s and cue missiles at them. Almost everything known about it comes from satellite imagery; almost nothing is officially confirmed.

Bombers · Strategic

The U.S. Air Force's flying-wing stealth bomber — the world's only operational stealth bomber, sole carrier of the 30,000-lb GBU-57/B bunker buster, and the tip of the conventional and nuclear penetrating-strike spear.

The B-21 Raider is the U.S. Air Force's next-generation penetrating long-range strike stealth bomber — nuclear and conventional capable, designed for the most contested environments, and set to replace the B-1B and B-2 fleets alongside upgraded B-52s.

B-52 Stratofortress

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is the United States Air Force's longest-serving strategic heavy bomber — a subsonic, eight-engine platform that has carried both nuclear and conventional payloads on every major American air campaign since Vietnam and is now slated to fly into the 2050s via the.

China's long-promised stealth bomber — a flying-wing strategic aircraft meant to give Beijing a survivable nuclear-triad air leg and the reach to threaten Guam. Announced in 2016, it has yet to make a confirmed flight; by 2026 it looks less imminent than "frozen."

China's primary long-range strike platform — a modernized Tu-16 derivative that carries up to six cruise missiles, conducts persistent bomber patrols around Taiwan and the first island chain, and forms the backbone of PLAAF/PLANAF bomber aviation.

Tu-160 Blackjack

Russia's Mach-2-capable strategic heavy bomber and standoff cruise-missile carrier — the largest and fastest supersonic aircraft ever fielded, modernized with new-build Tu-160M aircraft entering service despite aging fleet challenges.

Tu-22M3 Backfire

Russia's supersonic variable-geometry long-range bomber — a stand-off launch platform for the near-unstoppable Kh-22/Kh-32 heavy missile, now contracting under the weight of attrition, precision-strike inadequacy, and a stalled modernization program.

Russia's Cold-War-era intercontinental turboprop bomber — the primary launch platform for Kh-101 cruise missiles and the air leg of its nuclear triad, now irreplaceable and facing historic attrition.

Rotary · Helicopters

The Bell AH-1Z Viper ("Zulu Cobra") is the US Marine Corps' marinized attack helicopter — a twin-engine, tandem-seat platform built for close air support, armed escort, and anti-armor missions from amphibious shipping and expeditionary airfields.

The Boeing AH-64 Apache is the United States’ premier attack helicopter — a twin-engine, tandem-seat anti-armor and close-air-support platform that has anchored U.S. Army rotary-wing combat power since Desert Storm.

Europe’s multinational attack helicopter — the Airbus Tiger is a twin-engine, tandem-seat platform that combines a chin-mounted cannon, anti-tank missiles, and a mast-mounted sight to give France, Germany, and Spain an anti-armour, fire-support and reconnaissance capability.

The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is the West's premier heavy-lift tandem-rotor helicopter, in continuous service since 1962 — moving troops, artillery, and cargo across every major U.S. conflict and fielded by more than a dozen allies.

Ka-52 Alligator

Russia's coaxial-contra-rotating attack helicopter — the heavily armed side-by-side two-seat Alligator has become the most prolific and most-attrited rotary-wing platform of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

The Mil Mi-24 Hind is a uniquely configured Soviet/Russian attack helicopter that combines a heavy gunship with an 8-troop transport compartment — the most combat-used rotary-wing type in history and still in production as the Mi-35M.

Russia's dedicated tandem-seat attack helicopter — a heavily armored, night-capable anti-armor platform armed with the Ataka missile, now seeing modernized Mi-28NM variants with longer-range munitions in Ukraine.

The most produced twin-turbine transport helicopter in history, the Mi-8 Hip (Mi-17) has been the backbone of Soviet/Russian and allied medium-lift aviation since the 1960s, with over 10,000 built and dozens of military and civil operators worldwide.

Europe's standard medium multirole helicopter — a twin-engine, fly-by-wire platform in land (TTH) and naval (NFH) configurations, fielded by eleven nations for air assault, ASW, and search-and-rescue.

The TAI T929 ATAK-2 is Turkey's Apache-class heavy attack helicopter — flown in prototype form in April 2023 on Ukrainian engines, then paused in 2025 for a utility-helicopter priority. Its future hangs on an indigenous engine that doesn't yet exist as hardware.

UH-60 Black Hawk

The United States' primary medium-lift utility helicopter since 1979, the UH-60 Black Hawk serves in air assault, MEDEVAC, special operations, and cargo roles across dozens of operators worldwide.

China's medium attack helicopter — a tandem-seat, twin-engine design built around the indigenous WZ-9 turboshaft, fielded by the PLA since 2009 and exported as the Z-10ME.

China's purpose-built scout-attack helicopter — a light, Z-9-derived tandem-seat rotorcraft with mast-mounted radar that acts as the eyes and fangs partner to the heavier Z-10 in PLA Army Aviation.

China's indigenously developed 10-tonne-class medium utility helicopter — a fly-by-wire, five-blade rotorcraft directly comparable to the UH-60, serving as the PLA's primary air-assault, transport, and naval shipborne platform.

AEW&C · Transport · Support

Russia's 1980s-era AEW&C aircraft on the Il-76 airframe, known for its rotating Shmel radome—a fleet severely diminished by two combat losses in early 2024.

C-17 Globemaster III

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a long-range heavy airlifter that combines intercontinental reach with the ability to operate from short, austere airfields, serving as the backbone of U.S. and allied strategic airlift since 1995.

C-390 Millennium

The Embraer C-390 Millennium is the fastest-selling Western tactical airlifter — a Brazilian twin-jet eating the C-130 replacement market with ~57 firm orders across ten customers from Portugal to South Korea to the UAE, and an Indian tender worth up to 80 more in play.

The E-2 Hawkeye is the US Navy's carrier-based radar aircraft — the twin-turboprop rotodome plane China's KJ-600 copies. Six decades of iteration, an AESA-radar E-2D that quarterbacks the fleet and cues SM-6 missiles over the horizon, and the airborne command node over the Red Sea and Iran.

The E-3 Sentry is the original AWACS — the Boeing 707 with the rotating dome that has been NATO's eyes in the sky since 1977. It quarterbacked the Gulf War, and is now an aging, shrinking fleet in a retirement crisis, its E-7 replacement in turmoil — a gap laid bare when Iran destroyed one in 2026.

The E-7 Wedgetail is Australia's and the US's next-generation AEW&C aircraft, built on a Boeing 737-700 airframe and equipped with a fixed MESA AESA radar — the chosen successor to the E-3 Sentry across NATO and a growing allied fleet.

The "eye in the sky" that broke Boeing's monopoly — Saab's GlobalEye puts a long-range AESA radar on a business jet to watch air, sea and land at once, out past 550 km. Flown by the UAE, Sweden and France, it was picked in 2026 to replace NATO's ageing AWACS fleet.

Russia's heavy four-engine strategic airlifter, in service since 1974 and now modernised as the Il-76MD-90A with PS-90A engines, serving as the backbone of operational lift and the platform for the A-50 AWACS and Il-78 tanker.

The KJ-3000 is China's next-generation flying radar — a Y-20B-based heavyweight AEW&C in flight test since December 2024, which the Pentagon says will probably be the world's first with a digital radar. Beijing has never acknowledged it; every number is OSINT or state-media claim.

China's most numerous modern AEW&C platform — a Y-9-based turboprop carrying a fixed three-array AESA radar for 360° coverage, in service with both the PLAAF and PLANAF and reportedly sought by Pakistan.

The KJ-600 is China's carrier Hawkeye — the first fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft to fly from a Chinese carrier, catapult-launched off the Fujian's electromagnetic system. It finally gives PLAN carriers the organic radar picture US carriers have had for decades.

China's first indigenous strategic airlifter — a four-engine heavy transport known as the Kunpeng that bridges the PLA's force-projection gap, and the basis for a fast-growing aerial tanker fleet that extends Chinese airpower far beyond the first island chain.

02

Land

Armor · Artillery · Infantry

Ukraine's indigenous 155 mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer — built to NATO caliber, produced at world-record rates, and combat-proven from the Snake Island shelling to the front lines of the Donbas.

The biggest self-propelled gun in the world — a Soviet 203mm monster firing a 110 kg shell up to 47 km, nuclear-capable, and dragged out of Cold War storage by both Russia and Ukraine for long-range counter-battery duels. Slow and exposed, but it hits like nothing else on the front.

The AGS-17 "Plamya" is a Soviet-designed, tripod-mounted 30×29mm automatic grenade launcher in service since 1971, delivering indirect suppressive fire to 1,700 m and widely proliferated across Soviet-legacy and export armies.

The AGS-30 "Atlant" is Russia's lightweight, crew-served automatic grenade launcher, a 30×29mm belt-fed successor to the AGS-17 that weighs only 16 kg on its tripod and sustains ~400 rpm for mobile infantry fire support.

Poland's international mash-up howitzer — the Krab marries a Korean K9 chassis, a British AS-90 turret, a French-pattern 155mm gun and Polish fire control into one 40-km self-propelled gun. Donated and then sold to Ukraine, it has become one of Kyiv's most prized Western artillery pieces.

Britain's troubled recon vehicle — a tracked, sensor-heavy armoured scout with a 40mm cased-telescoped cannon, meant to be the British Army's digital eyes. Eight years late and beset by noise-and-vibration injuries that hospitalized crews, it finally began entering service in 2025.

The AK-103 is Russia's 7.62×39 mm assault rifle of the AK-100 series — a modernised Kalashnikov built for export and internal security, keeping the legacy cartridge in a reliable, side-folding platform.

Russia's new-generation standard assault rifle — a fifth-generation Kalashnikov chambered in 5.45×39 mm, with improved ergonomics, burst-fire capability, and the combat-driven 2023 model refinements shaped by the war in Ukraine.

The AK-74M is the modernized Soviet-era 5.45 mm assault rifle that served as the Russian Federation's standard infantry weapon from 1991, bridging the gap from the AK-74 to the AK-12 with a side-folding polymer stock and dovetail optics rail.

Turkey's first indigenous main battle tank — a 65-tonne design derived from South Korea's K2 Black Panther, now entering service with the Turkish Army, featuring a 120 mm smoothbore, the Aselsan AKKOR active protection system, and a powerpack initially sourced from Hyundai.

The U.S. Army’s modern tracked armored personnel carrier, built on a Bradley-derived chassis to replace the M113 family across the Armored Brigade Combat Team.

France's 6×6 "gun on wheels" — a fast, 105mm-armed reconnaissance vehicle the press dubbed a light tank when France sent it to Ukraine. Hard-hitting and quick on roads, but thinly armored: a mobile cavalry scout pressed, controversially, toward front-line assault work.

Sweden's fully automated 155 mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer — a crew-under-armor shoot-and-scoot system delivering precision strikes at extended ranges, fielded by Sweden, the UK, and Ukraine.

The IFV Australia chose over the Lynx — Hanwha's AS21 Redback is a heavily-protected tracked fighting vehicle with a 30mm cannon, Spike missiles, active protection and a helmet that lets crews "see through" the hull. A Korean design built on Australian soil, it beat Rheinmetall to win Land 400.

The US military's iconic 9mm service pistol from 1985 to 2017 — a double-action hammer-fired design that defined the NATO sidearm era and remains in wide legacy and allied service.

The Soviet-era 122 mm Grad is the world’s most ubiquitous multiple rocket launcher — 40-tube burst fire, truck-mobile, and a massed-fire mainstay in both Russian and Ukrainian arsenals, now reliant on North Korean and Czech-brokered 122 mm ammunition pipelines.

Russia’s 300 mm heavy multiple-launch rocket system — the BM-30 Smerch and its modernised GLONASS-guided Tornado-S successor — delivering area saturation and precision deep fires out to 120 km.

Russia's air-droppable infantry fighting vehicle — a lightweight, amphibious tracked IFV armed with a 100 mm gun-launcher and 30 mm autocannon, fielded by the VDV airborne forces.

The BMP-2 is the world’s most widely proliferated tracked infantry fighting vehicle — a lightweight, amphibious Soviet-legacy design that marries a 30 mm autocannon with anti-tank missiles and has been a fixture of every major ground conflict since the 1980s.

Russia's heavily armed tracked infantry fighting vehicle — a 100 mm gun-launcher with an integral 30 mm autocannon, amphibious, and a staple of mechanized units that has suffered catastrophic losses in Ukraine.

Poland's new amphibious IFV — the Borsuk ("Badger") replaces thousands of Soviet-era BMP-1s with a modern, swimming tracked fighting vehicle carrying an unmanned 30mm turret and Spike anti-tank missiles. A flagship of Poland's massive military build-up, entering service in 2025.

The Boxer is a modular 8×8 multirole armoured vehicle – a common drive platform that accepts mission-specific modules to deliver protected mobility in roles from troop transport to infantry fighting vehicle and reconnaissance.

Russia's mainstay modern wheeled armored personnel carrier — an amphibious 8x8 with a 30 mm autocannon that first saw combat in Syria and is now heavily used in Ukraine.

Italy's sole domestic third-generation main battle tank — a 54-tonne, 120 mm smoothbore platform now undergoing a C2/AMV upgrade to address obsolescence and low fleet availability.

France's truck-mounted 155 mm self-propelled howitzer — a high-mobility wheeled artillery system that has redefined shoot-and-scoot with NATO-standard range and a growing presence across Ukraine’s front lines.

A tank's gun on wheels — Italy's 8×8 Centauro II mounts a full 120mm cannon with main-battle-tank firepower on a fast, road-mobile, mine-protected wheeled hull. The heavier, harder-hitting successor to the original Centauro, built for rapid fire support without a tank's logistics.

The British Army's sole main battle tank since 1998 — a heavily armoured, 62.5-tonne brute with a unique 120 mm rifled gun, set to be replaced by the smoothbore-armed Challenger 3.

Britain's tank gets a new gun at last — the Challenger 3 rebuilds the Challenger 2 with an all-new turret and a NATO-standard 120mm smoothbore cannon, ending decades of Britain going its own way with a rifled gun. A modest 148-tank fleet, with first deliveries due in 2027.

The CV90 is a Swedish tracked infantry fighting vehicle family — a modular, heavily protected design serving across NATO's northern flank and now combat-proven in Ukraine.

The Czech rifle gone global — CZ's BREN 2 is a light, fully ambidextrous, multi-calibre assault rifle that swaps between 5.56 NATO and 7.62×39 and a range of barrel lengths. The Czech Army's standard arm, adopted by French special and police units and licence-built in Hungary.

France's networked 6×6 cavalry vehicle — the Scorpion-program Jaguar that replaces three older recon and fire-support types with one, mounting a 40mm cased-telescoped cannon and Akeron anti-tank missiles. The digital, missile-armed successor to the AMX-10RC.

Israel's first heavy 8×8 wheeled armored personnel carrier — a high-mobility, Iron Fist APS-protected vehicle designed to replace M113s and field an IFV variant, battle-tested in Gaza since 2023.

The iconic Soviet-era defensive fragmentation hand grenade, known as the Limonka, in continuous combat service since the late 1930s.

The FN SCAR is Belgium's modular special-operations combat assault rifle in 5.56 mm (Mk16) and 7.62 mm (Mk17), adopted by USSOCOM and over a dozen other forces, combining a short-stroke piston with quick-change barrels.

Germany's standard-issue assault rifle from 1997 — a lightweight, polymer-intensive 5.56 mm design by Heckler & Koch that served through Kosovo and Afghanistan, and whose accuracy controversy reshaped Bundeswehr procurement.

Austria's polymer-frame, striker-fired service pistol — the ubiquitous 9×19mm sidearm of NATO militaries and law enforcement worldwide, in continuous production since 1982.

The GP-25 “Kostyor” is a 40mm caseless under-barrel grenade launcher for AK-pattern rifles — fielded in 1978 and a fixture of Russian infantry squads from Afghanistan to Ukraine.

The HK416 is Heckler & Koch's piston-driven re-engineering of the AR-15 platform — widely fielded as a special-forces carbine, France's standard rifle, and the US Marine Corps' M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle.

K2 Black Panther

South Korea's world-class tank — and Europe's new workhorse — the K2 Black Panther pairs a 120mm L/55 gun, an autoloader, an active protection suite and hydropneumatic "kneeling" suspension in one of the most advanced MBTs in service. Poland is buying 1,000, with production moving to Polish soil.

South Korea's wheeled multi-caliber multiple launch rocket system — firing guided rockets, tactical ballistic missiles, and unguided munitions from a single 8×8 chassis, now spreading across NATO's eastern flank.

The K9 Thunder is South Korea's 155 mm/L52 tracked self-propelled howitzer — the most widely exported SP gun in the world and the backbone of NATO's eastern-flank tube artillery.

The KN-25 is North Korea's 600mm "super-large" rocket launcher — the world's biggest-caliber guided rocket artillery, a rocket/ballistic-missile hybrid reaching 380 km, nuclear-tasked and mass-produced. Despite two years of reports, no transfer to Russia has ever been confirmed.

Russia’s next-generation tracked 152 mm self-propelled howitzer—a fully automated, crew-isolated design intended to replace the 2S19 Msta-S and bring a claimed reach beyond 70 km, though still in limited, pre-mass-combat introduction.

Russia's standard 12.7×108mm heavy machine gun, developed after the Soviet collapse to replace the NSV and fielded on tripods, vehicles, and main battle tanks from the late 1990s onward.

The L85A2 (SA80) is the British armed forces’ standard bullpup assault rifle — a 5.56×45mm NATO weapon with a short-stroke piston, 518 mm barrel, and a tumultuous early service life redeemed by a Heckler & Koch mid-life upgrade.

France’s high-speed third-generation main battle tank — a three-man design built around a 1,500 hp Hyperbar diesel and a 120 mm L/52 smoothbore with an autoloader, now undergoing a fleet-wide digital upgrade to the XLR standard.

Germany's Leopard 2 — the most widely fielded Western main battle tank, a 120 mm four-crew design exported to more than 20 armies and donated to Ukraine, where its 2A4 and 2A6 variants have fought since 2023.

Rheinmetall's modular tracked IFV — a clean-sheet fighting vehicle with a digital Lance turret (30 or 35mm cannon + Spike missiles) and a reconfigurable hull. Bought by Hungary, picked by Ukraine as its standard IFV, and headed for Italian co-production.

The U.S. Army’s latest tracked self-propelled howitzer — a 155 mm L/39 gun on a Bradley-common chassis, built to sustain indirect fire for armored brigade combat teams.

The United States' wheeled, C-130-transportable precision rocket artillery system — battlefield-proven in Ukraine and known as the "sniper of artillery," firing GMLRS, ATACMS, and the future PrSM.

The standard US military sidearm since 2017 — a modular, striker-fired 9mm pistol built by SIG Sauer to replace the M9, and the source of a contentious safety controversy.

The M1989 Koksan is North Korea's 170mm self-propelled gun — the largest-caliber tube artillery in service anywhere, built to range Seoul. Since late 2024 Pyongyang has shipped 120–200 to Russia, where they now fire on Ukrainian lines and are being hunted by drones and HIMARS.

The United States' main battle tank — a four-crew, 120 mm gas-turbine heavy tank whose SEPv3 standard adds the Trophy active-protection system, and which was supplied to Ukraine in 2023.

The M2 Bradley is the U.S. Army's tracked IFV — a 25 mm chain gun, TOW missiles, and a six-man infantry squad on a single armored chassis, proven from Desert Storm to the close-range tank kills of the Ukraine war.

The M2 Browning "Ma Deuce" is the century-old .50 cal heavy machine gun that remains the standard NATO crew-served weapon for anti-materiel, anti-personnel, and vehicle defense.

The iconic US under-barrel 40mm grenade launcher — a single-shot, slide-forward break-action launcher that equips M16 and M4 rifles with high-explosive, HEDP and specialty rounds, the standard squad-level grenade system for 30+ years.

The M240 — the US standard 7.62mm general-purpose machine gun, built from the FN MAG and fielded since 1995 — anchors infantry, vehicle, and helicopter firepower across NATO and beyond.

The M249 SAW — FN's belt-fed, 5.56mm squad automatic weapon adopted by the US in 1984 and exported to 75+ countries, now being supplemented by the 6.8mm XM250.

The M32 MGL is a six-shot revolver grenade launcher in 40×46 mm, fielded by the US Marine Corps and SOCOM, offering rapid semi-automatic fire of up to six rounds in under three seconds.

The M320 is a single-shot 40×46mm low-velocity grenade launcher that mounts under a service rifle or operates as a standalone weapon with a collapsible stock, adopted by the U.S. Army in 2009 to replace the M203.

The standard US carbine of the post-Cold-War era — a compact, 5.56 mm direct-impingement select-fire weapon that served across Afghanistan, Iraq and dozens of allied forces.

The M67 fragmentation grenade is the standard US defensive hand grenade since 1961 — a spherical, Composition B-filled weapon with a 5-meter lethal radius, used in every major American conflict from Vietnam to the present.

The M777 (M777A2) is a lightweight 155 mm towed howitzer—air-transportable, titanium-built, and combat-proven from Iraq to Ukraine.

Russia's new 8×8 truck-mounted 152 mm self-propelled howitzer — a cheaper, more mobile addition to the artillery park designed for rapid shoot-and-scoot in the drone-saturated battlefield.

The West German Cold War infantry fighting vehicle—a tracked, 20 mm–armed troop carrier that, after decades as the Bundeswehr’s backbone, has re-emerged as a refurbished assault workhorse for Ukraine, melding Rheinmetall’s deep industrial capacity with a simple, survivable design.

Israel's survivability-first main battle tank — engine-forward architecture, rear-crew-exit, and the combat-proven Trophy active protection system, continuously upgraded since 2003 into the AI-enabled Barak standard.

The standard U.S. belt-fed 40 mm automatic grenade launcher — a crew-served, blowback weapon that delivers high-velocity grenade fire against personnel and light armor out to 2,200 m, and has served in every major U.S. deployment since the Gulf War.

Russia's standard-issue 9mm service pistol — a DA/SA sidearm adopted to replace the Makarov PM, fielded in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine, and now being supplemented by newer designs.

The 2A65 Msta-B is a Soviet-era 152 mm towed gun-howitzer that entered service in 1987 and remains the backbone of Russian divisional artillery — now heavily committed in Ukraine, where its towed configuration leaves it acutely exposed to drone-cued counter-battery.

Russia’s mainstay 152 mm tracked self-propelled howitzer — the 2S19 Msta-S, with its 2A64 ordnance, entered service in 1989 and remains the backbone of Russian divisional artillery, with the modernized 2S19M2 adding digital fire control.

Rheinmetall's clean-sheet tank — a Panther built around a 130mm autoloaded gun (50% more reach than the Leopard's 120mm), a three-crew turret, integrated loitering munitions and active protection. Germany's bid to leapfrog the Leopard while the Franco-German MGCS tank stalls.

The most successful modern 8×8 — Finland's Patria AMV is a modular wheeled armoured vehicle adopted by a dozen nations and licence-built across Europe, Africa and Asia (as Poland's Rosomak, South Africa's Badger and more). One chassis, many roles, combat-tested from Afghanistan onward.

China’s premier truck-mounted howitzer — a 155 mm/L52 wheeled system designed for rapid shoot-and-scoot, air mobility, and export success, with a combat-proven record through Pakistan.

China's modular, long-range wheeled multiple-launch rocket system — built to strike targets up to 500 km across the Taiwan Strait with a mix of guided rockets and Fire Dragon tactical ballistic missiles, and the keystone of the PLAGF's deep-fires modernization.

India's rocket artillery — the Pinaka fires a salvo of twelve rockets in under a minute, saturating targets out to 40 km and, in guided versions, 75–120 km. Battle-proven since Kargil in 1999 and used again in 2025, it is now exported to Armenia.

The PKM is the Soviet Union's workhorse 7.62mm general-purpose machine gun — a belt-fed, open-bolt design that has armed infantry squads, vehicle mounts, and tripod emplacements across more than five decades of continuous combat from Afghanistan to Ukraine.

China’s main modern tracked 155 mm self-propelled howitzer — a L/52 autoloaded gun fielded by the PLA since 2008, with no export record and no verified combat use.

China's export-tracked 155 mm self-propelled howitzer — the PLZ-05A's international face, offered by NORINCO but with no confirmed sales.

Israel’s multi-caliber precision rocket launcher — a wheeled, pod-based system that spans 12 km to 300 km with a single vehicle and has become Europe’s leading non-US alternative to HIMARS.

Germany's premier tracked IFV — a 30 mm airburst cannon, modular armor, and the most powerful engine in its class, equipping the Bundeswehr's Panzergrenadier units and the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.

Germany's high-tempo tracked 155 mm self-propelled howitzer, prized for its burst rate of fire and long reach, serving across NATO and Ukraine.

China’s bullpup squad light support weapon, chambered in 5.8×42mm and fed from a 75-round drum — the standard PLA squad-automatic of the Type 95 family.

The QBZ-03 is China’s conventional-layout, folding-stock assault rifle developed alongside the bullpup Type 95 — issued to border, airborne and reserve troops, and exported to Myanmar.

China's new-generation standard assault rifle — a conventional-layout, short-stroke piston platform with modular rail interface, firing the proprietary 5.8×42mm DBP-191 round, replacing the bullpup QBZ-95 family across the PLA.

China's standard-issue bullpup assault rifle for two decades — a gas-operated, short-stroke piston design in the proprietary 5.8×42 mm cartridge, now being replaced by the conventional-layout QBZ-191.

The QJY-88 is the People's Liberation Army's 5.8mm general-purpose machine gun, chambered for China's indigenous intermediate cartridge and intended to replace older 7.62mm GPMGs — a lightweight design that drew criticism for its limited range and penetration.

China's lightweight crew-served heavy machine gun — a 12.7×108mm belt-fed weapon that is among the lightest in its class, fielded by the PLA for infantry and vehicle roles.

China’s standard under-barrel grenade launcher — a muzzle-loaded single-shot 35×32mm caseless system that arms the QBZ-95-1 and QBZ-191 rifle families with HE-frag, airburst and dual-purpose grenade effects.

China's semi-automatic precision grenade launcher, fielded in 35mm for the PLA and 40mm for export — delivering airburst rounds through a window at 600 m.

China's first indigenous automatic grenade launcher — a gas-operated 35mm weapon that delivers squad-level suppressive fire and has proliferated across conflict zones from Sudan to Iraqi Kurdistan.

The QSZ-92 is China's standard-issue PLA/PAP sidearm — a polymer-frame, rotating-barrel pistol chambered in two distinct cartridge families, including a unique 5.8×21mm armor-defeating round, and now being supplemented by the newer QSZ-193.

KNDS's wheeled 155mm howitzer — a fully automated PzH 2000-class gun on a Boxer 8×8, and the only turreted howitzer in the world that can fire accurately on the move. Ukraine is the launch customer; shoot-and-scoot survivability for the drone-saturated battlefield.

The standard Soviet/Warsaw Pact offensive fragmentation hand grenade since 1954 — a lightweight, smooth-bodied anti-personnel weapon built for close combat, in continuous service from Afghanistan to Ukraine.

The RPK-74, the squad-level light machine gun of the AK-74 family, has provided sustained automatic fire for Russian and allied infantry since the 1970s. Featuring a heavier barrel, bipod, and 45-round magazine, it remains in widespread front-line service.

AI-enabled rifle-mounted fire-control sight that turns any rifleman into a drone hunter — organic counter-UAS capability for dismounted squads, now fielded across the US Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy.

The rifle that made the bullpup mainstream — Austria's Steyr AUG packed a full-length barrel into a compact polymer body with an integral optic and quick-change barrels, decades ahead of its time in 1978. Still produced, still serving in ~40 countries, it is Austria's defining weapon.

The Stryker family of wheeled 8×8 armored vehicles — the backbone of US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, fielded since 2002 and exported to Ukraine, with variants from base troop carrier to 30 mm Dragoon and counter-drone directed-energy platforms.

Russia's next-generation MBT — a radical unmanned-turret design with a crew armoured capsule, Afganit active protection, and a 125 mm gun, but the program remains mired in low-rate prototypes and has seen no meaningful frontline service.

Russia's most numerous modernized main battle tank — an upgraded T-72B with a 1,130 hp engine, Relikt ERA (on B3M) and a gun-launched ATGM, forming the backbone of its armored force in Ukraine.

Russia's gas-turbine main battle tank — a deep modernization of the T-80BV with Relikt ERA, a 1,250 hp turbine, and extensive combat use in Ukraine.

03

Sea

Surface · Subsurface · Naval systems

Surface · Carriers · Combatants

Admiral Gorshkov

Russia's most modern surface combatant — a multirole frigate built around long-range precision strike with Kalibr and Zircon hypersonic missiles, and the anchor of its future surface fleet.

Admiral Grigorovich

A Russian Black Sea Fleet frigate class, the Admiral Grigorovich (Project 11356R/Krivak V) delivers Kalibr cruise-missile land-attack strikes and provides multirole escort — a workhorse of Moscow's naval strike from the Black Sea.

Admiral Kuznetsov

Russia's sole aircraft carrier — a heavy, conventionally powered STOBAR ship designed in the 1980s, now crippled by repeated accidents and likely headed for the scrapyard.

The backbone of the U.S. surface fleet — a 9,500-ton multirole Aegis destroyer with 96 vertical launch cells, evolving from the SPY-1 to the SPY-6 radar, and the platform that fought the heaviest air-defense battles since World War II in the Red Sea.

Russia's small, shallow-draft Kalibr-armed missile corvette — a ~950-tonne hull that can transit inland rivers between fleets and lob land-attack cruise missiles 1,500 km. It fired the first combat Kalibr at Syria in 2015 and has been a principal platform for strikes on Ukraine.

Constellation-class

The US Navy's FREMM-derived next-generation frigate — intended as a 20-hull class to close the force-structure gap, cut to 2 half-built hulls when the program was canceled in November 2025 amid runaway redesign and cost growth.

Spain's new Aegis frigate — a Navantia-built warship pairing Lockheed Martin's SPY-7 radar and the Aegis combat system with a Spanish-designed integrated mast and a digital-twin "Shipyard 4.0" build. The high-end ASW-and-air-defence successor to the F100.

Spain's Álvaro de Bazán-class frigate — the first European Aegis air-defence combatant, carrying 48 Mk 41 VLS cells and shaping a generation of allied frigate designs.

France's "digital-native" frigate — a 4,500-tonne multi-mission warship with a fixed four-panel AESA radar, Aster air-defence and Exocet anti-ship missiles, and a cyber-hardened combat system designed from the keel up. Built for France and Greece, where it has already fought drones in the Red Sea.

The Franco-Italian FREMM multimission frigate — combining anti-submarine warfare excellence with long-range land-attack and air defence, and the design parent of the US Constellation class.

Gerald R. Ford-class

The world's largest warship — a nuclear-powered supercarrier with electromagnetic catapults, built to sustain a ~75-aircraft air wing and project power globally, and the centerpiece of the US Navy's 11-carrier fleet.

Russia's small, stealthy "missiles-with-a-hull" corvette — an 860-ton Project 22800 ship that carries eight Kalibr or Oniks cruise missiles, the more seaworthy sibling of the Buyan-M. Cheap, heavily armed, and a recurring Ukrainian target.

Mogami-class Frigate

Japan's stealth frigate — and its first big arms export — the Mogami-class packs firepower, mine warfare and unmanned systems into a low-signature hull run by a small, automated crew. In 2025 Australia picked the upgraded version over Germany's — Japan's first major overseas defence contract.

PPA (Thaon di Revel-class)

Italy's shape-shifting warship — a Fincantieri ship that scales from a lightly-armed patrol vessel to a full FREMM-class combatant by configuration, and can be up-gunned over its life. The "Multipurpose Combat Ship" that bets one hull can be many warships.

The Sa'ar 6 Magen class consists of four multi-mission corvettes built for the Israeli Navy to defend offshore gas fields and shipping lanes, armed with Barak-8 area-defense missiles and the shipborne C-Dome point-defense system, and recently employed in long-range strikes against the Houthis.

The Soviet-built Slava-class guided-missile cruiser — a Cold War "carrier-killer" anchored around 16 deck-mounted P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship missiles and an S-300F area air-defence system, now reduced to two active hulls after the sinking of the Black Sea flagship Moskva.

Russia's principal modern multirole corvette family — compact littoral combatants evolved from a simple anti-surface/ASW design into a Kalibr-carrying strike platform, forming the coastal backbone of the Baltic, Northern, and Pacific Fleets.

TCG Anadolu is Turkey's flagship — a Juan Carlos I-derived LHD reinvented as the "world's first drone carrier" after the F-35B expulsion. Bayraktar TB3 drones fly from its ski-jump deck, struck sea targets in NATO's Baltic exercise in 2026, and Kizilelma is meant to follow.

Type 003 Fujian

China's first indigenously designed CATOBAR carrier, the Type 003 Fujian, is conventionally powered yet launches aircraft via electromagnetic catapults—a first for any non-US navy.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s most numerous modern destroyer — a multirole air-defence combatant with 64 universal VLS cells, an AESA radar, and over 35 hulls in service, forming the backbone of China’s carrier escort and blue-water surface force.

The People's Liberation Army Navy's most numerous modern surface combatant — a 4,000-tonne multi-role frigate with a 32-cell VLS, YJ-83 anti-ship missiles, and a global operational footprint built on Gulf of Aden anti-piracy deployments.

Type 055 Renhai

China's largest and most powerful surface combatant — the Type 055 Renhai combines a 12,000-ton displacement with 112 universal VLS cells, serving as the PLAN's carrier-strike-group escort and flagship.

China's 40,000-ton amphibious "light carrier" — a helicopter assault ship that lands troops, vehicles and air assault forces over the horizon, built in numbers as the maritime spearhead of any future move on Taiwan. The PLAN's amphibious apex.

Type 076 Sichuan

The PLAN's next-generation amphibious assault ship and the world's first purpose-built drone carrier — combining a full-length flight deck, electromagnetic catapult, arresting gear, and a floodable well deck for a hybrid amphibious/UCAV strike capability.

Type 26 Frigate

The Royal Navy’s next-generation ASW frigate — a quiet, acoustically optimized design that became one of the most successful Western surface-combatant exports of its era, selected by Australia, Canada, and Norway, and building for the UK as the City-class.

Type 31 Frigate

Britain's cheap, fast-build frigate — a 5,700-tonne general-purpose warship designed to a fixed ~£250m price on a proven Danish hull, lightly armed at first but built with the space and power to grow. The Royal Navy's bet that hull numbers and flexibility beat gold-plating.

The Royal Navy's specialist area air-defence destroyer — built around the SAMPSON AESA radar and the Sea Viper missile system, with a 48-cell Sylver VLS, a symbol of high-end European naval capability and the first RN ship to intercept a ballistic missile since the Gulf War.

Subsurface · Submarines

The Royal Navy’s stealthy nuclear-powered attack submarine — armed with Spearfish torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, sheathed in 39,000 anechoic tiles and driven by a pump-jet for silent patrols world-wide.

Russia's latest nuclear ballistic-missile submarine, the cornerstone of its sea-based nuclear deterrent, carrying 16 Bulava SLBMs and featuring a pump-jet propulsor for enhanced stealth.

The Columbia class is the US Navy's next ballistic-missile submarine — 12 boats replacing 14 Ohios, with electric drive, an X-stern and a life-of-ship reactor. The $126B+ program is the Navy's top priority, running ~a year late with lead-boat delivery now targeted for 2028.

Israel's Dolphin-class submarines — German-built diesel-electric attack boats with air-independent propulsion, a reported nuclear second-strike role, and a history wrapped in operational secrecy that only occasionally lifts.

Hai Kun Submarine

Taiwan's home-built deterrent — the Hai Kun ("Narwhal") is the island's first indigenous submarine, built with quiet foreign help to give Taipei a stealthy weapon that could threaten any Chinese invasion fleet. After decades unable to buy submarines abroad, Taiwan built its own.

Russia's diesel-electric Kalibr-capable attack submarine — the "Black Hole" of the Black Sea, a widely exported SSK and the platform behind the only documented submarine-launched cruise-missile strikes in combat.

KSS-III Submarine (Dosan Ahn Changho-class)

The conventional submarine that carries ballistic missiles — South Korea's KSS-III is a large, indigenous AIP boat with a vertical launch system for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, a strike capability almost unheard of outside nuclear-powered navies. Later boats add lithium-ion power.

Russia's troubled Project 677 diesel-electric attack submarine — a mono-hull design intended to replace the Improved Kilo with Kalibr capability and planned air-independent propulsion, but plagued by decades of delays and an absent AIP system.

MILDEN is Turkey's first indigenously designed submarine — the ~2,700-tonne Atılay class, in block construction at Gölcük since January 2025 with a methanol-reformer AIP and Turkish weapons. Delivery is promised for the early 2030s; nothing is yet in the water.

The United States Navy’s sea-based strategic deterrent — 14 nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines carrying Trid

S-80 Plus Submarine

Spain's AIP submarine — a large Navantia boat with a bioethanol fuel-cell air-independent power plant and a Tomahawk-class land-attack option. Famous as much for its troubles: an early design came out too heavy to surface, forcing a costly redesign before the first boat sailed in 2023.

Scorpène-class

A Franco-Spanish diesel-electric attack submarine family with optional MESMA air-independent propulsion, exported to Chile, Malaysia, India, and Brazil, and the backbone of India's Kalvari and Brazil's Riachuelo classes.

France's next-generation nuclear attack submarine — the Barracuda-class Suffren boats carry the MdCN cruise missile, F21 torpedoes, and a special-forces lock-out, replacing the Rubis-class SSNs one-for-one.

China's primary conventional attack submarine with indigenous Stirling air-independent propulsion — a quiet, multi-week-endurance boat built for regional sea denial, and the platform behind Beijing's push into the submarine export market.

China's second-generation nuclear attack submarine, the Type 093 Shang family, from initial torpedo-armed boats to the VLS-equipped Type 093B, forms the backbone of the PLAN's undersea force.

China's first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent — a nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine carrying up to 12 JL-2 or JL-3 SLBMs, fielding six boats for near-continuous patrols.

Germany's pioneering fuel-cell AIP attack submarine — the ultra-quiet Type 212A, now evolving into the larger Type 212CD for North Atlantic/Arctic operations, operated by Germany, Italy and (on order) Norway.

Type 212 / 214 Submarine

The submarine that "disappears" — Germany's Type 212/214 pioneered near-silent hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion, letting a non-nuclear boat stay submerged for weeks and slip past sonar so well it has "sunk" carriers in NATO war games. The world's benchmark export AIP submarine.

The US Navy’s premier nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, blending advanced quieting, a large Tomahawk strike payload, and special-operations support; the platform at the center of the AUKUS submarine pathway.

Russia's most modern nuclear attack submarine — a multirole SSGN carrying Kalibr, Oniks, and Zircon cruise missiles in vertical silos, and the quietest Russian submarine design to date, assessed as comparable to US Seawolf/Virginia generation.

04

Air & Missile Defense

SAM · Interceptors · C-UAS

Iran's mobile medium-to-long-range SAM — a self-contained launcher-radar vehicle from the indigenous Raad family, Iran's rough Buk equivalent. It shot down a US RQ-4 Global Hawk over the Strait of Hormuz in 2019, the country's most famous air-defence kill.

India's home-built air shield — the Akash is an indigenous medium-range surface-to-air missile that guards against jets, drones and cruise missiles out to ~25 km. It performed well in India's 2025 clash with Pakistan and won its first export, to Armenia.

Alpine Eagle Sentinel

Alpine Eagle is the airborne outlier of Europe's counter-drone wave — a Munich startup whose Sentinel system puts the whole kill chain in the sky: a reusable "mothership" drone that flies high, carries interceptor drones, and hunts hostile drones from above rather than from a ground launcher.

Alta Ares X-Lock

Alta Ares is France's big-funded counter-drone startup — two years old, it raised a €50M Series A on AI guidance "combat-proven over Ukraine." It builds the anti-Shahed X-Lock and turbojet Black Bird interceptors; its Pixel Lock software is the claimed edge, though its record is self-reported.

Anduril Roadrunner

A reusable, jet-powered vertical-takeoff interceptor built to hunt drones at an order-of-magnitude lower cost than legacy missiles — and land again if the threat evaporates.

APKWS is the cheap precision kit that turns a dumb 70mm rocket into a laser-guided munition — the ~$25,000 round underneath VAMPIRE, the OA-1K, and F-16s shooting down Shaheds over the Red Sea. Not a missile, but a guidance section that clips into rockets the fleet already carries.

Israel's exoatmospheric hit-to-kill ballistic missile interceptor, jointly developed with the U.S., combat-proven against Houthi and Iranian missiles, and now fielded by Germany as the first European upper-tier system.

Israel's modular, multi-layer air and missile defense system — a single battle-management core that mixes short-, medium- and long-range interceptors for land and naval deployments, now combat-proven and rapidly expanding its export footprint.

Iran's flagship indigenous long-range SAM — an S-300/S-400-class system built to defend Tehran and its nuclear sites after sanctions delayed Russia's S-300. Iran claims it rivals the S-400; the 2025–26 air wars tested those claims hard.

BLAZE is the order-first entry in Europe's counter-drone wave — a radar-guided, NATO-codified interceptor drone from Latvia's Origin Robotics that flies a radar vector onto a Shahed, then finishes with AI vision. Built on a tiny ~€4M budget, it's fielded by four NATO states and picked by France.

Russia’s latest tracked medium-range SAM — a 6-missile canisterized TELAR with active-radar fire-and-forget interceptors, fielded to thicken the lower tier of its integrated air defense.

An AI-driven robotic gun that shoots drones out of the sky with ordinary bullets — the "magazine-deep, ten-dollar-a-kill" answer to FPV and swarm attacks. Computer vision lays the gun; a human pulls the trigger. Fielded with the US Army and Navy and now valued at $2.2 billion.

CACI's SkyValor is a long-range, autonomous counter-drone system that defeats UAS without gunfire, jamming their links and firing nets to capture them intact. The Pentagon validated it for use across the entire US Joint Force in June 2026 after a southern-border test.

The U.S. Army’s primary expendable jet-powered interceptor for drone defense — operated within the LIDS architecture, paired with KuRFS radar, and now arming Navy destroyers.

Israel's mid-tier mobile air and missile defense system — a hit-to-kill interceptor designed to defeat short-range ballistic missiles, large rockets, cruise missiles and aircraft, sitting between Iron Dome and the Arrow family and increasingly central to Israel's layered shield.

Britain's drone-frying laser — a directed-energy weapon that burns aerial targets out of the sky for about £10 a shot, accurate enough to hit a £1 coin at a kilometre. After a 2024 high-power trial it won a £316m deal to arm Royal Navy destroyers from 2027.

The FIM-92 Stinger is a combat-proven shoulder-fired infrared-homing air-defense missile that has evolved from a Cold War MANPADS into a modern counter-drone weapon, now being refurbished, rebuilt and replaced through a multi-track programme to keep it operational into the 2030s.

Flakpanzer Gepard

The Cold War-vintage twin-35 mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun revived as Ukraine's cost-effective counter to massed Shahed drone attacks, and the weapon system that forced Western armies to rethink short-range air defense.

Frankenburg Mark 1

The Frankenburg Mark 1 is Estonia's baguette-sized interceptor missile — a ~60 cm, ~$50,000 guided rocket built by a startup to shoot down Shahed drones for a tenth the cost of a legacy SAM. The missile-class answer, distinct from FPV interceptor drones, in Europe's counter-drone wave.

Hisar is Türkiye's indigenous short-and-medium-range SAM family — the two middle rungs (Hisar-A, Hisar-O) of the "Steel Dome" air-defense ladder below the long-range Siper. ASELSAN radars, ROKETSAN missiles, and a naval version that scored a live UAV kill in 2025.

China's medium-range SAM family — vertical-launch HQ-16A/B, export LY-80, and naval HHQ-16 — bridging the gap between long-range HQ-9 and SHORAD.

China's indigenised short-range air defence system, derived from the Russian Tor-M1, providing mobile point and manoeuvre-unit protection against low-altitude threats.

China's medium/long-range surface-to-air missile system — a cheaper complement to the HQ-9, exported as the FK-3 and marking China’s first strategic SAM in Europe with its sale to Serbia.

China's indigenous long-range air-defense system, a Sinicized S-300 evolution with a claimed 260 km reach, limited anti-ballistic capability, and a growing operator list, though its combat effectiveness remains largely unproven.

Germany's medium-range air-defense missile system, combat-proven in Ukraine — a road-mobile, vertical-launch SAM built to engage aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones out to 40 km, and rapidly proliferating across European and allied forces.

Israel’s first operational high-power laser air-defense system — a 100 kW directed-energy weapon designed to intercept rockets, mortar bombs and drones at a fraction of the cost of kinetic interceptors, now woven into the Iron Dome network.

Israel's battle-proven mobile system for intercepting short-range rockets, artillery shells, and drones — the bottom tier of a multi-layered air defense network, now also fielded by the US Marine Corps as MRIC.

Iron Wasp is a vehicle-mounted hard-kill counter-drone interceptor from Rafael and SpearUAV: a capsule-launched interceptor drone, derived from SpearUAV's Viper I, that lets armored vehicles physically destroy FPV drones and loitering munitions while on the move.

Iran's HESA Karrar is a jet-powered target drone adapted into claimed strike and air-defense interceptor roles, with performance and weapons claims still thinly verified outside Iranian sources.

Korkut is Türkiye's twin-35mm radar-directed anti-aircraft gun — the gun rung of the "Steel Dome" ladder below the Hisar and Siper missiles. Firing airburst rounds that throw a cone of tungsten pellets, it's the Turkish gun answer to cheap drones, like the Gepard and Skynex.

Lockheed Martin GRIZZLY

Lockheed Martin's GRIZZLY is a containerized missile launcher, tested in June 2026 firing a JAGM to intercept a Group 3 attack drone at Yuma, that fuses Lockheed's Sanctum battle-management software and Fortem R-40 radars into one counter-drone kill chain.

The MIM-23 Hawk is the 1950s US medium-range SAM the Pentagon retired in the 1990s — and pulled back from the grave for Ukraine. Spanish launchers, US-refurbished missiles and Taiwanese stocks now down Shaheds and cruise missiles by the score, proof that cheap depth beats exquisite scarcity.

The NASAMS is a medium-range, distributed, networked air-defense system jointly developed by Norway and the United States, built around the ground-launched AMRAAM and proven in combat in Ukraine.

Nordic Air Defence Kreuger

Nordic Air Defence is the smallest, cheapest, most software-first bet in Europe's counter-drone wave — a Swedish startup whose one-pound Kreuger-100XR dart loiters, then rams or blasts a Shahed for a few thousand dollars. The least-proven name in the field: no combat record, pre-production.

Russia's mobile short-range gun-and-missile point defense system — designed to shield high-value assets from aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones, and both heavily used and increasingly targeted in Ukraine.

The Patriot PAC-3 is the United States' premier long-range air-and-missile defense system — a road-mobile, layered SAM and lower-tier BMD platform that combines blast-fragmentation and hit-to-kill interceptors to defeat aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles.

The shoulder-fired missile that became a star of the Ukraine war — Poland's Piorun is a modernized, sharper-eyed heir to the Soviet Igla that has knocked down Russian jets, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones, and won orders from the US Army. A cheap, mobile answer to the air threat.

The Soviet-built S-300 family of long-range SAMs — a road-mobile system that continues to anchor Ukraine's air defense and has been repurposed by Russia for ground strikes in the Ukraine war.

Russia's flagship long-range air-defense system — a road-mobile, layered SAM built to engage aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles out to 400 km, and the centerpiece of both its homeland shield and its arms-export diplomacy.

S-500 Prometheus

Russia’s strategic mobile air-defense and anti-ballistic missile system — claimed to engage ballistic missiles, hypersonic threats, and low-orbit satellites up to 600 km, now fielded by a single regiment.

The Sa'ar 6 Magen class consists of four multi-mission corvettes built for the Israeli Navy to defend offshore gas fields and shipping lanes, armed with Barak-8 area-defense missiles and the shipborne C-Dome point-defense system, and recently employed in long-range strikes against the Houthis.

The Franco-Italian SAMP/T (Mamba) is Europe’s only long-range surface-to-air missile system with proven anti-ballistic-missile capability, fielding the Aster 30 interceptor and offering a road-mobile, 360° defense against aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles.

The Siper is Turkey's indigenous long-range SAM — the 100+ km top tier of the "Steel Dome" network, built after the S-400 purchase froze Ankara out of Western systems. Block 1 is operational, Block 2 (150+ km) is in test, and Blocks 3/4 promise missile defense.

Germany’s modular, gun-based SHORAD system — built around the 35 mm Oerlikon Revolver Gun Mk3 and Skymaster C2, delivering cost-effective AHEAD airburst fire against drones and cruise missiles in Ukraine, and now being adopted by Italy and other NATO nations.

Rheinmetall’s modular, unmanned 30 mm gun-missile turret — NATO’s emerging standard for mobile short-range air defense against drones, loitering munitions and low-flying aircraft, rapidly adopted across five European armies.

The SM-3 is the US Navy's exoatmospheric hit-to-kill interceptor — the only Standard Missile built to destroy ballistic missiles in space. It made the first combat exoatmospheric intercepts in history defending Israel in April 2024, and its magazine is now the center of the US interceptor crisis.

The US Navy's multi-role interceptor — Standard Missile 6 combines long-range air defense, terminal ballistic-missile defense, and anti-ship strike into one round, and became the first US weapon to down an anti-ship ballistic missile in combat.

Israel's mobile, quick-reaction surface-to-air missile family built around Python-5 and Derby interceptors, spanning short-range slant-launch to extended-range vertical-launch and a single-vehicle All-in-One variant, now featuring a counter-tactical-ballistic-missile option.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense — a wheeled, hit-to-kill interceptor system that destroys short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase, both inside and just above the atmosphere.

Russia's autonomous short-range air-defense system — a single-vehicle, tracked SAM that carries 16 vertical-launch missiles for point defense against aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones, and a staple of Moscow's counter-drone shield.

Tytan is the German flagship of Europe's interceptor-drone wave — AI hit-to-kill drones (fixed-wing METIS, multicopter EOS) combat-used in Ukraine, under a Bundeswehr contract, with a NATO Innovation Fund-backed Series A and a factory scaling to 3,000 a month.

VAMPIRE is L3Harris's bolt-on counter-drone kit — a four-round laser-guided rocket launcher and sensor that turns any pickup into a Shahed-killer for about $25,000 a shot. Fielded in Ukraine since 2023, it downed its first Shahed that December; the US Army bought in for up to $106M in 2026.

05

Missiles & Strike

Ballistic · Cruise · Hypersonic · Loitering

The cruise missile that killed the INF Treaty — a ground-launched, nuclear-capable weapon the US says flies far past the 500 km the treaty banned, and Russia insists stays just under it. The arms-control dispute became its legacy; its reported 2025 combat use in Ukraine is its grim sequel.

A modular French rocket-boosted precision glide-bomb kit that transforms standard bombs into jam-resistant stand-off weapons, proving critical in Ukraine where it retains accuracy under Russian GPS denial.

AGM-114 Hellfire

The AGM-114 Hellfire is the 40-year workhorse of US precision strike — the laser-guided missile that armed the Apache against Soviet tanks, defined the armed-drone era on the Reaper, killed Soleimani, and in its bladed R9X "Ninja" form kills single targets with steel blades instead of a warhead.

America's premier low-observable air-launched standoff cruise missile, available in short-, extended- and extreme-range variants, and the weapon that bore the heaviest consumption burden of the 2026 Iran campaign.

India's long-range deterrent — the Agni-V is a road-mobile, nuclear-capable ballistic missile that puts all of China within reach. In 2024 India test-fired a version carrying multiple independently-targeted warheads (MIRV), joining a small club of powers with that technology.

The AIM-120 AMRAAM is the West's standard active-radar beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, fielded on 14 fighter types and 42 nations, with a combat record stretching from 1992 to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Anduril Barracuda

Anduril's Barracuda is a family of low-cost, turbojet-powered autonomous cruise missiles — Barracuda-100, -250 and -500 — built for mass production, with a Pentagon order for at least 3,000 rounds and co-production lines planned in Poland and Taiwan.

Anduril's man-portable VTOL loitering munition — AI-guided, returnable if no strike, and the U.S. Marine Corps' first squad-level autonomous organic precision fires system, ordered under the $249M OPF-L program.

The "bigger brother" of the Shahed-136 — Iran's large, long-range kamikaze drone, unveiled with the boast that it was built to hit Tel Aviv and Haifa. Claimed to fly ~2,000 km with an anti-radar seeker, it's real and fielded — and US forces have already blown one up.

The MGM-140 ATACMS — a HIMARS/MLRS-launched short-range ballistic missile, fielded since Desert Storm and the backbone of US deep-strike fires — now a critical enabler in Ukraine’s long-range campaign.

Ukraine's UJ-26 Bober, or Beaver, is a long-range one-way attack drone associated with HUR strikes against Moscow, Crimea and Russian military infrastructure.

The Roketsan Bora is Turkey's combat-proven tactical ballistic missile — fired against PKK targets in 2019, the first Turkish BM used in anger, and exported to Indonesia as the Khan: the first Turkish ballistic-missile export, deliberately sized under the MTCR threshold.

The world's fastest cruise missile in service — India and Russia's BrahMos is a Mach-3 ramjet weapon that hits ships and land targets from sea, land, air and submarine. India used it in combat against Pakistan in 2025 and now exports it to the Philippines.

Russia's experimental nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile of claimed unlimited range — designed to evade missile defenses through circuitous low-altitude flight, plagued by a troubled test record and not yet in service.

Castelion Blackbeard

A startup's bet that hypersonics can be cheap. Castelion — founded by ex-SpaceX engineers — is building Blackbeard, a Mach 5+ strike missile aimed at ~$300k a round and 500 a year, applying the drone war's "affordable mass" logic to a weapon legacy primes sell for $40M.

China's tube-launched, electric loitering munition — a man-portable, recoverable-or-lethal reconnaissance-strike system that can be launched singly or in swarms from a 48-tube vehicle, and is being aggressively export-marketed alongside the larger Rainbow and Wing Loong families.

The Chernika-2 ("Blueberry") is Russia's foam flying-wing strike drone — 3.5 kg warhead, 100 km reach, ~$10k all-in, with Russian-claimed machine-vision navigation that flies under jamming. Over 11,000 claimed built; hitting Kharkiv since June 2025.

China's principal subsonic land-attack cruise missile — fielded from ground launchers, H-6K bombers, and warships, with reported nuclear capability and ranges exceeding 2,000 km — widely viewed as a direct counterpart to the US Tomahawk and Russian Kalibr.

The US Army’s first intermediate-range hypersonic weapon — a road-mobile boost-glide missile designed to strike defended targets at theatre depth with a speed of Mach 5+, up to 3,500 km range, and a common All-Up Round shared with the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike programme.

DART is a Ukrainian balloon-launched strike missile: dropped from a stratospheric aerostat at 12-18 km, it shuts off its own navigation at ~6 km and finishes on a fixed solid-fuel course, leaving Russian jamming nothing to attack. Its graphite warhead is built to short out power grids.

Israel's air-launched turbojet loitering cruise missile — man-in-the-loop precision and multi-platform flexibility from F-16s to PULS MLRS. Combat-proven since the 2006 Lebanon War, and used to suppress Iranian air defences in the 2026 Iran campaign.

China's road-mobile DF-17 marries a medium-range ballistic missile booster to the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle — a maneuvering, low-altitude payload built to outwit missile defenses and hit fixed high-value targets at 1,800–2,500 km.

China's pioneering land-based anti-ship ballistic missile — the "carrier killer" that forced the U.S. Navy to rethink its force structure, holding aircraft carriers at risk out to 1,500 km.

China's road-mobile, dual‑capable intermediate‑range ballistic missile — able to strike land targets out to Guam and, in its DF‑26B variant, engage moving ships at sea.

The DF-27 is China's ICBM-range hypersonic glide missile — per the Pentagon a fielded conventional ICBM with the world's longest-range anti-ship variant, reaching Hawaii, Alaska and much of the Pacific. Never shown or acknowledged by Beijing; nearly all data traces to one leaked US document.

China's road-mobile, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile — capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles and reaching the continental United States from dispersed launch points inside China.

The Emad is Iran's first precision-guided ballistic missile — a Ghadr airframe with a maneuvering reentry vehicle, ~1,700 km range. It has flown in every True Promise salvo against Israel since April 2024, and the 2026 war gutted the launcher force and factories that field it.

Russia's cheap, mass-produced glide-bomb conversion kit — turned Soviet-era free-fall bombs into standoff weapons and became the defining Russian strike capability of the war in Ukraine.

Iran's most advanced operational ballistic missile — a solid-propellant MRBM with a powered maneuvering re-entry vehicle, marketed by Tehran as "hypersonic" and combat-tested against Israeli defenses in 2024 and 2025.

Iran's hypersonic-glide evolution of the Fattah-1 — a missile pairing a solid-fuel booster with a maneuvering liquid-fuel glide vehicle, claimed to reach Mach 15 over ~1,500 km. Topical after the Israel–Iran exchanges, but its real performance is heavily disputed.

Ukraine's homegrown deep-strike cruise missile — a 3,000 km-range, heavy-warhead missile built for mass production at low cost to hit Russian military-industrial targets.

Russia's jet-powered evolution of the Shahed one-way attack drone — a turbojet engine, higher speed, and jam-resistant navigation designed to overwhelm mobile air defenses, now in experimental combat over Ukraine.

Russia's jet-powered Shahed: a purpose-built, ~500 km/h one-way attack drone designed for one job — to fly faster than the cheap Ukrainian interceptor drones that had been knocking the propeller Shaheds out of the sky. The speed comes at the cost of range.

Low-cost multi-purpose Russian drone, a Shahed-136 lookalike used as a saturation decoy, one-way attack, reconnaissance and signal relay, forcing costly air-defense engagements at extreme cost asymmetry.

A clever bolt-together weapon — a small glide bomb strapped to a surplus rocket motor to give HIMARS a 150 km punch that can curve around defenses and even strike behind the launcher. On paper a bargain deep-strike round; in Ukraine, blunted badly by Russian jamming.

Israel Aerospace Industries' canister-launched, man-in-the-loop loitering munition — built to hunt and kill air defenses, high-value targets and radars after hours of silent search.

The Helsing HX-2 is a German, AI-enabled, swarming loitering munition — an electrically propelled X-wing drone built for mass, precision, and jamming-resistant deep strikes, now in Ukrainian service and under European and US evaluation.

A canister-launched, electric-propulsion loitering munition for precision anti-armor strikes with man-in-the-loop control, adopted by the US Army and Marine Corps.

China's man-portable, fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile — a Javelin-class top-attack system with imaging-infrared guidance, a tandem HEAT warhead, and no confirmed combat use.

Hsiung Feng III

Taiwan's "carrier killer" — the ramjet-powered Hsiung Feng III streaks toward enemy ships at around Mach 3, too fast for many defences to react. Fired from warships, coastal batteries and fighter jets, it is a core asymmetric weapon meant to make any Chinese invasion fleet pay a heavy price.

The Hwasong-18 is North Korea's first solid-fuel ICBM — cold-launched, road-mobile, three-for-three in 2023 tests, with an implied 15,000 km reach covering the entire US. It compresses pre-launch warning to minutes and sparked an unresolved fight over Russian design help.

South Korea's strike arsenal — the Hyunmoo family runs from Tomahawk-like cruise missiles to the Hyunmoo-5 "monster missile," a conventional ballistic weapon with an 8-tonne bunker-buster warhead built to smash North Korea's deepest command bunkers. The non-nuclear backbone of Seoul's deterrence.

Israel's pioneering anti-radiation loitering munition — a delta-wing flying-wing drone that autonomously hunts and destroys radar emitters over 200 km, firing no active signal, and the genealogical root of the Harop family that reshaped SEAD in Nagorno-Karabakh and South Asia.

Israel's 120 mm precision-guided mortar munition, the Iron Sting, transforms any standard smoothbore tube into a room-level, dual-mode (GPS/laser) strike asset — combat-proven since October 2023 in Gaza and Lebanon.

Russia's primary road-mobile short-range ballistic missile — nuclear-capable, maneuvering, and the workhorse of its deep-strike campaign in Ukraine.

The FGM-148 Javelin is a man-portable fire-and-forget top-attack anti-tank guided missile — a Raytheon–Lockheed Martin joint venture, the symbolic anti-armor weapon of the war in Ukraine, and the NATO-standard infantry ATGM fielded by more than 20 operators worldwide.

The JL-3 is China's third-generation submarine-launched ballistic missile — a ~10,000 km-class, likely MIRV-capable weapon now fielded on Jin-class submarines, which the Pentagon says ranges most of the continental US. First shown publicly at the September 2025 parade.

Russia's mainstay sea- and submarine-launched cruise missile family, covering land-attack and anti-ship roles; first combat use in Syria (2015) and a primary weapon in the war against Ukraine's energy grid.

Turkey’s man-portable quadcopter loitering munition — embedded machine-learning autonomy, swarm-capable, and the world’s most cited alleged lethal autonomous weapon system.

Russia's stealthy air-launched cruise missile — a long-range subsonic weapon carrying a 450 kg conventional warhead, the primary stand-off munition in Moscow's sustained aerial campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure.

Russia's stealthy precision cruise missile — a low-flying, low-radar-signature weapon shaped to fit inside the Su-57's bays. Launched from tactical jets with little warning, it destroyed the Trypilska power plant near Kyiv in 2024 and now spearheads the campaign against Ukraine's grid.

Iran's solid-fuel medium-range ballistic missile — quick to launch, road-mobile, and tipped with a maneuvering warhead that jinks in its final seconds to dodge interceptors. It flew in Iran's 2024 barrages on Israel, and its booster later seeded the Fattah-1.

Iran's heaviest liquid-fuel medium-range ballistic missile family, derived from the North Korean Musudan, carrying large conventional warheads or submunitions out to ~2,000 km and assessed capable of 3,000 km with a lighter payload — a centrepiece of IRGC strategic strike and the subject of.

Russia's air-launched aeroballistic missile, marketed as a hypersonic "Dagger" and carried by modified MiG-31K interceptors — a weapon whose "uninterceptable" myth was punctured when a Patriot battery shot one down over Kyiv.

KN-23 Hwasong-11Ga

North Korea's solid-fuel quasi-ballistic short-range missile — an Iskander lookalike manufactured at the February 11 Plant, transferred to Russia, and combat-proven in Ukraine with evolving accuracy.

Russia's primary man-portable anti-tank guided missile — a SACLOS laser-beam-rider with a tandem-HEAT warhead, fielded since 1998 and exported widely to over 20 countries and non-state actors.

Russia's dominant loitering munition — an electric X-wing anti-materiel drone with shaped-charge, fragmentation, and thermobaric warheads, used at mass scale against artillery, armor, and air-defense assets in Ukraine.

LGM-35A Sentinel

The LGM-35A Sentinel is the US ICBM replacing the 1970-vintage Minuteman III — and America's most troubled strategic program: an 81% cost breach to at least $141B, silo reuse abandoned for all-new silos, first flight slipped to 2028 and IOC to the early 2030s.

Israel's long-range precision strike missile — a theater quasi-ballistic system launched from mobile ground launchers, ships, or fighters, delivering a 570 kg warhead with 10-meter accuracy up to 430 km.

Ukraine’s workhorse long-range one-way attack drone — a piston-prop deep-strike design that has systematically hit Russian oil refineries and defence plants at 1,000–1,700 km, reshaping the strategic cost equation of the war.

Europe's air-superiority edge — the only operational ramjet air-to-air missile, whose throttleable engine keeps it accelerating to the target for a "no-escape zone" far larger than the AMRAAM's. Built by six European nations for the Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen — and now reaching Ukraine.

The Molniya is Russia's plywood-and-tape strike drone — a $300–1,600 fixed-wing weapon launched by the thousands each month against Ukrainian cities and supply roads, now spawning fiber-optic, FPV-carrier, recon and 13 kg heavy variants. Cheap mass as doctrine.

Naval Strike Missile (NSM)

Norway's stealth ship-killer — a low-flying, fully passive cruise missile with an imaging-infrared seeker that emits nothing for defenders to detect, weaves around islands and terrain, and is now the West's anti-ship weapon of choice from US Navy ships to Marine truck launchers.

Shoulder-fired, single-use anti-tank missile with overfly top-attack and fire-and-forget PLOS guidance — the weapon that defined Ukraine's close-quarters tank-killing in 2022.

Russia’s road-mobile, MIRV-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile — a post-INF dual-use weapon employed sparingly for strategic messaging rather than battlefield effect.

Russia's Mach-2.5 ramjet cruise missile and the Bastion-P coastal batteries that fire it — designed to kill ships, but used relentlessly against Ukrainian land targets because its speed makes it brutally hard to intercept. The parent design of India's BrahMos.

Ukraine's home-built jet "missile-drone" — a cruise-missile/drone hybrid named after a hearth-bread that doubles as a wartime shibboleth. Built in 18 months to hit the Russian airfields that bomb Ukrainian cities, it sidesteps the range limits on Western weapons.

The Paveh is Iran's 1,650 km-claimed cruise missile — the IRGC's Project 351, identical to the Houthis' Quds that hit Saudi Aramco in 2019. Used against Israel in April 2024 (0 of ~30 got through), exported to three proxy arsenals, and absent from the missile-dominated 2025–26 wars.

Ukraine's "Hell" — a jet-powered missile-drone, the faster sibling of Palianytsia. Built in under a year and already in serial production, it flies a mini-cruise-missile profile to hit Russian refineries, depots and airfields, and was used in the June 2026 Moscow oil-refinery strike.

Perennial Hornet

The Perennial Hornet is a ~$5,000 AI-guided one-way strike drone from Eric Schmidt's Perennial Autonomy — an optically navigated fixed-wing aircraft Ukrainian units use to burn Russian supply trucks 50-150 km behind the front, the workhorse of Kyiv's "logistics lockdown" campaign.

China's premier long-range active-radar beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, developed for the J-20 and other modern PLAAF fighters, and the first Chinese AAM to see combat—contested but revealing—in the 2025 India-Pakistan air clashes.

America's next-generation tactical ballistic missile — a HIMARS/MLRS-fired deep-strike weapon that doubles ATACMS reach, adds anti-ship capability, and made its combat debut against Iran in 2026.

Ukraine's indigenous subsonic cruise missile, developed for coastal defense but now a deep-strike land-attack weapon. It sank the Russian cruiser Moskva in 2022 and, in its Long Neptune form, claims a 1,000 km reach.

Israel's supersonic stand-off missile — a low-cost, quasi-ballistic strike weapon derived from the EXTRA artillery rocket that lets fighters engage high-value fixed targets from outside enemy air defenses.

The S8000 Banderol is Russia's AliExpress cruise missile — a Kronshtadt-built weapon around a Chinese hobby turbojet, launched from Orion drones: 500 km range, 114 kg warhead, agility Ukrainian intelligence says beats the Kalibr. First used on Kyiv in June 2026.

Ukraine’s first indigenously developed short-range ballistic missile — free of Western range and target restrictions, and now serial-produced to strike airbases, command posts and logistics hubs deep inside Russian-controlled territory.

Iran's first solid-fuel medium-range ballistic missile — a two-stage, road-mobile MRBM fielded by the IRGC, with a ~2,000 km range and a short-notice launch capability that marks a step beyond liquid-propellant Shahab derivatives.

The Shahed-101 is Iran's small one-way-attack drone — the quiet, catapult-launched progenitor of the Shahed-107, used by Hezbollah and Iraqi militias since 2021, confirmed in Ukraine from late 2025 (all-Iranian parts), and refielded in an electric, near-silent variant for Iran's 2026 Gulf strikes.

The Shahed-107 is Iran's mid-range strike drone reportedly built for Russia's war — announced as a 1,500 km HIMARS hunter, revealed by Ukrainian teardown as a ~300 km, 15 kg-warhead X-tail drone hitting the near rear. The gap between those two descriptions is the story.

Iran-origin, Russia-built long-range one-way attack drone — the saturation-strike icon of the Ukraine war, fired in mass nightly salvos to exhaust air defenses and strike infrastructure at a cost-exchange ratio that has rewritten the economics of strategic bombardment.

Iran's jet-turbine loitering munition — a faster, costlier successor to the Shahed-136, fielded by Russia as the Geran-3 and by Iran itself in the Gulf.

Elbit Systems’ SkyStriker — a canister-launched, electric loitering munition with a 5–10 kg warhead, 100–200+ km range, abort-and-relaunch capability, and tight integration with the PULS rocket launcher.

Israel's GPS-independent electro-optical bomb kit and glide-weapon family — a scene-matching system that converts unguided bombs into precision stand-off munitions, proven from Balakot to Tehran.

Israel's multi-platform electro-optical anti-tank and precision-strike missile family — from the shoulder-fired Spike SR to the 50 km helicopter-launched Spike NLOS, the most-exported Western ATGM, in service with 39 nations.

Germany's combat-proven eVTOL loitering munition — a VTOL, AI-guided one-way attacker that pairs with reconnaissance drones for EW-resilient precision strikes.

The British-French Storm Shadow / SCALP-EG is a stealthy, air-launched cruise missile designed to destroy hardened targets from stand-off range, and the weapon that gave Ukraine its first long-range deep-strike capability.

Ukraine's home-built tank-killer — a tripod ATGM with one defining trick: the crew fires it by cable from up to 50 m away, in cover, while the launcher sits exposed. Cheaper than a Javelin, it became famous for killing tanks and, on video, shooting down Russian helicopters.

The Switchblade family of tube-launched, man-portable loitering munitions — the 300 for anti-personnel and the 600 for anti-armor — delivers precision strike with real-time operator oversight, and has been battle-proven in Ukraine.

Taurus KEPD 350

A German-Swedish stealthy air-launched cruise missile designed to destroy hardened and buried targets from over 500 km, carrying the unique MEPHISTO tandem warhead and serving Germany, Spain, and South Korea.

The Roketsan Tayfun is Turkey's longest-range ballistic missile — revealed by a 561 km test in 2022, in mass production since 2023, with the enlarged Block-4 marketed as Turkey's "first hypersonic missile." Range claims span 280 to 1,500 km; only the demonstration is certain.

Thundart is the MBDA-Safran guided rocket-artillery munition and 8×8 launcher selected in June 2026 as France's sovereign FLP-T choice to replace the aging LRU — a 150 km, ITAR-free deep-strike capability France hopes to field around 2030.

The BGM-109 Tomahawk is the US Navy’s primary subsonic land-attack cruise missile — a precision stand-off weapon launched from ships and submarines and used in every major US conflict since 1991.

Ukraine's "buzz bomb" — a deliberately crude, dirt-cheap pulsejet missile built by volunteers to be fired in salvos and mixed with decoys, forcing Russia to spend million-dollar interceptors on a $3,000 target. The loudness is the point.

Type 12 Surface-to-Ship Missile

Japan's counterstrike missile — the upgraded Type 12 stretches a once-coastal anti-ship weapon to ~1,000 km, adds stealth shaping, terrain-following and evasive maneuvers, and can hit ships or land targets from ground launchers, ships and aircraft. The spearhead of Tokyo's new strike posture.

Typhon (Mid-Range Capability)

The US Army’s containerized mid-range launcher that puts Tomahawk and SM-6 on land — restoring a 500–2,000+ km strike band after the INF Treaty, and the centerpiece of Army Pacific deterrence and an export saga that collapsed in Europe.

The V2U is Russia's autonomous AI strike drone — Nvidia Jetson brain, terrain-matching navigation, and late-2025 builds recovered with no radio link at all: nothing to jam. CSIS assesses Russia has likely fielded a fully autonomous weapon in combat. Maker unknown.

Ukraine's first home-built guided glide bomb — a clamp-on wing-and-guidance kit that turns a dumb 250-kg bomb into a stand-off precision weapon, the Ukrainian answer to Russia's devastating FAB-UMPK. Declared combat-ready in May 2026; no confirmed strike yet.

China's ship-and-air-launched anti-ship hypersonic ballistic missile — a "carrier killer" with a maneuvering glide vehicle fired from Type 055 destroyers and H-6N bombers. The core of the A2/AD picture meant to hold US carriers at risk deep in the Pacific.

Russia’s ship- and coast-launched scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile — a carrier-killer with nuclear capability, used sparingly against Ukraine since 2024.

06

Uncrewed Systems

UAV · UGV · USV · UUV · Swarms

Aerial · UAV / UCAV / CCA

AeroVironment P550

The AeroVironment P550 is a runway-independent, battery-electric eVTOL reconnaissance drone built for the US Army's Long-Range Reconnaissance program, giving battalion commanders up to five hours of modular ISR, relay, electronic-warfare and strike capability.

Airbus Ravenstorm

Airbus's U760 Ravenstorm is an uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft concept — a stealthy loyal wingman for air-to-air combat, strike and jamming unveiled at ILA Berlin 2026 and aimed at Germany's post-FCAS combat-drone race. So far it is a model, not an aircraft.

The Airbus U145 is an uncrewed, AI-flown conversion of the best-selling H145 light-twin helicopter, unveiled at ILA Berlin 2026 and pitched for high-volume cargo resupply in contested zones where putting aircrew at risk is no longer acceptable.

Turkey's twin-engine Aksungur is a TAI-built MALE UCAV derived from Anka, combining long endurance, a heavy payload and a growing maritime-patrol and unmanned-teaming role.

The YFQ-44A Fury is America's jet-powered semi-autonomous fighter drone — a collaborative combat aircraft designed to team with crewed fighters, carry air-to-air missiles, and provide affordable mass for the US Air Force's next-generation airpower.

Turkey's Anka-3 is a jet-powered flying-wing UCAV in flight testing, designed for low-observable strike, reconnaissance and future manned-unmanned teaming with the Kaan fighter.

AVILUS's Wespe is a German uncrewed coaxial-rotor helicopter built to carry about 200 kg of cargo or casualties some 300 km with no crew aboard; the first-generation prototype flew on 1 June 2026, pitched at the Bundeswehr's contested-resupply and medevac needs.

Baba Yaga (R-18 class)

Ukraine's heavy multicopter bomber class — the reusable night-strike drone that Russia nicknamed "Baba Yaga" and now increasingly captures and uses against its own makers.

Bayraktar Akinci

Turkey's heavy-strike twin-turboprop UCAV — a 24-hour HALE platform that carries cruise missiles, air-launched ballistic weapons and an AESA radar, and the cornerstone of a 16-country export franchise built on aggressive co-production offers.

Turkey's game-changing MALE armed UCAV — a low-cost, piston-engined platform that reshaped conflicts in Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine, proving that a cheap, recoverable drone can dominate the battlefield when air defences are absent.

Turkey's Bayraktar TB3 is a folding-wing, carrier-capable MALE UCAV derived from the TB2 line and built for short-runway ship operations from TCG Anadolu and allied carriers.

Teledyne FLIR's Black Recon is a vehicle-launched autonomous micro-drone system that lets a crew launch, operate, recover and recharge up to three UAVs without leaving the vehicle, delivering near-continuous GNSS-denied reconnaissance. Market-launched at Eurosatory 2026.

China's export workhorse medium-altitude long-endurance combat drone — a lower-cost MALE UCAV that has seen extensive combat with Middle Eastern and African customers, delivering persistence and precision strike without the restrictions of Western systems.

China's stealth flying-wing UCAV — the CASC CH-7 (Rainbow-7), a tailless, low-observable high-altitude drone for deep-penetration ISR and strike. Debuted as a mockup in 2018; it finally flew in late 2025. The export-line peer to the GJ-11 and Russia's Okhotnik.

China's answer to the loyal-wingman race — the FH-97A, a stealthy jet-powered drone meant to fly alongside the J-20 as sensor, shooter, decoy and "missile truck." It looks much like America's XQ-58 Valkyrie; how far past the mockup stage it has flown is the open question.

Fiber-Optic FPV Drone

The jam-proof attack drone reshaping the front: a standard FPV flown down a hair-thin glass fiber instead of a radio link — immune to every electronic-warfare countermeasure, and the weapon that pushed the "kill zone" from 10–20 km out to 50.

Forpost-R is Russia's indigenized, armed derivative of the Israeli IAI Searcher II UAV, used for reconnaissance, targeting and light precision strike in Ukraine and Syria.

Fortem DroneHunter F700

Fortem's DroneHunter F700 is a reusable, autonomous counter-UAS interceptor that captures hostile drones with nets instead of destroying them with explosives.

General Cherry is Ukraine's scale-first interceptor maker — the for-profit rival to Wild Hornets, building a layered counter-drone catalog (AIR, Bullet, OPTIX) at a claimed 50,000+ drones a month, ranked #1 in kills, NATO-certified, and opening production lines in the US and Croatia.

GJ-11 Sharp Sword

China's first operational stealth flying-wing unmanned combat aerial vehicle — a penetrating strike and ISR platform that demonstrated manned-unmanned teaming with J-20 fighters and is evolving into a carrier-capable naval derivative.

Helsing CA-1 Europa

Helsing's AI-piloted combat drone — Europe's bid for sovereign autonomous airpower. One low-observable jet, flown by the Centaur AI pilot, in a strike version (CA-1KA) and an escort-jammer version (CA-1EA) pitched as the European answer to the Growler. Nothing has flown yet.

Israel's workhorse multi-role MALE UAS — 36-hour endurance, multi-sensor ISR, and a broad export footprint from Switzerland to Singapore, with a growing combat record over Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

Israel's heaviest operational MALE UAV — a turboprop-powered, satellite-linked strategic surveillance and strike platform with 30-plus-hour endurance, now also flown by Germany in NATO missions.

Iron Wasp is a vehicle-mounted hard-kill counter-drone interceptor from Rafael and SpearUAV: a capsule-launched interceptor drone, derived from SpearUAV's Viper I, that lets armored vehicles physically destroy FPV drones and loitering munitions while on the move.

China's "flying aircraft carrier" — a 16-tonne jet drone built to disgorge a swarm of 100-plus small drones from a honeycomb belly bay. The air-launched face of China industrializing drone mass; it first flew in December 2025, and the swarm part has never been shown working.

Iran's HESA Karrar is a jet-powered target drone adapted into claimed strike and air-defense interceptor roles, with performance and weapons claims still thinly verified outside Iranian sources.

The Bayraktar Kizilelma is Baykar's jet-powered combat drone — the self-styled "unmanned fighter" that scored the claimed world-first UCAV beyond-visual-range air-to-air kill in November 2025, entered serial production before any US CCA, and is designed to fly from TCG Anadolu.

Kronshtadt Sirius

Kronshtadt Sirius, also called Inokhodets-RU, is Russia's larger twin-engine successor to Orion: a MALE reconnaissance-strike UAV with claimed SATCOM control, 450 kg payload and an uncertain path from prototype to service.

Ukraine’s workhorse long-range one-way attack drone — a piston-prop deep-strike design that has systematically hit Russian oil refineries and defence plants at 1,000–1,700 km, reshaping the strategic cost equation of the war.

Mach Industries Atlas

Mach Industries' Atlas is a hybrid-electric, runway-independent strike drone being developed under DIU's RIMES program to carry 1,000-pound munitions 1,400 nautical miles from destroyer decks and austere sites — and come back to rearm.

Merops is the Ukraine-proven interceptor drone the US Army bought ~13,000 of — an Eric Schmidt-funded, AI-guided fixed-wing drone that homes on Shaheds when jammed, rams them for ~$15,000 a shot, and recovers by parachute if it misses. The interceptor economy crossing the Atlantic.

Iran's would-be answer to the MQ-9 Reaper — a large reconnaissance-strike drone unveiled in 2023 with bold claims of 2,000 km range, 24-hour endurance and a 300 kg payload. The catch: almost none of it has been independently verified, and a piston engine caps the ambition.

Iran's twin-boom multirole ISTAR/strike UAV — a runway-operated, 12-hour endurance platform armed with precision glide bombs and Almas missiles, exported to Russia, Venezuela, Sudan and others, and seeing combat from Ukraine to the Caribbean.

The U.S. Navy's first operational carrier-based unmanned system—a dedicated aerial tanker designed to free Super Hornets from buddy-tanking and extend the reach of the carrier air wing.

MQ-28 Ghost Bat

Australia’s stealth multirole uncrewed combat aircraft and loyal wingman — the world’s most advanced non-U.S. collaborative combat aircraft program with a funded program of record and a live-fire weapons engagement.

The MQ-9 Reaper is the U.S. military's workhorse armed MALE UCAV—a long-endurance, remotely-piloted aircraft used for ISR and precision strike, fielded by the USAF and over a dozen allies, with a combat record spanning from the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

The Octopus is Ukraine's state-designed interceptor drone — a ~$3,000 machine-vision quadcopter that homes autonomously onto Shahed drones. Ukraine ordered 8,000, and it became the first Ukrainian combat drone licensed for production inside a NATO country, built in Britain under Project OCTOPUS.

Israel's Aeronautics Orbiter 4 is a Group 3 tactical UAS that packs 12 kg dual-payload ISR capability — EO/IR, SAR, SIGINT — into a 50 kg airframe with a 24-hour endurance and field-switchable VTOL option, already combat-proven in Gaza as the IAF's Nitzoz.

Orion (Inokhodets)

Russia's indigenous medium-altitude long-endurance combat drone — a reconnaissance-strike platform used in limited numbers over Ukraine and marketed for export.

Russia's most prolific tactical drone — a catapult-launched, parachute-recovered ISR workhorse that has become the eyes of its artillery in Ukraine and a node in the Leer-3 electronic-warfare system.

Quantum Systems Vector

Germany's combat-proven eVTOL fixed-wing reconnaissance drone — built for jammed environments, upgraded with AI target detection and acoustic artillery location, and the backbone of Ukraine's tactical ISR fleet.

RQ-4 Global Hawk

High-altitude, unarmed strategic reconnaissance UAV that serves as the U.S. Air Force's persistent global ISR backbone, also operated by NATO’s AGS force and South Korea.

The Saker Scout is Ukraine's fielded AI-powered ISR and autonomous strike drone system, enabling machine-speed target detection and jamming-resistant operations.

Shahed-149 Gaza

Iran's largest Shahed-family reconnaissance-strike UCAV, presented as a turboprop answer to the MQ-9 Reaper with long-endurance ISR and precision-strike roles, but with performance and production claims still dependent on Iranian and trade-press reporting.

Shield AI V-BAT

Shield AI's ducted-fan VTOL tail-sitter – a runway-independent ISR and targeting drone that proved it can operate deep inside Russian electronic warfare and cue precision fires for Ukrainian forces.

Shield AI X-BAT

Shield AI's X-BAT is a runway-independent, tail-sitting VTOL autonomous combat jet flown by the company's Hivemind AI pilot — a claimed 3,700+ km range from a trailer launcher, no runway required, with first flight planned for late 2026 and a production pitch to Poland.

Ukraine's ~$1,000 answer to the Shahed: a partly-3D-printed interceptor drone that rams or proximity-detonates against incoming attack drones — the cheap, kinetic, deterrence-by-denial weapon now gaining an onboard AI eye that spots a Shahed faster than a human pilot.

Star-Navi XRAM-C

A Chinese firm sells radar-stealth "by the kilogram" — Star-Navi's XRAM-C spray-on radar-absorbing coating, off-the-shelf in 1/5/10 kg tubs. The claimed ~3 dB cut is modest, but commoditizing even a small signature reduction for cheap mass drones is the story.

The Sting is Ukraine's flagship interceptor drone — a sub-$2,000 3D-printed FPV quadcopter from the non-profit Wild Hornets that hunts Shahed attack drones by the thousands, downed the first jet-powered Geran, and can be flown from 2,000 km away. Cheap-mass air defense answering cheap-mass attack.

Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik-B

Russia's heavy stealth flying-wing combat drone, built as a Su-57 "loyal wingman." Its defining moment was a humiliation: in October 2024 a Russian fighter shot down its own out-of-control Okhotnik over Ukraine — handing Kyiv the wreckage, Western chips inside and all.

One of Russia's two workhorse spotter drones in Ukraine, alongside the Orlan-10. A small catapult-launched aircraft full of off-the-shelf civilian electronics, the Supercam is the eye that cues Russian artillery and Lancet strikes — slow, jammable, and shot down by the hundred.

TB-001 Scorpion

China's TB-001 Scorpion is a twin-boom, long-endurance MALE UCAV from Sichuan Tengden, used for PLA ISR and pressure flights around Taiwan and Japan's southwestern approaches.

Portugal's combat-hardened tactical ISR drone — a gasoline-powered fixed-wing UAS with VTOL kit, proven over 10,000 flight hours in Ukraine, now doubling as the RAF's StormShroud EW platform and expanding rapidly across NATO markets.

ULAQ is Turkey's ARES-Meteksan armed unmanned surface vessel family, spanning port-security, anti-surface, anti-submarine, mine-countermeasures, ISR/EW, firefighting and expendable strike variants.

The Victor U250 is a German hybrid-electric heavy-lift cargo drone from ERC System, an IABG subsidiary, built to carry up to 250 kg over 300 km for battlefield resupply — targeting the gap between small cargo drones and crewed helicopters, with Rheinmetall backing production.

China’s MQ-9-class armed drone — a turboprop MALE UCAV with 480 kg payload, 32-h endurance, and a combat-proven export record from Libya to Yemen and Sudan, priced to undercut Western alternatives.

China's biggest hunter-killer drone — a long-range MALE UAV with a claimed 10,000 km reach, 40-hour endurance and 16 weapons a sortie, and the first Wing Loong that can shoot back at other aircraft. It is the spearhead of China's cut-price, no-strings drone exports.

WZ-7 Soaring Dragon

China's tandem-wing HALE ISR UAV — a high-altitude strategic reconnaissance platform frequently compared to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, in PLAAF and naval service since 2018.

China's WZ-8 is a rocket-powered, air-launched reconnaissance UAV built for short, high-speed, high-altitude sensor runs from an H-6 bomber mothership rather than persistent loiter.

The XQ-58 Valkyrie is an attritable, stealthy uncrewed combat aerial vehicle and collaborative combat aircraft demonstrator designed by Kratos, now set to become the US Marine Corps' first operational loyal wingman, with a target fielding date of summer 2029.

The Yartura Dancer 4.5.0 is a Ukrainian fixed-wing interceptor drone that reaches 450 km/h and uses an AI homing system to re-attack a target drone until it is destroyed — built against the fast jet-powered variants of Russia's Shahed/Geran family.

The U.S. Air Force's prototype uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft from General Atomics — a semi-autonomous loyal wingman designed to team with F-22, F-35 and future fighters, and one of two contenders for the CCA Increment 1 production decision.

Russian tactical fixed-wing reconnaissance UAV family used for front-line ISR, target acquisition and Lancet strike cueing, with variants ranging from short-range electric airframes to long-endurance hybrid-electric models.

Ground · UGV

Ukraine's "Fury" — a cheap combat ground robot that turns a remote-controlled machine gun into a mobile turret, built from commercial-drone parts and fielded by special forces. One has led an assault through a minefield; it is the emblem of Ukraine's armed-UGV surge.

Overland AI ULTRA

The Overland AI ULTRA is a purpose-built, fully autonomous American uncrewed ground vehicle pairing the DARPA RACER-derived OverDrive autonomy stack with a modular light platform — the subject of the US Marine Corps' first production buy of autonomous ground vehicles.

Ukraine's $12,000 robot mule — a small tracked ground drone that hauls 300 kg of ammo and supplies to the trench, evacuates the wounded, or mounts a machine gun, made by the thousands. The workhorse of Ukraine's 2025 ground-robot surge, now heading into German co-production.

The West's benchmark battlefield robot — an Estonian tracked "tankette" that swaps payloads to haul cargo, evacuate wounded, scout, defuse bombs or carry a machine gun. The first ground robot in the Lexicon, and the platform that proved the UGV concept across NATO and in Ukraine.

Russia's much-hyped "robot tank" — a tracked combat UGV bristling with a 30mm cannon, machine gun and anti-tank missiles that flopped on its 2018 Syria debut: it lost control links, couldn't shoot on the move, and its sensors were blinded by buildings. The cautionary tale of the UGV age.

Vepr is a Ukrainian tracked ground robot for frontline logistics and casualty evacuation — 350 kg of cargo or two wounded, ~40 km per charge, plus remote demining, recovery and one-way strike roles. Codified by Ukraine's MoD in June 2026 after two years on the front.

Surface · USV

Kraken K3 Scout

The Kraken K3 Scout is a UK-built 8.4-metre high-speed uncrewed surface vessel — 55 knots, 600 kg modular payload — fielded by the Royal Navy under Project Beehive and the first drone boat ever airdropped from a transport aircraft.

Ukraine's game-changing naval attack drone — a low-profile, satellite-controlled USV that has sunk multiple Russian warships and scored the first-ever uncrewed vessel air-to-air kill.

The larger, missile-armed evolution of Ukraine's Magura naval drone — a sea drone that carries AIM-9 Sidewinders and, in May 2025, became the first uncrewed vessel to shoot down crewed fighter jets, downing two Russian Su-30s in the Black Sea.

MOBIDIK is a modular Ukrainian unmanned surface vessel family from Avarid, unveiled in June 2026 in six combat variants spanning maritime air defense, medium- and strategic-range strike, missile-and-gun engagement and a 300 kg assault configuration.

Saronic Corsair

The Saronic Corsair is a 24-foot (7.3 m) American autonomous surface vessel built for mass production. In June 2026 a Task Force 59 Corsair recovered a downed Apache crew off Oman — the first at-sea personnel rescue ever carried out by an uncrewed vessel.

Ukraine's SBU-developed multi-purpose uncrewed surface vessel — from one-way ramming strikes on the Kerch Bridge and Black Sea Fleet ships to a modular platform firing rockets, missiles, and mines, culminating in the world's first underwater drone attack on a submarine.

Underwater · UUV

Anduril Ghost Shark

A stealthy, modular extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle co-developed by Anduril and the Royal Australian Navy — designed for persistent ISR, strike, and payload delivery from shore or warships.

Marichka is a Ukrainian heavy uncrewed underwater vehicle publicly unveiled in 2023, advertised for long-range conventional strike, reconnaissance, and payload transport but still publicly unproven in combat.

Russia’s nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed autonomous intercontinental torpedo — originally leaked under “Status-6,” it is designed to approach coastal targets beneath missile defenses, and is now moving from propaganda to a slowly maturing force structure.

Ukraine's first heavy underwater drone — a ~10-tonne autonomous submarine pitched for strike, cargo and the unusual role of hunting other underwater drones. Unveiled at Eurosatory 2026, every figure is vendor-declared and unproven.

Ukraine's Toloka TLK-150 is a small semi-submersible underwater strike drone, publicly shown in 2023 and redesigned by 2025, intended to attack ships below the waterline while exposing only a slim sensor mast.

07

Space & EW

Satellites · Electronic Warfare · Counterspace

Russia's tracked tactical jamming complex — nine MT-LB vehicles that fuse four jamming-station types under one console to detect, locate and suppress enemy radio, GSM, satellite comms and GPS. A constant Ukraine-front presence, and a prized target: captured in 2022, hunted by FPV drones since.

Ukraine's home-grown drone-killer EW — a Proximus-built system that passively detects UAVs out to ~100 km, then jams their control links and satellite navigation (GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou) inside ~20 km. Built specifically to counter Russia's Orlan-10, and now a Ukrainian export.

D-Fend EnforceAir

D-Fend's EnforceAir is an Israeli counter-drone system that detects a rogue drone's radio protocol, takes over its control link and lands it at a predefined safe spot - no jamming, no shooting. Motorola Solutions agreed in June 2026 to buy D-Fend for $1.5 billion.

Divnomorye is a highly secretive Russian ground-based electronic-warfare complex, reported as a strategic successor to Moskva-1 and Krasukha systems with radar- and satellite-jamming roles.

GSSAP is the U.S. Space Force's near-geosynchronous space-domain-awareness constellation, using maneuverable "Hornet" satellites to inspect and characterize objects in the GEO belt.

ICEYE SAR Constellation

The world's largest radar-satellite constellation — Finnish microsatellites that see through cloud, darkness and camouflage. It is Ukraine's crowdfunded "People's Satellite," feeding nearly 6,000 radar images to Ukrainian targeting cells — and now shadowed in orbit by Russia.

KORAL is Aselsan's truck-mobile radar electronic-warfare system, pairing electronic support and electronic attack vehicles to detect, classify, jam and deceive hostile radars at stand-off range.

A Russian mobile broadband radar-jamming system built to blind airborne surveillance radars and disrupt satellite signals — deployed to Syria and Ukraine, and captured intact near Kyiv.

Russia's flying cell-tower attacker — a command truck plus Orlan-10 drones carrying a payload that mimics a GSM base station to locate phones, jam cellular networks and blast fake SMS at enemy troops and civilians. Electronic warfare and psychological warfare in one airborne package.

Russia's strategic shortwave jammer — a truck-borne complex with 32-metre antenna masts built to detect and suppress NATO's long-haul HF radio at ranges Russian sources claim reach 5,000–8,000 km. Fielded in Kaliningrad, Crimea and the Arctic; reportedly sold to Iran.

Penicillin (1B75)

A Russian counter-battery system that finds enemy guns without a radar — it just listens and watches. Fusing sound, ground vibration and thermal flash, it fixes a firing position in seconds while emitting nothing, so it can't be detected or jammed like the radars it replaces.

Russia's mobile laser — unveiled in Putin's 2018 "super-weapons" speech, named for a warrior-monk — built to dazzle reconnaissance-satellite sensors and hide mobile ICBMs from orbit. Fielded since 2019, but almost everything about it is a Russian claim experts treat with caution.

Pole-21 is Russia's distributed R-340RP GNSS-jamming network, built to mount on cell towers and deny GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou navigation over protected areas.

Russia's R-330Zh Zhitel is a truck-mounted electronic-warfare station built to detect, direction-find and jam GNSS, satellite-phone, cellular and selected radio communications.

Scorpius is IAI/Elta's AESA-based electronic-warfare family, using software-defined multi-beam jamming for ground, naval, airborne self-protection, standoff-jamming and training roles.

SEWIP (AN/SLQ-32)

The U.S. Navy's shipboard electronic-warfare backbone — a long-running AN/SLQ-32 modernization program that detects, classifies and, in newer blocks, jams radar-guided anti-ship threats.

China's Shijian-21 is a geostationary on-orbit servicing demonstrator that docked with and towed a defunct BeiDou satellite in 2022, making it a prominent dual-use space-debris and counter-space reference system.

Shipovnik-Aero is a Russian truck-mounted electronic-warfare complex built to detect, jam, spoof and reportedly hijack small UAVs, with wider communications-suppression functions.

Star-Navi XRAM-C

A Chinese firm sells radar-stealth "by the kilogram" — Star-Navi's XRAM-C spray-on radar-absorbing coating, off-the-shelf in 1/5/10 kg tubs. The claimed ~3 dB cut is modest, but commoditizing even a small signature reduction for cheap mass drones is the story.

SpaceX's Starshield is a government/military satellite-communications constellation built on the Starlink bus—providing secure, high-assurance connectivity and hosting classified payloads for US national-security users.

A secretive Russian ground system built to switch off communications satellites — jamming the relay birds that armies (and Ukraine) depend on. It is the counter to the transparent battlefield: if sensing is the new deterrent, this is the attempt to blind it. Ukraine drone-killed one in January 2026.

Tobol is Russia's secretive 14Ts227 ground-based space-electronic-warfare system, publicly documented as a satellite-protection complex and reportedly tested against Starlink links in Ukraine.

Volna Kupol Garant

Volna Kupol Garant ("Wave Dome Guarantor") is Russia's trailer-mounted electronic-warfare complex built to jam Starlink's Ku-band uplink, denying Ukraine's Starlink-guided strike drones their control link across a roughly 20-square-kilometer bubble.

China's expansive military ISR satellite constellation combining optical, radar, and signals intelligence with a NOSS-style naval-surveillance arm to form the space backbone of the PLA's anti-ship missile kill chain.

08

Command & Software

C2 · Battle Management · Sensor Fusion · AI Targeting

Anduril Lattice

Anduril's "operating system for war" — software that fuses sensors into one picture and commands swarms of autonomous systems at machine speed, letting one operator run many drones. It anchors a $20B US Army contract and the Air Force's drone-wingman program.

ASGARD is the British Army's AI-enabled "digital targeting web" — a multi-vendor recce-strike network fusing sensors, AI decision support and strike systems. The Army says it cut a corps planning cycle from 72 hours to one and multiplied daily targets tenfold.

The US military's soldier-level map app — a phone-based geospatial situational-awareness and C2 kit built by the Air Force Research Laboratory, now 250,000+ users across the US military, allies and first responders. The Western benchmark Ukraine's and Russia's apps get measured against.

Auterion is a Swiss-founded, Arlington-headquartered drone software company whose AuterionOS, Skynode hardware and Nemyx swarm layer give Western and Ukrainian unmanned systems a common autonomy stack.

Ukraine's "Google for the military" — a cloud battlefield-awareness and command system that fuses drone, satellite, sensor and intelligence feeds into one shared map and, the military says, compresses the find-to-strike cycle from days to minutes. The first software entry in the Lexicon.

Donovan (Scale AI)

Scale AI's Donovan is a US defense generative-AI decision-support platform, built to let commanders, analysts and staff officers query classified data, orchestrate LLMs and build mission-tailored AI agents.

Russia's long-troubled attempt at a digital battle-management system for the tactical level — the "Sozvezdie system," meant to fuse reconnaissance, command and fires across a brigade. The adversary mirror to Ukraine's Delta, and a case study in why Russian C2 lagged in Ukraine.

Ukraine's "Uber for artillery" — software that matches a target to the best available gun and cuts the call-to-trigger time from ~20 minutes to one or two, letting a smaller, dispersed force out-shoot a numerically superior one.

Helsing AI is a European defense-software stack built around Altra, Cirra and Centaur, applying machine learning to land targeting, electronic warfare and combat-aircraft autonomy.

Helsing CA-1 Europa

Helsing's AI-piloted combat drone — Europe's bid for sovereign autonomous airpower. One low-observable jet, flown by the Centaur AI pilot, in a strike version (CA-1KA) and an escort-jammer version (CA-1EA) pitched as the European answer to the Growler. Nothing has flown yet.

"Nettle" — the volunteer-built Ukrainian app that turns a $150 Android tablet into an artillery fire-control computer, replacing 15-minute Soviet hand-calculation with a coordinate, a tap and rounds on target in seconds. Built by the NGO Army SOS.

Maven Smart System

The Pentagon's AI targeting brain — Palantir-built software that fuses hundreds of intelligence feeds, uses computer vision and large language models to find and track targets, and runs the whole sensor-to-shooter loop. In the Iran war the US says it helped strike ~1,000 targets in a day.

Palantir AIP is the company's generative-AI and autonomous-agent layer, built to connect LLMs and other models to controlled enterprise, intelligence and military workflows.

Palantir Foundry

Palantir Foundry is Palantir's ontology-centric data-integration and operational-application platform, used across commercial, civil-government and defense-industrial programs.

Palantir Gotham

Palantir Gotham is Palantir Technologies' government and defense data-fusion platform, used for intelligence analysis, targeting workflows, sensor tasking and access-controlled common operating pictures.

Palladyne SwarmOS

Palladyne AI's SwarmOS is a decentralized edge-autonomy software stack built to let one operator command a mixed swarm of drones from different manufacturers without a cloud link — run inside the US Army's NGC2 prototype at Ivy Mass 2026, now under Army and AFRL validation contracts.

Shield AI Hivemind

Shield AI's "AI pilot" — software that flies aircraft and drones with no remote pilot, no GPS and no datalink, and swarms them under one operator. It cued a strike on a Russian Buk deep in jammed territory, and in June 2026 won a US Air Force production contract for the drone-wingman program.

The quiet incumbent of military command software — a Danish COTS suite that became the de-facto NATO land-C2 standard, running from national headquarters down to the dismounted soldier in 45-plus armies. In 2024 NATO itself picked it as its Future Land C2.

Russia's soldier-portable "find" half of the reconnaissance-fire loop — the KRUS Strelets links scouts, drone operators and artillery spotters to the guns. Capable on paper and improved in Syria, but Ukrainian accounts say its centralised, EW-fragile design lags Ukraine's apps.

UVision's CORTEX is a battle-intelligence and mission-management layer, launched in June 2026, that fuses sensor feeds and routes targets to the company's Hero, Viper and Peregrine loitering munitions, letting one operator supervise many munitions across air, land and sea.