Best of LinkedIn: Defense Tech CW 22/ 23

00:00:00: provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant posts on LinkedIn about defense tech in CW-twenty two and twenty three.

00:00:07: Frenness is a BDB market research company that supports ICT providers with these structured Defense Market entry framework designed to move them from European defense opportunity landscape to qualified ministry conversations within six to eight weeks.

00:00:22: you can find more info in the description.

00:00:24: absolutely

00:00:24: so.

00:00:26: imagine stepping onto a modern battlefield.

00:00:28: right You're tracking an incoming threat on radar and you fire this.

00:00:33: I don't know.

00:00:33: three million dollars state-of the art interceptor missile.

00:00:36: right flawless hit The target is destroyed, but the Target was like A commercial drone that costs less than the smartphone in your pocket.

00:00:43: Yeah, you won the engagement but mathematically You're basically going bankrupt

00:00:47: exactly and that's our focus today.

00:00:49: We're doing a deep dive into the absolute latest intelligence from the defense tech sector specifically looking at what operators?

00:00:54: And founders were you know analyzing across linkedin over calendar weeks twenty two and twenty

00:00:59: three.

00:01:00: yeah The underlying current in all these discussions is really that the fundamental physics and economics of conflict have completely shifted.

00:01:08: For decades, military dominance was about exquisite highly expensive platforms but insights we're looking at today show this massive pivot toward mass autonomy and software-defined capabilities.

00:01:25: Yeah, I want to start exactly where the bleeding edge of this shift is most visible which is just a sheer scale.

00:01:31: on drone threats

00:01:32: Oh yeah!

00:01:33: So BeatBand posted an analysis that honestly blew my mind.

00:01:37: He highlighted a tactical reality just four years ago would have been considered impossible.

00:01:42: Right!

00:01:43: We are now seeing the verified deployment of a thousand one-way attack drones, those were the OWA's in single day A THOUSAND?

00:01:49: A thousand kamikaze drones darkening this guy in twenty four hours.

00:01:53: I mean think about logistical footprint required for that right But more importantly Think about defensive map

00:01:58: Red cost.

00:01:59: If defending force is relying on traditional western surface to air missile batteries They're facing an impossible equation.

00:02:08: When the incoming threat is a thousand cheap plastic and wired drones firing a million-dollar interceptor at every single one, well it's financially unsustainable... You

00:02:19: literally can't do it!

00:02:20: Exactly The adversary doesn't even need to destroy your missile silos they just need to drain your treasury.

00:02:25: you run out of money long before their run out

00:02:27: Of drones?

00:02:28: Yeah exactly!

00:02:28: The asymmetry there is just staggering And Marine Marcus actually broke down A specific encounter that perfectly illustrates this.

00:02:36: Oh the Terminator one?

00:02:37: Yeah, The Terminator he analyzed this engagement where a first-person view drum and FPV which is basically you know an off-the-shelf commercial quadcopter You fly with VR goggles for maybe five hundred bucks.

00:02:49: it completely neutralized A Russian BMPT Terminator Which

00:02:53: isn't right

00:02:55: For context for you listening.

00:02:56: the terminator Is a three million dollar heavily armored tank support vehicle.

00:03:02: One, five hundred dollar toy strapped with an explosive just rendered a three million dollar behemoth entirely useless.

00:03:09: Yeah and Marcus points out that this single dynamic is pushing heavy

00:03:13: armor

00:03:14: which you know historically dictated all offensive momentum into the background.

00:03:19: tanks are basically being relegated to defensive transport roles Just to survive.

00:03:24: Yeah,

00:03:24: the cost exchange ratio has entirely inverted.

00:03:26: so you know The most urgent engineering challenge in defense tech right now is figuring out how to flip that curve back Right.

00:03:32: and it's not enough To just build a cheaper missile.

00:03:35: the real breakthrough has to happen at the sensing

00:03:37: layer targeting

00:03:38: exactly omer.

00:03:39: david kyloff He's the ceo over at innoviz.

00:03:42: he shared A really fascinating look At how this Is being solved using lidar.

00:03:46: Okay.

00:03:47: He pointed out that if you integrate precise letter localization into your defense systems, You can physically take down a hundred dollar drone for like two cents.

00:03:55: Wait wait let's break down the mechanics of that.

00:03:58: How does swapping a sensor drop the kill cost?

00:04:01: For millions of dollars down to two pennies.

00:04:03: It all comes down to spatial accuracy right.

00:04:06: so traditional radar gives you a relatively broad bubble of where a threat might be.

00:04:12: Okay, because your certainty isn't absolute Your interceptor needs to compensate.

00:04:17: you have to use this expensive missile with a large explosive warhead.

00:04:20: Oh attach it in the blast radius exactly.

00:04:22: You need a proximity fuse to ensure you hit It.

00:04:25: but lidar uses lasers to map the environment and three D right.

00:04:29: so provides an exact real-time millimeter accurate spatial fix on that drone.

00:04:36: When your system knows exactly where a target is in physical space, you don't need a massive explosion.

00:04:41: Oh wow!

00:04:42: You can use incredibly simple cheap kinetic solutions like literally a standard ballistic bullet to just knock it out of the sky.

00:04:50: High fidelity awareness drastically lowers the cost of the kill chain.

00:04:53: Precisely That's a brilliant way to bypass that problem.

00:04:56: Instead building better bomb you're just building an

00:04:58: eye.

00:04:59: Yeah Exactly

00:05:00: And we are seeing innovators rush to fill operational gaps.

00:05:03: this creates too.

00:05:05: Tomas Petru at Alleter Group posted about the development of what he calls Interceptor-three point.

00:05:10: oh, right?

00:05:11: The missing layer.

00:05:12: Yeah!

00:05:13: The idea is that we are missing this critical rocket layer.

00:05:17: Swarms of cheap electric FPV drones or a volume problem but jet powered loitering munitions like the Gerand class drones.

00:05:25: Those are speed problems.

00:05:27: We urgently need a middle tier An interceptor that basically bridges the gap between taking out slow quadcopters and firing expensive legacy missiles at faster threats.

00:05:36: And adversaries are already recognizing this gap, you know?

00:05:39: They're deploying their own low-cost automated solutions.

00:05:42: Roberto LaForgue did an analysis on a Russian system known as YOKA.

00:05:45: Oh yeah!

00:05:46: It's AI assisted kinetic interceptor costs around five hundred dollars... ...and it fits into hand held launchers.

00:05:52: A handheld

00:05:52: launcher?!

00:05:52: Yeah!!

00:05:53: It utilizes onboard thermal and electro optical sensors feeds that data directly into an AI target recognition system, and then it autonomously rams incoming FPV drones.

00:06:04: So we're witnessing this profound transformation in real time right?

00:06:09: Autonomous systems actively hunting other autonomous systems.

00:06:13: The decisive advantage isn't armor anymore

00:06:15: Nope It's machine vision software processing speed And unit cost.

00:06:21: Well, this level of urgency is finally cracking the whip on traditional procurement timelines too which was huge.

00:06:27: Oh absolutely!

00:06:28: William Shee he shared a massive logistical win.

00:06:31: The US Army fielded the AMPD- Thirty.

00:06:33: Which Is This New Drone?

00:06:35: Killing Radar Equipped Armored Vehicle In Just Ten Months.

00:06:38: Ten

00:06:39: months?

00:06:39: That's unheard Of Exactly.

00:06:41: They Went From Identifying The Battlefield Threat To Prototyping to Getting The Actual Hardware Into The Hands Of Soldiers For Training And Under A Year.

00:06:48: In the world of traditional ground maneuver programs, ten months is light speed.

00:06:52: It really is and we're also seeing a major push to like democratize this capability down to the individual squad level

00:06:59: right instead relying on specialized air defense battalions.

00:07:02: yeah

00:07:02: Matt McCran noted how L-III Harris is making counter UAS that's Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems ubiquitous.

00:07:08: They're integrating drone detection directly onto common tactical radios, specifically the one hundred and sixty three and one hundred seventy one models.

00:07:17: so soldiers already carry on their chests.

00:07:19: No let's hover around for a second because it sounds like magic!

00:07:22: How does this standard communications radio suddenly become Drone detector.

00:07:26: It's entirely software-driven really.

00:07:28: yeah, so drones have to communicate with their operators or GPS satellites using specific radio frequencies right?

00:07:35: Right L three Harris basically pushed a software update that allows the radios antennas to passively scan The ambient electromagnetic spectrum.

00:07:45: oh wow.

00:07:45: So when it recognizes the unique signal signature of the drone command link it just alerts the soldier.

00:07:51: By literally flipping a switch, a piece of standard comms gear becomes an electronic warfare sensor.

00:07:57: That's

00:07:57: incredible.

00:07:58: Counter UAS stops being this multi-million dollar truck parked five miles away because the standard commodity Exactly.

00:08:04: But you know despite these tactical squad level wins.

00:08:07: The broader strategic architecture seems to be lagging behind the reality of the threat.

00:08:11: Yeah that's the big issue.

00:08:12: Fidir Ted Martinoff made a very sobering point about a recent Russian Jaren II strike actually hit a residential building in Romania, which is NATO territory.

00:08:23: Right

00:08:24: And Mardov argued this proves that NATO needs a dense highly automated anti-drone architecture across its borders immediately.

00:08:32: Yeah and his core argument Is the missing layer.

00:08:35: isn't just you know buying another slow legacy Patriot missile battery.

00:08:40: In that specific incident Romania had roughly four minutes from The moment the drone was detected to the moment of impact.

00:08:46: Four minutes.

00:08:46: Yeah,

00:08:47: within a four-minute window A traditional hewn in the loop kill chain is simply too slow.

00:08:52: You have to detect The threat identify it run It up the chain of command for authorization Assign a weapon and fire.

00:08:59: this just Too many steps.

00:09:00: Way too many!

00:09:01: To intercept modern drone swarms, you need low altitude passive sensors continuously feeding data into automated target classification systems all coupled with pre-approved rules of engagement.

00:09:12: peacetime bureaucratic rules are violently clashing with wartime technological speeds.

00:09:18: See I have to throw a flag on the play here regarding the industry's lingering obsession With those legacy systems.

00:09:25: go for it.

00:09:25: When we look at this inverted cost exchange ratio, we've been talking about relying on massive expensive missile batteries.

00:09:33: feels completely absurd.

00:09:35: Yeah it's like trying to swat a swarm of mosquitoes with solid gold fly swatters.

00:09:41: that's A great way To put him right?

00:09:43: Like yes you might kill a few mosquitoes but You're gonna exhaust your arm and Your wallet long before the swarm is actually gone.

00:09:50: yeah At what point do legacy defense contractors stop aggressively lobbying to sell the gold fly swatters and actually adapt to the math.

00:09:59: Well, that

00:10:00: is the existential crisis facing prime contractors today right?

00:10:03: Yeah.

00:10:04: Historically they only adapt when the government's procurement requirements fundamentally change or when nimble new entrants start basically eating their market share.

00:10:13: The shift towards software upgradeable hardware in dense cheap sensor networks That's inevitable.

00:10:17: however bureaucratic inertia as a powerful force huge.

00:10:21: Often that gold fly swatter remains the default purchase simply because it's already a recognized program of record.

00:10:28: It has a budget line, training manual and decades of institutional momentum.

00:10:33: in

00:10:33: that Institutional inertia perfectly sets up The next major piece of this puzzle.

00:10:37: Oh

00:10:38: defensive side.

00:10:39: exactly if the map of defending airspace is forcing militaries to build cheaper, smarter autonomous interceptors.

00:10:47: That exact same logic is completely upending how Allied forces are deploying their own offensive capabilities.

00:10:54: Absolutely!

00:10:55: Zach Hamsey observed a massive doctrinal shift in Germany toward loitering munitions specifically citing Rheinmetall's FV-Zero.

00:11:02: one two

00:11:02: right.

00:11:03: and this isn't just a military buying a few surveillance drones you know?

00:11:07: This signals the strategic move towards autonomous attritable precision strikes meaning weapons that are smart deadly and cheap enough that you literally don't care

00:11:23: if.

00:11:30: Oh

00:11:35: wow!

00:11:35: Yeah,

00:11:36: we're talking about an autonomous eight-wheeled unmanned ground vehicle being dropped into a landing zone to serve as a mobile combat operations center.

00:11:44: It's wild.

00:11:45: The goal is keep human troops agile and moving while the machine basically handles heavy lifting in data processing.

00:11:51: But you know getting a prototype out of helicopter for a press photo?

00:11:55: Is it totally different universe than outfitting entire military branch?

00:11:58: oh hundred percent.

00:11:59: Alana Gold shared some incredibly stark advice from Ross Fubini of XYZ Venture Capital.

00:12:05: He was warning defense tech founders about the infamous Valley Of Death...

00:12:08: Oh yeah, The Graveyard Of Startups!

00:12:10: Exactly for anyone unfamiliar with the venture capital side The Valley of Death is that brutal gap where a startup has built a successful working pilot program, but they don't yet have the massive government contract required to actually manufacture this system at scale.

00:12:27: Most defense startups simply run out of cash and die in that valley.

00:12:30: Yeah, technology gets you the initial meeting at The Pentagon.

00:12:33: But manufacturing production is what actually keeps your company alive right?

00:12:36: Look at Andrewle.

00:12:37: they didn't achieve a sixty one billion dollar valuation simply by writing better AI code than their competitors.

00:12:44: no They won because they figured out the grueling, unglamorous mechanics of turning government interest into billions of dollars of deployed physically manufactured systems.

00:12:55: And scaling physical autonomy is a distinctly different beast than scaling a software company.

00:13:00: Aaron Block and Weston Moyer pointed out a very unsexy truth about defense tech...

00:13:05: Which is?

00:13:06: It fundamentally requires physical built world infrastructure.

00:13:10: If you're building a new social media app, you can scale it on cloud servers from a coffee shop.

00:13:15: You cannot manufacture autonomous submarines or drone swarms in a we work?

00:13:21: Definitely not!

00:13:21: You need massive warehouses complex environmental permitting clean rooms robust power grids and actual concrete factories.

00:13:30: The defense titans of the next decade won't be constrained by lack of capital.

00:13:34: They are going to be throttled thirty-month facility construction cycles.

00:13:40: Right!

00:13:40: It's like

00:13:41: trying to run a next generation high speed train, but you're laying the tracks over nineteen century dirt roads

00:13:46: Which is exactly why Marc Ciel argued that nations like Germany desperately need accessible capability factories and massive dedicated testing grounds.

00:13:56: A government simply buying off-the-shelf commercial drones does not build a sovereign domestic industrial capacity.

00:14:03: No, it doesn't.

00:14:03: So he argues for distributed operator driven testing facilities where commercial startups can iterate on their designs For weeks alongside the actual soldiers who will use them.

00:14:13: The focus has to shift To evaluating systems based On real world performance metrics rather than letting bureaucratic committees judge paper proposals.

00:14:21: Exactly yeah.

00:14:22: so we have the physical and bureaucratic Valley of death.

00:14:25: but Laura S surfaced a completely different, and frankly bizarre vulnerability in all this autonomous tech.

00:14:33: Oh!

00:14:34: The Kate Darling research?

00:14:35: Yes

00:14:36: it's massive human factors issue.

00:14:38: she referenced the work of researcher Kate Darling who experimented with robotic dinosaur.

00:14:43: Yeah and Darling's research gets to core of Human Machine teaming.

00:14:47: She presented this responsive, lifelike robot to an audience.

00:14:51: People almost instantly started smiling giving the robot a name engaging with it emotionally.

00:14:56: But when darling instructed the audience to harm or destroy The Robot A significant number of people hesitated Or outright refused.

00:15:03: Wow Humans form rapid, deep-pugnative attachments to machines simply because the machine exhibits responsive behaviors.

00:15:10: See I find this emotional bond absolutely terrifying from a national security perspective.

00:15:14: Oh it is!

00:15:15: Militaries are spending billions of dollars encrypting communications and securing data links To prevent hackers from taking over their autonomous tanks and drones.

00:15:24: But what if the single biggest vulnerability in the kill chain?

00:15:27: Is just basic human empathy?

00:15:30: What if a soldier simply hesitates for five seconds to destroy a compromise hacked robot?

00:15:35: Because it's been programmed.

00:15:37: act like loyal dog.

00:15:38: Yeah, If human psychology is the weak link how do you possibly engineer emotional resilience into an infantry platoon?

00:15:46: It isn't incredibly Complex challenge and it proved that human machine interaction is not some peripheral soft science.

00:15:53: It is foundational to cyber physical security.

00:15:56: right.

00:15:56: if a system is subtly hacked by an adversary, but its physical behavior still feels emotionally right or familiar to the human operator, that unearned trust can delay crucial overrides.

00:16:08: So to engineer around this militaries will have train operators specifically compartmentalize empathy and developers design user interfaces and physical chassis constantly reinforce machine status as a disposable tool

00:16:21: like making it look less friendly

00:16:23: Exactly.

00:16:24: That might mean deliberately stripping away any anthropomorphic or pet-like responsive behaviors from combat systems, just to prevent that emotional tether from forming...

00:16:34: ...that is a wild psychological frontier and you know it ties directly into who's actually designing these systems?

00:16:40: And how they think.

00:16:41: which brings us to this incredible phenomenon happening across the Atlantic Europe?

00:16:46: yes Europe because legacy bureaucracies in infrastructure bottlenecks are so severe unexpectedly bypassing these hurdles by treating defense tech as a grassroots bottom-up builder movement.

00:16:59: Yeah, Maxime Aristavi highlighted this cultural shift beautifully.

00:17:03: he pointed out that European Defense Tech is increasingly being driven by enthusiastic young engineers like the

00:17:08: startup scene.

00:17:09: yeah

00:17:10: which perfectly mirrors the civil society tech revolution we've seen in Ukraine over the last few years.

00:17:14: it's no longer just top down mandates from defense ministries right its hackathons university drone building workshops and small teams working on urgent security challenges out of sheer necessity.

00:17:26: And Gianmarco Pasca and Alberto Onetti noted that this grassroots energy actually aligns perfectly with Europe's deep industrial DNA.

00:17:35: Yeah, they make hardware

00:17:37: Exactly.

00:17:38: Europe may have missed the boat on consumer internet and smartphone wave over last two decades, but when it comes to autonomous hardware advanced sensors optics in complex materials that is entirely within their historical wheelhouse.

00:17:51: Oh absolutely!

00:17:52: And you can see this specialized talent coalescing very specific hubs.

00:17:57: Yeah Dr.

00:17:57: Jenna Singer observed what he calls an alumni mafia of ex-Bundeswear military officers building prime defense companies right out.

00:18:07: Right,

00:18:08: we're seeing companies like ARX robotics and quantum systems emerge from this exact ecosystem.

00:18:13: Traditionally massive defense contractors hired engineers to build things And maybe consulted an officer later.

00:18:19: Yeah These new startups are founded by the officers themselves who then hire the engineers.

00:18:24: It creates this cultural inversion where immediate real-world operational experience is injected directly into rapid engineering cycles.

00:18:32: They can win purely on software too.

00:18:35: David Rippert highlighted a European company called Helsing, which is proving that deep tech can achieve high software style profit margins within rigid defense budgets.

00:18:44: Right They aren't trying to build better tank.

00:18:46: they're building AI co-pilots and swarm logic software That runs on the heavy hardware NATO already owns.

00:18:53: And the strategic leverage of that software approach is immense.

00:18:57: Benjamin Tallis shared the results of an independent war game focusing on Helsing's HX-II.

00:19:03: AI enabled loitering munitions.

00:19:05: What

00:19:05: happened?

00:19:06: The simulation showed that when this software driven capability was deployed at scale, it fundamentally altered.

00:19:14: It literally allowed Baltic forces to repel a simulated Russian assault.

00:19:18: Wow!

00:19:18: Effectively tripling their destructive output for a fraction of the cost buying new traditional artillery or

00:19:23: jets.".

00:19:24: It's no surprise that Vichar Capital is flooding into this space then.

00:19:28: Claudia Adler noted that Defense, Security and Resilience Tech—that's the DSR sector —now accounts for a massive fifteen point four percent of all deep-tech funding in the Baltic region.

00:19:39: That's

00:19:40: huge...

00:19:40: It's creating this dual use flywheel where commercial R&D, in things like autonomous navigation and cybersecurity seamlessly translates into national defense layers.

00:19:51: But you know for this European ecosystem to actually sustain its momentum it has to solve two major structural gaps interoperability and talent.

00:20:00: right

00:20:01: Nathan Weeks raised a massive red flag regarding a demographic crisis in systems engineering across NATO.

00:20:07: Okay, too many companies are searching blind basically restricting their hiring to local national talent pools To build the complex multinational defense architecture required today.

00:20:18: Companies must look beyond their own borders and leverage the entire distributed talent pool across The Alliance.

00:20:24: And on the technology side, that interoperability barrier is finally getting shattered.

00:20:28: Matt Cronaccio reported in a recent U.S.

00:20:30: Army event called Jailbreak One Point-O.

00:20:32: Oh!

00:20:32: That was huge.

00:20:33: Yeah

00:20:34: For the last thirty years if you wanted to radar from Company A To talk with a missile launcher from company B You had write custom expensive integration code.

00:20:42: It wasn't nightmare Total

00:20:43: Nightmare.

00:20:44: But at Jail Break One Point O They successfully integrated over seventy different legacy weapon systems and sensors using OpenAPIs, with Andorral's Lattice software serving as the backbone.

00:20:55: To understand that impact you basically have to think of an open API a universal translator.

00:21:01: instead forcing every piece hardware speak exactly same language natively The api allows old proprietary system instantly share data with brand new AI platforms.

00:21:11: Software is bridging the legacy hardware divide, turning isolated platforms into a unified responsive network.

00:21:18: Looking at this entire European ecosystem you know it feels exactly like the early days of the Silicon Valley garage startup era.

00:21:24: yeah You have these brilliant scrappy founders working all hours to build something revolutionary.

00:21:29: right but instead of coding social media apps in Palo Alto These founders are ex-military officers building battlefield autonomy in Munich.

00:21:36: But my critical question Can this scrappy grassroots energy actually survive contact with massive slow-moving European procurement bureaucracies?

00:21:47: Well, that is the ultimate friction point.

00:21:50: The innovation is moving at the speed of software updates but the procurement cycles are still operating on Cold War era timelines.

00:21:58: to survive these startups cannot just rely on being clever engineers, they have to become absolute masters of government relations and regulatory compliance.

00:22:08: They need to leverage rapid adoption frameworks like NATO's Diana Accelerator right?

00:22:13: They have to physically pull the bureaucracy toward them by demonstrating undeniable immediate operational value in the field Just Like The Rapid Iterations We're Seeing In Ukraine.

00:22:22: If They Just Sit Back And Wait For Traditional Government RFPs

00:22:28: which brings us to our final takeaway and a question I really want to leave you, the listener, to ponder.

00:22:33: Yeah so with all this capital in rapid innovation flooding The Defense Zone Victor Dmitrenko highlighted an emerging critical problem-the messaging and differentiation crisis because defense tech is the hot new sector.

00:22:46: every single startup now claims to have AI powered autonomy or resilient software defined systems.

00:22:52: they all sound exactly the same.

00:22:53: Right.

00:22:54: To the exhausted operators and procurement officers making the buying decisions, everything is starting to look and sound exactly identical.

00:23:01: Yeah So The next battlefield for these companies isn't just about having the best underlying technology.

00:23:06: It's about clarity.

00:23:08: How do you cut through an ocean of identical noise?

00:23:11: how will true innovators build a trust required to stand out prove their math And actually win those vital programs?

00:23:23: Also check out our other editions on ICT and Tech Insights, HealthTech Cloud Digital Products & Services Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability in Green ICT.

00:23:32: Thank you so much for joining us as we unpacked the rapidly shifting realities of modern defense technology.

00:23:38: Make sure to hit subscribe.

00:23:39: So don't miss next deep dive.

00:23:41: Until then Keep questioning what's real And whats just noise In this system.