British forces have new BvS10 Viking tracked armoured vehicles

UK MoD awaits up-armoured BvS10 Vikings 09 July 2008 BAE Systems Hagglunds is to begin delivering a further 14 BvS10 Viking tracked armoured vehicles to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in mid-July, all of which will be fitted with the enhanced protection package developed for operations in Afghanistan. That package was rapidly developed under an urgent operational requirement (UoR) in a series of applique fits, principally to up-armour the vehicles against small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire, but also to enhance driver awareness. As other forces in Afghanistan have discovered, low levels of ambient light have reduced the effectiveness of existing light intensification systems for night operations and the Vikings have been fitted with both infrared headlamps and Selex Galileo's latest Driver's Night Vision System (DNVS 2). The latter combines an uncooled thermal imager working in the 8-14 µm band with a daylight TV camera; this feeds a colour LCD driver's display with a clear non-reflective screen. The armour package consists of bar armour around the front and sides of the front vehicle section and the sides and rear of the aft 'trailer' section. The forward bar package fit has been arranged to hinge with the doors and flop backwards at the front to allow access to the engine bay.

Israel developing artillery system for Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan improves artillery with Israeli support 09 July 2008 Three new artillery systems have been unveiled by the Kazakhstan armed forces. They were the subject of a presentation to Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev on 12 May at the training area of the Otar Guards Motor Rifle Division near Alma Aty, and subsequently participated in the Russian-Kazakh airmobile forces' exercise 'Co-operation 2008' in early July. Developed by Israeli industry under contract to the Kazakhstan Ministry of Defence (MoD), the systems are to be manufactured by local Kazakh companies. Examples are expected to be exported to other countries in the region, including Azerbaijan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Jane's has learned that the programme covers delivery of "several fully equipped artillery brigades" to customer(s) in Central Asia. Israel's Soltam has been responsible for developing two of the new Kazakh artillery systems: the Semser 122 mm truck-mounted howitzer and the Aibat 120 mm self-propelled (SP) mortar. Israel Military Industries (IMI) led the team that developed Naiza, a variant of IMI's Lynx autonomous multipurpose rocket system. All three systems have integrated automated command-and-control (C2) systems, provided by Soltam and Elbit. In addition, Aeronautics Defense Systems Orbiter mini-UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) systems provide aerial reconnaissance, target data and live battle-damage assessment, their output being fed into the overall command architecture of the fire-control system under development for the Kazakh systems.

U. K. acquiring two new aircrafts carriers

U. K. Signs Deal for 2 Carriers July 09, 2008: LONDON - A deal to build two 65,000-ton aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy has been signed by the British government, but a price for the program will not be finalized until 2010. The contract has a target price of 3.2 billion pounds. (Royal Navy illustration) The contract, signed July 3 by the Ministry of Defence and shipbuilder BVT Surface Fleet on board the pocket carrier HMS Ark Royal at the Portsmouth naval base in southern England, has a target price of 3.2 billion pounds ($6.4 billion). The deal includes a 700 million pound contingency and risk fund and a clause allowing both sides to reassess the final cost after the first phase of the project is completed in 2010. "The MoD retains the right to renegotiate the program at the end of the first 30-month phase of the overall project. The final target price will be agreed at that point," a ministry spokesman here said. The British are undertaking a similar process in which final pricing is decided after construction gets under way on several of the Astute-class nuclear submarines being built by BAE Systems. An industry executive said, "There are incentives in the deal for the alliance to bring the program home in as close to the 3.2 billion-pound target price as possible, but you probably won't find many people who don't think we will be calling on the contingency fund at some stage." The potential for renegotiation will raise concerns about the vulnerability of the program to a future change of government. A general election is likely here in the next 20 months or so. The carrier program was pushed through by the Labour administration and the Royal Navy against strong opposition from some quarters as the MoD grapples with balancing program plans and a defense budget under pressure. Lee Willett, the head of maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, here, said the signing of the contract clearly puts the carrier program on a firmer footing than it has been for the last couple of years. "All bets are off, though, if a change of administration comes about at the next election. That would likely mean a defense review and ultimately a freeze or reduction in defense spending," he said. "It's been a good day for Royal Navy power projection and for the industry here, but a new government would bring the potential for a lot of change," he said. In a statement today, Conservative Party shadow defense secretary Dr. Liam Fox welcomed the carrier signing, saying they were vital in maintaining Britain's expeditionary capability. "However, a number of issues still remain," he said. "The government must give assurances that the next stage of the program will not suffer any further delays, and that a sufficient number of escort vessels will be provided to protect the carriers. The government must also ensure that the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft comes into service as soon as possible." Cutting the program partway through the build would be a highly expensive operation. BAE announced it had been awarded a 275 million pound order by the MoD to design and supply the carrier's mission systems. The deal brings spending to date on equipment and materials for the carrier to 389 million pounds. In addition, a further 35 million pounds also is being spent modifying the Rosyth dockyard in preparation for assembly of the aircraft carriers. If construction proceeds to schedule, the first of the new carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, should be in service in 2014, followed two years later by HMS Prince of Wales. Initially the warships, the biggest ever operated by the Navy here, will be equipped with Harrier GR9 strike aircraft, but eventually these will be replaced with the vertical takeoff variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The MoD declined to give a date for when the F-35 would enter service on the carriers. The first carrier originally was due in service in 2012, but the project has been delayed by wrangling over costs and the need to mature design work to reduce risk. Aside from BVT, the other companies involved in the group known as the Aircraft Carrier Alliance are Babcock International and Thales UK. The carriers are being built in modules at yards around Britain and then floated up to the Rosyth facility of Babcock's for final assembly. BVT officially formed on July 1, bringing together the two surface warship yards of BAE on the Clyde in Scotland with the VT facility at Portsmouth. It will be responsible for just under half the value of the contract. The remainder will be subcontracted to other alliance members and subcontractors.

India produced avionic systems for Indian Air Force's SU-30MKI aircraft

Indian Joint Venture to Produce Aircraft Displays July 09, 2008: NEW DELHI - Indian joint venture Samtel HAL Display Systems (SDS) has won a contract worth $50 million to manufacture multifunctional displays for the Indian Air Force's Su-30MKI aircraft. Based here, SDS is a joint venture between private firm Samtel and state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., which is building the fighter jets under license. The displays, jointly developed with the Defence Avionics Research Establishment - a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organization - and manufactured by Samtel, has recently received clearance for flight-testing from the Regional Centre for Military Airworthiness. With this clearance, Samtel becomes the first Indian company to indigenously produce multifunctional displays for the Indian military, an SDS release said. A senior SDS executive said that in the second phase, the company will manufacture displays for HAL's Light Combat Aircraft and the Intermediate Jet Trainer. The SDS joint venture was formed in 2006 as the first public-private partnership in this sector for developing and manufacturing avionics display systems. With the July 8 order, the joint venture will become the first Indian company to produce these displays in India. The display is a device that puts all aircraft systems-monitoring and flight-planning functions at the pilot's fingertips, displaying a composite view of the aircraft's environment. Samtel holds 60 percent of the stake in the joint venture, with the balance being held by HAL.

South Korea and Indonesia made a pact to exchange defense hardware

S. Korea Seeks Subs-For-Aircraft Deal with Indonesia July 09, 2008: SEOUL - South Korea is seeking a deal to trade its 1,300-ton diesel-electric attack submarines for Indonesian-built patrol aircraft, military officials said on July 1. The deal will be discussed when arms procurement officials from the two nations meet in Jakarta the week of July 7, a defense ministry spokesman said. He declined to confirm local media reports that the two nations would sign a memorandum of understanding on a one billion dollar deal to trade two South Korean submarines for eight Indonesian-built CN-235s. "We hope to sell our 1,300-ton 209-class submarines in return for acquiring CN-235s," a spokesman for the Defense Acquisition Programme Administration told AFP, without confirming details of the deal. "If the two nations agree on the deal, we can export submarines for the first time," he said. South Korea has nine 209-Class and two 1,800-ton 214-class submarines, both designed by Germany. It has already purchased eight CN-235s, jointly developed by Indonesia and Spain. Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, has upgraded its ageing naval fleet. If the two sides fail to agree next week, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-Hee will address the issue during his visit to Jakarta this month, the Korea Times said. "The two sides have virtually finalized the deal, as Indonesia accepted our final proposal on June 12 when its vice defense chief was visiting," a source was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Fossils = Natural History

Fossil Feathers Preserve Evidence Of Color July 09, 2008: The traces of organic material found in fossil feathers are remnants of pigments that once gave birds their color, according to Yale scientists whose paper in Biology Letters opens up the potential to depict the original coloration of fossilized birds and their ancestors, the dinosaurs. Closer study of a number of fossilized bird feathers by Yale PhD student Jakob Vinther revealed that organic imprints in the fossils - previously thought to be carbon traces from bacteria - are fossilized melanosomes, the organelles that contain melanin pigment. "Birds frequently have spectacularly colored plumage which are often used in camouflage and courtship display," said Vinther. "Feather melanin is responsible for rusty-red to jet-black colors and a regular ordering of melanin even produces glossy iridescence. Understanding these organic remains in fossil feathers also demonstrates that melanin can resist decay for millions of years." Working with Yale paleontologist Derek E. G. Briggs and Yale ornithologist Richard O. Prum, Vinther analyzed a striped feather found in 100 million-year-old rocks from the Lower Cretaceous Period in Brazil. The team used a scanning electron microscope to show that dark bands of the feather preserved the arrangement of the pigment-bearing structures as a carbon residue - organized much as the structures are in a modern feather. The light bands showed only rock surface. In another fossil of a bird from the Eocene Epoch - 55 million years ago - in Denmark there were similar traces in the feathers surrounding the skull. That fossil also preserved an organic imprint of the eye and showed structures similar to the melanosomes found in eyes of modern birds. "Many other organic remains will presumably prove to be composed of melanin," said Vinther. He expects that fur of ancient mammals and skin from dinosaurs preserved as organic imprints will likely be the remains of the melanin. "Now that we have demonstrated that melanin can be preserved in fossils, scientists have a way to reliably predict, for example, the original colors of feathered dinosaurs," said Prum, who is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, as well as curator of ornithology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.

India projected to spend $30 billion on defence hardware

Defence procurement policy set to be revised

July 08, 2008 NEW DELHI: With India projected to spend a whopping $30 billion for acquisition of military hardware and software from abroad during the 11th Plan period (2007-2012), the defence ministry is now finally all set to revise its defence procurement policy (DPP). The new DPP, which will try to cut down on procurement delays, bring in more transparency, rework the "offsets" clause and provide for "offset banking", is slated to be approved by the Defence Acquisitions Council headed by defence minister A K Antony on Wednesday. Introduced for the first time in the 2005 DPP, the "offsets" clause mandates that a foreign vendor who bags a deal over Rs 300 crore must plough back at least 30% of the contract value back into India or source defence products or services from the country of that value. There is likelihood of the defence ministry actually increasing the offsets obligation to 50% in the new DPP. The RFP (request for proposal) issued last year for the mother of all defence deals, the Rs 42,000-crore project to acquire 126 multi-role fighter jets for IAF, in fact, lays down a 50% offset provision. While offsets are the norm internationally, armament manufacturers and others have petitioned the defence ministry that its policy of allowing only "direct" offsets — that is, only in the defence arena - is restrictive and needs to be re-examined. "The offsets policy will be fine-tuned but allowing of 'indirect offsets' is unlikely since the ministry is extremely keen to build the indigenous defence sector," said an official. The ministry, in fact, feels India's "high" purchasing power should be leveraged to boost the fledgling domestic defence industry, and the best way to do it is through the successful implementation of the offsets policy.

Airbus beat Boeing on commercial orders

Airbus beat Boeing in latest round of commercial orders

July 08, 2008: Airbus, the world's largest maker of commercial aircraft, said it won a net 487 orders in the first six months, 12 more than Boeing. Airbus also delivered 245 planes, the Toulouse, France-based company said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement, four more than its U.S. rival. The European planemaker predicts orders this year may drop 50 percent compared with 2007, when it and Boeing took a record 2,754 combined. Demand is dwindling as slowing economies and spiraling fuel prices push airlines toward losses that the International Air Transport Association says may reach $6.1 billion with crude at $135 a barrel. Airbus attracted 525 new orders and lost 38 contracts that had booked previously through cancellations. That left it with a total of 323 orders for single-aisle planes, 161 for widebody A330, A340 and A350 models, and three for the double-decker A380s. The company, a division of European Aeronautic, Defense and Space, delivered 201 single-aisle planes, 40 widebodies and four A380s. Boeing, based in Chicago, won 475 net orders in the first half and delivered 241 aircraft. Boeing has said shipments may reach 480 planes this year from 441 last year, while Airbus has been forecasting it will deliver around 470, up from 434. Both planemakers are likely to announce orders from several customers at the Farnborough International Air Show that begins July 14 in Britain.

Singapore, Israel Purchasing Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft

Singapore, Israel Mulls Purchasing Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft

July 8, 2008 Air Force Major General Charles Davis said that Singapore has shown interest in possibly buying up to 100 of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft over coming decades, matching Israel's tentative plans.

Lockheed's chief F-35 subcontractors are Northrop Grumman Corp. and BAE Systems Plc, with two rival, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development, one built by United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney unit; the other by a team of General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce Group Plc. Separately, the eight countries that have joined the United States to co-develop the plane appear to be largely sticking to their plans to buy some 730 of their own. Development of the F-35, a family of radar-evading aircraft, was co-financed by Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway. The United States currently plans to buy a total of 2,443 F-35 models, including 1,763 for the U.S. Air Force and 680 for the Marine Corps and Navy together. It is the costliest U.S. arms program ever at a projected $299 billion. F-35 competitors include Saab's Gripen, the Dassault Rafale, MiG-35 and Sukhoi Su-35, and the Eurofighter Typhoon, made by a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies. 2015. The F-35C version is due to fly for the first time in about October 2009, Davis said.

Mega order 400 New Helicopters for Indian Armed Forces

Indian Armed Forces will get 400 new helicopters; 200 of them would be bought in ‘flyaway’ condition July 08, 2008 Bangalore: The defence ministry is working on a plan to acquire 400 light helicopters for the Armed Forces to replace its ageing Cheetah and Chetak fleet, which the army and air force have been using for more than three decades. India is expected to buy half of the helicopters from a yet-to-be decided foreign vendor and the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) will be asked to design and build the remaining. New entrant: A file photo of the new version of the Dhruv helicopter during its flight at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd base in Bangalore. “There is an urgent need (of helicopters) for the army. This (plan) is to ensure that there is no further delay,” said one person familiar with the matter, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the deal. The defence ministry had initially planned to issue a tender for 384 helicopters. In December, it withdrew a contract for 197 helicopters awarded to Eurocopter, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., following complaints by rival US-based Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. that its bid was rejected on “flimsy” grounds. Under the new plan, about 200 helicopters would be bought in flyaway condition, or without any local integration, from vendors such as Bell Helicopter, British-Italian firm AgustaWestland, Russia’s Kamov and Eurocopter. India would not insist on local production under licence as that would be time-consuming. HAL, meanwhile, has six years to design and build a home-grown light observation helicopter in the 2.5-3 tonne class, and help replenish the remaining fleet of Cheetah helicopters, said people familiar with the development. Light helicopters weigh around 3 tonnes. The new plan will have foreign helicopter makers sourcing aero components and systems of half of the contract value from local vendors under the offset policy for defence deals. The policy mandates vendors to source 30% of the value of contracts worth Rs300 crore or more from local players in a bid to boost India’s defence manufacturing industry. Analysts say that the army needs light helicopters urgently to replace the Cheetah choppers. “It should have been bought yesterday, not today,” said Ratan Shrivastava, director for aerospace and defence at research firm Frost and Sullivan. “Aircraft is replaced if it is of vintage or due to usage. Both the airframe and engines of Cheetah is over 30 years old,” he said. Defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar would not confirm this development, but said the ministry would issue a request for proposal (RFP) shortly for the light helicopters. “Only when the RFP is issued, we will know the exact details,” he said. HAL has built two indigenous helicopters—Lancer, a light attack helicopter based on the Cheetah platform, and Dhruv, the twin-engine advanced light helicopter in use with the Armed Forces. It is also designing and building a helicopter gunship, the first flight of which is expected this year.