Free Republic

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — During the Cold War, the MiG-21 fighter and the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle epitomized the might of the Soviet Bloc as it confronted the West in Europe. Although the MiG-21 — dubbed Fishbed by NATO — never saw combat in a NATO-Warsaw Pact war, the most iconic Soviet fighter of the jet age frequently tangled with American and other Western warplanes in hot wars in Vietnam, the Middle East and Africa. But nearly 60 years after it first entered front-line service with the Soviet air force — and 33 years since production ceased — the single-engine interceptor...

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jon Dasb—U.S. Navy A number of Marine Nationale Rafale-M multi-role fighter jets and E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft, along with 350 support personnel and aircrew, will deploy aboard the USS George H.W. Bush this Spring. Not only will the multi-national operation work to give Rafale-M aircrews much needed carrier qualifications—France's only carrier has been undergoing a mid-life refit—but it also aims to expand the two countries' abilities to operate fighter aircraft cooperatively from the sea for prolonged periods of time. Captain Jean-Emmanuel Roux de Luze, the French Naval Attaché to the U.S. Navy,...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taiwan-manufactured Sky Sword II missiles will see their usage and adaptation expanded so they can help Taiwan’s Air Force tackle the threat from China’s Sukhoi Su-35 jets, reports said Wednesday. The Taiwanese weapon was developed in the 1990s as a medium-range air-to-air missile at the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST, 中科院). According to a report in the Liberty Times, the sea-to-air version of the Sky Sword II (天劍二) will be distributed to the Taiwan Navy’s Lafayette frigates from 2020 to 2028. In addition, Indigenous Defense Fighter (經國號) jets will see their number...

Lockheed Martin model of their proposed frigate design, based on the Littoral Combat Ship, on display at the 2018 Surface Navy Association conference. Note VLS hatches on foredeck, behind turret and flanked by OTH launchers. UPDATED with CNO comment on importance of program CRYSTAL CITY: By the end of March, the Navy will award four to six contracts for “conceptual” designs of a future frigate. That ship that must cost under $950 million, have “Grade A shock hardening” on key systems to survive blasts, and carry at least 16 Vertical Launch System cells to defend itself and nearby vessels, program...

The Atlas Cheetahs that Draken is buying from South Africa are heavily modified Dassault Mirage IIIs. (Photo: Draken International) Adversary Air (ADAIR) contractors are continuing to expand, in the expectation of new awards from air arms trying to make savings and/or improve their training against projected threats. In the past two months, American company Draken International has bought 34 used fighter aircraft to boost its chances in the major upcoming U.S. Air Force ADAIR competition. Israel’s Elbit Systems announced a partnership with Babcock to pursue the UK’s Air Support to Defence Operational Training (ASDOT) requirement. Also recently, Discovery Air Defence,...

China started building its third aircraft carrier, with a hi-tech launch system, at a Shanghai shipyard last year, according to sources close to the People’s Liberation Army. One of the sources said Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard Group was given the go-ahead to begin work on the vessel after military leaders met in Beijing following the annual sessions of China’s legislature and top political advisory body in March. “But the shipyard is still working on the carrier’s hull, which is expected to take about two years,” the source said. “Building the new carrier will be more complicated and challenging than the other...

Lockheed Martin has an interesting graphic displayed on their website showing the comparative max loud-outs for stealth combat configuration and for non-stealth combat configuration—the latter of which the company refers to as "beast mode." In the "beast mode" configuration, the graphic depicts an air-to-air optimized load-out that includes a whopping 14 AIM-120 AMRAAMs and a pair of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles—16 missiles in all. But does such a plentiful missile carrying configuration actually exist? No, it doesn't. Not only has this configuration not been tested but as far as we can tell it isn't even slated for development anytime in the...

Russian media is reporting that the long awaited upgrade of the Kashtan (Chestnut) close-in weapon system (CIWS) will begin testing in 2018. Trials will start on a land range before moving to the sea aboard one of Russia's Project 1241 Molniya missile corvettes in the Black Sea. The country's new Project 22800 Karakurt corvettes will be the first vessels to receive the system operationally once testing is complete. Panstir-ME appears to be something of a mix between the potent Pantsir-S1 land-mobile self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery gun system and existing Kashtan CIWS installations found on many Russian-built naval vessels dating back to...

China’s domestically developed AG600, the world’s largest amphibious aircraft, performed its maiden flight on Sunday from an airport on the shores of the South China Sea, the latest step in a military modernisation programme. China has stepped up research on advanced military equipment as it adopts a more muscular approach to territorial disputes in places such as the disputed South China Sea, rattling nerves in the Asia-Pacific region and the United States. State television showed live images of the AG600 lifting off from Zhuhai airport in the southern province of Guangdong, which sits on the South China Sea coast. It...

In what could be seen as a change in Japan’s defense posture that has banned the possession of offensive aircraft carriers, the Defense Ministry is considering buying new fighter jets that may be put on its helicopter carriers, government sources said Sunday. The sources said the introduction of F-35Bs, which are capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings, will be useful to counter China’s growing maritime assertiveness. They are expected to bolster defenses of far-flung islands in the southwest, where only short runways exist, they said. The move, however, is likely to trigger a backlash from China and other neighboring...

Qatar and the UK have signed a contract for the provision of 24 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft for the Qatari Air Force. This deal takes the total number of countries who will operate Typhoon to nine (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and now Qatar). The deal marks the conclusion of a significant period of expansion for the Qatari Air Force, which is replacing its 12 old Mirage 2000s with 96 new jets (a mixed fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon, F-15 and Rafale). This is an astonishingly large rate of expansion for a numerically small air force, which already...

Andrew Matthews—PA Wire/PA Images There are an endless number of opinions regarding the relevancy, operational feasibility, and overall opportunity cost of the UK's two new Queen Elizabeth class supercarriers, and the ship's capabilities are always part of this debate as well. But one thing seems glaringly clear—these massive vessels are woefully lacking when it comes to their ability to defend themselves from an anti-ship missile barrage. These mighty ships displace 70,000 tons, will deploy with over 1,500 souls onboard, and will carry dozens of aircraft that collectively cost billions of dollars, yet they are only equipped with three Mk15 Phalanx...

ARGE F125/Lerssen-Defence Just weeks ago we told the story of Germany's puzzling Baden-Wurttemberg class Type 125 (F125) frigate program. Not only did we discuss the ship's odd mission and design features, but we also highlighted some of the troubling post-delivery issues with the lead ship in the class. These problems include a persistent list to starboard and the fact that the ship is dramatically overweight, which would limit its performance, increase its cost of operation, and most importantly, negatively impact the Deutsche Marine's ability to add future upgrades to the somewhat sparsely outfitted vessel. Now the German Navy has officially...

The Meteor missile, which is coming along with the Rafale combat deal signed by the Narendra Modi government, will help reestablish the aerial supremacy of the Indian Air Force against their rivals in Pakistan and China. India has bought a package of the European Meteor missiles along with the Rafales and may prove to be game changers due to their beyond-visual-range striking capability of close to 150 km, security forces sources have told Mail Today. The sources said that until the Kargil war and a few years after that, the Indian Air Force had complete superiority over the Pakistan Air...

A submarine at the German shipyard Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH in Kiel. (Photo: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer, 247Sports) On October 15, the submarine U-35 was performing a diving maneuver off the Norwegian coast when one of the four fins on its X-shaped rudder struck a rock. The damage was severe enough it needed to be escorted back to Kiel by the testing ship Helmsand. The fifty-six-meter-long submarine would have to miss an international exercise in the Skagerrak Strait, scheduled for December. Underwater collisions are a hazard of submarine operations. Both U.S. and Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines have run aground in recent years. Repairs...

A Navantia-led team has submitted its tender response for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program, with global defence and security company Saab as the Combat Systems Integrator (CSI) and CEA Technologies providing key elements of the proposed solution. The frigate design submited by Navantia for CSC is fitted with a 127mm main gun by Leonardo, a CEAFAR2 radar by CEA, 2x RAM launchers by Raytheon, 2x 35mm Millenium CIWS guns by Rheinmetall, 48x VLS and 8x RBS-15 Mk3 anti-ship missiles by Saab. With a strong heritage in designing and building frigates and destroyers and proven technology transfer in global programs,...

Ein Dahmer/wikicommons The German Navy's Baden-Wurttemberg class Type 125 (F125) frigate sure doesn't look like a frigate. The vessel displaces a whopping 7,200 tons, making it more destroyer sized, but its mission and armament are far from that of a top-end surface combatant. Even the ship's crew size, concept of operations, and the way sailors interact with the vessel's systems are unique. And depending on who you ask, the whole idea behind the controversial F125 frigate program is either one of genius based in stark reality or a largely illogical, misguided, and wasteful mess of an endeavor. Four of these...

The Royal Norwegian Navy has been around, in one form or another, for over a millennium. Though once a loose conscription of seafaring coastal communities, the Royal Norwegian Navy has, for the last 200 years, been an organized force responsible for the defense of the Nordic country’s deceptively long coast. During the Cold War, the Norwegian Navy turned to fast patrol boats armed with guided missiles and torpedoes. Most of these vessels were armed with the “Penguin” anti-ship missile, which had a range of roughly 34 miles and used infra-red homing for deadly precision. Additionally, some of the Norweigan patrol...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German Defence Ministry said on Monday that the European fighter jet was the leading candidate to replace its Tornado jets, which it wants to start phasing out in 2025. The ministry’s position appears to contradict that of the German air force, whose chief indicated last month that he preferred Lockheed Martin’s F-35, which meets the military’s requirements of stealth and long-distance operational capabilities. In a letter to a Greens lawmaker who had inquired about the deliberations, the ministry said the F-35 and Boeing’s F-15 and F-18 fighters were secondary options. “The indicated view of the inspector...

Westerns analysts have concluded that Russia’s fifth-generation Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter is unlikely to enter operational service before 2027. Postponements, cost-overruns and research and development-related problems mar the project. This should come as no surprise. The Su-57 program was never really viable. Back in early 2006, Russian president Vladimir Putin integrated all of Russia’s aviation companies into a single, state-owned holding — the United Aircraft-building Corporation. Over the time, UAC absorbed more than 20 aviation companies, and re-organized these into four aircraft-manufacturing divisions. One for combat aircraft, one for military transport aircraft, one for civilian aircraft and one for aircraft...