Turkish-Indonesian Tank Project Prototype in Finishing Stage

Our Bureau

12:52 PM, September 8, 2017

The proptotype of a Turkish-Indonesian project to manufacture the KAPLAN battle tank in Indonesia will be displayed at the Army Day military parade in Indonesia in October 2018.

Turkish armored-vehicle manufacturer FNSS and Indonesian PT Pindad have been working on producing the KAPLAN tank in Indonesia following an agreement in 2015 and work on the prototype is in the finishing stages, Anadulu agency reported Friday.

Defense officials from Turkey and Indonesia recently discussed the progress of a cooperation agreement, including an ongoing project to produce a medium-weight battle tank, Indonesian sources said Friday as quoted by Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

Director General of Defense Potential for Indonesia Sutrimo Sumarlan was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency, “this is the sixth annual Defense Industry Cooperation Meeting where we evaluated the progress of mutually beneficial agreements. We also exchanged information and introduced products created by each country’s defense industry.”

In addition to the KAPLAN tank project, “Turkey has offered design and technology cooperation for type-214 submarines,” said Sumarlan.

Sumarlan further stated that Ankara had discussed with Jakarta the joint production of medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft.

Airbus Helicopters bids to break into Philippines military helicopter market

Jon Grevatt - IHS Jane's Defence Industry
06 September 2017


An Airbus Helicopters H145M operated by the German military. Source: Airbus Helicopters/Christian D. Keller

Key Points

* Airbus Helicopters has positioned its H145M platform to meet a Philippine Air Force requirement for attack helicopters
* The company dominates the country’s civilian helicopter market but military sales have so far been limited

Airbus Helicopters is looking to break into the Philippines’ military market with its H145M light-utility/attack platform, Fabrice Rochereau, the company’s head of sales for Southeast Asia, has disclosed to Jane’s .

The company has positioned the H145M to meet a Philippine Air Force (PAF) requirement for a fleet of night-capable attack helicopters. Future opportunities for the platform may also emerge in the Philippine Navy (PN) and Philippines Coast Guard (PCG).

Rochereau explained that the PAF programme represents a major opportunity for the company to penetrate the Philippines’ military market after years of dominating the country’s civilian/paramilitary rotary-wing sectors.

Indonesia allocates USD204 million for navy's minesweepers replacement programme

Ridzwan Rahmat - IHS Jane's Navy International
11 September 2017

Key Points

* Indonesia has revised funding allocations for the acquisition of two new mine-countermeasure vessels
* A variant of the German Navy's Frankenthal class has been named as a frontrunner in the acquisition programme

The Indonesian government has approved funds totalling USD204 million to replace the country's fleet of ageing Pulau Rengat (Tripartite)-class mine-countermeasure vessels (MCMVs), an industry source close to the Indonesian Navy (Tentara Nasional Indonesia – Angkatan Laut: TNI–AL) has confirmed to Jane's .

The funds, which will be drawn from the country's foreign defence credit programme, have been slightly reduced from the USD215 million that was initially approved in 2016.

That's quite a large radar system to be used with a SHORAD missile system. 

Also I don't know what advantage do Starstreak submunitions has over the usual HE-Frag warheads. For one thing they have to directly hit the target to work. Seems like a bad trade-off.

The Pros dan Cons:

Advantages

Starstreak has a number of advantages over infrared homing guided, radar homing guided, and radio command guidance MCLOS/SACLOS (e.g. Blowpipe or Javelin) missiles:

- It cannot be jammed by infrared countermeasures or radar/radio countermeasures.
- It cannot be suppressed with anti-radar missiles.[
- Its high speed makes it more likely to be able to intercept a fast moving aircraft.
- Three submunitions increase the size of the lethal area, increasing the probability that the target will be hit by at least one submunition.
- Its high speed reduces the amount of time for effective usage of any potential countermeasure, such as the beam manoeuvring or illuminating the guidance laser source with a dazzling battlefield laser.

Disadvantages

- The major disadvantage is that the submunitions, having no proximity fuze, must collide with the target in order to harm it.
- The guidance laser may be detected after the missile is fired, if the target aircraft is equipped with a suitable passive laser warning system. In contrast, to detect a passively guided Infrared homing missile requires MAWS detectors with significant disadvantages: radar-based closure-detecting style MAWS radiate an easily detectable signal that reveals the aircraft and may be used as an auxiliary homing signal by AA missiles, and Infrared launch signature detector-based MAWS tend to be subject to a high false alarm rate, which reduces attention paid them by the pilot.
- Battlefield obscurants, such as smoke, can degrade the ability of the missile operator to see the target, and could potentially interfere with the guidance laser. This is also the case (to a slightly lesser extent) in misty or rainy conditions.
- The training level of the operator is critical since, unlike infrared guided missiles, the operator has to track the target exactly with the sighting unit aimpoint (SACLOS). If the aircraft detects the targeting laser, it has the whole period of the missile flight time to engage in avoidance manoeuvres, which adds additional challenge to the missile operator's target-tracking task.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak

APA JADINYA KALO INDONESIA DI PERANG?

RISING50 – Forging Fifty Years of Friendship

12 September 2017 Gary Ng

7 Sep 2017 marked the Golden Jubilee of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Indonesia, and to honour this significant milestone, a Leader’s Retreat was held in Singapore at the Marina Bay Cruise Centre. Present at the retreat were Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, along with cabinet ministers. A special joint flypast was conducted by the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and the Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) under the callsign “RISING 50” to commemorate this day.

what are they trying to do with it?
give the T72 Leopard 2 styled spaced armor?

Indeed, we are looking at this type of opportunities. We have been asking the Germans about that but they no longer are in possession of used vehicles of this type. The Spanish Leopards are quite old, so doubts exist whether we should reach out for them. This is an ongoing process, and should the acquisition phase be entered, the eye of the beholder will have a close look at the details.

http://www.defence24.com/570918,poland-is-...leopard-2-tanks

Royal Thai Navy takes delivery of four M21-class patrol boats

Ridzwan Rahmat - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
13 September 2017

Key Points

* Thailand has taken delivery of four new M21 patrol boats from a local shipbuilder
* Vessels will improve the service’s constabulary capabilities in the Andaman Sea, Gulf of Thailand


The handover ceremony of four new M-21 boats at Sattahip Naval Base in September 2017 (Royal Thai Navy)

The Royal Thai Navy (RTN) has taken delivery of four new M21-class patrol boats from local shipyard Marsun Company Limited.

The boats, which were ordered from the company in July 2015, were received by the RTN in a handover ceremony held at the Sattahip Naval Base in Thailand’s Chonburi province.

The vessels bear pennant numbers 261, 262, 263, and 264 respectively, and will join three other M21 boats in the same class, which were delivered by the same shipbuilder in May 2013.

Air Force pushing for acquisition of Air Defense System

September 14, 2017 Ruben Santos

The Philippine Air Force (PAF) is pushing forward with their Ground Based Air Defense System (GBADS) project proposal, MaxDefense Philippines said.

MaxDefense said the GBADS acquisition project will be pushed under the Second Horizon of Revised Armed Forces of the Philippines Modernization Program (RAFPMP) established by Republic Act No. 10349.

It added that among the possible project bidders are Israeli Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with its Surface-to-air Python and Derby (SPYDER) Medium Range; German Diehl Defence with IRIS-T Surface-Launched; Korean LIGNex1 with KM surface-to-air missile (SAM); Norwegian Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace with NASAMS developed with Raytheon; and European MBDA with Land Ceptor.

The Department of National Defense (DND) previously said that under the next phase of military modernization “we will pursue the development and enhancement of our territorial defense capability by acquiring major defense assets such as, but not limited to, radars, fighter aircraft, frigates, patrol boats, attack and utility helicopters, missile systems, and unmanned aerial systems.”

The Second Horizon will run from 2018 to 2022. It will be followed by Third Horizon which will start 2023 and will end in 2028.