12 mars 2012 Par Rédacteur en chef. PORTAIL DES SOUS-MARINS

Le commandant en chef adjoint de la marine chinoise Xu Hongmeng vient d’annoncer, en marge de la session de l’APN (Assemblée populaire nationale), qu’il serait possible pour le premier porte-avions chinois d’être mis en service cette année. Au sujet de cette plate-forme d’envol et d’atterrissage d’avions, elle a effectué sa première sortie d’essai de 10 août 2011, laquelle a pris fin cinq jours plus tard, c’est-à-dire dans la matinée du 14 août. Par la suite, le porte-avions a exécuté successivement à titre expérimental trois autres sorties.

Référence : Quotidien du Peuple (Chine)

March 10, 2012: STRATEGY PAGE

The Philippines has received the first four (of eight) W-3A transport helicopters from Poland. Two years ago, after several years of negotiations, the Philippines ordered eight W-3As from Polish firm PZL-Swidnik. The six ton W-3 was originally developed in Poland in the 1970s and was sold to other East European nations during the Cold War, as a competitor to the Russian Mi-8. When the Cold War ended, the W-3 was upgraded and certified to operate in Western countries. The twin engine W-3 can carry twelve passengers. Some W-3s were used with Polish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is also a W-3PL "battle support" helicopter version, and some of these are with Polish troops in Afghanistan. This is not a gunship, however, it does have an armored floor but it is otherwise not as robust as choppers specifically built as gunships. The W-3PL has a radar, HUD (head up display), anti-missile system (detectors and flare dispensers), and is armed with a 12.7mm machine-gun turret under the nose. There are winglets for carrying rockets and missiles.

The Philippines bought the W-3 because the aircraft had a good track record and it was, like the Russian Mi-8, cheap (in this case, $6.3 million each). But the main reason for buying the W-3s was that Swidnik was the only bidder. The Philippines was unwilling to pay higher prices that all the other helicopter manufacturers were asking. Poland had another advantage, in that its products have a better reputation for quality and reliability than their Russian counterparts.

March 11, 2012 idrw.orgSOURCE: PTI

French aircraft manufacturing company Dassault is helping the Indian Air Force investigate the two recent crashes involving Mirage-2000 fighter jets.

A team of engineers and technicians from France arrived in Gwalior – the home base of 49 Mirage-2000 aircraft – to help the IAF in air-crash investigations, sources told PTI here.

The foreign team comprises members from SAFRAN, whose engines are fitted to the aircraft which has suffered only six casualties in its over 25 years of service with the IAF, they said.

The IAF is worried after losing two Mirage-2000 fighters in a span of 11 days and has grounded the fleet for preliminary checks.

On both the occasions it was the trainer version of the aircraft which crashed but the pilots managed to bail out successfully.

IAF has already ordered a Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the accidents.

The first crash took place on February 24 when the aircraft crashed near Bhind in Madhya Pradesh soon after takeoff.

The second accident took place on March 5, 100 km south-west of Jaipur near a village in Sawai Madhopur district of Rajasthan.

These aircraft started getting inducted into the IAF in the mid-80s and have had a very good flight safety record.

The IAF has also recently signed two deals worth over USD 3.2 billion for upgrading the capabilities of the Mirage 2000 with French companies Dassault, Thales and MBDA.

Dassault was recently awarded the contract for supplying 126 Rafale aircraft to the IAF.

March 12, 2012 idrw.org SOURCE : BANGALORE MIRRIOR

In another bull’s eye for the city, a Bangalore-based electronics firm has developed a device which would soon make the Indian Army’s Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) an even more formidable weapon of war.

The indigenous Arjun tank, considered the finest third generation battle tank in the world, will soon be fitted with an ‘Automatic Video Tracker’, a device developed by Deepti Electronics and Electro-Optics Pvt Ltd (Delopt), Kanakapura Road. The device homes in on an enemy target and tracks it until it is destroyed.

Based on Line Replacement Units (LRUs) technique, a state-of-the-art technology, the tracker uses thermal technology to locate enemy tanks and vehicles. The device becomes the ‘eyes’ of the tank as it maintains a constant surveillance for potential targets. Once a target is detected, information is passed on to the gunner, who then launches a weapon to destroy the target. The entire process takes no more than a fraction of a second.

A prototype of the device was successfully tested on Arjun tanks in the Pokhran range, Rajasthan recently. A slightly modified version of the device will be handed over to the army in about a month’s time.

According to M R Sheshadri, director of Delopt, Arjun tanks are currentlyfitted with a manual thermal imager produced by a French company. It requires the navigator to constantly keep an eye on either the monitor or the view finder to locate enemy targets — a difficult process as both are on the move.

“By the time the information is passed on to the gunner, the target would have escaped,” Sheshadri, a former DRDO scientist, said. “With the thermal imager, the navigator can only track the enemy, but he cannot lock on to it for that perfect strike.”

Considering these drawbacks, the DRDO had called for tenders inviting firms to devise and manufacture a mechanism that would lock on to a target irrespective of its speed and location.

“Once the device locks on to a target, the commander can forget about it,” Sheshadri said. “The tracker will take care of the rest. It collects intelligence inputs like location, distance, range etc and in less than a few milliseconds output is sent to the gunner who then fires a missile to destroy the target. It has zero error. Unlike the earlier mechanism, with this device you can save personnel from fatigue. For instance, the tank commander can attend to some other duty while the tracker locks on to the target.”

An Arjun tank is operated by a four-member crew comprising a commander-cum-navigator, gunner, loader and driver.

While the tracker has been devised to primarily locate targets on land, it is capable of tracking air-borne threats as well.

“Whether the target is in the front or at the rear of the tank, the device can detect any enemy threat and lock on to it,” Sheshadri said. “During trials, it detected fighter aircraft and missiles at a distance of 25 to 30 kms away. But for terrestrial targets, the army wanted us to limit it to 3km. Israel has also installed a commercial grade version of the product in their surveillance gadgets like air balloons etc. The defence grade has been made available only to the  DRDO ,” he said.

Although it can locate a number of targets, the tracker can lock on to only one target at a time. “We are working to incorporate multiple target engaging facility,” said Sheshadri, whose firm took five years to develop the tracker.

March 11, 2012 idrw.org - SOURCE: Sunday-guardian.com

The Naval version of India’s first indigenous fighter — the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA-Navy) — has not been able to obtain the certification needed to make its debut flight because of structural issues. The Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) refused the certification saying the structure of the aircraft needed rectifications. The debut flight was initially slated to take place by the end of 2010, but was delayed. The US Navy and the European consortium, EADS, are being consulted to rectify the problems.

The two most important features that require rectifications are the landing gear and special controls. The weight of the landing gear needs to be reduced. The movement of the Levcon (leading edge vortex control) too has to be reduced. A Levcon is a small wing ahead of the main wing of the aircraft, at the edge, and is required to have a controlled movement. These features distinguish the naval version from the Indian Air Force’s LCA. The LCA-Navy is heavier than the IAF version as it has a landing gear that makes its under-carriage weightier than its IAF counterpart. The Levcon is also missing in the IAF version.

Being built by the Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) under the guidance of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the LCA-Navy has the primary role of air defence and anti-shipping strike and interception. Fuel dump, an additional feature that the LCA-Navy will have, will help the aircraft land safely by reducing its weight. The first LCA-Navy was rolled out in July 2010 and was supposed to take off by the end of 2010. It may be noted that the carrier-borne fighter’s first prototype had its Engine Ground Run (EGR) only on 26 September 2011.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony stated in Parliament last year, “Deficiencies have been detected in the airframe and other associated equipment of the LCA Navy. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is working out modalities with various organisations for rectifying these deficiencies by suitable modifications to the engine/airframe design.”

All naval LCAs will be tested at the Goa-based shore-based test facility (SBTF), which will have a simulated arresting gear and landing aids as in an aircraft carrier, as the aircraft will form a part of the fleet onboard the indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC). The Navy has ordered 46 of these aircraft for the IAC, which is expected to be ready for sea-trials towards the end of 2013. The 40,000 tonne warship is being built by Cochin Shipyard Ltd.

The LCA (Navy) project team comprises members of the Indian Navy, IAF, HAL, DRDO, CEMILAC, DGAQA, CSIR laboratories, educational institutions and other public and private sector partners. The programme is being headed by a retired naval officer, Commodore Balaji, who has been under tremendous pressure to show results.

The IAF LCA Tejas has been delayed already. Its final operational clearance (FOC), which was slated for 2013 will now come in 2014. With the first flight of the naval version too getting delayed, the entire programme has come under criticism.

Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Nirmal Verma was quoted saying in Port Blair in February this year that the parent agency, ADA, concentrated mainly on the IAF version of the aircraft, more than the naval version, which caused the delay. The Navy chief largely blamed the ADA for not delivering.

Former IAF chief S. Krishnaswamy has said that the naval aircraft will probably need a new engine apart from a lot of testing and modifications. He has said that with the primary IAF version too hitting technological roadblocks, it’s bad news for the LCA programme all-round.

2012-03-09 -- (China Military News cited from PLA Daily )

The conference of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on assigning the command and confrontation training pilot task was held on March 5, 2012 at the Nanjing Army Command College. Nearly 100 leaders and experts from the leading organs of the PLA general headquarters/departments, troop units and educational institutions to be involved in the pilot work attended the meeting.

The PLA general headquarters/departments decided to adopt confrontation training as the basic training method for command body training and troop units’ actual-troop exercise to realize the transformation of the command body training from the traditional model of organizing and conducting training solely by the command body to a new model of confrontation training which separates the command body, the simulated “Blue Army” and the directing and coordinating body. In order to encourage troop units to conduct confrontation training in a real sense, the actual-troop exercise will be transformed from one that is interfered by directing and coordinating body during the whole process to one that features independent confrontation drill by the “Red Army” and the “Blue Army”.

As a pilot program of command and confrontation training, the “Army Operation Command Training Center” of the Nanjing Army Command College will organize commanding bodies at division and brigade levels to carry out confrontation drill with simulated commanding body organized by educational institutions in order to enhance the capability of commanding body in commanding actual combat and organizing training by using information system.

Troop units at brigade and regiment levels and the simulated “Blue Army” will be organized to conduct the actual-troop confrontation drill in the combined tactics training base in order to adopt simulation method to reflect the true situation on the battlefield and the result of the confrontation.

The pilot program of command and confrontation training and actual-troop confrontation exercise will be launched in the Nanjing Army Command College and a training base respectively in the third quarter of 2012.

Chen Yong, assistant to chief of general staff of PLA, attended and addressed the meeting.

March 9, 2012 defpro.com

Reforms at the New Zealand Defence Force are on track, but the process has affected those who work for the Defence Force, the Vice Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force told a Select Committee Mar. 8.

Rear Admiral Jack Steer told Parliament’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that the Defence Force has realised savings for 2011/12 of $127 million, as at the end of January. Savings for reinvestment for the full financial year are forecast to be $142 million – against the $130-$150 million we forecast in August 2011.

“In short, our reform programme is on track,” he says. “We have made savings and have a comprehensive plan for the remainder. We currently forecast to achieve $355 million savings for reinvestment by FY 14 /15.”

But the Vice Chief of Defence acknowledged that such fundamental change, that it had hit Defence people hard, with higher attrition and lower morale than in recent years.

“There is no shying away from the fact that it has impacted our people,” he says. “It is people that define our organisation, they are our greatest capability and if we cannot keep well trained people; or cannot keep morale up, we will not be able to deliver on our mission. This is a focus of the Defence Force leadership team.

“For the record I would like to state that we are immensely proud of the young men and women of our Defence Force. Every day they are prepared to step into harms way in the service of their country. They are a very impressive group of New Zealanders and we are most grateful and appreciative for the service they provide.”

With regard to Defence’s civilianisation programme, Rear Admiral Steer says savings had been realised earlier and of a greater amount than originally forecast. In total 304 members of the Defence Force were ‘impacted by civilianisation, with 85 of them appointed to civilian roles.

Rear Admiral Steer says this means that the next phase of civilianisation would be progressed through existing attrition and completion of contracts: “Our people even in roles under consideration for civilianisation, can have the certainty that there is a job until they decide to make a change.”

“This has been a hard year for the NZ Defence Force, with the losses of life on operations, the impact of the change programme, and the high tempo of activities.

“As we explain to our people, the changes we are undertaking are not about cutting the Defence Force, they are about ensuring that the money is spent where it needs to be to ensure the maintenance of the military capability that the New Zealand Defence Force provides to the Government of the day, and that contributes to the security and well being of the people of New Zealand.”

The Vice Chief of Defence formally noted the deaths while on duty in the years under consideration by the Select Committee of Corporal Ben Carson, FGOFF Dan Gregory, FLLT Hayden Madsen, LT Tim O’Donnell, Private Karifi Mila, Corporal Doug Grant; and Lance Corporal Leon Smith.

“Our thoughts remain with their family and friends. Our thoughts today are also with our colleagues from the 3rd battalion, the Yorkshire regiment and the 1st Bn, the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment who overnight lost six of their family in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan,” he says.

Sikorsky MH-60R ASW helicopter (photo : Sikorsky)

10.03.2012 DEFENSE STUDIES

10.03.2012 Source: xinhua

Le porte-avions chinois réaménagé commencera à servir officiellement dans la marine cette année, ont déclaré hier de hauts responsables militaires.

Des avions de combat participeront bientôt aux essais en mer qui se déroulent bien à ce jour, a déclaré Xu Hongmeng, commandant adjoint de la marine chinoise.

« Les autorités militaires prévoient de permettre la mise en service du porte-avions cette année », a indiqué M. Xu à Beijing.

Un porte-parole du ministère de la Défense avait déclaré précédemment que le transporteur serait utilisé principalement pour la recherche scientifique et la formation des pilotes des futurs porteurs.

Les experts militaires estiment que le transporteur sera mis en service le 1er août, la journée de l'Armée en Chine, et servira dans la mer de Chine méridionale. Il n'a pas encore été nommé.

Des photographies publiées en ligne ont montré des avions et des hélicoptères atterrir sur le pont de l'appareil dans le port de Dalian en Chine du nord-est.

Des avions de combat chinois J-15, que les experts militaires considèrent comme le modèle le mieux adapté au transporteur, ont pris part à des exercices de décollage et d'atterrissage à courte distance à la fin de l'année dernière, selon un reportage du journal pékinois Legal Evening News hier.

Le navire ne sera doté d'une capacité de combat que lorsque les avions militaires pourront y atterrir et en décoller, indique l'expert en porte-avions Zhang Yao, chercheur senior à l'Institut d'études internationales de Shanghai.

L'appareil a pris part à quatre essais en mer dans la mer Jaune depuis le mois d'août dernier.

Le navire sera capable de transporter une trentaine de chasseurs et hélicoptères, ainsi qu'un équipage de près de 2 000 personnes.

Le porte-avions Admiral Kuznetsov a été acheté à l'Ukraine en 1998 comme coquille vide et a été réaménagé pour son rôle en tant que plateforme de recherche et de formation. Toutes les armes et les systèmes de radar et autres équipements à bord ont été fabriqués en Chine.

La Chine a encore un long chemin à parcourir avant de produire ses propres porte-avions, car elle doit s'adapter aux nouvelles tendances de développement, a constaté hier Xu Xiaoyan, lieutenant général de l'Armée populaire de libération. « La Chine aura besoin d'au moins trois porte-avions », a-t-il souligné.

Le major général Luo Yuan, chercheur à l'Académie des sciences militaires de l'APL, a déclaré qu'« il est tout à fait possible pour la Chine de construire plus de porte-avions correspondant à la puissance économique du pays ».

source Livefist

March 9, 2012: STRATEGY PAGE

The second Indian Army BrahMos missile battalion has entered service. There was also a successful test of BrahMos on March 4th. So BrahMos missiles have only been deployed on the Pakistan border. But since the army version of BrahMos is carried around in a truck mounted launcher, the missiles could quickly be moved to the Chinese border. The third BrahMos battalion is believed to be for service on the Chinese border. India has been building up its forces in Arunachal Pradesh (which China claims) in the north-eastern.

BrahMos is a stealthy supersonic cruise missile that can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land, is about three-and-a-half times faster than the USA's subsonic Harpoon cruise missile and three times faster than USA's subsonic Tomahawk missile. An air-launched variant is expected to enter service within two years and will make India the only country with supersonic missiles in all the defense forces. A hypersonic version of the missile, which is also presently under development with speed of Mach 7 to boost aerial fast strike capability, is expected to be ready by 2016.

BrahMos has the capability of attacking surface targets by flying as low as 100 meters (310 feet) in altitude. It can gain a speed of Mach 2.8, and has a maximum range of 290 km. Its air launched version weighs 2.5 tons and the Indian Air Force is working on having an even smaller and lighter version. The army and navy versions of the BrahMos missile weigh three tons or more. All versions have a 200 kg (660 pound) conventional warhead, but it is possible to replace that with a nuclear warhead. The missile is also available for exports whosoever may interested in it as long as they are ready to shell out about $2-3 million for each missile. The cost depends on the version. The BrahMos has been developed as a joint venture between the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) of India and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) of Russia under BrahMos Aerospace. The missile is named after two rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.

BrahMos is criticized for being too expensive for what it does. Spending $3 million to deliver a 200 kg warhead seems excessive when there are so many other, cheaper, alternatives available. The one area where BrahMos is valuable is as an anti-ship missile, which is what it was originally designed for.

March 9, 2012: STRATEGY PAGE

Taiwan is getting two used American Osprey class coastal mine hunters. Each of the Ospreys will cost $53 million, mainly for refurbishment, upgrades and training. Five years ago the U.S. Navy decommissioned its twelve Osprey mine hunting ships. The Ospreys entered service in the 1990s, and are 893 ton, 61 meter (188 foot) long ships that require a crew of 51 and carry mine hunting sonar, and gear for destroying any mines found.

The Ospreys are being replaced by LCS ships carrying the mine countermeasures module. The LCS is about three times larger than the Ospreys, and may not be able to go places the Osprey's could go. LCS is supposed to be the Navy's green/brown water "solution", but many counter-mine experts believe it is too big for the mine clearing job. The LCS costs a heck of a lot more and is still not available, leaving the U.S. with only a handful of mine warfare vessels, of the somewhat larger Avenger Class (MCM-1), which run about 1,400 tons.

Counter Mine operations have always gotten the short end of the stick in the U.S. Navy. This is more a tradition, than a conscious decision to downplay this threat. American sailors have always been able to scramble and overcome naval mines during the few instances where a lot of them were encountered. One of these days, that famous luck will run out. Meanwhile, Taiwan will have a little of what the U.S. once had in the mine hunting department.

09 March 2012 - by Tony Osborne- Shepardmedia.com

The Phillippines Air Force (PAF) has taken delivery of the first batch of four W-3 Sokol helicopters from PZL-Swidnik.

The aircraft were handed over in a ceremony at Clark Air Base on 8 March after being flown in from Poland in late February. The second batch of four will arrive in the second quarter of 2012.

Eight Sokols were ordered in 2010 under a $65 million contract as part of its wide-ranging 'Back to Basics' modernisation of the PAF's assets.

The Philippine Air Force’s Sokols are equipped with navigation and avionics systems including a NVG compatible cockpit, allowing it to operate day and night in all weather conditions. The helicopter can transport up to 11 troops in the cabin or can lift up to 2,100 kg (4,630 lb) using its external cargo hook. The aircraft can also be fitted with a M60D machine gun on each side of the cabin.

Aircrew and maintainer training for the initial batch of aircraft was completed in February in Poland before the aircraft were air freighted to the Philippines.

Mieczysław Majewski, President of PZL-Świdnik, said: '[The handover] marks the start of a long partnership with the Philippine Air Force as these helicopters enter active service. We look forward to supporting the Sokols in service and expanding our partnership with the Philippine armed forces in the future.'

The modernisation focuses on improving the PAF's ability to conduct internal security operations.

The contract for eight aircraft under the Combat Utility Helicopter (CUH) programmes also includes training and support. The aircraft will be used in the SAR, medical evacuation and combat utility missions.

Further modernisation of the PAF will include the purchase of seven attack capable helicopters, 18 basic fixed-wing training aircraft, one C-130 aircraft and a single long-range patrol aircraft.