Posted on 01/15/2026 1:43:59 PM PST by Engraved-on-His-hands
Spain has signed off on a contract to produce and supply Ukraine with a Lanza LTR-25 long-range tactical radar, along with logistics support, the Spanish government press service said Wednesday, January 14.
The agreement covers manufacturing and delivery of the Lanza LTR-25. The move is aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses and will remain in effect through the end of 2026....
Spain previously announced €615 million in aid to Ukraine for weapons procurement and air-defense systems financing.
Spain will also provide Ukraine with 40 IRIS-T air-defense missiles.
(Excerpt) Read more at uawire.org ...
Can’t build those without neodymium magnets, which the Chinese will not ship.
Why are they just supplying them now? Where they before?
—”Can’t build those without neodymium magnets”
“Traditional, older radar systems often use a magnetron as the power source for the transmitter, and magnetrons require strong external magnets (which could be neodymium or other types) to function. The LTR-25’s solid-state design avoids this component.”
I guess Putin just became a little more patient. He such a great guy for allowing Spain to do this. But he may just drop the hammer if he tires of exercising such great restraint. I mean he has all 6 of his Oreshnik’s just lying in wait. The there are Foxbat fighters following and if that is not enough, his patience fails entirely, he will unleash the Tsunami torpedos.
According to Nato’s first Secretary General, Nato was to ‘Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’.
And NATO standards were the same as American standards.
And much of the heavy iron was produced in the US.
With NATO’s disintegration, the standards will now be EURO.
US defence sales are dropping off.
Would you want to pay big bucks for a missile or jet that can be geo-fenced out of use?
Now if they could just support our efforts n the Gaza.
I was mostly thinking about the antenna sweep motor.
Finished
🌐
There are 336 million product listings for "neodymium magnets" on Amazon.com.
-- in pretty much any grade, size, and pack quantity one could want.
Incoming QC inspection would have to be very strict, but, that's pretty much true of most Chinese products.
Now, the point is not that defense contractors are going to buy from Amazon, instead, this is the tip of the iceberg. With so many applications in the industrial and consumer world for neo magnets, the ease of reselling, running shell companies, etc., export controls will be very hard to enforce. "The West" has had great trouble in even keeping unique components of various types from finding their way into Russian missiles... Because of their vast and varied utility in rather common products (some of which I used to design, test, etc.), the only way China can keep neo magnets out of Western defense firms hands would be to not ship them at all - thereby losing a very profitable export market, not to mention many other ramifications. China is just not going to do that unless it gets in a shooting war with the US, and even then, the war would have to be both intense and lengthy for the US to have a serious defense industry problem with neodymium magnet supply. Given other sources soon to be online, in fact, we have much bigger problems with scaling up defense production than the neo magnets...
Commercial users (manufacturers)? Yes, THEY likely would get screwed... And consumers better just keep that old flip phone or car or whatever. Kinda like what people did in the USA in WW2...
For really high temperature use you need samarium cobalt magnets, and that material's availability IS a bigger problem @ present. It's not that we can't make it, the tech is old. It's just expensive to do here.
Though of that. AI says China got $2.8B for shipping permanent rare earth magnets last year.
In other words, nothing significant.
One of the processes funded in what was clearly desperation during the October Chinese trade talks when Trump was in S. Korea was one of recovering magnets from other devices for use.
I don’t think it flies. Reshaping them costs magnetism strength.
Maybe most compelling is that rare earth materials was the NUMBER ONE topic for those talks in October. In the end they announced a “framework agreement” and a Chinese suspension of 1 year on their export restrictions and the framework would be fleshed out over the next week.
I watched that next week carefully. Nothing was ever signed or released. There was no agreement. And the 1 year suspension excluded magnets.
Worst of all, in December the US announced a $12B arms agreement with Taiwan. Two days later China announced sanctions on all US defense firms and individuals associated with them.
No magnets.
We will have our own processing. In 10-15 yrs.
No, those samarium cobalt magnets are quite significant
I don’t have time to argue with you on every point. But, here is one:
Neo magnets can’t take high heat. Even the highest heat grades are barely adequate in high power loudspeakers, and even then, you dang well better get your heat sink engineering right, and be prepared to lose some of the low mass advantage of Neo over ceramic magnets. JBL does a nice job on some of their pro stuff by making the entire frame of the speaker a one piece integral part of the heat sink. But, this isn’t near some of the weapons requirements.
Samarium cobalt can (take much higher heat). Therefor they are used to the tune of about 50 lbs. worth in each F-35. You are no engineer, but, the basic information can be looked up.
BSEE Maryland, Masters Physics — Finite Element Analysis Ionospheric Plasma at Hopkins. The Air Force paid, and for a 2nd Masters as well both packed into 3 yrs.
Had to just go back and see what got your attention about the word “significant”. It had nothing to do with Samarium, in fact Samarium was never mentioned. It was about the price tag of $2-3B they rec’d for magnets in 2024 and how loss of that business was suggested as powerful influence on Chinese policy. It’s an insignificant total in their $993B trade surplus. Shutting off export is an insignificant total of yuan.
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