The Sharp Blade-2025 International Sniper Competition concluded on Saturday in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, after four days of intense shooting contests among top snipers from around the world.

A closing ceremony and an award ceremony were held at 09:30 at a training base in the city.

From Tuesday to Friday, some 50 sniper teams from more than 20 countries competed across 12 events covering four categories, namely, basic precision sniping, typical scenario sniping, comprehensive combat sniping, and extreme scenario sniping.

The first tranche of a fleet of Aussie tanks, worth some $245m, have been delivered to Ukraine to help bolster the war-torn nation in its war against Russia.

Australia is providing 49 M1A1 Abrams tanks – valued at $245m – to Ukraine to help bolster its war against Russia’s illegal invasion.

The first tranche of the retired tanks are now in the possession of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after they were shipped from the Port of Geelong.

Australia first purchased the fleet of 59 Abrams tanks – which were never deployed into a combat zone – in 2007.

The Australian Army has since replaced the fleet with newer M1A2 tanks.

Three-hundred-and-thirty-five US paratroopers dropped into Charters Towers under the cover of night, exploiting allied night vision capabilities to launch a surprise operation designed to overwhelm any adversary. 

They were not alone, German and French paratroopers jumped alongside them, taking part in one of the first major actions of Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025. 

Discover more in the link here... https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2025-07-17/allied-paratroopers-own-night

After the Estonian startup KrattWorks dispatched the first batch of its Ghost Dragon ISR quadcopters to Ukraine in mid-2022, the company’s officers thought they might have six months or so before they’d need to reconceive the drones in response to new battlefield realities. The 46-centimeter-wide flier was far more robust than the hobbyist-grade UAVs that came to define the early days of the drone war against Russia. But within a scant three months, the Estonian team realized their painstakingly fine-tuned device had already become obsolete.

Rapid advances in jamming and spoofing—the only efficient defense against drone attacks—set the team on an unceasing marathon of innovation. Its latest technology is a neural-network-driven optical navigation system, which allows the drone to continue its mission even when all radio and satellite-navigation links are jammed. It began tests in Ukraine in December, part of a trend toward jam-resistant, autonomous UAVs (uncrewed aerial vehicles). The new…