April 24, 2013 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: US Department of Defense; issued April 23, 2013)

Pentagon Contract Announcement

General Dynamic Land Systems Inc., Sterling Heights, Mich., was awarded a modification (No. P00019) to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive contract (W56HZV-11-C-C002) with a maximum value of $180,399,976 to extend the ground combat vehicle technology development phase by six months.

Fiscal 2013 Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation, Army contract funds are being obligated on this award.

The Army Contracting Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity.

BAE Systems Land and Armaments LP., Sterling Heights, Mich., was awarded a modification (No. P00019) to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive contract (W56HZV-11-C-C001), with a maximum value of $159,481,403 to extend the ground combat vehicle technology development phase by six months.

Fiscal 2013 Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation, Army contract funds are being obligated on this award.

The Army Contracting Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity

24 April 2013 airforce-technology.com

Northrop Grumman-built multifunction advanced data link (MADL) waveform has successfully demonstrated its ability to advance communication among the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter (JSF) aircraft during flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) in California, US.

During testing, the MADL joined the communications, navigation and identification (CNI) Link-16 and variable message format network present on an F-35 aircraft, and the data passed was correlated with information from other F-35 sensors by a fusion system to form a simplified situational awareness picture on the cockpit displays.

The testing forms an important element of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Block 2 software release that is designed to offer an advanced mission systems capability at Edwards AFB.

Northrop Grumman Information Systems Defense Systems division vice president and general manager Mike Twyman said the MADL performed reliably and displayed an excellent range at multiples of required specifications, while demonstrating ability to connect fifth-generation fighters during flight tests.

"This success is a significant achievement for the F-35 program and enabling joint aerial concept of operations," Twyman added.

A critical capability of the F-35 CNI avionics, the MADL is a high-data-rate, directional communications link designed to enable coordinated tactics and engagement to help bring significant operational advantages to fifth-generation aircraft operating in high-threat environments.

The CNI system provides F-35 pilots with an equivalent capability of over 27 avionics subsystems, including identification friend or foe (IFF), automatic acquisition of fly-to points, and various voice and data communications, while lowering size, weight and power demands on the aircraft.

Northrop also manufactures F-35's centre fuselage, radar and electro-optical subsystem, mission systems and mission planning software, pilot and maintenance training system courseware, apart from managing the F-35 industry team's use, support and maintenance of low-observable technologies.

Currently under production by Lockheed, the F-35 JSF is designed to conduct ground attack, reconnaissance, and air defence missions with stealth capability.

April 24, 2013: Strategy Page

The U.S. Department of Defense has 86 major procurement projects, worth $1.6 trillion if all are completed. This figure makes some allowance for cost growth, but those allowances, historically, are usually too low. The $1.6 trillion figure is nine percent less than it was last year and is expected to continue to decline as the defense budget shrinks over the next decade. That shrinkage will come from some projects being dropped, others reduced and fewer new ones arriving.

The ten costliest projects in the last year (in terms total project cost as of last year) are;

April 25th, 2013 By US Department of Defense - defencetalk.com

The Air Force will see few force structure changes this year, but readiness and modernization accounts will be in flux this year and next, Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley said here today.

The secretary also told the Defense Writers’ Group that now is the time for another base realignment and closure process.

Readiness and modernization will be problems for the service, Donley said. Air Force readiness has declined since 2003 as the service concentrated on providing support for counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he explained, and providing combat power for the full spectrum of operations has decayed.

“Air-to-air combat, suppression of enemy defenses [and] operations in a contested air environment have not gotten the attention they deserve, and readiness has declined in that respect,” Donley said.

The service had been working to rebuild readiness, he said, but sequestration spending cuts have thrown that effort out the window. Troops and aircraft deploying in support of operations are top notch and receive the training, equipment and supplies they need, the Air Force secretary said, but stateside training has been slashed.

A flying hour reduction of 18 percent is concentrated in the last six months of the fiscal year, and only to stateside-based units, Donley said.

“We are standing down nine fighter squadrons, three bomber squadrons, … and there will be an additional bomber squadron this summer when it returns from deployment,” he added. “It will make the challenge of readiness in [fiscal year 2014] that much harder.”

Some of the recovery from this drawdown will take months, but for depot-level maintenance, which the service is deferring, recovery may take a year or more, he said.

Modernization remains an overarching problem for the Air Force, the secretary said. The average age of the air fleet is increasing, with some aircraft — B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers — being far older than their crews, he noted.

The Air Force must modernize across the board, Donley said. In addition to its fighters, bombers, tankers and trainers, he said, the service also must modernize satellite capabilities and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

“Every mission area that you can think of needs to be modernized,” he added.

The fiscal situation could be the Air Force’s best chance to eliminate excess infrastructure, Donley said.

“It’s a significant forcing function,” he added, noting that Air Force officials estimate the service has roughly 20 percent excess infrastructure by square footage. Eight closures conducted during the 2005 base realignment and closure round, he said, were relatively small.

Since then, the Air Force has retired more than 500 aircraft, and the number of personnel has shrunk. The best way to do this is to retire aircraft and eliminate the infrastructure that supports those aircraft, Donley said, but aircraft retirement decisions and base closure decisions are made in separate worlds. The Air Force did do this in a drawdown during the 1990s, he added, but has not since then.

24/04/2013 par Nicolas Laffont – 45eNord.ca

Le régime du leader nord-coréen Kim Jong-un a lancé la construction d’obstacles antichars à sa frontière avec le Sud, ont rapporté mercredi matin plusieurs médias chinois.

La chaîne Beijing TV a ainsi diffusé une vidéo montrant des militaires nord-coréens en train de mettre en place de grands blocs en béton à la frontière avec le Sud. Selon les informations de la télévision chinoise, ces obstacles sont destinés à empêcher le passage de chars et d’autres véhicules militaires sud-coréen en cas de conflit ouvert.

Des experts chinois estiment qu’il s’agit là d’une mesure «inhabituelle» pour le régime nord-coréen, ce qui laisserait supposer que Pyongyang se prépare bel et bien à la guerre.

La péninsule coréenne connaît un net regain de tension ces dernières semaines.

Depuis le succès du troisième essai nucléaire du pays, les sanctions des Nations Unies ont ravivé la colère du régime qui a menacé les États-Unis, la Corée du Sud et le Japon d’une guerre thermonucléaire. De son côté, la Corée du Sud a annoncé la mise au point d’un plan de frappe préventive en cas de menace directe pour sa sécurité.

Début mars, Pyongyang, en signe de protestation contre les exercices conjoints entre la Corée du Sud et les Etats-Unis, a résilié tous les accords de non-agression et de dénucléarisation conclus avec Séoul et a annoncé l’annulation de l’armistice conclu à l’issue de la guerre de Corée de 1950-1953.

23 Apr 2013 By David Blair - telegraph.co.uk

The free-riding nations of Europe are making a big mistake by slashing their defence budgets

In the high summer of the Atlantic alliance, Winston Churchill warned America that the “price of greatness is responsibility”. Seventy years on, the US might reasonably have hoped that the countries it was about to liberate when Churchill came to call would have shouldered the responsibility for their own defence.

Remarkably, the opposite is true: not only do the 26 European members of Nato still depend on Washington as the ultimate guarantor of their security, but this reliance is increasing. A revealing New York Times report this week quotes US officials complaining about Europe’s “collective military irrelevance” – and arguing that Britain’s own position is so bad that it might have to give up on a Trident successor to make ends meet. “Either they can be a nuclear power and nothing else,” says a source, “or a real military partner.”

Back in 2001, the US accounted for 63 per cent of Nato defence spending. Today, the figure is 75 per cent, with the other members running down budgets in response to the financial crisis and the monumental expense of their welfare systems. Can history provide a more glaring example of free-riding? Rock-solid in the belief that the US will always underwrite their security, Europeans have taken the opportunity to slash defence budgets and buy generous welfare systems instead. Today, most European countries invest barely 1 per cent of national income on their armed forces, leaving America to pick up the burden by spending 4.8 per cent of its own GNP.

The partial exceptions are Britain and (ironically) Greece. Today, these two countries have the biggest defence budgets in Europe as a share of national income: both spend about 2 per cent, which is more than their neighbours but still less than half of America’s level.

But the free-riders are taking a huge gamble. You can sleep safely under the shield of a Great Power only if that benevolent titan is prepared to protect you forever. In Washington, however, US officials cannot help but notice what is happening. At a recent briefing, a senior official politely voiced “surprise” that Britain was prepared to do without aircraft carriers – or at least those capable of actually launching air strikes – until the end of the decade. He was also puzzled that an island nation, reliant for its trade on vulnerable shipping lanes, was willing to scrap a new generation of maritime patrol aircraft. Both “capability gaps” would, naturally, be left to America to fill.

Handing over essential tasks to the Americans has become the unofficial mantra of British and European defence ministries. It is, perhaps, the Arthur Clough school of policy: “Westward, look, the land is bright!”

But the Great Power is turning its own gaze westward. Last year, Barack Obama took a decision that history might record as the most significant of his presidency. He declared that US naval strength will now “pivot” towards Asia, with 60 per cent of American sea power to be deployed in the Pacific by 2020. The reasons behind this are obvious: China’s rise has landed the US with a new strategic competitor and Washington’s friends in Asia require its protection far more than free-riding Europeans.

Moreover, America’s new allies are willing to invest in their own defence. As long ago as 2008, Asia’s military budgets overtook Europe’s. In that year, Asia collectively spent £173 billion on defence, compared with £144 billion among Europe’s Nato members. Since then, the gap has only widened. That reflects the performance of Asia’s economies versus stagnating Europe. All the more reason, then, for the US to focus increasingly on Asia instead of its old allies.

In his final speech before stepping down as US defence secretary in 2011, Robert Gates displayed the candour of a statesman on the verge of retirement. “If current trends in the decline of European defence capabilities are not halted and reversed, future US political leaders – those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America’s investment in Nato worth the cost,” he said.

How might this be avoided? Britain has a crucial role to play. The defence and security review of 2010 was designed to keep us above the vital but undefined threshold that makes Britain a worthwhile ally for America, while still making inevitable cuts. The more realistic goal turned out to be ensuring that when we did fall below that line, we would eventually be able to clamber back up again.

In this way, Britain tried to avoid relegation to the free-riders. So we lost our ability to launch strike aircraft from carriers, but we will regain this when the first Queen Elizabeth Class vessel enters service in 2018.

However, the current defence equipment programme assumes that its budget will rise by 1 per cent above inflation after 2015. That may not be a safe bet. True, the Trident issue is something of a red herring: we can maintain the capacity and have a proper military if we really want to spend the money. But there is still a Potemkin village quality about some of our aspirations. The Royal Navy will get two giant carriers, each capable of carrying 36 Lightning II fighters, but only one vessel will be available at any given time – and this will probably have only 12 planes. In theory, Britain will have two platforms capable of embarking 72 fighters; in reality, one will be available with only a sixth of that number of planes.

Put bluntly, Britain is perilously close to joining Europe’s free-riders. If that happens, and a future American president then turns decisively towards Asia, the government responsible will have made a great strategic blunder.

Apr 23, 2013 Spacewar.com  (UPI)

Tel Aviv, Israel - The Pentagon has stepped up efforts to fund Israel's anti-missile shield with the Missile Defense Agency requesting $220 million in fiscal 2014 for Israel's air force to buy more Iron Dome batteries.

It's the first time the MDA has specifically sought funds for Iron Dome, developed and built by Haifa's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in its annual budget process.

That underlines the U.S. Defense Department's effort to maintain military aid for Israel despite major cutbacks in defense spending.

The agency is also expected to seek another $520 million to fund other Israeli anti-missile systems, including the David's Sling and the high-altitude Arrow 3, which is under development.

"The money, if approved, would be on top of the $486 million the White House and Congress have requested or added for Iron Dome in recent years after formal budgets were submitted," The Jerusalem Post reported.

The House of Representatives and the Senate indicated in 2012 "they wanted to approve spending as much as $680 million for Iron Dome through 2015."

Iron Dome, designed to shoot down short-range missiles and rockets and recently upgraded to counter longer-range weapons as well, became operational in early 2012. But the Israeli air force, which has responsibility for air defense, has only acquired five batteries, several of those with direct U.S. funding on top of the annual $3.1 billion in U.S. military aid Israel receives.

That allowed Israel to deploy all five batteries during an eight-day November clash with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

By official count, Iron Dome successfully intercepted 84.6 percent of the rockets it engaged, including several that for the first time targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Iron Dome's Tamir interceptors engage only those projectiles its computer calculates will hit populated areas and ignores the rest.

Several missile scientists and others have questioned the system's kill rate, with one saying it was closer to 5-10 percent of rockets engaged than the government's assessment of 84.6 percent.

The government rejected the criticisms and is moving ahead with creating a multilayered defense shield against a sustained bombardment it fears by Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah on Israel's northern border and Palestinian militants in the south.

David's Sling, being developed by Rafael and the Raytheon Co. of the United States, is designed to counter medium-range missiles.

Arrow 3, being developed by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and the Boeing Co., is intended to intercept Iranian and Syrian ballistic missiles outside Earth's atmosphere. In its first flight test a few weeks ago Arrow 3 achieved an altitude of 70 miles and intercepted a simulated missile threat.

The Arrow 2 variant currently in service will backstop at lower altitudes against ballistic attacks.

The fiscal 2014 request by the MDA includes funding for further Arrow 3 testing and a second interception flight before preparations begin for initial production.

There is separate funding for an Arrow "Weapons Systems Improvement" program that integrates data links between Israeli missile forces and U.S. weapons systems in the Middle East, reinforcing protection for the Jewish state.

MDA's funding efforts underline that the U.S. administration is seeking to ensure that U.S. military aid to Israel won't be affected by the so-called sequestration of U.S. defense spending.

The Congressional Research Service figures show that U.S. aid to Israel has increased since 1949 by an average of 28 percent a year, leaping 11.4 percent from 2010-13.

The Israel lobby in Washington is pressing for exempting Israel from automatic spending cuts being introduced in virtually all other U.S. government programs.

The commitment of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to maintaining aid flow to Israel was also underlined by the Pentagon announcement last week that Israel, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will be receiving advanced weapons systems worth $10 billion over the next few years.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stressed during his visit to Israel this week that military aid won't be cut.

Antiwar.com, a U.S. website that's highly critical of the levels of U.S. military aid to Israel, recently cited a report on Israeli government expenditures that showed the Jewish state spends "a hugely disproportionate amount on its military, with roughly one-fifth of the overall national budget going straight into military spending."

4/23/2013 Strategy Page

KEY WEST, Florida (April 23, 2013) A tethered TIF-25K aerostat is positioned on the Military Sealift Command high-speed vessel Swift (HSV 2) to be tested and evaluated at sea for use in future Operation Martillo counter transnational organized crime operations while assigned to U.S. 4th Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker)

Apr. 23, 2013 - By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS – Defense News

WASHINGTON — Rebuffed by Congress in an attempt to inactivate nine warships as a cost-cutting measure, the US Navy is set to try again – in 2015.

The effort is reflected in data tables sent by the service to Capitol Hill in advance of a Wednesday-morning hearing on acquisition plans for the Navy and Air Force. The tables, prepared to accompany the forthcoming annual 30-year shipbuilding plan, were sent to Congress this week without explanation as, according to Navy sources, the final report has yet to be approved.

The tables show few changes over last year’s shipbuilding plans, but nine additional ships appear in the retirement column planned for fiscal 2015.

Other ships also are scheduled to leave service in 2015, reflecting earlier plans, but unexpectedly, two T-AOE fast combat support ships are now on the early retirement list, one each in 2014 and 2015. Previously, the earliest T-AOE retirements weren’t scheduled until 2033.

At about 49,000 tons, the Navy’s four T-AOEs, operated by the Military Sealift Command, are some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated support ships, carrying fuel, ammunition and supplies. The high-speed ships usually accompany aircraft carrier strike groups on overseas deployments.

The renewed effort to reduce the numbers of cruisers and amphibious ships follows an initial announcement in February 2012 that, as a cost-cutting measure, the cruisers Cowpens, Anzio, Vicksburg and Port Royal would be decommissioned in 2013, with the cruisers Gettysburg, Chosin, Hue City and amphibious dock ships Whidbey Island and Tortuga following in 2014.

All were being inactivated prior to the normally-expected end of their service lives. The service looked for savings by cutting operations, canceling further modernization of the ships and reducing the need for about 3,000 sailors.

But Congress objected to the force reductions and, in the 2013 defense authorization bill passed Jan. 1, required the Navy to keep the ships in service. But the Navy didn’t request operating funds for the ships it wanted to inactivate in 2013, and they were placed in an “operational but not funded” status.

It is not clear from the data tables if the seven cruisers and two amphibs to be decommissioned in 2015 are the same ships the Navy early planned to inactivate. But the decommissionings are sure to be a point of contention on Capitol Hill.

“If decline is a choice, this new 30-year shipbuilding plan willingly chooses to continue the slow, painful decline of American seapower,” Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., said Tuesday in a statement. Forbes chairs the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, set to hold the Wednesday morning hearing.

“After committing to a 313-ship fleet,” Forbes continued, “this plan has the Navy headed to just 270 [in 2015] after retiring 31 vessels and only procuring 16 new ones during this time. More alarming, while this fleet is shrinking by retiring and building less major surface combatants and amphibious ships, we are artificially filling these gaps with smaller surface combatants and support vessels.

“In the decade ahead we will lean more heavily on our seapower forces to underpin our national security strategy; prioritizing a shipbuilding budget to resource this strategy should be one of our first priorities,” Forbes said in the statement.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, the service’s top spokesman, defended the service’s efforts.

“Today we provided Congress information tables from our draft 30-year shipbuilding plan,” Kirby said in a statement. “We believe the information found in these tables clearly articulates our intention to modernize and grow the fleet to our required minimum of 306 ships.

“We have been upfront and transparent about the need to decommission older ships,” Kirby continued, “while at the same introducing new and more capable platforms. Both Secretary [Ray] Mabus and Admiral [Jonathan] Greenert,” chief of naval operations, “have been clear about the need to further our success in shipbuilding. Indeed, under Secretary Mabus' leadership the Navy has put 43 new ships under contract. We look forward to working with the Congress to discuss the way forward.”

April 23, 2013. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

News release from the U.S. Navy:

The National Museum of the United States Navy will host a special presentation by the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Historical Collections Division (HCD) April 25 at 3:00 p.m. in its Museum Education Center. CIA historian Mr. David Waltrop will talk about the recently declassified 1972 secret operation to recover a spy satellite film capsule that fell 16,400 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The talk will also include accounts of the mission by key participants in the 1972 operation, including retired Navy Cmdr. Richard Taylor, and retired Navy Lt. Cmdr Beauford Myers,, as well as Mr. Lee Mathers, a former U.S. naval intelligence officer.   Retired Navy Capt. Don Walsh, PhD , the officer in charge of USS Trieste I’s mission called “Project Nekton” to Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench in 1960, will also be in attendance to give a historical perspective of previous underwater operations.  A reception will be held in the Museum’s USS Trieste I exhibit following the event.

The photo capsule — publicly identified as a nondescript “data package” — contained valuable photos taken by the first KH-9 HEXAGON photoreconnaissance satellite. After the capsule was lost during reentry in July 1971, the CIA partnered with the Navy to plan and execute its recovery. The Navy possessed the only vessel capable of operating at the necessary recovery depth: deep submergence vehicle USS Trieste II (DSV-1). Over a period of eight months, USS Trieste II painstakingly searched for the missing capsule with assistance from its support ship USS White Sands (ARD-20) and support ship tug USS Apache (ATF-67).   Cmdr. Taylor was one of three Trieste II pilots during this operation and Lt. Cmdr Myers served as the White Sands executive officer. Trieste II successfully recovered the capsule April 26, 1972, earning a Meritorious Unit Citation for performing the deepest ocean recovery then attempted. Today, Trieste II is on permanent display outside the Naval Undersea Museum in Washington state, while Trieste I is on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Navy.

The CIA recently declassified documents and photographs relating to this top secret mission. These materials, entitled “An Underwater Ice Station Zebra: Recovering a Secret Spy Satellite Capsule from 16,400 Feet below the Pacific Ocean,” are available on the Historical Collections Publications page of the CIA website:

Apr. 22, 2013 - By BARBARA OPALL-ROME – Defense news

TEL AVIV — U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in his first visit here as Pentagon chief, said V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, aerial tankers and other technologies that Washington is willing “to make available” to Israel will augment Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge (QME) over regional adversaries.

At a joint press conference at Defense Ministry headquarters here on Monday, Hagel said the prospective arms package — to include anti-radiation missiles, advanced fighter aircraft radars, KC-135 refuelers and V-22 Ospreys — “ensures that Israel will maintain air superiority for the next generation.”

Speaking alongside his host, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe “Bogey” Ya’alon, Hagel said the prospective package marks “another significant step” in Washington’s commitment “not only to preserve, but to enhance and improve” Israel’s QME.

Hagel said that “despite fiscal pressures” Washington will provide the full US $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) assistance to Israel for 2013. Moreover, in keeping with pledges announced last month during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit here, Hagel said the two countries have begun working on an agreement to extend annual U.S. security funding beyond 2017.

He also noted that to date, Washington has provided more than $460 million in funding for cooperative rocket and missile defense programs, including Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Arrow. Another $200 million in Iron Dome funding has been requested in 2014, he added.

Under 2008 legislation, Congress defined Israel’s QME as “the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors.”

By law, the U.S. administration is required to submit quadrennial reports on ways it has acted — whether through arms sales, security assistance, joint exercises and other means of strategic cooperation — to preserve Israel’s military superiority in the region.

The first such QME report was submitted in 2009 and a follow-on study is scheduled for release this year.

Le 22/04/2013 Par Guillaume Steuer - air-cosmos.com

Les Emirats Arabes Unis commandent 25 F-16E/F Block 60 supplémentaires.

C'est le challenger que l'on n'attendait plus vraiment. Alors que Dassault Aviation et Eurofighter s'affrontent publiquement depuis près de deux ans aux Emirats Arabes Unis pour tenter d'imposer leurs avions de combat respectifs, Lockheed Martin a discrètement emporté la mise suite à l'annonce officielle par Washington, le 19 avril, de la signature d'un accord avec Abou Dhabi pour la vente de 25 F-16E/F Block 60, version la plus évoluée à ce jour du F-16.

Selon le Pentagone, le montant de ce contrat est évalué à "un peu moins de 5 milliards de dollars". Abou Dhabi exploite déjà 80 appareils du même type, dont les livraisons avaient commencé au début des années 2000. Ils forment l'ossature de l'aviation de combat émirienne aux côtés de 60 Mirage 2000-9.

Faut-il enterrer tout espoir de vendre un jour le Rafale aux EAU ? Difficile à dire, même si cette vente de F-16 n'est pas un signe encourageant. Non content de rappeler s'il en était besoin que l'influence de Washington dans la zone est énorme, ce nouvel achat repousse encore un peu plus la nécessité pour l'armée de l'air émirienne de remplacer ses Mirage 2000-9 par un avion de combat plus moderne.

En tournée au Moyen-Orient, le patron du Pentagone Chuck Hagel a également annoncé la vente à Israël d'avions ravitailleurs KC-135 et du convertible V-22 Osprey de Boeing, qui trouve là son premier client export. De nouveaux radars pour aviosn de combat ont également été vendus à Israël, sans plus de précisions. Probablement des radars à antenne active destinés à moderniser les F-15I ou F-16I israéliens, face à un voisin saoudien qui disposera bientôt de cette même technologie sur ses F-15SA.

TUCSON, April 22 (UPI)

Raytheon is producing more miniature air launched decoy-jammers for the U.S. Air Force under exercise of a contract option.

A total of 202 MALD jammers, with containers, will be produced and delivered. The value of the firm fixed-price Air Force contract is $81.7 million. A 10-year warranty is included in the deal.

"MALD-J adds a jamming capability to the current decoy function of the MALD that disrupts enemy integrated air defense systems using jamming and radar signature technology," said Harry Schulte, vice president of Air Warfare Systems for Raytheon Missile Systems.

"This weapon will provide unprecedented capability and flexibility to the U.S. Air Force and improve the survivability of our airmen and their aircraft."

MALD is a modular, air-launched and programmable flight vehicle that protects aircraft by duplicating the combat flight profiles and radar signatures of U.S. and allied aircraft. A unit weighs 300 pounds and has a range of about 500 nautical miles