India test fires shaurya missile








India successfully flight-tested its nuclear capable surface-to-surface 'Shourya' missile from Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, about 15 km from here, Saturday.

'Shourya' can carry a one tonne nuclear and conventional warhead over 700 kms and is powered by two-stage solid fuel.

The state-of-the-art missile is equipped with multiple advanced computing systems, very high accuracy navigation and guidance systems, defence sources here said.

"The trial of the missile, which took off from Launch Complex-III of ITR at 1430 hrs, was fully successful," ITR Director S P Dash said.

The missile was flight tested from a canister in a ground launch mode. "The launch was perfect like in text book and followed the path exactly to the predefined target," he said.

All radar, telemetry and electro optical stations along the east coast have tracked and monitored all the mission parameters, Dash said.

Ships located near the target have also tracked and witnessed the flight test and the missile reached the target within few meters accuracy, a defence official said.

The defence official said the sophisticated missile combines simplicity of operation with low maintenance. It can be easily handled, transported and stored in the canister for longer shelf life.

The high manoeuvrability of the missile makes it less vulnerable to available anti-missile defence systems.

"We have designed 'Shourya' missile in such a way that it can be launched from under water as easily as from land.

The gas-filled canister that houses the missile fits easily into a submarine. The underwater leg of the nuclear trial needs to be totally reliable and needs a state-of-the-art missile," said a scientist associated with the project.

DRDO chief controller Avinash Chander congratulated the scientists and employees of the organisation and other establishments for the successful test flight.

As a safety measure, prior to the test, Balasore district administration had temporarily evacuated 400 families residing within 2 km radius of the launch pad to nearby shelter camps early this morning, official sources said.

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Indian Navy to induct new heavy tanker





Strengthening its combat support capabilities, Indian Navy will induct its second Italy-made fleet tanker, INS Shakti, in Vishakhapatnam on October 1.

INS Shakti, the second of the Deepak Class fleet tanker constructed by Italian Fincantieri Shipyard, will be handed over to the Navy on Friday and will be commissioned in operational service on October 1, Navy officials said here.

The first tanker christened INS Deepak was commissioned into the Navy in Mumbai on January 21 this year.

INS Shakti will be the second fleet tanker to be inducted into the Eastern fleet and will help in strengthening combat support operations at sea and extend the reach of the naval power of the nation.

With the induction of the warship, the Navy will have two each fleet tankers on both the seaboards.

Though INS Shakti is essentially a tanker, it is a thoughtfully-designed and versatile platform capable of a large number of roles. In addition to its traditional role of supplying fuel to ships at sea, the ship is also capable of transporting and supplying ammunitions, materials and provisions.

The vessel is also capable of undertaking humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations with its modern medical health facilities.

The ship is one of the largest vessels of the navy, 175 metres long, 25 metres wide and has a full load displacement of 27,000 tonnes.

The two Deepak class fleet tankers will be the mainstay tankers/ support ships of the Indian Navy in the first half of the 21st century.

Each ship is equipped with four AK-630 guns for close defence supplies and high-tech fire control system supplied by Bharat Electronics Limited.


General characteristics
Class and type:Deepak-class tanker
Displacement:19150 tons(light condition), 27,000 tons ( Maximum)
Length:175 m
Beam:25 m
Draft:9.1 m ( Max )
Depth:19.3 m
Decks:10
Installed power:9.3 MW
Propulsion:Diesel Engines ( 02 ) from MAN and one CPP
Speed:20 knots
Endurance:10000 nm at 20 knots
Complement:180 sailors and 20 officers

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india's P-8I nears flight debut






Boeing is close to conducting the first flight of a 737-800-based P-8I maritime patrol aircraft for the Indian navy, with it's first example having emerged at the manufacturer’s Renton Field assembly site in Washington.


Boeing is close to conducting the first flight of a 737-800-based P-8I maritime patrol aircraft for the Indian navy, with it's first example having emerged at the manufacturer’s Renton Field assembly site in Washington.

Photographed by AirSpace user Brandon Farris earlier this month, the aircraft has already been painted in Indian markings and assigned the registration IN320. It is the first of eight P-8Is on order as replacements for the navy’s current Tupolev Tu-142 turboprops. The aircraft was last pictured as it entered final assembly in June.

Derived from the P-8A Poseidon now in development testing for the US Navy, India’s next-generation maritime surveillance aircraft will enter use from early 2013.

India’s examples will differ from the USN’s aircraft through the addition of a belly-mounted radar, which once combined with other sensors will afford the aircraft a 360° surveillance capability against airborne targets.
Another key piece of equipment for the P-8I will be its Raytheon Mk54 lightweight torpedoes. New Delhi signed an $86 million deal in June for an initial 32 of the weapons.

Boeing performed the first flight of a production P-8A for the USN from Renton Field in July. India is the first and so for lone export buyer for the 737 derivative. Test and acceptance activities will be performed from Boeing’s Seattle Field site in Washington.

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INS Vikramaditya Aircraft Carrier Is 85% completed





Work on Indian Navy's aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya is 85 per cent complete and it is set to enter the sea next month for trials.

A high level Indian Navy delegation led by Vice Admiral Niranjan Kumar, which visited Russia’s Sevmash shipyard to inspect the refurbishing work on the naval vessel, has “expressed satisfaction”, the shipyard said.

“The readiness of the ship is already more than 85 percent,” Kumar said, expressing hope that the Russian shipyard would complete the remaining work so that the ship could be commissioned in December 2012.

President of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation Roman Trotsenko assured that the final stage of modernisation will be conducted with “great care” and with attention to quality.

“Today, the works are on schedule... I am sure that in December 2012, the ship will be delivered to the customer,” the Russian official said.

The Russian craft, named Admiral Gorshkov, which India is buying at a cost of around $2.33 billion, began mooring trials in March this year.

The 45,000-tonne warship is expected to be commissioned in the Indian Navy by 2012 or early 2013 and will be rechristened as INS Vikramaditya.

Meanwhile, a team of Indian Navy personnel which was in St. Petersburg, Russia has completed a six-month training on the refurbished vessel. The first group of 152 sailors and officers had begun their training in April.

A second batch of personnel would arrive in Russia next month to receive training, the shipyard said, adding that more than 1000 crew members will be trained by 2012.

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CHINA'S NEW UAV SNAPS








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CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ON US MILITARY

Special US commandos are deployed in about 75 countries around the world - and that number is expected to grow.

by: Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, and investigative journalist. The associate editor of TomDispatch.com and a new senior editor at Alternet.org, his latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books).

Somewhere on this planet a US commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you're done ... for the day. Without the knowledge of much of the general American public, a secret force within the US military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world's countries. This Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has generally been ignored by the mainstream media, and deserves further attention.

After a US Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden's chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the US military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight. It was atypical. While it's well known that US Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it's increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has often remained out of the public scrutiny.

Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that US Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. "We do a lot of travelling - a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq," he said recently. This global presence - in about 60 per cent of the world's nations and far larger than previously acknowledged - is evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.

The rise of the military's secret military

Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight US service members died, US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate.

Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army's "Green Berets" and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialised helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States' most specialised and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.

One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes US citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal "kill/capture" campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine".

This assassination programme has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.

Growth industry

From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command. Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM's baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3bn to $6.3bn. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8bn in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold. Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon.

Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command - the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 - indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600. "I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000," he said at a June breakfast with defence reporters in Washington. Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000.

During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3 per cent to 5 per cent a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities.

A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role. Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite US forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal. He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that "as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia".

During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the outgoing chief of Special Operations Command, pointed to a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, the lit portions of the planet - mostly the industrialised nations of the global north - were considered the key areas. "But the world changed over the last decade," he said. "Our strategic focus has shifted largely to the south ... certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren't."

To that end, Olson launched "Project Lawrence", an effort to increase cultural proficiencies - like advanced language training and better knowledge of local history and customs - for overseas operations. The programme is, of course, named after the British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence (better known as "Lawrence of Arabia"), who teamed up with Arab fighters to wage a guerrilla war in the Middle East during World War I. Mentioning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, and Indonesia, Olson added that SOCOM now needed "Lawrences of Wherever".

While Olson made reference to only 51 countries of top concern to SOCOM, Col. Nye told me that on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world. All of them, he hastened to add, at the request of the host government. According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85 per cent of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents.

Special Operations Command won't disclose exactly which countries its forces operate in. "We're obviously going to have some places where it's not advantageous for us to list where we're at," says Nye. "Not all host nations want it known, for whatever reasons they have - it may be internal, it may be regional."

But it's no secret (or at least a poorly kept one) that so-called black special operations troops, like the SEALs and Delta Force, are conducting kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, while "white" forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous partners as part of a worldwide secret war against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. In the Philippines, for instance, the US spends $50m a year on a 600-person contingent of Army Special Operations forces, Navy Seals, Air Force special operators, and others that carries out counterterrorist operations with Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf.

Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism's National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, the US' most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland.

So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed. "Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another. They would be classified as training exercises."

The Pentagon's power elite

Once the neglected stepchildren of the military establishment, Special Operations forces have been growing exponentially not just in size and budget, but also in power and influence. Since 2002, SOCOM has been authorised to create its own Joint Task Forces - like Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines - a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM. This year, without much fanfare, SOCOM also established its own Joint Acquisition Task Force, a cadre of equipment designers and acquisition specialists.

With control over budgeting, training, and equipping its force, powers usually reserved for departments (like the Department of the Army or the Department of the Navy), dedicated dollars in every Defense Department budget, and influential advocates in Congress, SOCOM is by now an exceptionally powerful player at the Pentagon. With real clout, it can win bureaucratic battles, purchase cutting-edge technology, and pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people's heads or developing stealth-like cloaking technologies for ground troops. Since 2001, SOCOM's prime contracts awarded to small businesses - those that generally produce specialty equipment and weapons - have jumped six-fold.

Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, but operating out of theatre commands spread out around the globe, including Hawaii, Germany, and South Korea, and active in the majority of countries on the planet, Special Operations Command is now a force unto itself. As outgoing SOCOM chief Olson put it earlier this year, SOCOM "is a microcosm of the Department of Defense, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defense Agencies".

Tasked to coordinate all Pentagon planning against global terrorism networks and, as a result, closely connected to other government agencies, foreign militaries, and intelligence services, and armed with a vast inventory of stealthy helicopters, manned fixed-wing aircraft, heavily-armed drones, high-tech guns-a-go-go speedboats, specialised Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, as well as other state-of-the-art gear (with more on the way), SOCOM represents something new in the military.

Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to refer to the CIA as "the president's private army", today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive's private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach.

In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans. Once "special" for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura.

That aura now benefits from a well-honed public relations campaign which helps them project a superhuman image at home and abroad, even while many of their actual activities remain in the ever-widening shadows. Typical of the vision they are pushing was this statement from Admiral Olson: "I am convinced that the forces … are the most culturally attuned partners, the most lethal hunter-killers, and most responsive, agile, innovative, and efficiently effective advisors, trainers, problem-solvers, and warriors that any nation has to offer."

Recently at the Aspen Institute's Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that US Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them. When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, "Are you talking about unattributed explosions?"

What he did let slip, however, was telling. He noted, for instance, that black operations like the bin Laden mission, with commandos conducting heliborne night raids, were now exceptionally common. A dozen or so are conducted every night, he said. Perhaps most illuminating, however, was an offhand remark about the size of SOCOM. Right now, he emphasised, US Special Operations forces were approximately as large as Canada's entire active duty military. In fact, the force is larger than the active duty militaries of many of the nations where the US' elite troops now operate each year, and it's only set to grow larger.

Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a "special" force this large, this active, and this secret - and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available. It just won't be coming from Olson or his troops. "Our access [to foreign countries] depends on our ability to not talk about it," he said in response to questions about SOCOM's secrecy. When missions are subject to scrutiny like the bin Laden raid, he said, the elite troops object. The military's secret military, said Olson, wants "to get back into the shadows and do what they came in to do".





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Lockheed martin's stealth C-130 successor revealed SPEED AGILE



Forty years ago, the US Air Force tried to replace the Lockheed Martin C-130 with a super short take-off and landing (STOL) airlifter, with the Boeing YC-14 and McDonnell YC-15 as the candidates. Then, things got weird. Budgets grew, funding shrank and eventually the requirement transformed into something much larger. Thus, the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III was borne to replace the Lockheed C-141B Starlifter and the Lockheed C-130 continues into its seventh decade of active production.

What goes around always seems to come around in this business, and so it is with the YC-14 and YC-15.

Meet the Speed Agile. If the USAF is allowed to spend big money on a super-STOL C-130 replacement after 2020, this is Lockheed's idea for what it should look like. Boeing is also working on an alternative concept. The Air Force Research Laboratory has been funding both Lockheed and Boeing to work on wind tunnel models. Last month, the AFRL released these front and rear images of a 23%-scale model of the four-engine Lockheed Speed Agile concept. The wind tunnel model includes two Williams FJ44 engines. The Secret Projects forum found the images earlier today on AFRL's web site.  

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Lockheed Martin delivers fifth C130J to IAF





The fifth of the six C-130J Super Hercules, an advanced transport aircraft, ordered by the Indian Air Force has been delivered, its American manufacturer Lockheed Martin said.
The aircraft departed the Lockheed Martin facility in Marietta yesterday.
“This aircraft, like its predecessors, was delivered well ahead of schedule and is now en route to Hindan Hindan Air Force Station in India,” Lockheed said in a statement.
India’s sixth C-130J will be delivered in October, it said.
The six C-130Js will give the Indian Air Force new special operations capabilities using the world’s most advanced airlifter, it said.
The C-130J is a comprehensive update of the venerable Lockheed C0-130 Hercules, with new engines, flight deck, and other systems.
The Indian Air Force purchased six C-130J-30s in early 2008 at a cost of up to $1.059 billion. It is a package deal with the US government under its Foreign Military sales programme, and India has retained option to buy six more of these aircraft for its special forces for combined Army-Air Force operations. 

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CAG raps Indian Navy For Buying R-77 Missile





The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report slammed the Ministry of Defence and the Navy for buying war planes that do not have weapons. It also pointed a finger at the Indian Air Force (IAF) for having ‘let off’ three of its officers who caused a loss of Rs 302 crore when a sensitive aerostat radar got damaged.
 
The CAG, in its report tabled in both Houses of Parliament, said the Indian Navy followed a flawed approach in acquiring its fighter aircraft fleet by not finalising the associated weapon package. The CAG said that 11 out of 16 MiG 29K aircraft, acquired at a cost of $740.35 million (Rs 3,405.61 crore), been delivered in December 2009 and May 2011. No matching armament, for which a contract was signed in March 2006, has been delivered as on October 2010, thereby adversely affecting the operational capabilities of the aircraft.
Further, the Navy has selected a ‘beyond visual range’ (BVR) missile with an unsatisfactory track record. Lastly, the complete armament package finalised for the aircraft contains certain ammunition, worth $20.98 million (Rs 93.68 crore) which did not have the approval of the competent authority.
The MiG 29K is a deck-based fighter meant for seaborne aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov). At present, the fighters are based at a land base in Goa as the aircraft carrier itself has not arrived.
The agreement was signed under an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) between India and Russia in October 2000 for the procurement of an aircraft carrier along with the MiGs for onboard operations. The Ministry of Defence in January 2004 concluded a contract with Russian Aircraft Corporation (RAC-MIG) for procurement of the MiG 29K aircraft. The weapons package was postponed and de-linked from the negotiations for the aircraft.


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China's AC313 Helicopter





China's domestically developed civilian freight helicopter, the AC313, successfully climbed to a height of 8,000 meters, an altitude that will enable the chopper to fulfill plateau missions.
The AC313, developed and manufactured by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), hit its highest altitude to date during a trial flight on Sept. 2 at Gonghe Airport in northwest China's Qinghai Province, AVIC said in a statement Tuesday.
"The test flight has fully proven the helicopter's function and reliability, and will decide the range of its flight altitude," said Xu Chaoliang, chief engineer of the AC313.
The helicopter, with a Maximum Takeoff Weight of 13.8 tons, can be used for transportation, forest fire prevention, emergency search and rescue missions, disaster relief and medical aid.
The AC313 completed its maiden flight in March 2010.




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300+ Sukhoi-30MKI, Tejas Aircraft To Be Inducted Into IAF





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second YUZHAO class LPD launched






Class overview
Operators: People's Liberation Army Navy
Cost:USD$300 mil (estimated)
In service:2007
Building:1
Completed:2
Active:2
General characteristics
Type:Amphibious transport dock
Displacement:20,000 long tons (20,000 t)
Length:210 m (689 ft 0 in)
Beam:28 m (91 ft 10 in)
Draft:7 m (23 ft 0 in)
Propulsion:CODAD
4 × SEMT Pielstick 16 PC2.6 V400diesel engines, 47,200 hp (35,197 kW)
2 × shafts[1]
Speed:22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph)+
Range:6,000 nmi (11,000 km) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Boats and landing
craft carried:
• 4 × air-cushioned landing craft
• 2 × landing craft on port/starboard davits
Capacity:15-20 armoured vehicles
Troops:500-800 troops
Complement:120
Sensors and
processing systems:
• 1 × Type 360 Radar Seagull S, E/F-band surface search radar
• 1 × Type 364 Radar, Seagull C, G-band air search radar aft
• 1 × Type 344 Radar, I band fire control radar
• 1 × navigational radar
Armament:• 1 × AK-176 76 mm (3.0 in) gun
• 4 × AK-630 30 mm (1.2 in) CIWS
• 4 × 18-tube Type 726-4 decoy/chafflauncher
• Possible installation of 2-4 heavy machine guns (Fitted for but not with)
Aircraft carried:2-4 Z-8 Super Frelon


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Russia begins sea trials of India Navy’s Stealth Frigate Teg



MOSCOW (PTI): Russia has commenced sea trials of the India Navy’s first of the three advanced stealth frigates in the Baltic Sea which will be delivered by early next year.

INS ‘Teg’, the Project 11356 class frigate, also known as Talwar Class, is first of the three guided missile frigates ordered by the Indian Navy in 2006 under a USD 1.5 billion deal with Russia.

India Navy already operates three such class of stealth frigates and had ordered three more to bolster its fleet.

The two other warships of the same class – INS ‘Tarkash’ (Quiver) and INS ‘Trikand’ (Bow) – are at various stages of construction at the Yantar naval shipyard in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

The Teg is expected to be delivered to the Indian Navy in the beginning of 2012 to be followed by the Tarkash in the same year and finally the ‘Trikand’ in 2013, according to Yantar shipbuilder.

Initially, Russia was to deliver the three frigates by the end of this year, but due to lack of qualified workforce and problem of networking with sub-vendors the deliveries were delayed.

Earlier in the last decade, Russia’s another Baltiisky Zavod shipyard in St Petersburg had built first three of the stealth frigates – INS Talwar, INS Trishul and INS Tabar.

The new frigates will be armed with the deadly BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missiles, capable of destroying enemy ships and land targets.


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NATO offers missile defense cooperation with india



In a move that holds great strategic significance, Nato has offered to share its missile defence technology with India to build its capability to shoot down incoming enemy missiles, realising the commonality of threats faced by the 28-nation grouping and South Asia's pre-eminent power.

India, thus, becomes the only nation, apart from Russia, outside of the Nato that the US-led military alliance is willing to work in the critical missile defence technology sector. 


The Nato missile defence project, launched in May 2001, aims to work with member-countries to meet the group's responsibility of defending itself from missile attacks. India too is in the process of developing its own ballistic missile defence system based on its Prithvi ballistic missile platform considering the missile threats it faces from rivals in the region.

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design freeze for hyper sonic brahmos ii missile


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The Isreali Next Generation Tank




The Merkava Tank Planning Directorate has set up a team to study the principles of the tank of the future. The defense establishment has yet to make a decision or even establish a direction for the systematic development of a new tank, as production of the Merkava Mark IV tanks nears completion. The team has been requested to present ideas for an armored fighting vehicle (AFV) that would provide massive mobile firepower on the future battlefield.

The team includes IDF officers and members of the defense ministry. Basic questions are being raised: Should the future tank be lighter than the 70 ton Merkava? Can the thick layers of armor be dispensed with, because of new active defense systems capable of intercepting antitank missiles in flight? Will the tank of the future be operated by a four-man crew, or perhaps less? Will it require a cannon or will an advanced recoilless firing system, launched from the turret or rear of the tank, suffice? The team is also considering the future AFV's horsepower capabilities and track systems (heavy or light) versus the option of putting wheels on the chasis. 

"Changes in the battlefield are beyond our imaginations and issues concerning the tank of the future are only in their initial stage; at this point [the discussions] are almost abstract in nature," admits a defense source. "We're trying to envision the direction of developments on the future battlefield, and then we'll formulate suitable ideas. At any rate, the tank of the future is still very far off and if sweeping changes are introduced then it’s doubtful that the armored vehicle will still be called a 'tank'."

www.israeldefense.com

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