The AAD has been undergoing trials since 2007 and may ultimately serve as a project demonstrator. A full-scale BMD system in India will incorporate technology from both the PAD and AAD systems. The AAD interceptor is a 7.5 meter single-stage, solid fuel rocket, capable of Mach 4.5 supersonic flight. The AAD has an operational range between 150-200 kilometers and uses an inertial navigational aid system with active radar homing. So far, it has been test-launched from a transporter erector launcher (TEL).

As a short-range, ground-launched system capable of surface-to-air strikes against aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles, the AAD will see some overlap with the more advanced Russian-made S-400 Triumph anti-ballistic missile system. Earlier this month, New Delhi approved the procurement of Russian S-400 systems, becoming the second foreign buyer of the advanced surface-to-air system after China. The S-400 outperforms India’s AAD on nearly all counts, including flight speed when fitted with the upgraded 48N6 interceptor.

India’s development of a BMD system was identified as one area of possible cooperation with the United States in 2012, when then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said BMD cooperation would be an “an important potential area for our future cooperation.” After the United States, Russia, and Israel, India is the fourth state to indigenously develop a BMD system.

Don’t move, but do call for help.

If at all possible, don’t move. Call for help. It’s best if you can just call out verbally, but use a phone or radio if you have to. Minimize your transmissions. The signals could trigger remote-operated mines.

Hopefully, a nearby unit will be able to grab you. The British paratroopers were rescued by Blackhawk helicopters with winches and the U.S. airmen were saved by Army engineers.

Until rescue arrives, it’s imperative that movement is limited. In the British emergency, one soldier stumbled while trying to catch a water bottle and lost his leg. Another slipped off the rock he was standing on and lost his foot.

Torpedoes that travel at almost 350 mph, an electromagnetic rail gun with the range of cruise missiles, a quad-copter that fires lasers, drones made on board and a holographic control room.

Those are just a few of the things that some of Britain's youngest and brightest scientists and engineers came up with when the country's Ministry of Defense challenged them to envision the battleship of the future.

The scientists and engineers from defense contractors, the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Navy brought their ideas together in what's dubbed "Dreadnought 2050," an homage to the HMS Dreadnought, a 20,000-ton, 527-foot-long battleship launched in 1906. The HMS Dreadnought "represented such an advance that all other major warships were rendered obsolete," according to a press release from Startpoint, the Royal Navy organization overseeing the current project.

Startpoint says its mission is to "tackle parallel challenges of providing advanced technology set against the backdrop of funding constraints." Looking at the artist's conceptions of Dreadnought 2050, "cheap" is not a word that comes to mind. Words like "starship" or "battlestar" seem more apt.

Dreadnought 2050 is a tri-hull design and it's not steel as most battle ships are. It's an ultra-strong, see-through acrylic, Startpoint says.

The ship does away with the traditional mast, using instead a quad-copter tethered to the ship with carbon nanotubes that would carry power for sensors and a laser gun to take out nearby threats.

For threats farther off, there's an electomagnetic rail gun on the bow that can fire a projectile hundreds of miles. Tubes in the two outrigger hulls would be armed with "supercavitating" torpedoes, which go so fast that they vaporize the water around them and create an air pocket that lets them fly through the water.

The aft section of Dreadnought 2050 would have a flight deck for drones that could be made onboard using 3-D printing technologies and a "moon pool," a floodable deck from which amphibious troops could be dispatched on missions.

Control for all this comes from what the Royal Navy dubs the "Ops Room," in the center of which is a holographic command table linking all the ship's systems to commanders aboard, Royal Navy and Ministry of Defense headquarters and even NATO allies, according to Startpoint. The Ops Room would be manned by only five people, compared to 25 on today's ships, and the entire ship could be run by as few as 50, compared to about 200 on those in service now.

The mortars entered into service with the EMD artillery units stationed in Primorsky Territory. The self-propelled 2S4 Tyulpan mortar is the world’s heaviest and most powerful," Col. Alexander Gordeev said.

Gordeev told reporters the 240 mm mortar "has no equals," noting its original design employing an artillery element placed on top of the hull, with crew, equipment and armament inside the chassis.

The mortar is designed to destroy solid field fortifications, buildings adapted into shelters, command posts, artillery and missile batteries, as well as other targets inaccessible to conventional artillery.

He will argue that the defence budget is now 'back in balance' and promise extra funding and equipment by 2020. The government will announce:

£178billion of spending on defence equipment over the next decade, £12billion more than planned

Two new 'strike brigades' by 2025 to be rapidly deployed thousands of miles away if necessary

A new SCOUT range of vehicles, including almost 600 armoured vehicles, will be available to the strike brigades and other military units

9 new Boeing P8 maritime patrol aircraft to carry out surveillance at sea and help track submarines and ships, including protecting Britain's nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers

42 new F35 Lightning stealth fighter jets, including 12 operating from each of the new aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales

At least one aircraft carrier to be able to deploy all year, with 24-hour air operations

Two additional Typhoon squadrons to be created by extending the life of the aircraft for 10 years through to 2040, creating seven in total with 12 aircraft each

Number of new Type 26 combat ships to be cut from 13 to around eight

A 15 per cent increase in the 12,700-strong staff of the security and intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ with the recruitment of an additional 1,900 personnel

Foreign aid budget to be refocused on fragile states which poise a direct threat to British security

Under pressure from Tory MPs, the government has committed to spend at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence.

Over the past few days, some alarmist reports have surfaced about Chinese navy receiving access to a Malaysian port near the South China Sea. As is the case with much sensationalist reporting, caution is warranted and perspective is needed.

The brouhaha can be traced back to an agreement reached on November 10 between Admiral Wu Shengli, the commander of the People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN), and Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar who until last week was the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) chief. Wu was leading a goodwill visit by a 12-member Chinese military delegation to Malaysia as part of a broader three-nation visit which also included Indonesia and the Maldives. The trip itself was significant: as Abdul Aziz noted, it was the first ever-visit by a PLAN commander to Malaysia.

Few specifics have been made publicly available about the pact itself. But Malaysian media reports indicate that an agreement was made by the two sides to give China stopover access to the port of Kota Kinabalu to strengthen defense ties between both countries.

First, it is important to stress that this kind of port access is a pretty routine affair. In general, allowing a ship to dock at a port for a break to load or unload, obtain supplies, or undergo repairs is a fairly standard process. The idea of a Chinese ships at Kota Kinabalu is also not new. Back in August 2013, the Zhenghe, a PLAN training vessel, had already docked at the harbor in Kota Kinabalu to begin a five-day goodwill visit to the country. So, if anything, the agreement represents the formalization of access rather than some sort of groundbreaking entry.

Second, such port access is not equivalent to basing rights, contrary to what some reports have suggested. An access agreement would allow the Chinese navy to dock for a break in Kota Kinabalu for the various reasons cited above – nothing more. Equating this as part of some Chinese ‘basing strategy’ is rather dubious. In addition to being out of step with Malaysian foreign policy which avoids too close of an alignment with any major power, it would also be a tad bit strange to allow a foreign country who has outstanding disputes with Malaysia to have a base there since Kota Kinabalu also houses Malaysia’s regional naval headquarters and the country’s submarine base (See: “Malaysia Eyes Submarine Base Expansion Near South China Sea”).

Third, this port access is not something that has only been given to China. As Abdul Aziz, the then-Malaysian naval chief, emphasized to Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama, a number of other countries including the United States and France have already previously docked in the Malaysian port. In fact, before conducting the recent U.S. freedom of navigation operation within 12 nautical miles of one of China’s controversial man-made islands in the South China Sea on October 27, the USS Lassen had docked in Kota Kinabalu for a regular port visit on October 19 after a routine South China Sea patrol.

How, then, should we read Malaysia’s granting of port access to China? According to Abdul Aziz himself, the move was part of a broader effort to enhance defense relations between the two countries’ navies to “overcome problems and issues relating to overlapping border claims.” He was no doubt referring to the South China Sea disputes, in which both China and Malaysia are claimants.

Turkey backstabbed Russia by downing the Russian warplane and acted as accomplices of the terrorists, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“This incident stands out against the usual fight against terrorism. Our troops are fighting heroically against terrorists, risking their lives. But the loss we suffered today came from a stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists,” Putin said.

Putin said the plane was hit by a Turkish warplane as it was traveling at an altitude of 6000 meters about a kilometer from the Turkish border. It was hit by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish F-16 jet. The crash site is four kilometers from the border. The plane posed no threat to Turkish national security, he stressed.

“Regarding the possible impact of this incident on the further developments of the operation in Syria, I think that from now on, our pilots will be more attentive and if the Turks continue behaving in such a manner, Russia will have to resort to electronic jamming and other warfare equipment, including special aircraft with special equipment on board, in order to protect our pilots from being stricken with missiles,” said the lieutenant-general.

Buzhinsky also added that the so-called means of objective control, including flight radar and other equipment, will allow Russia to verify exactly where and how the bomber was downed, excluding any possible discrepancies on the issue.

The men reportedly regretted they hadn’t burned him on the spot.

The video was sent by a rebel group operating in the northwestern area of Syria, where groups including the Free Syrian Army are active but Islamic State has no known presence.

Jahed Ahmad, a representative of the 10th Brigade in the Coast, the rebel group that attacked the pilots, told AP that at least one of the Russian pilots was dead upon landing.

Salim cited his experience in January near Ramadi, in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar. "We were with an Iraqi army unit of about 150 men with six armoured personnel carriers," he said. We were ordered to stop because IS were in front of us.

"We contacted the [US-led] coalition and pinpointed the IS men's location, about 200m northeast of us. But the US hit our unit and 36 men were killed by their air strike."

Salim believes the strike was deliberate: "The US military is very advanced and can hit anywhere in the world. Why did they hit us?" he asked.

Whether or not his analysis is correct, it reflects a deep suspicion of the US role in Iraq that pervades almost every conversation in this largely Shia city. By contrast, Russia's intervention in Syria is seen as unambiguous.

The prototype of a U.S. Navy robot ship was recently equipped with a new hull-mounted sonar system, IHS Defense Weekly reports.

The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), received Raytheon’s Modular Scalable Sonar System (MS 3), which “will be integrated as the ACTUV’s primary search-and-detection sonar,” according to the article.  The sonar system will produce an “acoustic image” of targets in order to identify and classify vessels in close proximity to the robot ship.

“Designed to autonomously conduct active and passive searches, detect torpedoes, filter passive threats, localize and track submarines, and avoid small objects, the MS 3 is Raytheon’s first fifth-generation medium-frequency hull-mounted sonar system,” IHS Defense Weekly explains.

The ACTUV is an unmanned autonomous trimaran designed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency responsible for developing emerging technologies for the military’s use. DARPA was tasked with developing an anti-submarine drone — a robot ship capable of tracking enemy subs in shallow waters in 2010.

As I reported before (See: “US Navy to Deploy Robot Ships to Track Chinese and Russian Subs”), the robot ship itself is unarmed and can operate autonomously for 60 to 90 days straight. While deployed the ACTUV surveils large stretches of ocean territory and — should an enemy sub be spotted — guide other U.S. naval assets to the vessel’s location to destroy it.(The ACTUV is in constant contact with other ships or aircraft via satellite link.)

Mechanical engineering student James Patrick is bound to turn some heads with his PM522 Washbear, a 3D-printed pepperbox revolver capable of firing up to 8 bullets between reloads. Except for an elastic band spring, a metal firing pin, and steel rods as detectable metal, the gun is entirely 3D-printed using ABS plastic or a durable nylon material. According to Patrick, it is the world's first functional 3D-printed repeating firearm that has been printed using a consumer 3D printer.

Patrick has been working on his gun for months and it shows in the design, which is brilliantly simple. Unlike Cody Wilson's single-fire Liberator gun, Patrick's Washbear is a revolver that makes good on its name, allowing the user to take multiple shots without reloading. Patrick uses a 6- or 8-chamber pepperbox-style cylinder that is removable. The cylinder is held in place by a simple pin at the front that can be easily removed, permitting the user to swap out a 6-round cylinder and replace it with an 8-round without modifying the gun.

Once the cylinder is loaded and in place, Patrick uses elastic bands attached to a trigger to turn the cylinder and line up the round for firing. As the user pulls backs on the trigger, the cylinder moves into place and the striker is pulled back with the trigger. The striker is equipped with a flat roofing nail as the firing pin. When the trigger is pulled back to its furthest position, it drops down slightly into the handle, allowing the striker to move forward and hit the round with the firing pin. As the trigger moves back to its resting state, the cylinder is moved off-center, a safety measure that prevents the accidental firing of the gun in case it is dropped or jostled.

In an attempt to comply with gun regulations, Patrick has added adequate detectable metal to the plastic gun using steel rods that are epoxied into the well of the grip. It remains to be seen whether this inclusion of detectable metal will be enough render the gun legal or whether the authorities will seek to have the blueprints for the gun removed from the Internet as it did with Wilson's Liberator gun when it debuted in 2013. As of the publishing of this post, you can still download the STL files for the Washbear from Patrick's website and read his five-part series that covers the design and assembly of the gun.

Defence training agreements and co-operation between Singapore and Australia look set to be expanded under the Singapore-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) framework following the latest round of discussions between the defence leaders of both countries.

Singaporean defence minister Ng Eng Hen called on his Australian counterpart, Marise Payne, in Sydney on 19 November before travelling to the country's northeastern Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA) - near the city of Rockhampton in Queensland - to observe Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) troops participating in Exercise 'Wallaby' 2015: an annual drill conducted there since 1990.

According to a statement by the Singapore Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), Ng and Payne reiterated their governments' commitment to enhance the bilateral defence relationship between both countries and to finalise a number of initiatives under the recently renewed Memorandum of Understanding for Cooperation in Defence Science and Technology.

"I consider it my duty to declare that I personally, the Chechen Republic, the entire Chechen people are ready to fulfill orders and orders of any complexity [given by the Russian president]. For this we have the will, determination, highly trained forces, and thousands of volunteers! We are always waiting for the order! You will make sure how true patriots of Russia perform it," Kadyrov said.

The Su-24 frontline bomber of the Russian aviation group in Syria crashed in the Syrian territory on Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the plane was downed by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish F-16 fighter.