DEFENSE NEWS

10/01/2014

(Infodefensa.com) Madrid - The German defense industry is increasing interest in the Asian market. Conflicts of interest contribute to the Far East by the German submarines at a time that also coincides with the difficulties posed by the continuing budget cuts in most Western countries. The recent custom of Singapore two submersible type 218SG to ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems ( TKMS ) is a good example of this phenomenon.

The international version of the German Spiegel Online this week a piece dedicated to the interests of his country to sell submarines to the growing Asian market. It explains that the new type 218SG has a capacity to be quiet and stay under water unmatched by other conventional models.

These ships are capable of being deployed at sea for more than eighty days and spent four consecutive weeks submerged, making them, according to the publication, in vessels especially suitable for the largest ocean: the Pacific .

Singapore's contract for delivery of two ships this type in 2020 is valued at 1,600 million that will go directly to the German economy, according to Spiegel . The agreement also contributes to the increase of the arms race to dominate the Pacific, in which, amongst others, are China , Japan , Vietnam , Malaysia and even Russia and the United States .

The fisheries resources of this area, disputes over its many islands and large deposits of minerals that are believed to be in the deep ocean contribute to the area to become one of the world's main centers for security policy .

It is a state of things that promise a great deal for the German defense industry, says textually Spiegel Online , adding that the German economy is particularly lucrative selling large submarines. Each of these vessels involves, depending on their size, cost between 400 million and 800 million euros.

For this reason, the information continues, the country's government supports the business. In the case of the agreement with Singapore, for example, the State guarantees the maintenance of German submarines value, which is a risk worth because the state in turn benefits from the tax revenue generated by these exports.

A market of 46,000 million

According to calculations by AMI International , an American company specializing in the analysis of navies, "the armed forces of the region Asia-Pacific will spend a total of 180,000 million dollars in 2031 to nearly 800 new ships, including surface vessels and submarines ". The report estimates that during that period a hundred Submersible be acquired 40 percent of the total market for new submarines, which sum, together with future systems antisubmarine warfare ( ASW , for its acronym in English), an approximate value of $ 63,000 million (46,000 million euros).

With these figures the area will emerge as the largest market in the world underwater in their number, and the second in spending, after the United States.

ABU DHABI — The French Navy is ready to share with gulf countries their submarine “know-how” if called upon, a senior naval commander said.

Amid recent heightened interest from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) navies regarding submarine acquisition, Rear Adm. Eric Chaperon, commander of French Navy Task Force 473 Strike Group, said, “The French Navy has a lot of expertise from their long history in the matter of submarines.

“This expertise and know-how can of course be shared, but I cannot give you more details about the interactions we have had with other parties in the region,” he added.

Saudi Arabia was reportedly interested in acquiring five German-made Type 209 submarines at a cost of $3.4 billion, according to the German newspaper Bild in November. Last year, UAE Naval Commander Rear Adm. Ibrahim Al Musharrakh said that the UAE Navy is looking to acquire submarines to combat threats in the gulf’s littoral waters.

“There are many different options for combating the threat of submarines in the region, for building the capacity and the capability to acquire submarines is something that is still under process and will take a long time,” Al Musharrakh said at the Gulf Naval Commanders Conference in Abu Dhabi last November.

The French strike group is in the region to secure the strategic maritime sea lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea as well as enhance cooperation and interoperability with navies in the region, according to Chaperon.

The strike group, which is made up of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, two destroyers, a supply vessel and a nuclear attack submarine, made port calls in Saudi Arabia last month and in Qatar earlier in January before docking Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.

“France is ready to assume its responsibilities throughout the world, as she demonstrated in Libya, in Mali and more recently, in Central Africa,” Chaperon said.

“France considers that the stability of the Middle East is one of her priorities; it is a region which is at the heart of her strategic interests and which is affected today by multiple crises such as piracy and terrorism.

“Her commitment to the countries of the region is shown in the will to respond to their needs as a long-term strategic partner; this is at the heart of the defense agreement that was signed by France and the United Arab Emirates in 2009,” he added.

The strike group carried out exercises with the Saudi and Qatari navies and is due to conduct a joint exercise, dubbed Big Fox, with the UAE Armed Forces at the end of January and with the US Navy in February in the Indian Ocean.

Visiting the Charles de Gaulle was UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who was briefed about the strike group and its mission.

On board the carrier were 10 F-3 Rafale fighters, the most advanced fighters to enter service in the French Air Force.

The ship also carries two E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, two EC725 Caracal and AS532 Cougar helicopters for combat search and rescue.

He added that the visit to Abu Dhabi would provide France the opportunity to further bolster its already strong ties with the UAE, particularly in sharing expertise and ideas and developing better methods of training and operational capabilities.

At a meeting of Defence Ministers, no decision was taken on joint exercises in Indian Ocean in view of China’s growing maritime assertivenessIndia and Japan resolved to continue their defence consultation and cooperation, including in maritime security, at a meeting of their Defence Ministers A.K. Antony and Itsunori Onodera on Monday.

 Mr. Onodera, who began his four-day visit to India on Sunday, called on Mr. Antony as a follow-up to the India-Japan Defence Ministerial Meeting held in November 2011. The Defence Ministry said the Ministers discussed regional and global security challenges, as well as defence cooperation and exchanges between the two countries.

Mr. Onodera briefed the Indian delegation of Japan’s National Security Strategy and National Defence Program Guidelines, which were adopted in December last.

When Mr. Onodera’s visit was announced in late December, some Japanese news agencies reported, citing government sources, that he “plans to promote talks to export Japan’s US-2 amphibious aircraft used by the Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) to India, prior to the scheduled visit to the country by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in late January.” However, sources here said that while Japan had been pitching for the sale of these aircraft as a special case, for the moment it did not figure on India’s list of priorities.

According to the reports from Japan, the two sides were “expected to regularise joint training exercises between the MSDF and the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean so they can protect sea-lanes in the wake of the growing maritime assertiveness of China.” But, again, the Defence Ministry remained silent on the issue; sources could only say India did not view the relations from the prism of threat because India, Japan and China together had been conducting anti-piracy exercises in the Gulf of Aden.

Fixed-wing UAVs could be operated from Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s destroyers in the future.

Sources say the service is researching on the need and there is a need for 19 aircraft. One type being examined is the Boeing Insitu RQ-21.

The future flagship of the Algerian fleet, an Amphibious Ship type BDSL"Batiment et de Débarquement de Soutien Logistics" commissioned from Orrizonte Sistemi Navali (a joint venture of Fincantieri and Selex Sistemi Integrati).

Specifications :
-Total displacement = 9000 tons
-Length = 142.9 meters
-Width = 21.5 meters
-Flight deck with two runways and landing pads for heavy-lift helicopters in the extremities and 30-ton lift in the central part of the deck
-The power plant includes two diesel engines Wärtsilä 12V32 rated at 6000 kW
-The maximum speed = 20 knots
-Cruising range = 11,265 km
-Generation of electricity will be provided by four diesel generators Isotta Fraschini V1716 C2ME capacity of 1300 kW and one emergency V1708 T3 of 600 kW
-Armament includes MBDA SAAM-ESD (Aster missiles + A50 launcher Sylver) behind the island superstructure + Oto Melara 76/62 Super Rapid + 2 Single 25mm
-The electronic structure will include Selex Sistemi Integrati EMPAR + AESA radar of CICS Athena-C + navigation radar and flight control by -gosopoznavaniya SIR + Communication system supplied by Selex Elsag + EW systems produced by Elettronica and Thales + two SCLAR-H decoy launchers
-The Algerian helicopter landing ship dock can accommodate 3 Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) + 3 small Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) + 1 large Landing Craft Personnel (LCP) + 2 semi-rigid boats. The garage can accommodate up to 15 armored vehicles.
-The crew = 150 people
-The landing force = 440 people

The United States Navy kept a close eye on the recent sea trials conducted in the South China Sea by the Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, according to a report published on US military affairs website Strategy Page.

The Liaoning and its escort group of two Type 051C destroyers, two Type 054A frigates and a supply ship, returned to base on Jan. 1 after 37 days at sea, with state media declaring it a successful sea trial the next day.

The Xinhua news agency said the carrier "attained the anticipated objectives," including testing its combat system and conducting a formation practice. All tests and training programs went well, as scheduled, it said.

The Jan. 7 Strategy Page report claimed that the final month of Liaoning's seal trials were particularly important to the US Navy as the aircraft carrier was operating as part of a task force on the high seas for the first time.

"There were some days of bad weather and how well the Chinese ships performed under these adverse conditions was a good indicator of how effective the Liaoning task force would be in combat," the article said.

To monitor the Liaoning's task force during the sea trials, the US Navy employed aircraft, satellites and submarines, the report claimed, adding that it was also important to observe all activities from the surface using the USS Cowpens, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser which was confronted by the PLA Navy.

On Dec. 5, one of the Liaoning's escort ships cut in front of the USS Cowpens while it was observing the carrier from a distance of 40 kilometers, a move that was condemned by US officials as a "dangerous maneuver."

The United States next year is slated to begin reducing launch tubes on each of its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, a new independent report states.

The elimination of four operational launch tubes on each of the 14 submarines that make up the Navy's Ohio submarine fleet will be the first substantial reduction in U.S. strategic weapon delivery capability since the 2011 New START accord went into effect, according to Hans Kristensen, who co-authored an assessment on the current status of U.S. nuclear forces. The report was published in the January/February edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Nearly three years after the New START pact with Russia entered into force, implementation of the treaty has "been going very slowly,"  Kristensen said in a brief Monday phone interview.

The treaty requires Russia and the United States by 2018 to each reduce their fielded stockpiles of strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 and to cut their arsenals of long-range delivery vehicles down to 700 apiece, with an additional 100 systems allowed in reserve on each side.

"The way that the U.S. military has approached implementation of the New START treaty so far has not done anything that has actually affected the actual number of nuclear [delivery vehicles] that are in the war plan," said Kristensen, who directs the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

Instead, the Pentagon has focused on reducing the nuclear-delivery capability of selected vehicles, such as heavy bombers, that have already been retired, he said.

The Defense Department has the latitude to pursue that approach because the treaty allows so many years -- seven, specifically -- before each side must carry out all mandated reductions, Kristensen said.

Once all of the Ohio-class submarines have had their launch tubes capped at 20 each -- a project that is to take place in the 2015-to-2016 time frame -- the United States will be able to deploy no more than 240 submarine-launched ballistic missiles at any time, according to the report written by Kristensen and Robert Norris, who is also with the Federation of American Scientists.

The submarine set to replace aging Ohio-class vessels -- dubbed "SSBN(X)" -- is expected to have only 16 missile tubes, which will reduce further the number of sea-launched ballistic missiles that the United States can deploy. The replacement fleet is also envisioned to be smaller -- only 12 submarines instead of the current 14. The Navy is not expected to begin building the first boat before 2021, and could field the vessel a decade later, according to the Bulletin report.

06/01/2014

(Infodefensa.com) Madrid - The Spanish Armada was forced to terminate a letter of its fleet of fighters vertical takeoff Harrier as a result of budget cuts the Defense Ministry , as did a few days ago the carrier Prince of Asturias , the only available active
Four of the 16 Harrier short takeoff and vertical landing (STVOL) will be out of service due to the lack of funds for modernization and the high cost of maintenance, reports the newspaper El País .
was These are the older devices, four AV-8B Harrier that had not been processed version AV-8B Harrier II Plus that incorporates a more modern radar, among other improvements. The modernization of these aircraft was awarded in 2008 to EADS Defense and Security Spain valued at 11.5 million euros.
fleet will be thus reduced to 12 units (plus training) whose operational life is expected to conclude in 2020. The choice of F-35 U.S. Since then, Spain should buy a replacement if you want to continue to have embarked aviation, which is not guaranteed, as the only candidate today is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter , in which program development does not participate. Both users Harrier plus Spain - United States and Great Britain - have already been decided by the F-35 manufactured by the U.S. Lockheed Martin designing two modes, the C, conventional takeoff and B, vertical takeoff. Italy, like other countries with small aircraft carrier, also has been tilted for purchasing the F-35B to equip its future aircraft carrier Cavour . Already in 2009, the U.S. company Lockheed Martin told a group of Spanish journalists who moved his factory in Forth Worth (Texas, USA) that the F-35B would be the natural replacement for the Harrier Spanish. since their managers have tried that Spain was incorporated into the development phase of the new fifth-generation fighter unsuccessfully so far . Some have wanted to understand the various Spanish governments have not decided on this option pending, especially a European solution could appear EADS -. thing now seems unlikely that the Spanish Armada in a paper on the general lines that should mark future of 2007 signed by then Chief General Sebastián Zaragoza , and was in favor of addressing the replacement aircraft Harrier with the F-35 in a joint manner with the Air Force and figured I would need about 20 units. Refills flight also the Air Force runs the risk of losing one of its main capabilities: strategic refueling. One of two Boeing 707 that fulfilled this function and has been discharged and the other should be in two years. The Air Force has five KC-130 Hercules to resupply, but its performance is not comparable to the B-707 . The solution is to buy two tanker aircraft Airbus 330 , but each one costs about 200 million and so far there is no budget, added the same newspaper.