US Army triggers competition for future long-range assault aircraft
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has launched its future long-range assault aircraft competition, quietly releasing a request for proposals limited to two industry teams. The service has also homed in on a schedule to deliver FLRAA prototypes after debating two different options to stay on schedule. The service weighed the option of pursuing both prototype builds for the airframe and the weapons systems at the same time, or on slightly separate schedules, which would have meant the difference between delivering full prototypes to the Army by the s…
Antony Blinken US Secretary of State arrives in India
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday evening with a focus on the expansion of bilateral ties between India and US , regional issues including Afghanistan, global terrorism, Indo-pacific, among other issues with Indian officials. On Wednesday, the US top diplomat will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar. This will be Blinken's first visit to India after assuming the office. In the defence domain, both sides are expected to explore ways and means to deepen their collab…
US Navy: Bonhomme Richard fire deals a blow to the Navy’s designs in the Indo-Pacific
WASHINGTON – The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard , which burned through the night while in port in San Diego, was at the tail end of two years of upgrades supporting the integration of the F-35B , according to Navy documents. That means the Navy will now have fewer options to deploy the next-generation fighter in the Pacific. The Navy awarded the $219 million modernization contract to General Dynamics, National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. in 2018, which had options for up to $250 million. Bonhomme Richard is one of four large-deck amph…
US Air Force: Adopting Army’s Future Vertical Lift program
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is keeping an eye on the Army’s next-generation rotorcraft program, which could fill a gap for agile airlift that might be needed in a fight against Russia and China, an Air Force general said Thursday. With its large air bases vulnerable to attacks from a near-peer adversary, there’s no guarantee that the Air Force will be able to rely on its current processes or equipment to transfer supplies in and out of air bases. In a war with China or Russia , the U.S. Air Force would distribute its assets to bases ow…
US Air Force: Bell V-280 aircraft flies with system that can see through Objects like aircraft's itself
Bell’s experimental V-280 Valor tiltrotor, built for a U.S. Army technology demonstration, has flown for the first time with an integrated system that provides the pilots and aircrew a 360-degree view through the skin of the aircraft. V-280 aircraft At the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual summit, Lockheed Martin displayed footage collected from its Pilotage Distributed Aperture System’s first flight over central Texas on the V-280 . PDAS “is the first fully integrated tactical distributed aperture system in the hist…
Seven months on, India-US logistics pact suffering from bottlenecks
NEW DELHI: The much-ballyhooed logistics pact between India and the US , which will allow reciprocal access to each other's military bases for refuelling, repair and maintenance of warships and aircraft, is yet to enter into force despite being inked seven months ago. Slow decision-making, bureaucratic bottlenecks and complex accounting procedures, much more from the Indian side than the US one, have held up the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) from becoming operational till now. Sources, however, say the I…
Howitzer gun deal will enhance defence ties with India: US Ambassador
NEW DELHI: The government’s decision to buy 145 M777 155mm/45-calibre ultra-light Howitzer battlefield guns from BAE Systems under the Foreign Sales Military route with the US will further enhance defence ties between both the countries, according to US Ambassador to India Richard Verma. The deal was approved by the Defence Ministry in June and the letter of agreement or LoA was signed on Wednesday between both the governments. “Indian industry will partner with the US defence subsidiary of BAE Systems to locally assemble, integr…
US approve bill of USD 900 million Aid to Pakistan and 1.2 billions more in coming year
The bill limits the overall amount available for reimbursement to USD 1.1 billion, of which USD 900 million is available for reimbursement to Pakistan . The US House of Representative has passed a defence bill that pledges USD 900 million in economic and other assistance to Pakistan, a significant portion of which is dependent of a Pentagon certification that the country is taking demonstrable steps against the dreaded Haqqani Network. The US National Defence Authorisation Act for fiscal year 2017 was passed in the House of Represent…
New defensive aids for MBT Arjun proven in trials
An advanced laser warning countermeasure system and a mobile camouflage system have recently been tested and proven on the Arjun MBT Mk.II in the Mahajan Field Firing Range in Rajasthan. Both capabilities will be strong survivability factors on the new improved tanks as it heads into a crucial phase of user trials. The new camouflage system has been developed to provide multi-spectral signature management for Arjun Mk.II, in order to protect the vehicle against all enemy sensors and smart munitions. According to the CVRDE, “the perf…
MODI Effect : Indian Co's bet on Defence sector; pour in billions to manufacture Guns, Ships & Tanks
NEW DELHI: Some of India's biggest companies are pouring billions of dollars into manufacturing guns, ships and tanks for the country's military, buoyed by the new government's commitment to upgrade its armed forces using domestic factories. India, the world's largest arms importer, will spend $250 billion in the next decade on kit, analysts estimate, to upgrade its Soviet-era military and narrow the gap with China, which spends $120 billion a year on defence. Unde…
India lost 340 defence personnel in 3 years: Govt
India, without going to war, has lost over 340 military personnel in the last three years. Counter-insurgency operations and cross-border firings, road accidents and warship mishaps, have all contributed to the numbers. Defence minister Arun Jaitley, in a written reply to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday said the Army had lost 217 soldiers inside the country and 14 outside (in UN peace-keeping operations) from 2011 to 2013. The Navy suffered 90 casualties and IAF 19 in the same time period. In a separate answer, Jaitley said 27 soldiers had bee…
India: Diversifying Arms Purchases
India needs to diversify its arms imports. Although it is one of the world’s largest arms importers, most of India’s weapons come from Russia. Over the last five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia accounted for about $15 billion of the $20 billion in arms that India imported, or about three-quarters. That level of dependence is unhealthy: One of the reasons why India bought the Jaguar Bomber from a European consortium in the 1970s was the concern that India was becoming dependent o…
Another ASW Aircraft Tupolev TU-142ME Handed Over to Indian Navy
On August 06, 2014 another India Navy’s long-range ASW aircraft TU-142ME (IN 317) was handed over to the Customer after an overhaul at Beriev premises. The aircraft successfully passed all tests and was finally handed over to the Indian navy. Eight Taganrog-built Tupolev TU-142MEs were handed over to Indian Navy in the late 1980s. In total, the Tupolev TU-142MEs flew 28 thousand hours in over 25 years without any incidents or accidents, and thus gained a good reputation with Indian crews. Indian pilots call this aircraft ‘Albatross’ f…
US Army's JMR Program Kicks Off; Two Contracts Awarded
WASHINGTON — Less than two weeks after announcing that it was pushing back the initial selection of the technology demonstrator phase of the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) helicopter program and working to forge a closer relationship with industry, the US Army awarded two development contracts for the effort on Tuesday. The winning bidders were the team of Sikorsky and Boeing with their SB>1 Defiant medium-lift helicopter, and Textron’s Bell Helicopter, which submitted its V-280 Valor tiltrotor design to the Army. In October, the Army prov…
BrahMos: The Brahmastra of India
It has been my good fortune to have been associated with the Ministry of Defence in the early eighties as spokesperson for the Ministry, the Armed Forces and the Defence Research and Development Organisation. The Defence Research and Development Organisation was then headed by Dr. Raja Ramanna, He was followed by Dr Arunachalam and Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam. Those were the days when leading arms manufacturing countries in the West were reluctant to sell defence equipment to India, which was a non-aligned country. The Government of India w…
US overtakes all to become India's largest defence supplier
Stunning new figures on Indian defence imports by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament on Tuesday have revealed that for the first time, the United States has overtaken all competitors to become India's largest defence supplier in the past three financial years. The statistics revealed by Jaitley, who holds dual charge of defence and finance ministries, show that almost 40 per cent of the money spent by India on defence imports in the past three years have gone to the Americans, followed by the Russians (30 per cent) and th…
Indian missiles languish in South Korea due to Gaza conflict
The eponymously named Long Range Surface to Air Missile (LR-SAM), being co-developed by the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), is already two years late. Now, because of Israel's invasion of Gaza, the delay will get longer. Business Standard has learnt that four LR-SAM rocket motors, built in India and despatched to Tel Aviv for trials, have been lying in Seoul, South Korea, for close to a month. The DRDO confirms that the rockets, filled with highly combustible propellant…
Why is India offering to buy more US helicopters
(Reuters) - India has offered to significantly increase an order for U.S. attack helicopters, Indian officials said, as U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel began a visit to New Delhi on Thursday aimed at boosting defence and strategic ties. The Apache gunships and a deal for Chinook helicopters, both built by Boeing, will top the agenda in Hagel's talks on Friday with the new administration led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India has offered a follow-on order of 39 AH-64D Apache helicopters in addition to the 22 now being negot…
Govt doubles NSG commando strength in each of four hubs
National Security Guard crack commando strength has been almost doubled to 460 personnel each stationed at select hubs in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad to undertake quick and swift counter-terror or counter-hijack operations. The hubs in these cities, covering key areas, were set up in the aftermath of the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks during which the elite force came under criticism for slow response time. "It has been decided to reinforce the strength of each of the four regional hubs from 241 to…
ISRO: India working on manned flight mission
India’s scientists are on course to sending the country’s first manned flight to space, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K. Radhakrishnan said here on Sunday. “A number of critical technologies are being developed for a possible human space flight in the future. A full-scale, unmanned crew module is getting ready to be flown onboard the experimental flight of GSLV Mk-III, to understand its ballistic re-entry characteristics,” Dr. Radhakrishnan told graduat…
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