..now moving on to work that will prefigure and enable the birth of this ACF..France remains open to possible cooperation with other countries..but within different frameworks and which won’t be structural to the birth of this aircraft.

France and Germany agreed to scrap the FCAS project in June, after years of wrangling about specifications and industrial control between Dassault Aviation and Airbus.

Dassault Aviation CEO..said his company and France have all the know-how and skills to develop a next-generation fighter jet, together with..Safran and..Thales, and he would be able to do so “well below”..€50 billion (US$56 billion).

The Rafale successor will need to carry the ASN4G hypersonic nuclear cruise missile in 2050, and working back from that date means the aircraft will need to be flying in 2040 for conventional missions, Bellanger said. Moving ahead with a national program will allow France to meet the deadlines essential for nuclear deterrence by 2040, he said.

Bellanger said the British-Italian-Japanese GCAP project to develop a sixth-generation aircraft is working towards “a different kind of aircraft, it’s almost a strategic bomber.” He said “it’s not all roses” within the GCAP consortium, with cooperation inevitably requiring compromises.

Instead of going public, KNDS will be divided between France and Germany, with no outside shareholders, amid growing disagreements between the two countries over defense projects

Despite earlier plans, Germany and France plan to divide KNDS equally, with each country taking a 50% stake. This could effectively be seen as a form of nationalization.

According to Handelsblatt, which cites its own sources, the company's owners no longer plan to take KNDS public and intend to sell their entire stake to the German government. Price negotiations are currently underway, with a final decision expected in the coming weeks. Reuters later confirmed this information.

From Defense Express we would like to note that if the deal goes through, it would effectively exceed the German Ministry of Defense's initial request. The German Ministry of Defense had sought a 40% stake in KNDS, while the Ministry for Economic Affairs argued that a 30% stake would be preferable.

However, the 40% figure was proposed at the time as a way to achieve parity with France, which held a 50% stake in the company and planned to sell 10% of its shares on the stock market. If there are no plans for a public listing, an equal split makes sense, as it would ensure equal voting rights for both countries. There would also be no need to worry about attracting investors, which had previously been cited as a problem.

This is important because Germany and France have recently gone their separate ways over the joint development of the next-generation main battle tank, the MGCS. Although the German company Rheinmetall and the French company Thales were also involved in the project, KNDS remained one of the key players.

At the same time, the German division, KNDS Deutschland, retains its tank production capabilities, whereas France no longer has such capabilities at this time. However, KNDS France has developed its own technologies, including the CAESAR self-propelled howitzer.

Overall, the company's product portfolio is quite broad and also includes artillery, armored vehicles, ammunition, and more. It also has a subsidiary in Ukraine that provides maintenance services for its equipment.

n effect, the deal would place KNDS entirely under French and German state control, giving both governments oversight of orders, technology transfers, and cooperation. There will be no third parties in the ownership structure if everything proceeds as currently stated. The German side was previously owned by the families of the Wegmann-Gruppe.

It is worth noting that the 50-50 split applies to the parent holding company as a whole, rather than to the French and German subsidiaries individually. The only exception is a specific share in KNDS France held by the French government.

Spoilers: the damage was not, in fact, caused by falling debris

Satellite imagery, imo, confirms at least 3 aircraft destroyed. Needless to say, massive L for Russia.

A pilot tracker for significant developments in defense innovation and industrial capacity for Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. This brief covers mid-September - mid-October 2026.

While visiting UK officials..assured Australian audiences that the SSN-AUKUS program is on track, a common-sense, empirical examination of Royal Navy operational deployment data reveals it to be running perilously close to complete shutdown.

Operating on the absolute edge..The core of the crisis lies in the collapse of the UK’s submarine enterprise force generation. The ageing Vanguard-class deterrent fleet now appears to consume virtually all available industrial bandwidth..

Skill fade, recycled command, and the escort vacuum..With in-service SSNs immobilised..availability has effectively dropped to zero. This..has broken the training and qualification pipeline..

Preliminary Design Review(PDR) marks the formal end of Concept/Assessment..was scheduled for September 2026. Yet, recent statements in Australia..reframing slips as “taking time to design the right submarine”..without a new date.

https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/29125529/Making-the-littoral-force-operational.pdf

Australia is building a more mobile and dispersed Army, designed to..project land power into the littoral..will depend on whether the logistics infrastructure, services and supply chains..can work together as a connected system.

..how the Defence Force (ADF) will generate, move, sustain and regenerate force across the north, and the bases, ports, airfields, transport corridors, stocks, workforce, health support and commercial capacity needed to do so.

..clarify how major operating and supporting nodes will work together, strengthen critical civilian capacity and give industry greater certainty to invest in northern sustainment.

“They [Americans] told Ukrainians no warning happened because of bad weather conditions, which is seen as not an adequate reason in Kyiv. Thus many are getting increasingly worried this might not have been the case,” an official familiar with the matter told POLITICO on condition of anonymity."

From another politico link on the missile warning topic. I wonder did the weather condition have anything to do with the fiery black smoke over Russia's burning diesel refineries?