International Military Discussion

[Philip]

Sex maniacs....."64%" national increase!

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryla ... 9841.story

Sex assault reports at Naval Academy increase slightly
Department of Defense report says number of incidents at service academies is 'concerning'.

Reports of sexual assault increased at the U.S. Naval Academy this year, part of a 64 percent overall increase at the nation's service academies, according to a report released Wednesday by the Department of Defense.

The report calls the increases "concerning" but adds that greater emphasis on understanding and reporting sexual assault might have contributed to the larger numbers.

Reports of sexual assault at the Naval Academy rose from eight in a 2008-2009 survey to 11 in 2009-2010. The overall increase at the service academies, which followed four years of declines, was driven by a sharp rise in reports at the Air Force Academy. The other service academy is the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"We have zero tolerance for this behavior and our goal is to deter and completely eliminate this unacceptable conduct," the Naval Academy superintendent, Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller, said in a statement. "Accordingly, we have already begun to use this latest review to identify potential improvements to the training and accountability aspects of our program."

The report adds that 56 percent of female cadets and midshipmen at the three service academies said they experienced some form of sexual harassment in the previous year, compared with 12 percent of males. Female cadets and midshipmen also reported increased numbers of alcohol-related incidents and assaults involving multiple assailants.

"The results show a concerning elevation in the incidents of unwanted sexual contact and sexual harassment reported on the survey," the report states. "This increase may reflect an increase in incidents experienced by cadets and midshipmen, or it may reflect their ability to better recognize unacceptable behavior given the knowledge provided by sexual harassment and assault programming."

The report, released annually under a congressional mandate, notes that the reported sexual assaults probably account for less than 10 percent of unwanted sexual contact at the academies. The data in the report come from a voluntary survey of cadets and midshipmen conducted in the spring.

When asked the top reasons for not reporting incidents of assault or harassment, midshipmen said they would not want to be the subjects of gossip, had taken care of the problems themselves or had not considered the incidents important enough to report.

It's not easy to tell whether the increased numbers mean that more assaults are happening or more are being reported, said Lisae Jordan, general counsel for the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. But Jordan said she's deeply troubled that after so much attention has been focused on sexual assault at the academies that "the numbers are back where we started five years ago."

"When you look at the combination of assaults and harassment, it raises questions about the overall culture," she said.

Jordan is most familiar with the Naval Academy, where she said positive changes have been made in recent years. But she said all of the academies might benefit from anonymous interviews with recent graduates and community members about the culture that leads to sexual assault.

She said that in the big picture, the annual accounting of sexual assaults represents a positive "sea change" for the academies. "This was an issue that simply wasn't discussed for many years," she said. "So the fact that we're having these conversations, painful as they can be, is a positive."

The academies distinguish between restricted, or confidential, and unrestricted reports. Of the 19 unrestricted reports in 2009-2010, 18 resulted in criminal investigations and midshipmen or cadets were the victims in 15. All but one of those victims was female.

In the assault cases, five of the accused assailants were civilians, one was unidentified and 12 were cadets, midshipmen or other military personnel. Of those 12, two were court-martialed and the rest faced internal discipline.

The incidents at the Naval Academy included one in which a female midshipman reported being sexually assaulted at a party by three enlisted sailors, all of whom were discharged. Another female midshipman said three intoxicated male midshipmen touched her in her bed and made sexually suggestive comments. All three men were disciplined internally because there was insufficient evidence for a court-martial. Another female midshipmen reported being touched on the breast with a carving knife.

Though the report praises existing efforts to increase awareness at the academies, it recommends that they establish data-driven evaluation methods for their prevention programs.

In 2009-2010, the Naval Academy trained 47 new student guides to help educate peers on dealing with sexual assault; launched a new instructional program for faculty members; added photographs and contact information for first responders on the academy website; and conducted monthly meetings on sexual assault prevention led by the superintendent.

A spokeswoman said that in the coming year, the academy will continue to bolster awareness training for midshipmen, faculty and staff and will explore training focused on the responsible use of alcohol.

"As superintendent, I am fully committed to improving our training, supporting victims and holding offenders accountable," Miller said.

[wig]

Japan Announces Defense Policy to Counter China

TOKYO — Japan announced a new defense policy on Friday that will respond to China’s rising military might by building more submarines and other mobile forces capable of defending Japan’s southernmost islands.

The new National Defense Program Guidelines are the biggest step yet in a decade-long shift away from cold war-era deployments of heavy tank and artillery units on the northern island of Hokkaido — to counter a now-vanished Soviet threat — and toward bolstering Japanese forces in the southern islands around Okinawa, where China’s navy has become a growing presence
The new policy called for increasing the number of Japan’s submarines to 22 from the current 16, while reducing the number of tanks by a third to about 400. It also called for creating more mobile forces, which analysts have said could include creating new air and seaborne units that could quickly move to defend remote islands.

The guidelines also called for increasing military cooperation with the United States, Japan’s postwar protector, and other democracies in the region including South Korea, Australia and India. It did not address recent requests from Washington for the Japanese military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, to join in three-way drills with the United States and South Korea that would be aimed at North Korea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

[Philip]

Fascinating details about how the German naval sub codes were broken at Bletchley led by the British codebrakers,who truly won the war for Britain.The value of secure communications even today remains the highest priority.With Indian mathematical and IT skill,we should possess the best codebreakers and cryptographers in the world.

Richard Pendered
Richard Pendered, who has died aged 89, was one of the small team of Bletchley Park codebreakers who broke the “Shark” Enigma cipher used by German U-boats during the Second World War; his work also led directly to the sinking of the battlecruiser Scharnhorst.

Xcpt:

Pendered was 18 when, in July 1940, he joined the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) after a year spent reading Mathematics at Magdalene College, Cambridge.


Richard Pendered He had been recommended by Hugh Alexander, a leading Bletchley Park codebreaker who had been his maths master at Winchester, and was put to work initially in Hut 6. Two years later, however, a crisis saw him transferred to Hut 8, the section breaking the Enigma ciphers used by the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine.

The crisis came after two years of success at Bletchley, where from mid-1940 onwards Alan Turing had enabled intermittent breaks into the “Dolphin” cipher, created on Enigma machines with three encoding rotors, which was used by German ships and submarines operating in the Atlantic Ocean.

This success appeared complete when, in late summer of 1941, the capture of a codebook for short weather messages helped Hut 8 decipher U-boat communications on a daily basis. As a result the Operational Intelligence Centre, based in a purpose-built bunker on the north-west corner of the Admiralty, was able to re-route the vital supply convoys on which Britain’s survival depended.

Between March and June 1941, the U-boats had sunk 282,000 tons of shipping a month. But from July 1941, the figure dropped to 120,000 tons a month and by November that year, when German submarine wolf packs were temporarily withdrawn from the Atlantic, to 62,000 tons.

Related Articles
Enigma codebreakers to be honoured finally17 Dec 2010

Then, at the beginning of February 1942, the Kriegsmarine introduced the “Shark” cipher, created on a four-rotor Enigma machine. The introduction at the same time of a new weather codebook left Hut 8 unable to break the messages.

It began a 10-month period known at Bletchley as “the Shark Blackout” when German submarine wolf packs returned to the Atlantic and the Admiralty was unable to eavesdrop on their communications. Inevitably the naval predators ran riot, sinking 43 ships in August and September 1942 alone.

At the height of the crisis Pendered was loaned to Hut 8, now led by Alexander, to assist a team of top codebreakers including Turing, Joan Murray, Patrick Mahon, Rolf Noskwith and Leslie Yoxall, tackling the seemingly impossible task of finding a way into “Shark”.

By November 1942, with the wolf packs sinking ever increasing numbers of Allied ships and the codebreakers working night and day to try to find a solution, tempers became frayed. The Admiralty sent Hut 8 a tersely written memorandum, urging it to pay “a little more attention” to Shark and complaining that the Battle of the Atlantic was the only area where Bletchley was having no impact.

Then a “pinch” of two “short signal” codebooks, captured by the Royal Navy destroyer Petard off Egypt, allowed the codebreakers back in. It was a vital breakthrough, to which Pendered contributed with what Hugh Alexander called “notable individual feats”. So useful had Pendered become to Hut 8 that he was retained throughout the war to work on Germany’s more sophisticated Enigma ciphers.

Richard Geoffrey Pendered was born at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, on September 26 1921, the only son of Richard Dudley Pendered, known as Dudley, who worked for the family firm of surveyors and auctioneers.

Richard’s first job on arrival at Bletchley in 1940 was to test out a new electromechanical device known as a “bombe” which had been designed by Turing and Gordon Welchman, the head of Hut 6, to help to break the Enigma machine ciphers.

The Enigma machine had a keyboard into which the operator typed messages. The action sent an electrical pulse through a series of rotors, at least one of which moved every time a letter was typed in. The enciphered letter lit up on a lampboard on top of the machine.

The bombe was designed to run through a number of possible settings that would match a stream of cipher with a suspected stream of plain text, known as a “crib”. Pendered was sent to the British Tabulating Machine Company at Letchworth to test it out and, after numerous test runs and changes by mechanics, managed to get it to produce deciphered German plain text which proved the machine worked. After two years then spent working on Germany Army and Luftwaffe ciphers, Pendered was loaned to Hut 8 for the “Shark blackout”.

Such was his proficiency that when there was another, much shorter, Shark blackout in mid-1943, Pendered solved a particular day’s Enigma keys by hand, using a system known as the “Stecker Knock Out”, which although known to be theoretically possible had never been done before.

Then, on Boxing Day that year, Pendered deciphered a message which located the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst off Lopphavet in Norway. She was surrounded and sunk later that day. Assisted by the introduction of more sophisticated American bombes, Hut 8 was by this time completely on top of German naval codes and for the last year of the war Pendered was one of just four codebreakers working in Hut 8.

[Airavat]

UAE top arms buyer among GCC at $67bn since 2000:

The UAE accounted for 57 per cent of all conventional arms purchases such as tanks, rockets and fighter jets among the six GCC nations plus Iraq and Iran during the period, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Saudi Arabia was second on the list at 10 per cent, and Iran third at 9 per cent.

The UAE's biggest acquisitions since 2005 include62 Mirage-2000-9 combat aircraft from France and 80 F-16E combat aircraft from the US. Between 2008 and last year, 30 remanufactured Apache combat helicopters were delivered from the US. SIPRI says the UAE's plans include terminal high altitude area defence anti-ballistic missile systems from the US, more Chinook helicopters, and a further 60 combat aircraft from France or the US.

[Austin]

Serdyukov dismisses threat from China’s growing nuclear arsenal

China’s and North Korea’s nuclear potentials cannot reach levels comparable to Russia’s or the U.S.’ in the foreseeable future, said Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

“As for the nuclear potential, the Russian and American ones are simply incomparable with the potential possessed by the countries that you have mentioned. And it is impossible [for them] to reach some parity with Russia and America within the next decade,” Serdyukov said in reply to a question by a State Duma deputy asking how Russia would oppose the countries beefing up their nuclear forces, including China and North Korea.

“The potential of our nuclear forces is quite high,” he said.

[Austin]

Pentagon Is Poised to Cancel Marine Landing Craft

[Philip]

CIA's legendary Laotian Hmong guerilla genral dies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ja ... illas-dies

Vang Pao, Hmong guerrilla leader, dies in USFormer general who led secret CIA-backed army fighting communists in Laos was labelled 'biggest hero of Vietnam war'


Share10 Associated Press guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 January 2011 06.33 GMT Article history
Vang Pao, right, is welcomed at a new year celebration for America's Hmong community. Photograph: Gary Kazanjian/AP

Vang Pao, a revered former Laotian general who led thousands of Hmong guerrillas in a CIA-backed secret army during the Vietnam war, has died at the age of 81.

After moving to the US once the communists seized power in Laos in 1975, Vang Pao was venerated as a leader and a father figure by the large Hmong refugee populations who resettled in California's Central Valley, Minneapolis and cities throughout Wisconsin.

Xang Vang, the general's chief translator who fought by his side, said Vang Pao died on Thursday night following a battle with pneumonia, which he caught while travelling in central California to preside over two Hmong New Year celebrations.


As a teenager in the second world war, Vang Pao fought the Japanese, who were attempting to take over Laos. In the 1950s, he joined the French in the war against the North Vietnamese who were dominating Laos and later worked with the CIA to wage a covert war.

Former CIA Chief William Colby once called Pao "the biggest hero of the Vietnam war," for the 15 years he spent heading a CIA-sponsored guerrilla army fighting against a communist takeover of the south-east Asian peninsula.

After his guerrillas ultimately lost to communist forces, Vang Pao came to the US, where he was credited with brokering the resettlement of tens of thousands of Hmong, an ethnic minority from the hillsides of Laos.

"He's the last of his kind, the last of the leadership that carries that reference that everyone holds dear," said Blong Xiong, a Fresno city councilman and the first Hmong-American in California to win a city council seat. "Whether they're young or old, they hear his name, there's the respect that goes with it."


Regarded by Hmong immigrants as an exiled head of state, Vang Pao made frequent appearances at Hmong cultural and religious festivals and often was asked to mediate disputes or solve problems.

In 2007 he was charged, with other Hmong leaders, with conspiring to kill communist officials in his native country. Federal prosecutors alleged the Lao liberation movement known as Neo Hom raised millions of dollars to recruit a mercenary force and conspired to obtain weapons. The charges were dropped in 2009.


"Vang Pao was a great man and a true American hero," said attorney William Portanova, who represents one of the remaining Hmong defendants. "He served his country for many years in his homeland, and he continued to serve it in America. To think that these elderly men would be in a position to try to overthrow a country is, on its face, almost laughable."


Vang Pao had been a source of controversy for several years before the case was filed. In 2002, the city of Madison, Wisconsin, dropped a plan to name a park in his honour after a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor cited published sources alleging that Vang Pao had ordered executions of his own followers, of enemy prisoners of war and of his political enemies.

Five years later, the Madison school board removed his name from a new elementary school named for him, after dissenters said it should not bear the name of a figure with such a violent history.

But such criticism meant little to Hmong families who looked to Vang Pao for guidance as they struggled to set up farms and businesses in the US and assume a new, American identity. The general formed several charities to aid the refugee communities and set up a council to mediate disputes between the 18 Hmong clans, whose president he hand-picked for decades.

"He's always been kind of the glue that held everyone together," said Lar Yang of Fresno "He's the one that always resolved everything ... I don't think it can be filled by one person at this point. There will probably be a search for identity. There will be a lot of chaos for a little while, until things get settled."

[Austin]

Its a real pity that US may have to cancel Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program , its one of the most promising amphibious design in recent times.

[abhishek_sharma]

Gates's budget ax: winners and losers

http://www.politico.com/blogs/lauraroze ... osers.html

THE ARMY: DRAW - Loses the Surface-Launched Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and the Non-Line-Of Sight Missile, which was dead already. Gains new funds for soldier suicide prevention and substance abuse counseling, modernization of its vehicle fleet, faster fielding of its tactical communications network, more MC-12 surveillance drones, an accelerated Grey Eagle and building of a whole new helicopter UAV.

THE AIR FORCE: WINNER - Loses nothing, in terms of programs. Gains modernized radars for the F-15 fleet, more Reapers and steadier institutional support for UAVs in the budget, increased procurement of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle and more F-35A simulators.

- AND, OH BY THE WAY, the Air Force will (re)start work on ... wait for it ... the next-generation bomber! Every heart inside every blue suit surged Thursday with the news. Gates said the bomber will be nuclear-capable, optionally unmanned and must enter the fleet in time to replace today's aging fleet.

THE NAVY: DRAW - Loses no programs. Gains an accelerated timetable for a new generation of electronic attack aircraft, a new seaborne UAV, yet more F/A-18 Super Hornets and refurbishing of the Marine Corps' vehicle fleet. Most of the shipbuilding arrangements Gates announced, such as the littoral combat ship, already were decided.

THE MARINE CORPS: BIG LOSER - Not only does the Corps lose the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, as we covered in depth on Thursday, Gates announced that he is putting the F-35B on "probation" for the next two years. Gates said the jet is having many problems, ones that could necessitate "redesign of the aircraft's structure and propulsion" - read: a lot more money. If engineers can't get the F-35B right by the end of its probation, Gates said, he'd support canceling it. (But will he still be around then? Excellent question!)

- AMOS ENDORSED THE DEATH OF THE EFV, he said in a statement Thursday, while also emphasizing that the Marines must keep their ability to do forced-entry amphibious invasions. He wants to explore a new, cheaper amphibious transport that gets the job done but won't endure the cost and development struggles of the EFV. And Congress is spoiling for a fight about this - full coverage by DiMascio. http://politi.co/hHKN6R

M-D PERSPECTIVE: ADVANTAGE SECDEF - Gates and Mullen emerged from Thursday's announcements like Paul Newman and Robert Redford in "The Sting:" There's nothing they can do about who walks up to their table (i.e. Congress) but for now, these guys are running the game. This year's official budget discussion is still weeks away, but now it will proceed on Gates's terms. And as House Republicans continue their splashy demonstrations - such as cutting $35 million from their own budget to show how serious they are on spending - the political table here appears to favor the dealers. For now.

HILL DEFENSE ADVOCATES BLASTED GATES'S ANNOUNCEMENT. But Republicans had to walk a tricky line, taking care to express support both for prudent spending and strong defense. Said McKeon: "I remain committed to applying more fiscal responsibility and accountability to the Department of Defense, but I will not stand idly by and watch the White House gut defense when Americans are deployed in harm's way."

Missouri's Todd Akin, chairman of the HASC seapower subcommittee, issued a statement that castigated the Obama administration for wanting to cut spending during wartime and remonstrated Gates for killing the EFV: "If the President and the Secretary of Defense want to get rid of the Marine Corps, they should come out and say that directly," he said. But in the very same press release, Akin also praised Gates for permitting the Navy to buy another batch of Boeing-made, Missouri-built F/A-18 Super Hornets. Akin and other Super Hornet supporters may well push for another multi-year deal to lock in all those jets.

[abhishek_sharma]

5 books to read (or re-read) before crossing the river to the Pentagon

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/20 ... e_pentagon

[Craig Alpert]

NATO to deploy radar planes to Afghanistan

BRUSSELS: NATO decided on Friday to deploy AWACS radar aircraft to Afghanistan to monitor the growing traffic of aerial missions against Taliban insurgents, the Western military alliance said.

Allies reached an agreement for the "AWACS to begin their operations in Afghanistan in mid-January," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP.

Two planes will take part in the three-month mission, she said.

An agreement in principle to deploy the Airborne Warning and Control System planes, which are fitted with long-range radar allowing them to detect other aircraft and prevent mid-air collisions, had been reached in June 2009.

But the deployment of the planes -- which act like airbone control towers -- was delayed due to difficulties in securing the right to fly over certain countries neighboring Afghanistan.

Wonder what the range of AWACS will be, Pretty sure that they monitor MORE than just aircrafts and uav in Afghan airwaves. Iran, Pakistan, India? are all other possible candidates, along with IOR...

[abhishek_sharma]

Bob Gates' fuzzy math on defense budgets

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... se_budgets

[D Roy]

Midgetman mobility

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXoZyCVF ... re=related

[Gerard]

Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving

Why are so many of the most talented officers now abandoning military life for the private sector? An exclusive survey of West Point graduates shows that it’s not just money. Increasingly, the military is creating a command structure that rewards conformism and ignores merit. As a result, it’s losing its vaunted ability to cultivate entrepreneurs in uniform.

[Craig Alpert]

Kingdom to manufacture 70% of military hardware locally

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday its plans to produce most of the military hardware and spare parts within the Kingdom by transferring foreign technology.

“More than 70 percent of military equipment can be produced locally,” said Prince Khaled bin Sultan, assistant minister of defense and aviation.

In a statement after presiding over a meeting of the central committee for local manufacturing, Prince Khaled said a special department would be established for local manufacturing and the transfer of technology at the armed forces. He said the committee would report directly to the minister of defense and aviation.

He emphasized the government’s plan to provide greater investment opportunities for the private sector in the military manufacturing sector. “We have set out certain regulations to make sure the equipment and spare parts produced in the Kingdom are equal in quality to imported products,” he said.

Prince Khaled also stressed that locally produced military equipment should be made available at prices lower than outside the country.

He said competition between private companies should be based on equality and justice. There are a number of military industries in Alkharj near Riyadh that are run by the Ministry of Defense and Aviation.

BAE Systems announced recently its intention to establish a military aircraft assembling plant in Saudi Arabia.

“We have started training Saudis on Typhoon aircraft assembling at our plant in Warton to establish an assembly plant in the Kingdom shortly,” said Guy Griffiths, managing director international and a member of the company’s executive council.

He said BAE Systems had established large-scale projects to train Saudi manpower in defense-related industries.

Griffiths said about 58 percent of the company’s 5,000 employees are Saudi.

Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to purchase 72 Typhoon Eurofighters in September 2007. The purchase, for which BAE Systems is prime contractor, is likely to be valued up to $40 billion. The deal calls for most of the aircraft to be assembled in the Kingdom.

In March 2008, the foundation stone was laid for a new center at King Abdulaziz Air Base in the Eastern Province to upgrade and assemble military aircraft systems. The complex will include a range of hangars, stores for hazardous materials, workshops, fuel storage, a water desalination plant and a power station.

HMMM.. South Korea, Kingdom, India, and plenty of other "3 rd world countries" or "developing nations" are aspiring to have 70% or more indigenous defense capability. On the face of it, looks like the Sheikdom is implementing on the lines of Indian govt. (minus the 26-74 quota)..Time will tell how Sheiks play their card and if they succeed in achieving 70% or better..

[andy B]

^^^ the $40B figure for the Saudis looks very very iffy considering Khan is getting a $30B deal that includes F15s, Blackhawks, associated weaponery and what not....

[abhishek_sharma]

Dave Barno’s top 10 tasks for General Dempsey, the new Army chief of staff

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/20 ... f_of_staff

[Shameek]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110123/ap_ ... an_village

British soldiers train in mock Afghan village.

STANFORD TRAINING AREA, England – Deep in the countryside of eastern England, British troops train in a mock Afghan village designed to look, feel, and sound like the real thing.

The Associated Press was shown around the 12,000-hectare (30,000-acre) training complex this month, as troops who will deploy to Helmand province in the real Afghanistan this spring trained alongside dozens of Afghan exiles.

The facility, built in 2008, is meant to replicate a typical village in Helmand, with houses, shops and open markets, and the exiles playing the role of villagers.
.........................

[Singha]

some of the strong, square jawed NVG equipped mock village/FIBUA stuff is good in theory but breaks down in practise. the US also has entire mock towns for any part of the world where they could fight. but recently in afghanistan after taking losses from a village infiltrated by taliban, they called in some MLRS and B1 raids and wiped that village off the map. but in natgeo/discovery you will see them training in these movie sets and talking of minimal collateral damage, cornershot, MAVs , small spy robot cars and so on...all good psyops.

you can read the full story and see the before and after pics here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bombs.html

[Marut]

^ poor yindoos train in real villages only

[Singha]

I think morale of story is artillery is more important than whether the individual trooper wields "blackhawk/abercrombie tactical gear", reflex sights, FN-SCAR limited edition pieces or just plain rajma chawal type INSAS/AK74....

which kinda scares me because if its one thing China (and its former mentor Russia) focus on, its in masses of cheap but effective artillery and rockets.

and you know how much we have chased our own tails on that....most of my teenage and adult life.

[Marut]

GD saar, you are very correct in identifying the critical importance of artillery - The God of War indeed as Napolean says. But that applies to a conventional situation. In the COIN ops scenario that is currently prevailing in Afg, Iraq & J&K, it is not feasible to use artillery on a whole village. Unkil & Aunty may get away with it but then what goes their father? It's not their citizens being held hostage or coerced into supporting the terrorists.
Given our efforts to win the hearts and minds of our own, Shri Shri Carl Gustaf is our best friend after Shri Shri Mikhail Kalishnikov. We pay a higher cost with increased risk but then payoff is also manifold higher. Let Unkil & co obliterate villages and rake up the bad karma, they will pay someday for all this.

Regarding artillery modernization of IA, I'm not holding my breath for it. If at all, a deal is signed before the turn of this century, my soul shall rest in peace

[Kanson]

DCNS SMX-25 from Euronaval 2010



http://noticiarionaval.blogspot.com/201 ... -sous.html

[Singha]

aha the USS Monitor class makes it return after 150 years!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _model.jpg

[VinodTK]

France, Russia sign deal on assault warships]

PARIS – France's government on Tuesday signed an agreement to sell four assault warships to Russia, finalizing a deal that has raised concerns in the United States, Georgia and other countries.

[srai]

Great CGI video of the DCNS FREMM multimission frigates:




More: Detailed information concerning DCNS’s main products and projects in three areas

[abhishek_sharma]

Cyberwar Case Study: Georgia 2008

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/0 ... eorgia-20/

[wig]

WikiLeaks: US and China in military standoff over space missiles

The United States threatened to take military action against China during a secret "star wars" arms race within the past few years, according to leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph.
The two nuclear superpowers both shot down their own satellites using sophisticated missiles in separate show of strength, the files suggest.

The American Government was so incensed by Chinese actions in space that it privately warned Beijing it would face military action if it did not desist.

The Chinese carried out further tests as recently as last year, however, leading to further protests from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, secret documents show.

Beijing justified its actions by accusing the Americans of developing an “offensive” laser weapon system that would have the capability of destroying missiles before they left enemy territory.

The disclosures are contained in the latest documents obtained by the Wikileaks website, which have been released to The Telegraph. They detail the private fears of both superpowers as they sought mastery of the new military frontier.

viewpoint

a summit on defence in June 2008, the American delegation told the Chinese that Washington did not regard China as “an enemy”. China replied that it saw the two powers “as neither allies nor adversaries

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... siles.html#

[Singha]

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia-- ... 1663861/L/

IL-87-Aimak Russian emergency airborne command post. all windows deleted, most doors deleted - satcom and blade antenna of tremendous size. and one huge pod with cooling air inlet below the fuselage of unknown function - perhaps a trailing wire to communicate with submerged SSBNs ?

[Tanaji]

^^^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ilyus ... y_2010.jpg

[Austin]

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia-- ... 1663861/L/

IL-87-Aimak Russian emergency airborne command post. all windows deleted, most doors deleted - satcom and blade antenna of tremendous size. and one huge pod with cooling air inlet below the fuselage of unknown function - perhaps a trailing wire to communicate with submerged SSBNs ?

Those birds are by general staff used for Strategic C&C in crises , trailing wire are perhaps the VLF trailing wire system used to communicate with submerged submarine ,Signal-A and Dead Hand.

[Austin]

Ratifying new START treaty amid mutual mistrust

[Singha]

apparently a NBC overpressure sealing is there and most doors/all windows deleted to better guard against EMP/radiation effects from nuclear fallout.

lacks the suave polish and pomp of the E4-NEACPs but gets the job done in a old school Rus sort of way

[Austin]

'WikiLeaks cables: planned US missile shield blind to nuclear weapons'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... apons.html

An X-Band radar would always work on LOS principle ,so it can be good to track space object or missile in post boost phase but not good to look deep inside Russia to provide tracking data for intercept from boost phase ,by the time it does the interceptor will be too late to intercept the ICBM.

The OTH Meter Band radar that can bend and look deep will not provide missile quality track data but only a tripwire function of possible missile launch ,considering Russia enjoys a land mass depth thats very hard to beat , any ways a big OTH meter band on Poland border would make its intention obvious and US cannot then claim it being built to track Iran missile.

[Singha]

I think Putin/Medvedev use a sleek looking IL96-300 as AF1 in normal course.

but the IL-87 is probably the one to take them airborne if Judgement Day dawns...

[Austin]

Singha , the Presidential fleet of IL-96PU ( Command Aircraft ) are both a comfort aircraft and Nuclear Command and Control.

The IL87 is used dedicatedly by General Staff as command and control aircraft during nuclear exercises and if required during crises.

[Cybaru]

f-16 got to close to a b-1b bomber..

http://gizmodo.com/5752983/this-is-what ... o-a-bomber

[Austin]

^^ Comical Indeed

[Kartik]

French Tiger helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, but it appears that they were able to evacuate the helicopter, slinging it under a Chinook

Officials also said that two pilots were injured when a French military helicopter made an emergency landing east of Kabul late on Friday.
The incident happened as the combat helicopter was escorting transport helicopters from a French base in the Surobi district of Kabul province back to the capital itself.
French military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Philippe Bou told AFP enemy fire had been ruled out as a cause of the incident, which he said happened during bad weather conditions. An investigation has been launched.
ISAF spokesman Major Tim James added: "I can confirm that an ISAF helicopter made an emergency landing in the Surobi district of Kabul (province) last night. Two pilots were slightly injured."

[kit]

x posting.

Flight global world airforces directory .. http://rapidshare.com/files/446684947/W ... es2010.pdf