* Short on Funds: With mid-term elections looming, US Congress is unlikely to pass FY 2011 defense appropriations legislation before end of FY 2010.
* Military & Aerospace Electronics looks at trends in land combat vehicle electronics (vectronics), and the challenge of SWaP.
* US DoD spent $35.7 billion this year on 2,420 IT investments, 44% of the total federal government IT spending.
* Pirate takedown, Force Recon style. And the USNI with one take on “The Reality of Piracy.”
* Buffetting Winds: What would Warren Buffett say about investing in US defense companies?
* Bottom Line Repairs: US defense companies see military equipment repair work as benefiting their bottom lines in a budget-constrained environment.
* The Israeli Navy chooses Aeronautics Defense Systems’ Orbiter 2 small UAV for use from its patrol boats and corvettes. Their role will not really be missile defense, however, as some articles implied; rather, it will be a role similar to the higher-end ScanEagle UAV.
* South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense releases 313-page final report on the investigation into the March 26 sinking of ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772), a Pohang-class patrol combat corvette: “The Cheonan was split and sunk due to shockwave and bubble effect generated by the underwater explosion of a torpedo…The weapon system used was a CHT-02D torpedo with approximately 250 kilograms of explosives manufactured and used by North Korea.”
* Russia and China join with Central Asian nations in joint military exercises in Kazakhstan involving 5,000 troops, 300 pieces of military equipment, and 50 airplanes and helicopters.