Royal Navy latest Spearfish Torpedo

LONDON – Royal Navy submarines are to be equipped with an latest version of the Spearfish heavyweight torpedo in a £270 million deal announced Monday by the British Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems Maritime Services.

Royal Navy latest Spearfish Torpedo

The midlife includes a new insensitive munitions warhead, a more capable fiber optic data link between the launch vessel and the weapon, as well as a change to the fuel system to improve safety.

US Navy's Make Fire Scout Helicopter Program

WASHINGTON – An entirely new level of activity is taking place right now with the US Navy's Fire Scout helicopter program  for the first time,

US Navy's Make Fire Scout Helicopter Program

Fire Scout will be at sea on at least four ships at the same time — and they'll be different kinds of ships, and both aircraft variants will be active.

Pakistan Air Force has an edge over Indian Air Force: Indian Parliamentary panel

The strength of Indian Air Force combat fleet is down to 25 squadrons, the Parliamentary panel observed.
"With regard to the existing squadron strength, we are down to 25 squadrons today while Pakistan Air Force has 26 squadrons of operational combat fleet," the committee pointed out.
The standing committee on defence in its report observed that the national security was being compromised.
According to the committee, one of the reasons for the plight of their combatant strength in the skies is the considerable delay in procurement of various platforms.
The 33-member panel said, "Our capability in contrast to our neighbors is eroding quickly."
The committee members were concerned to know about the strategy being pursued to fill the huge gaps in sanctioned and existing trainer aircraft's.

Turkey Looking to Get 100 F-35's Fighter Jets

Turkey is planning to get 100 multi-purpose F-35 jet fighters worth $16 billion, Turkish Defense Minister has said, according to daily Milliyet. The first two of the military aircraft will be delivered by 2015, he said. The decision to order two F-35s was made last month.
The multi-purpose F-35 fighter jets are being produced by the U.S.-based arms producer Lockheed Martin. Turkey became a member of the international F-35 consortium in 1999. Other partners of the consortium include Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Norway and Denmark.
The statement indicates that Turkey is insisting on proceeding with its plan to purchase 100 F-35s even as many other partner countries, including the United States, have backtracked on their purchase plans due to delays and incremental costs.
The Pentagon postponed the purchase of 139 F-35 fighter jets for five years, while Britain said the decision regarding the number of F-35s that the country would buy would be delayed until 2015. Italy last week said its F-35 orders would be scaled down by 30 percent.
The U.S. government plans to manufacture 2,443 F-35 fighter jets, according to a statement made to Turkey in 2012, Purchase orders in the upcoming years regarding the [F-35 military aircraft] will be subsequently assessed depending upon the negotiations.
Turkey has spent $315 million so far on three phases of the development of the F-35 fighter jets that the country is producing as part of the partnership.
Noting the incremental costs of the three phases, he said Turkey's contract regarding its partnership in the consortium did not cover those costs. Aircraft supply costs would become clear after the aircraft order deal is signed, he said.

China's New Z-18 Helicopter In Development

A much improved version of the Z-8,Known as Z-18 these new helicopters can operate even in Tibet. This development will really strength china PLA's ability to supply and its war making capabilities in the region.

Z-18 Helicopter

Z-18 Helicopter

PLA's YJ-18 Anti-Ship Missile Useful Against US Carrier Group

Footage of what appeared to be China's YJ-18 anti-ship missile, rumored to be in development, was shown recently in a news report on state broadcaster China Central Television.

If reports about the missile are accurate, it will be China's first combination subsonic and supersonic anti-ship missile.
　　
According to an unnamed source cited by a military affairs column on Chinese news web portal Sina, the YJ-18 will be the basis for a series of models that will be adapted for launch from warships, submarines and from the coast and will likely replace current anti-ship missiles, given its versatility.

YJ-18 Anti-Ship Missile

The People's Liberation Army Navy currently employs several different models of anti-ship missile, which requires a great deal of logistics and maintenance planning.
The six series of anti-ship missiles the PLA Navy uses include the HY series developed from the Soviet-era P-15, the YJ-8/YJ-83 series developed from the YJ-8, the YJ-62 series developed from the YJ-6 and the most recent YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missile. Imports include the 3M80E/BE and the 3M-54E series. Each of these missile series requires its own launcher and guidance system, which places logistical pressure on the navy, making the simplification of anti-ship models a major priority.

According to overseas media outlets, the YJ-18 is likely similar to the imported 3M-54 Klub series, which itself is part of a series of missiles including the 3M-54E subsonic anti-ship missile, the 3M-54E1 subsonic anti-ship missile, the 3M-14E inertial guided land attack cruise missile and the 91RE1/RE2 anti-submarine missile. The anti-ship and land attack missile variants in the series are said to be the same in their basic structure and their rocket boosters and turbojet propulsion systems are also said to be identical; the difference is that the warhead of the 3M-54E incorporates a fixed rocket propulsion system, which at its terminal stage velocity approaches Mach 3, increasing its defense penetration capabilities. The anti-ship variants of the 3M-54 are over eight meters long however, and weigh over 2,000kg, so they can only be carried on destroyers or larger vessels. The 3M-14E land attack variant is similar in structure to ordinary anti-ship missiles; it is a low altitude sea skimming missile and is reduced to 6.2m in length, weighing just 1,500kg, meaning it can be launched from small and medium-sized naval vessels, such as corvettes. The 3M-14E1 is a remodel of the 3M-54E1 control system, using a highly explosive warhead, to raise the surface impacted by the missile. As they are all part of the same series, they share the same basic structure, and they all have a diameter of 0.533m, which simplifies logistics and maintenance. 

Overseas news reports suggest that the YJ-18 uses the same "flat wing configuration" as the 3M-54E, which resembles the wings of an airplane. It has a high wing aspect ratio, which allows it to ascend rapidly with little drag, giving it an impressive lift-drag ratio compared to the tail fins used by current tactical missiles. It is estimated that the flat wing configuration can bring the lift-drag ratio to 6-8, while the tail fin configurations can normally only reach 2-3. Breguet's range equation states that the lift drag ratio is directly proportional to range, which gives the flat wing configuration a clear advantage over the tail fin configuration, which explains why all long-range missiles, such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, have a flat wing design. 

The disadvantage of the flat wing configuration is also the high aspect ratio, which requires a mechanism for retracting and spreading the wings, otherwise the missile is impossible to load in an ordinary launcher. The flat wing design also makes it hard for the missile to turn. The advantage of tail fins is the smaller aspect ratio, which means they can be more easily loaded into normal launchers and are easier to fold. Missiles with tail fins can propel themselves in any direction more easily and allow for a bigger proportional overload. Propulsion is also better, but the disadvantage is that its lift drag ratio is lower.
　　

China's PLAN In Review 2014

As usual, I’m taking a look at this time of the year of all the things that has happened to PLAN. 2014 has been an active year like 2013, so it’s a good time to look over what they are doing and where they are going.
Aircraft Carrier - I think PLAN is making very cautious steps in developing their naval aviation capabilities. CV-16 Liaoning spent a large part of the year in Dalian going through regular maintenance and overhaul before going on another long sea trial afterward. At this point, I think the intensity of flight operation training still have not increased much from when it first joined service. It looks like most of the sea trials are aimed at testing out different subsystems (like propulsion unit, electric generator, radar installations) and the sea worthiness of CV-16. Most of the pictures of take off and landing exercises are still taken with the J-15 prototypes rather than the production ones. It’s quite possible that they are practicing takeoff and landing on the land based training facilities before putting them on the carrier. So in the upcoming year, hopefully we will see more J-15s on CV-16 conducting carrier operations out in the sea. One encouraging sign from this year is the abundance of new Z-18 based helicopters for a variety of roles (transport, AEW and ASW/SAR) that seem to becoming ready for service. The induction of these helicopters and training on CV-16 is an important part of operationalizing CV-16.
Amphibious Vessels - After a couple of years of rest, they have restarted the production of amphibious landing ships in Type 071 and 072 series. As I wrote the past few years, they have continued to conduct a variety of new amphibious landing exercises with Type 071, 072, Type 726 LCACs, amphibious armored vehicles, Z-18 transports and even Z-10 helicopters in these exercises. I think they needed these years of training and exercises to determine what changes needed to be made to the newer Type 071/072s. It sounds like they originally planned for this new batch of Type 071 to have more firepower but ended up going for more lightly armed version like the earlier Type 071s. It will be interesting to see what differences will be to accommodate their developing amphibious warfare doctrine. I think the deliberate pace of operationalizing and training Type 071 with the marines is a good starting point of reference to see how long it will take them to develop carrier operations. One would obviously expect carrier operations to take longer to develop, but Type 071 spent its first couple of years going through going through long sea trials and commanding flotilla that we are seeing with CV-16 right now. At the same time, we can expect the future LHD design to go through the same process that we have seen with Type 071. They have shown numerous LHD designs for export in various naval exhibit, but it seems like the domestic version will be a lot larger with more landing spots and greater hangar space. Hopefully, we will start seeing that late next year. The other amphibious project is Zubr, which picked up pace this year when the Ukrainians delivered the second one earlier as a result of the Crimea conflict. It will be interesting to see how many Zubrs China end up building.
Large Surface combatant - There were 2 major developments this year with the induction of the first 052D and the appearance of the Type 055 land based simulator. The induction of No. 172 was surprising because the last 2 Type 052Cs had not been commissioned at that point. Even now, the commission status of the last Type 052Cs is a little ambiguous. It seems like the induction of No. 172 was fast tracked to allow PLAN to start testing out all the new systems that they have incorporated onto and developing tactics on using it. The following 052D, especially the 4 other ones that are launched at JN shipyard, could really benefit from the lessons they learnt from PLAN’s experience with No. 172. On the other hand, the last 2 Types 052Cs were under no similar pressure, so they’ve had a much longer induction process. I’m sure the actual crew has already been training on them for a while (based on their photos from the ZhouShan naval base with the 3rd and 4th 052Cs), so they have yet to be inducted. The Type 055 land based simulator really caused a lot of excitement earlier this year, because it had been speculated on Chinese forum for a while now. Considering that PLAN has only built similar simulators for carrier and nuclear submarine project, one can surmise this platform is held with the highest regards. We have yet to see Type 055 modules at JN or Dalian shipyard, but I think that will start to come out next year as Type 052D production start to wind down. Also, it would be interesting to finally see Dalian built Type 052Ds, since JN is already so far along in this program. Finally, it sounds like the Sov program will finally go forward with modernization. There was a picture of one of the Sovs at the shipyard recently with a lot of scaffoldings. Since they will have to replace all the Russian subsystem with Chinese ones, I would think that the modernization would be even more extensive than what we saw with the 2 Type 052A ships. Even though this kind of modernization is quite costly, PLAN does prefer that to decommissioning and building new ones. After that, the only candidate left for modernization will be No. 167. I think retiring this ship in 5 years makes more sense than modernizing it again since it was originally built as more of an experimental platform to test out 6000-ton class of surface combatants for PLAN. At this point, there is not a lot of value to keep around such the only hull of this experimental class.

Pakistan has ICBM Technology Says Defence Minister

Chinese J-31 stealth Fighter Ready For Zhuhai Air Show 2014

Photos of  China’s latest stealth fighter  landing in the southern city of Zhuhai have revived speculation that the jet will be publicly unveiled for the first time at an air show there next month.

The unconfirmed photos, first published on a military enthusiasts’ forum, show a fighter jet landing in Zhuhai, Guangdong province earlier this week with the same markings as previous leaked photos of the Shenyang J-31 aircraft.

 China's stealth fighter J-31

 The Shenyang Aircraft Corporation is listed as an exhibitor at the 10th annual China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, which begins on November 11 in Zhuhai, but a spokesman for the air show would neither confirm nor deny that the J-31 will be unveiled at the event.

The stealth fighter, which has been in development for a number of years and made its maiden flight in October 2012, is a twin-engine jet that military analysts said could potentially fly missions from an aircraft carrier.


In August, the Shanghai-based Jiefang Daily reported that China’s aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, will house 36 aircraft, including 24 Shenyang J-15 fighters.

“The overall line-up certainly looks plausible, as the mix of helicopters and fighters is similar to how the Russians outfit their example of this carrier,” Roger Cliff, a senior fellow with the Asia Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told Defence News.

China's stealth fighter J-31

“The striking thing about this carrier and aircraft line-up is that every single item is based on a foreign system. The Liaoning is a Russian-built ship fitted out with Chinese systems. The helicopters are based on Eurocopter designs. And the J-15 fighters are based on the Russian Su-33 design.”



Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canada-based Kanwa Asian Defence Monthly, told the South China Morning Post in 2012 that as well as borrowing features from Russian aircraft, the J-31 provided further evidence that Shenyang jets were proving increasingly adept at cloning US planes.

China Could Buy 5,000 Russian Air-To-Air Missiles: Japanese Report

China could  buy 5,000 R-73 and R-77 air-to-air missiles from Russia, writes Toshiyuki Roku, retired commander of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's Air Development and Test Command, in an article for the Tokyo-based Japan Military Review.

Since China's domestic air-to-air missiles such as the PL-12, the SD-10A and the PL-9C were designed based on technology from Ukraine and are still unable to compete against US counterparts, the People's Liberation Army realizes that it needs the more advanced Russian missiles to go head to head against the US and Japan in any potential future air combat, Roku wrote. He said China has already bought 1,500 R-77 missiles and 3,300 R-73 missiles from Russia.

Roku said the R-73 short-range missile developed in 1985 was considered the most powerful air-to-air missile during the Cold War, superior to the AIM-9M air-to-air missiles used by NATO air forces from 1982. The R-77 medium-range air-to-air missile designed in 1992 has similar capabilities to the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile of the United States.