Military aircraft and AIS vessels on the intel map.

What shipped

The intel map now carries two new live layers. The first is military aircraft, ADS-B and MLAT tracks for US, coalition and regional military airframes, filtered to the CENTCOM area of responsibility. The second is AIS vessel tracking for tankers, cargo ships and military vessels across the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea and the Bosphorus.

• Aircraft layer. Military transponder hex codes and ICAO registrations are classified by type (tanker, ISR, strike, airlift). Tracks are retained for the last 24 hours so analysts can step back through a day's sorties.
• Sortie-rate analysis. The desk computes a rolling sortie rate by airframe class, tanker launches out of Al Udeid, ISR loiters over the northern Gulf, strike CAP rotations, and flags unusual spikes against a baseline.
• AIS vessel layer. Tankers, LNG carriers, container ships and military vessels all render with type-specific icons. Clicking a marker gives name, flag, IMO/MMSI, type, last-known speed and heading, and destination if broadcast.
• Chokepoint bounding boxes. Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and the Bosphorus are all retained as named bounding boxes so alerts can fire on transits in or out of each.

Why this matters

The overwhelming majority of market-moving Gulf stories can be cross-checked against what is physically in the air or on the water. A tanker launch spike out of Al Udeid preceding a headline is a very different signal from a headline with no matching air activity. Vessel tracks around Hormuz tell you within minutes whether a reported incident is a real diversion or just a rumour. The goal of these layers is to let analysts make that call without leaving the desk.

What comes next

Next on this track: OFAC SDN vessel screening (already planned for later in March) and a recorded dark-period detector for tankers that switch their AIS off inside the Gulf. For the wider method, see the methodology.