The Adastra appears to be largely derived from the larger, deeper diving, and longer ranged Scorpene, there us 70% commonality, but in a package better suited to countries that do not have to deploy over long distances or deploy much past the continental shelf.
Japan has delayed the start of its F-X fighter competition, intended to look for a replacement for its 1960s vintage F-4EJ aircraft.
It appears that they want a full technical packet for the F-22, which is still forbidden to export under US law, in the hope that they can purchase that aircraft.
Give it up, we’re just not that into you.
Condoleeza Rice has negotiated agreements with the UK and Australia to allow for smoother transfers of defense technologies between the nations, as ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) can be a rather ponderous apparatus.
After repeated delays in the State Department supplying information regarding the impact of these treaties on existing statute, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has decided to defer consideration of the compacts until after Bush and His Evil Minions&trade are out of office.
Payback is a bitch, bitch.
The Astute, lead ship in a new class of British SSNs, has had its entry into service delayed by some months as a result of problems in test, so sea trials have been delayed.
The system is currently about 47% over budget, but this number is expected to increase.
Some things are the same the world over.
Case in point: Northrop Grumman’s Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) promotional video, it’s a drop in AESA replacement for the F-16’s APG-68.
I just love the lightning bolts.
Well, this is one of those issues that leads to heated discussions, so let’s start with my position:
The 5.56 round is just find, and any lethality issues are an artifact that the barrel on the M4 carbine, at 14.5 inches, is too short. The M-16 with its 20 inch barrel does not have the lethality issues.
The solution is to replace the M4 with a Bullpup design with a barrel length of at least 18 inches.
Such a design will still be shorter than the M4, and hence easier to handle in enclosed spaces, such as city warfare.
I would also go with a piston arrangement, as opposed to a gas tube, which to bring too much fouling.
‘Nuff said.
In any case, the Army is now looking at an M4 replacement, and is considering going with something like a 6.5mm or 6.8mm round.
This has all the hallmarks of a fiasco to my mind though. They are bidding a new weapon and allowing for a new caliber at the same time, which means that they will not really be able to compare apples to apples.
It should be interesting on the boards for a while though as various gun religions engage in Jihad.
When you consider their airforce, a mix of MiG-29s, Su-30 MKMs, and F-18s, it seems inevitable that they would start to consider some sort of airborne command and control capability, particularly given Thailand’s purchase of Saab’s Erieye, Australia’s oft delayed Wedgetail, and Singapore’s E-2Cs and future deliveries of Phalcons.
I think that over the next few years, we will see a lot posturing, both on the part of the Malaysians and on the part of the companies who want to make a sale to them.
Once again, one of the issues with the F-35 JSF is that, to a greater degree than any other fighter aircraft history, the country operating the aircraft will be unable to modify its systems to meet their needs.
It now appears that the Israeli Air Force will purchase the F-35, the number that it purchases will be highly dependent on the ability it will have to install indigenous systems, as the JSF is a remarkably closed system.
In the long run, I think that follow-on orders for the aircraft may be hindered by this, as operators, and nations becoming operators, find out the degree to which they have to jump through hoops to integrate upgrades and new systems that were routine in prior aircraft.
The Bulava missile, which reportedly has an 8000 km range and 10 MIRVs, though some reports say that it can fire MaRVs.
I don’t think that this has anything to do with the Georgia kerfluffle, but you never know how that issue might have influenced the choice of the timing for the tests.
Seeing as how the TP400 engine is the major delay item on the A400M transport, the fact taht they have finally done some full power runs on the C-130 demonstrator, this is a long overdue positive sign.
It is still an open question as to whether EADS will be able to get the A400M into the air before year’s end though.
It appears to be a significant improvement on the original AIM-9X, with lock on after launch, and could drive the move to a new rocket motor, the rocket motor on the AIM-9X is the same as previous models, as it would allow launches to longer range.
From all I know about the missile, the kinematics (basically range and long range maneuverability) are not that good, having a single pulse motor (with thrust vectoring, you want lower thrust at the start in order to make the vectoring work better) and being smaller (5″ body diameter as vs 6″) than many of its competitors.
Well, it looks like the sad saga of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyers may become even sadder, as there are now doubts that the two ships purchased may never sail.
Noah Schactman cites a report from Defense News:
Issues have arisen in guaranteeing the seals between the composite construction panels of the huge Zumwalt deckhouse… [where] all of the ship’s major sensors… are embedded in the structure, and all of the ship above the first superstructure level is contained…
[O]ne source familiar with the situation said the Navy is so worried about the problem that it has been canvassing other manufacturers of composite structures to see if an alternate production source could be found.
So will any Zumwalts be built?
… Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and a key supporter of the DDG-1000, told Defense News, “I still expect the Navy’s going to abandon the DDG-1000.”
It sure sounds to me like the ships cannot be built right now.
Background here.
This is not surprising. The SS-N-27 Sizzler is a tough nut to crack to create a viable simulator, and in doing so, it means that ATK will have accumulated the expertise necessary to create a full up missile version.
I would not be at all surprised if they have the missile on the market in the next 5-7 years.
Background here.
But they are certainly making it look like a real competition. The Swedes needed extra time to get approvals for data release from the US, and the Dutch MoD extended the deadline on the bid to 30 September.
I still do not believe that the Dutch are serious about considering an alternative to the Lockheed-Martin JSF, they simply have invested too much time and effort, but they are doing their best to look fair about the process.
Specifically, the fact that naval inspectors flagged the New Orleans, the 2nd of the San Antonio class LPDs, as degraded in basic combat capabilities, despite the fact that the US Navy formally accepted the ship.
It’s bad enough that the San Antonio could not deploy with its strike group earlier.
Our defense procurement system is at least as broken as our financial system.
They really want the F-22, but it appears that this is simply not going to happen, so they are looking at F-15 upgrades and a stealth platform of their own, the ATD-X.
Honestly, for legitimate defensive needs, the upgraded F-15 is all the JASDF needs. It’s actually superior for cruise missile interception, since it has a larger antennae than the F-22, and AESA radars have already been fitted to some export models.
So says the IAEA, and I’m sure that Darth Cheney is lobbying for an airstrike.
Honestly, I think that both countries have alredy sunk so much money into the JSF, that it’s a lost cause, but you have to admire the dedication of the SAAB sales force.
First, SAAB is offering an “all inclusive” bid, including, “the 85 Gripen NGs, training, spares, simulators and support,” in addition to industrial offsets.
Additionally, they are claiming that the Gripen will will be billions cheaper over the life of the aircraft, which is likely true, as it weighs half as much.
Additionally, with the emphasis on remote austere basing, the Gripen probably wins in a COIN scenario like Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is actually their strongest case, that the US DoD and Lockheed-Martin will be nickel and diming the JSF customers throughout the program, in addition to still not having a hard and fast price or delivery schedule.
We also have some of the PowerPoint slides from L-M and SAAB:
LM Range Chart
SAAB Chart
Which appears to indicate that the Gripen has more range than the JSF, though I think that this is not an apples to apples comparison, as the Gripen is likely carrying external tanks for this.
In the meantime, it appears that reports of the Typhoon reentering the competition were greatly exaggerated, they still see it as a sucker’s game, though Boeing, and US Navy are offering the Super Hoenet with the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.
One interesting monkey wrench thrown into the JSF’s path is that the Dutch Economics Ministry appears to be trying to extract more money from the Dutch industrial JSF partners, which would serve to raise costs of the aircraft to non-cloggie air forces.
The Gerald R. Ford, which will succeed the Nimitz Class, and contain such bits of tech as (quoting from article):
a new flight deck with an improved weapon handling system, advanced arresting gear, a newly developed electromagnetic aircraft launch system, new and simplified nuclear propulsion plants and a new electrical power generation system.
One hopes that its progress will be smoother than the Littoral Combat Ship or the DDG-1000 Zumwalt’s, but I doubt it.
Well, if Boeing was hoping the cancellation/delay of the tanker competition to give them a chance to deliver products on time and schedule, the continuing problems with deliveries to the Italians, where they have delayed initial deliveries from this year to next year on a program that was supposed to deliver tankers in 2005 ain’t gonna help.
In the world of pork, Airbus has canceled plans to move A330F freighter final production to Alabama, which is to be expected.
Even with the relatively low dollar, the move does not make sense without the DoD contract for tankers.
One thing that sees apparent is the it won’t only be Boeing that will be rejiggering its bid now that it’s been put off, as Airbus is already announcing a 5 ton increase in gross weight for its A300-200, which would doubtless be applied to any new bid on the tanker contract.