China's First Aircraft Carrier To Serve In South China Sea

China's new aircraft carrier Shi Lang is planning to serve in the South China Sea by the next Army Day, a military source said.

The vessel will be under direct command of the country's Central Military Commission.

"An aircraft carrier is the mark of major powers," said General Qiao Liang, a military expert.

The vessel will largely expand the combat radius, raising the country's offshore comprehensive combat capabilities beyond the first island chain. Qiao said that air domination is the prerequisite of naval warfare, especially for the remote areas away from the heartland. As a result, there is no alternative for the vessel's leadership.

Rather than an armament used in actual combat, the aircraft carrier is now more a strategic weapon. Its combat function ended as the Second World War was over.

DRDO Says Kaveri Engine Can Power Combat Drones 80 KN OF Thrust Now

DRDO officials say the Kaveri aero-engine, which incidentally is over 22 years in the making by now with a sanctioned cost of Rs 2,893 crore, can power unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) because they "do not require the kind of higher thrust" needed for the indigenous Tejas LCA (light combat aircraft).


"Nine prototypes of Kaveri engine and four prototypes of Kaveri Core (Kabini) engines have been developed with over 2,000 hours of testing...the engine is proven with almost 80 kilonewtons (kN) of thrust now, which is enough for our UCAVs (Tejas requires 90 kN)," said an official.

This comes even as DRDO has now begun preliminary work on developing stealth UCAVs, under the secretive 'autonomous unmanned research aircraft' programme. This UCAV will weigh less than 15 tonnes, fly at altitudes of 30,000 feet and fire missiles and bombs with precision, as earlier reported by TOI.

DRDO has also come up with a modified Kaveri version, by "designing a free-power turbine to generate shaft power", for propulsion of warships. The Navy, as per DRDO, has shown "a lot of interest" in the engine which has a 12 MW power output.

Turkey To Buy Its First Heavy-Lift Army CH-4 Chinook Helicopters

Turkey has signed a government-to-government deal with the United States to buy six Boeing-made CH-47 heavy-lift military transport helicopters, the first such weapons in its inventory, a senior procurement official said over the weekend.

The deal is worth up to $400 million, the official said.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, or DSCA, the Pentagon’s body coordinating weapons sales, notified the U.S. Congress of a potential sale of a total of 14 CH-47F heavy-lift helicopters for $1.2 billion in December 2009. Congress gave permission for the sale later that month.

Because of financial constraints, however, the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry, or SSM, Turkey’s procurement agency, later wanted to buy only six CH-47Fs, five for the Army and one for the Special Forces Command, leaving a decision on the remaining eight platforms for the future. Contract negotiations between the SSM, the U.S. government and Boeing were launched last year.

Russia T-50 Stealth Fighter To Make Its International Debut At MAKS 2011

T-50 stealth fighter jointly

financed by Russia and India will make its first international public appearance at the MAKS airshow which went underway in Moscow, where Moscow unveiled its newest space shuttle, armed drones and a new range of upgraded weapons.

Two prototypes of the single seater jet, estimated to cost USD 6 billion, are expected to fly over Zhukovsky air field on the outskirts of Moscow.

"The co-development projects of the two countries will remain centerpiece of the Russian aviation industry", declared Mikhail Pogosyan, President of the United Aircraft Corporation, makers of the aircraft.

China, Israel Vow To Improve Military Ties

Chen Bingde, visiting chief of the General Staff of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), pledged Sunday to lift the friendly ties between the Chinese and Israeli militaries to a new level during a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Chen Bingde, visiting chief of the General Staff of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), shakes hands with Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv August 14, 2011.

A deepening Sino-Israeli cooperation is contributing to regional peace and stability, Chen said, stressing the relationship between the two countries' armies is developing in recent years.

GAZAL-1 The First Saudi Made Car

This is the first car designed to be mass produced by Saudi Arabia I was waiting for the time where I would show case it when it officially launches about a year or two from now but I said blah what the hell I will do it now anyways and do it again when the commercials start rolling.

The Pentagon's New China War Plan

Despite budget woes, the military is preparing for a conflict with our biggest rival -- and we should be worried

 

This summer, despite America’s continuing financial crisis, the Pentagon is effectively considering trading two military quagmires for the possibility of a third. Reducing its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it refocuses on Asia, Washington is not so much withdrawing forces from the Persian Gulf as it is redeploying them for a prospective war with its largest creditor, China.

According to the defense trade press, Pentagon officials are seeking ways to adapt a concept known as AirSea Battle specifically for China, debunking rote claims from Washington that it has no plans to thwart its emerging Asian rival. A recent article in Inside the Pentagon reported that a small group of U.S. Navy officers known as the China Integration Team "is hard at work applying the lessons of [AirSea Battle] to a potential conflict with China."

US Asks China To Explain Why It Needs Aircraft Carrier

WASHINGTON — The United States said Wednesday it would like China to explain why it needs an aircraft carrier amid broader US concerns about Beijing's lack of transparency over its military aims.

"We would welcome any kind of explanation that China would like to give for needing this kind of equipment," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters when asked whether the carrier would raise regional tensions.

"This is part of our larger concern that China is not as transparent as other countries. It's not as transparent as the United States about its military acquisitions, about its military budget," she said.

"And we'd like to have the kind of open, transparent relationship in military-to-military affairs," Nuland said.

"In our military-to-military relations with many countries around the world, we have the kind of bilateral dialogue where we can get quite specific about the equipment that we have and its intended purposes and its intended movements," she said.

US Says Taliban Who Shot At US Helicopter dead

Taliban who shot at a US military helicopter which crashed, leaving 38 American and Afghan troops dead, have been killed, a US commander has said.


General John Allen, US forces commander in Afghanistan, said those responsible had been targeted in an air strike.

Separately, Nato said in a statement the strike had killed Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who fired at the helicopter.

The dead included Navy Seals, US Air Force personnel and other groups.

Many of those killed in Saturday's crash were members of Seal Team Six, the elite special forces unit whose members undertook the May raid into Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

"The strike killed Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who fired the shot associated with the August 6th downing of the CH-47 helicopter," the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) statement said.

India's Mig-21 Flying CMig-21 Flying Coffinsoffins Fighter Jets

Earlier this month, yet another Russian-origin MIG-21 fighter crashed in the desert state of Rajasthan, killing a young trainee pilot and once more underlining what is perhaps the worst crash rate of any combat aircraft in operation anywhere in the world.

Not for nothing, the aircraft have been dubbed flying coffins. But in a bigger sense, their continued use is a depressing reflection on India’s slow and torturous defense modernization process to procure new fighter jets.

The elderly MIGs have formed the backbone of the Indian Air Force’s air strike capability for almost five decades, since the days when India led the world’s non-aligned movement and bought most of its military equipment from the Soviet Union, which disintegrated, leaving the Indian air force with a scarcity of spare parts. Technical snags and shoddy servicing also have resulted in many MIGs going down, killing pilots and severely disabling the Indian Air Force’s attack capability.

According to official figures, of the 793 MiG-21s inducted into the India Air Force since 1963, more than 350 have been lost in accidents, killing about 170 pilots. A recent report by the defense ministry has acknowledged that most of the MIG crashes have been attributed to outdated technology that relies on manual judgment rather than computer-driven, automated responses that more modern aircraft feature.

USA C17 Global Master Landed At Chendu Airport

Indian Army Wants INSAS Series OF Rifles Replaced

 Gearing up  soldiers for future warfare, the Indian Army feels there is an "urgent need" to replace the indigenously developed and manufactured INSAS series of rifles.

"There is an urgent need to develop rifles, carbines and light machine guns of 5.56mm calibre to replace the existing INSAS class of weapons," it said in the Defence Ministry?s ?Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap? document.

The INSAS rifles, designed by the DRDO, were inducted into the Armed forces in the 90s and have been used in the Kargil war and counter-insurgency operations also.