United States

A request for 24 AH-6J Little Bird helicopter gunships has been made after President Museveni's son watched Black Hawk Down, reportedly rewinding the old VHS tape he had and replaying the scene where the helicopters gun down hundreds of Somali militiamen repeatedly, reportedly while whispering "fucking cool, man". We hope to be able to acquire the helicopters from American surplus given our persistent security problems and limited budget, though we are willing to pay to refit them and maintain them with American personnel and contractors. Privately, the Ugandan military attache says that any helicopter on the MD 530 family will probably work as long as it looks right.

A somewhat more sensible request for a half-dozen C-130 transport aircraft, also from surplus with Uganda to pay for refitting and sustainment, has also arrived, as the recent events in Sudan have shown that Uganda's lack of organic airlift capabilities is a significant difficulty in its counter-terror operations.

In addition, in an offer to offset some of this, Uganda is offering to sell a number of 122mm "Grad" rockets and BM-21/RM-70 launch platforms to the United States, presumably for use in Ukraine--we're not asking questions and you shouldn't either. Just don't look too closely at where they were manufactured.

Turkiye

After watching lengthy compilations of internet footage in which the system easily destroys even advanced surface to air missiles far beyond the ken of Uganda's neighbors, the essentially inevitable order for Bayraktar TB2 drones has arrived, totaling $45 million for 9 systems and precision-guided munitions, with more orders likely to follow.

More practically speaking, the Ugandan Army has awarded a contract to ASELSAN to modernize its communications with NATO-standard radios and encryption. While Uganda's neighbors presently aren't exactly highly advanced in the signals intelligence department, there's no reason this will continue to be the case indefinitely [and Uganda may sooner or later attract the attention of some great power] so a modern, secure comms system is vital to Ugandan security. A $30 million contract for communications modernization has been inked, with a steady inflow of smaller contracts for future systems likely to follow.

China

With Russia and Ukraine currently out of the arms-export picture--much to Museveni's frustration--Chinese weapons start looking a lot more favorable, despite the fact their export appeal historically has been... not that great. In particular, Uganda is interested in rockets. Both multiple launch rocket systems, but also surface-to-air missiles, which are now more of a concern with the potential threat of drones even from small terror groups. While we don't need a huge, modern IADS we do need something.

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Initially, the HQ-17AE attracted some attention until it was realized that the system was, in a word, "ugly". Thus, interest has consolidated around the purchase of a single FK-3 [HQ-22] battalion for approximately $90 million.

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Multiple launch rocket systems are a Chinese speciality, and ultimately we felt it better to go to the source than buy a knockoff. Asked for a reason why Uganda needs rocket artillery, Ugandan generals said "it looks pretty awesome", though they may have in mind, in the long term, its capability to fire ballistic and cruise missiles, a prime reason the AR-3 system was selected, with 6 units to be purchased along with ammunition for an estimated $50 million in total.