Defense contractor General Dynamics has unveiled a new armored vehicle designed to fulfill a U.S. Army requirement for a new light tank. The Griffin Technology Demonstrator is designed to be a lightweight, fast-moving vehicle with a powerful gun that's made to support light infantry troops on the battlefield.

Several months ago, the Army told its tops defense contractors it was interested in a new vehicle it was calling the Mobile Protected Firepower. It seems the Army is worried that in a future war, its "light fighters" could be temporarily cut off from air and naval support and wants to make it easier for them to survive on their own. The MPF would give a boost to firepower-strapped light infantry divisions, especially against enemy fortifications and lighter armored vehicles such as the Russia's new Kurganets infantry fighting vehicle and China's new light tank.

The Griffin is a 28-ton concept vehicle that combines the hull of the British Army's new Ajax scout vehicle (seen above), also built by General Dynamics, with the firepower of the M1 Abrams. Griffin uses a new turret incorporating the XM360 tank gun designed for the Army's Future Combat Systems, which was an early 2000s effort to field lighter, more rapidly deployable replacements for the Army's M1 Abrams tank, M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, and M109 self-propelled howitzer. FCS ultimately failed, but the gun designed for the Abrams' replacement lives on.

The Griffin uses a new gun of the same 120-millimeter caliber that weighs 2,000 pounds less.

According to a video interview with a General Dynamics representative, the turret is "just like an Abrams", with the touch and feel that a tanker would be instantly familiar with. That kind of familiarity will help with training, allowing trained operators to transition to the smaller vehicle faster.

Currently known under the technical name Izdelie 2-F66-1, the vehicle was developed by the Burevestnik Central R&D Institute. It is based on the KamAZ-6560 eight-wheel chassis.
The new vehicle is equipped with a special manipulator which enables instant resupplying of an SPG without involvement of its crew.

"As for now, the vehicle has undergone government tests. Deliveries to the armed forces will begin next year," a Burevestnik representative told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.

The newest vehicle will be delivered along with MSTA-SV self-propelled howitzers, which were contracted by the Defense Ministry in September.

On the outside, the new reloading vehicle looks like an ordinary truck with a container mounted in the cargo box. Inside the box, there is a revolver-type reloading system which contains 92 artillery shells. Controlled by the operator, the system rotates and delivers a projectile to a special manipulator resembling a human’s arm. The manipulator grabs the projectile and puts it in the loading mechanism of an SPG.

Until now, having run out of ammo, SPG units had to leave artillery positions for a safe place where they could replenish ammo. Traditional reloading is time-consuming because it is done manually by the crew. The new reloading vehicle will accelerate the procedure several-fold. If previously reloading usually took up to several hours, the 2F66-1 can reload 50 shells in just several minutes.

Its capabilities will increase the firing rate of artillery units by 2-3 times and seriously reduce the reloading time," a Defense Ministry source told Izvestia.

Currently, analogues of the 2F66-1 are used with the newest Swedish howitzer Archer. It is based on the Volvo A30D chassis and can carry over 40 shells. Analogous reloading vehicles are also in service with the French military, working with the Caesar self-propelled gun.

Hulls of the new £31billion Trident submarines will be built with steel provided by a FRENCH firm.

BAe Systems, building the subs in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, opted for a French supplier after signing a contract with the UK government.

The deal, which The Mirror reports will be worth tens of millions, came after a plan between two British firms to make a joint bid for the work flopped.

The Defence Secretary announced work on the new nuclear deterrent will begin today as the first pictures of £31billion Trident submarines were unveiled.

The issue of launchers and missiles is quite confusing The US's Mk 41 can mount practically any/everything. The UK doesn't have a "multipurpose" launcher of its own like France's Sylver, just custom CAMM or Sea Wolf VLS.

For their Type 45 destroyers and Type 23 frigates, UK chose Sylver and custom CAMM launchers over the older, larger, heavier (and IINM more expensive) American Mk 141, but the downside is inability to fit Harpoon in their VLS which have to use the old box launchers. The Type 26 is currently expected to mount both Mk 41 and CAMM VLS, maybe they will fit a mix of Harpoon, Aster 30 and CAMM. Type 45 also apparently has an empty space to put additional 12 Mk 41 VLS or Sylver tubes - hard to tell which.

I'm not sure if Aster's flight profile is really that bad. After all Aster did prove it can intercept a supersonic sea-skimming missile in exercise.

Our SGPVs carry Sylver launchers for launching MICA, probably the smallest size so no possibility of carrying other kinds of missiles. I don't think Mk 41 VLS would fit on our ships. Singapore also went with MICA for their LMVs, so I dunno.

TEL AVIV — Israel lost one of its front line F-16I fighters on Wednesday and the pilot died following a strike mission in Gaza, said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

According to Lerner, the pilot and navigator were returning to their home base southwest of Beersheba around 5 p.m. when, “for some reason, they felt the need to eject.”

The pilot's death was killed as a result of the ejection while the navigator suffered only light injuries.

As of 10 p.m. on Wednesday, the Israeli military could not say whether a technical malfunction or human error was to blame for the Class A mishap.

However, in an indication that human error was to blame, Lerner said the Air Force did not plan to ground the F-16I fleet pending the ongoing investigation.

“We have no specifics yet to offer. It happened while they were landing. … An inquiry is ongoing to review the circumstances,” Lerner told Defense News.

The lost fighter was part of a considerable force package dispatched Wednesday in response to a Gaza-launched rocket that landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot. The launch marked the second such attack on Sderot in two months, and — while only two people were treated for shock and no physical injuries were sustained — the rocket landed very close to a school where children were in their classrooms.

i say that's the chronology of 18 crashes from 1969 until 2007 and i did mention " i think we had few crashes after 2007 till now.." maybe not major or emergency landing, etc

kypmbangi dah fastpoke

kypmbangi dah fastpoke

how about our EC725 heli? still not fit to fly after recent crash in Norway?

Poland cancels multi-billion euro Airbus Helicopters deal

The Polish government has cancelled talks with Airbus Helicopters on a multi-billion euro deal to buy military helicopters. The decision reopens the door to the helicopter makers that failed in the original tender.

Poland's Development Ministry said late on Tuesday that the negotiating position of the two sides on the purchase of 50 Caracal helicopters for 13.5 billion zlotys (3.14 billion euros) was "so different that further talks are pointless."

The collapse of talks also shelves a major offset deal agreed under the previous Polish government.

The ministry said that offers made by Airbus Helicopters had "failed to properly secure Poland's economic and security interests." Polish officials had earlier indicated that the value of the deal should match the value of the purchase.

Offset agreements - where the seller of a product or service agrees to invest in sectors or goods on the buyer's side to compensate or enhance the value of the deal - are common in the military industry.

The decision to buy the helicopters from Airbus was made by the previous government, led by the center-right, pro-European party Civic Platform, as part of plans to modernize the military over the next 10 years, spending about 35 billion euros, and was triggered by regional tensions over Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Read more: http://www.dw.com/en/poland-cancels-multi-...deal/a-35967557

According to information published in the Guinean media, a small Tertras type of plane is crashed on the military base in Conakry airport.
 
The accident killed two people including a young Guinean pilot and a French national. The causes of the accident are not yet known.

The Guinean Defence Minister Mohamed Diané said on his Facebook page: "Following the accident of the airplane of military surveillance that occurred this morning at Conakry airport, I present on behalf of President Alpha Condé my deepest condolences to the families of two victims. "

The head of the national defense department announced the establishment of a crisis and begin investigations to determine the causes of this tragedy.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense has released new details about its plans for future unmanned aircraft that would fly in supporting roles, aiding piloted fighters in the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, or JASDF. Specifically, JASDF is hoping to add two distinct craft to its fleet: unmanned wingmen that would fly in formation with and receive commands from a pilot in a conventional fighter, and a high-flying ballistic-missile defense (BMD) aircraft that would use sensor arrays to track missile threats.

The BMD aircraft is slated to enter service around 2030, while the the first iteration of the unmanned wingman—which will fly ahead of fighters as a sensor carrier—is to be developed in the next 15 to 20 years. A second version of the unmanned wingman that will fire munitions and act as a missile sponge, directing incoming threats toward itself and away from the manned fighter, will be developed with the same airframe and engine as the sensor carrier if all goes according to plan. The development of these Combat Support Unmanned Aircraft is outlined in a report from the Japanese Defense Ministry's purchasing office, the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), which was provided to Aviation Week.

Unmanned wingman aircraft could combine autonomous actions with commands from a fighter pilot to fire missiles, search for targets, and lure away incoming missile attacks.

Given the difficulty of programming an autonomous system with the aerial maneuvers necessary for successful air-to-air engagements, most countries have focused on air-to-surface platforms for unmanned aircraft. Japan, however, seems to be more optimistic and hopes the unmanned craft can fly alongside its advanced stealth fighter aircraft, the F-3, which is currently under development with a planned production date in 2027. Japan's F-3s could be updated to control the unmanned wingmen, which would automatically execute maneuvers with the manned fighter and take commands from the flight leader, such as attacking designated targets or searching specific areas. The drones would then autonomously decide the best way to execute the pilot's orders.

Though programming the unmanned wingmen will require very advanced AI systems, there is one big advantage to having an unmanned aircraft in a dogfighting role: It could pull maneuvers that a human pilot could never withstand with reflexes that a human pilot could never dream of. The drones could also intercept incoming missile threats and neutralize them through maneuvering, electromagnetic countermeasures, or as a last result, impacting the missile. Sacrificing the drone to protect the pilot would only be a last resort considering the unmanned wingmen would be much more expensive than a missile.

The unmanned wingmen would be particularly useful for the F-3, which is currently designed to be a fighter with high endurance and heavy armaments at the expense of maneuverability. One possible configuration is a single unmanned wingman acting as a sensor hub while another in the formation carries weapons, according to Aviation Week. Another possibility is to have the manned fighter hang back as the information hub while multiple armed autonomous wingmen fly ahead to pursue targets.

The ballistic-missile detector aircraft would likely be a high-altitude aircraft capable of sustained flight. There was no mention of the BMD carrying weapons, but it would instead use infrared sensors and other detecting systems to locate and track ballistic missile threats.