https://xcancel.com/ME_Observer_/status/2077914928548098346

Ambulances and fire trucks continue heading toward the Bahrain-Saudi Causeway, with sirens heard for a second time this hour amid an unexplained security deployment on the route. (IRIB News, Rasd Akhbar Shehaba, Iran Militarism)

https://xcancel.com/AMK_Mapping_/status/2077949554633433401

According to unconfirmed reports, Iranian missiles/drones impacted the BAPCO oil refinery in Manama, Bahrain, resulting in a large fire breaking out.

https://xcancel.com/bonzerbarry/status/2077956696362684461

The UAE MOD claimed that they responded to an "accidental fire at a warehouse" at the Zayed Military City. It turns out there were three warehouses and they look more likely to have been struck by missiles or drones.

what if there were no missiles and the warehouse just did that?

https://xcancel.com/ME_Observer_/status/2077926377605452003

Explosions reportedly shake Erbil, northern Iraq, with claims of a suicide drone strike on a US base near Erbil International Airport and a Patriot air defense system destroyed. Details remain unconfirmed by official sources. (Rasd Akhbar Shehaba)

https://xcancel.com/BabakVahdad/status/2077888104011075645

Unconfirmed reports from Arab sources claim that Iranian strikes in Kuwait directly hit equipment belonging to the US Army’s Arkansas-based 142nd Field Artillery Brigade. The unit had reportedly fired dozens of HIMARS rockets at Iran from Kuwaiti territory in recent days.

all the HIMARS/ATACMS popping up is interesting, there were some mentions during the 40-day war, but it seems to be way more now, and the Iranians are actually dedicating resources to targeting them - did the Americans genuinely manage to run through most of their air-launched missiles and are now having to compensate with ground launchers? what is going on

https://xcancel.com/MenchOsint/status/2078057767009489340

🛰 King Faisal Air Base, Jordan, Satellite imagery released by Iranian media reveals damage at 3 locations, including a newly built facility at the base.

https://xcancel.com/MenchOsint/status/2078050718708031659

An incident involving a merchant tanker & military forces occured on July 15th in the Persian Gulf, likely near Kuwait. "The tanker was subject to interactions" 🤷‍♂️

new euphemism just dropped, "subject to interactions"

Iran-US war update summary last night

The US begun its desperate madness attacks & Trump greenlighted warcrimes. A total of 5-6 bridges in Hormozgan province were targeted:

• The Griveh bridge, connecting Bandar Abbas, Khmeir, and Lar.
• The bridge after the village of Latidan (Kalmatli), on the return route from Bandar Abbas, Khmeir, and Lar.
• 2 bridges on the route to Kahorstan, Lar
• The unfinished bridge, connecting Bandar Khmeir, Keshvar, and Bandar Abbas.
• The bridge in the village of Maro, in the Khmeir county.

• Chabahar maritime tower was targeted (again) and destroyed by the US
• A railway station, west of Bandar Abbas
• Civilian airport in Iranshahr, southeastern Iran

The IRGC says it targeted:

• 🇸🇾 (Surprise attack) A covert special operations center in the Al-Tanf military base, killing several US soldiers and hitting a radar system & several helicopters, in Syria
• 🇰🇼 Missile detection & surveillance radar (possibly AN/MPQ-65) at a US base in Kuwait
• 🇰🇼 Several weapon depots, 2 HIMARS missile launchers, ATACMS ballistic missile storage
• 🇴🇲 Maritime surveillance radar at the Salama Rocks (Quoin Islands in the Strait of Hormoz), in Oman
• 🇴🇲 US air-surveillance radar deployed in Oman’s Ghanam area
• 🇯🇴 Fighter jets (F-35, F-15, and F-16) & refueller aircrafts in two-phases with ballistic missiles & drones. IRGC says several fighter jets & refueller aircrafts were destroyed & several sustained damage, at the Muwaffaq al Salti AB, Jordan
• 🇰🇼/🇮🇶 IRGC ground forces carried out a rapid drone-and-missile operation against against several positions housing US forces & mercenaries under US & Israeli command (does not specify exact location, but statement began with describing attacks against HIMARS in Kuwait—it’s possible it’s re: Erbil, Iraq)

IRGC announcing the attack on Jordan, additionally said that following attacks last year on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar 🇶🇦, the US military moved its command centre & transferred the headquarters of CENTCOM from Qatar to Muwaffaq al Salti in Jordan 🇯🇴. There were some attacks IRGC did not officially announce, such as BAPCO in Bahrain, Kuwait saying its desalination plant suffered damage, etc.

https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2077925068185710735 (privated account so you may not be able to open it, and xcancel doesn't really do any good in this case)

Ok time to support US attacks on Iranian bridges I sure hope they don't notice that my tiny island petrokingdom depends on a single bridge to survive

The ACC response says:

• “It is unclear what parties or organization are being referred to by ‘SCAAP officials,’ so it cannot confirm the accuracy of this information, however, ACC-RI would like to clarify that at no point did anyone question or raise concerns to ACC in terms of the acquisition strategy to award this effort to the contractor under the existing Scranton facility effort. Further, ACC-RI did document the contract file with a Determination of Contractor Responsibility in accordance with FAR 9.104 prior to award of these task orders.”
• “ACC-RI received concurrence and approval on the acquisition strategy to execute these efforts on a sole source basis under W52P1J-19-D-0075 from the requiring activity, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army-Procurement, and the Office of General Counsel, with notification provided to Congress prior to execution.”
• “ACC-RI would like to clarify that while some might refer to W52P1J-19-D-0075 as the ‘Property Management contract for the Scranton Ammunition facility,’ the scope of the contract states that it covers operation, maintenance, and modernization; includes Production Based Support projects; and doesn’t require active operation at Scranton.”
• “The contract states that ‘The Property Management of SCAAP can be accomplished either through active operation of the Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated facility or layaway maintenance’ and allows the contractor to operate the contract at a privately-owned facility. As such, ACC-RI already determined it in scope to execute the Universal Artillery Projectile Line requirement as separate task orders under W52P1J-19-D-0075 and documented such in-scope determinations in memorandums within the contract file.”

Problems with the plant were emerging even before the DOWIG released its report. In February, Brent Ingraham, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, complained to lawmakers about the inability of the plant to produce needed parts. “First, let me start by saying I’m not happy with where we are at Mesquite either, right?” he testified. “So I’m in the same boat you are.” The Army was considering scrapping GD-OTS’s contract to manage the production lines in Mesquite, but Ingraham said the service ultimately did not go through with it, according to Breaking Defense. The Army is still in negotiations with the company, he said at the time.

well, the thing about whittling your arms industry down to a handful of megacorporations is that you can't scrap contracts. since you have no competitors to then switch to! you can't nationalize and take direct control of the production either, since that'd be heretical... I thought this was exactly the monopolistic scenario that the most efficient economic system was supposed to prevent...

“I anticipate you will see an investment from the company themselves, from the industry partner themselves, to ensure they can continue to build out that facility that would make rounds that would primarily be supported by the [foreign military sales],” Ingraham said. “But we are currently in negotiation [on] what that looks like, both from a line perspective, a quantity perspective, and hopefully we’ll have that wrapped up soon.”

A month ago, General Dynamics announced it would “invest $200 million of its own money and unwind a partnership with Turkish defense contractor Repkon in a bid to finally start producing 155mm artillery shells at a Texas plant that’s been beset by delays,” Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The factory “has joined a long list of US defense programs that have failed to meet the lofty goals set out for them,” the publication added. Munitions manufacturing equipment provided by Repkon “had failed to meet required standards and will be replaced by hardware and management from Deterrence Defense, a privately-held company based in Fremont, Calif.,” Bloomberg added. “General Dynamics and the US Army ‘have reached an agreement on a path forward, which includes additional investment,’ the company said in a statement without disclosing the amount.” As we noted earlier in this piece, despite the problems at the Mesquite plant, the Army projects that it will turn things around by next year.

uh huh, sure

“According to Army officials, the Army did not reach its goal for increased capability and capacity to load, assemble, and pack 155-mm artillery ammunition,” investigators found. “However, through the modernization of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant and the addition of two new facilities in Kansas and Arkansas, the Army is on track to increase its capability and capacity to load, assemble, and pack 140,000 155-mm artillery rounds per month by December 2027. This exceeds the NDIS Implementation Plan goal by 40,000 rounds per month.” Still, that’s more than a year away and, as we noted earlier in this story, about 14 months later than the Army was expecting to receive these shells. Whether it can meet these revised goals remains to be seen.

The inability of a munitions plant in Mesquite, Texas, to build a key part set back the U.S. Army’s plans for ramping up production of 155mm shells to 100,000 rounds per month, according to a scathing new report by the War Department’s Office of Inspector General (DOWIG). Despite receiving close to $500 million from the U.S. Army funded through supplemental spending bills from Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD-OTS), failed to make a single subcomponent needed to produce the badly needed shells as of last March. “Without the 30,000 additional projectile metal parts anticipated from the Mesquite facility, the Army will be unable to reach its monthly capability goal of 100,000 155-mm artillery rounds,” the report concluded. “As of March 2026, the CPE A&E [Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics] officials have not developed a plan to produce the additional rounds that are supposed to be produced at the Mesquite facility.” At present, the Army is only producing 36,000 rounds per month, inspectors revealed.

an article from last year had a 40k monthly figure for late 2024, so the numbers have actually gone down since then!?

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

they were supposed to have reached that 100k goal by October of last year! and not only have they apparently not made any progress in a whole year, they've backslid! deeply unserious military industrial complex

Still, the report highlights the challenges U.S. arms makers face in trying to meet tighter timelines to produce more weapons. This all comes as the U.S. is increasingly concerned about stockpiles of a wide array of munitions after heavy usage in past and current conflicts and donations to partners like Ukraine, as well as foreign military sales. These are issues that we raised long before and during the current war with Iran, but they have become major headlines in the aftermath of the initial stages of that conflict. The plant at the center of this new report is the Universal Artillery Projectile Line owned and operated by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems. It opened in May 2024 to great fanfare and high hopes. According to the IG report, more than three million 155mm shells were donated to Ukraine, more than 111,000 rounds were used over the past four years on training and testing, and nearly 218,000 rounds were sold to foreign customers. Combined, U.S. stocks were depleted by more than 3.6 million rounds since the start of the war in Ukraine. The Mesquite plant was opened to help replenish the supply. However, according to DOWIG, it failed to live up to expectations. “The DoW increased its capability and capacity to produce 155-mm artillery ammunition but did not reach the 2025 National Defense Industrialization Strategy Implementation Plan goal of 100,000 rounds per month by October 2025,” the DOWIG report pointed out.

As of March 2026, “the Army had increased its monthly production from 14,000 to 36,000 rounds because of expansion and modernization efforts at both the projectile metal parts and the load, assemble, and pack facilities,” the IG report noted. “However, at a contractor-owned, contractor-operated facility in Mesquite, Texas, the contractor has been unable to produce any projectile metal parts that meet contract specifications.” According to an Army news release about the plant opening, it was built to “feature high-volume production capabilities for large-caliber metal parts and is equipped with long-stroke, high-tonnage forging capabilities.” “The facility’s 155mm metal parts production lines also meet Army modernization goals by incorporating high levels of automation, modern manufacturing practices, and digital-data-capture ability. It will offer the flexibility to produce a variety of metal parts ranging from 60mm to 155mm, with minimal changeover requirements,” the Army added. The Army “planned for the Mesquite Texas facility to produce 30,000 rounds per month,” the report added. “With only three facilities producing the required projectile metal parts, the DoW will reach only 71,000 rounds per month, or 71 percent of its monthly production capacity goal for 155-mm artillery rounds.” We’ve reached out to General Dynamics and the Army for comment and will update this story should the company respond.

The main issue inspectors found was that the plant adapted equipment used to make parts for M107 155mm shells to produce parts for M795 155‑mm shells. The latter is an upgraded version of the munition that is slightly heavier and longer, and has an extended range. As a result of this adaptation, several factors came into play, according to DOWIG. Army officials knew that the concept of trying to produce the more advanced 155mm shells using equipment not designed for that was risky. However, officials felt that would pay off because that machinery was already available. In addition, the report stated that the existing Scranton plant’s past work with GD-OTS on ammunition production was a factor in deciding to take a chance on what turned out to be a flawed assumption.

literally Warhammer 40k shit, can't actually make new tooling anymore so you have to use capacity leftover from the mid Cold War

The report states, in part:

• According to the Army’s CPE A&E, “ACC issued the contract and CPE A&E accepted the risk associated with the contractor’s plan to purchase and adapt M107 metal part production equipment to produce a newer variant of the 155-mm projectile metal parts at different specifications.”
• “According to CPE A&E officials, the Mesquite facility was a high-risk, high-reward opportunity, and CPE A&E is realizing some of that risk now because the facility has been unable to produce acceptable rounds.”
• “CPE A&E accepted the contractor’s proposal to acquire and adapt unique production equipment and an unproven production process because equipment was already available. According to the CPE A&E official, obtaining and adapting the available production line equipment was expected to be faster than obtaining new M795 production line equipment.”
• “The contractor has been working since the original contract task order was issued in November 2022 to produce the contracted 155-mm projectile metal parts. However, according to CPE A&E officials, acquiring the equipment and adapting it to produce M795 155-mm projectile metal parts resulted in significant challenges.” The report redacted specific examples.
• “In addition, according to CPE A&E officials, CPE A&E recommended the contractor for the Mesquite facility because the contractor has 20 years of experience producing 155-mm projectile metal parts at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant.”
• “Scranton Army Ammunition Plant officials stated that despite the contractor’s years of experience, the Scranton facility encountered separate ongoing problems with the contractor in terms of responsiveness, equipment maintenance, and timeliness.”
• “Those officials expressed concern to the evaluation team that ACC did not open the contract for the Mesquite facility to competition from other contractors.”
• “In addition, according to ACC officials, the contract for the Mesquite facility was issued as a task order under the property management contract for the Scranton Ammunition facility and not as a separate contract.”

The Army did not dispute that the Mesquite factory was not producing the needed parts. “The Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics will correct issues identified in this report, and develop and implement a corrective action plan,” CPE A&E responded. The “United States Army concurs with the report as written,” the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Acquisition, Logistics and Technology stated. Army Contracting Command (ACC), however, took issue with how the relationship between the Scranton and Mesquite plants was characterized. In its response, ACC stated that no one reached out to them to question GD-OTS’s plan and that it had received sign off from higher authorities to execute the contract without Congressional approval. Moreover, ACC added that it did not need to open up competition for the new plant.

Germany recorded 2,656 conscientious objector applications in the first three months of 2026, more than two-thirds of the total registered across the whole of 2025, according to the Federal Office of Family Affairs and Civil Society Functions (BAFzA). The figures, reported by the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, compare with 3,867 applications for the entirety of 2025 and roughly 3,000 in 2024. If the current rate holds, 2026 would see more conscientious objector applications than any year since Germany suspended compulsory military service in 2011. The rise follows the entry into force of new military service legislation at the start of the year. The reform requires young men born in 2008 or later to register for potential conscription, with the Bundestag able to activate compulsory service if voluntary recruitment falls short.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has framed the changes as a response to a deteriorating security environment. "The world has become more unpredictable and yes, it must also be said, more dangerous," he said recently.

hmm, I wonder who's responsible for that!

Pistorius has set a target of at least 260,000 active soldiers in the Bundeswehr, with a combined active and reserve force of 460,000 — which would make it one of the largest armies in Europe. The reservists' association has called for the maximum age for reservists to be raised from 65 to 70. Discussion of a possible requirement for men of fighting age to seek authorisation before travelling abroad for extended periods has added to public unease. Meanwhile, not all Germans are rejecting armed service. 781 people who had previously declared conscientious objector status reversed their decision in 2025. A further 233 did so in the first quarter of 2026.