Colton Jones

Colton Jones serves as Deputy Editor of Defence Blog, with a specialization in the U.S. defense industrial base. A former member of the United States Air Force, Colton brings firsthand military experience to his analysis of procurement, defense manufacturing, and Pentagon policy. He is one of the blog’s lead writers and most respected defense experts.

U.S. Navy pays $100M for missiles that simulate China and Russia’s threat

Every warship in the U.S. Navy practices shooting down the kind of supersonic cruise missiles that China and Russia have spent decades perfecting, and the Navy paid nearly $100 million to keep that practice running for another...

U.S. Special Forces wants to make its combat divers harder to detect

Somewhere underwater, a Navy SEAL is holding his breath, swimming toward an enemy ship in total darkness, counting on one thing to keep him alive: the fact that nobody on that ship can see him coming. The...

U.S. Army invests $461M to rebuild short-range air defense fast

The U.S. Army is nearly doubling its investment in its primary short-range air defense system for fiscal year 2027, requesting $461 million for the Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense program, known as M-SHORAD, up from $296 million the...

U.S. Air Force to replace F-16’s aging computer brain

The U.S. Air Force has opened an industry search for a new mission computer for its F-16 fleet, a move aimed at replacing aging avionics hardware that limits future upgrades to one of the service’s most widely...

DARPA wants to replace GPS dependence with new class of sensors

Every GPS signal on the battlefield is a vulnerability waiting to be exploited, and Russia, China, and Iran have all demonstrated the willingness to exploit it. DARPA just announced it is going to solve that problem from...

L3Harris wins $98M to make APKWS rockets deadlier against drones

A $48.5 million contract awarded to L3Harris to produce proximity fuzes for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System is the latest signal that the U.S. military has found its answer to the drone swarm problem, and is...

U.S. Marines buy more unmanned anti-ship missile launchers

The U.S. Marine Corps is expanding the fleet of unmanned missile-launching trucks that can hide on a Pacific island and sink Chinese warships, with a $70.6 million contract to Oshkosh Defense announced this week for additional ROGUE-Fires...

Lockheed wins $180M to keep HIMARS running for its global customers

More than a dozen countries are now waiting in line to buy the rocket artillery system that rewrote the rules of the war in Ukraine, and the U.S. Army just signed a contract to make sure all...