Jordan accepts six more secondhand F-16s
Jordan has accepted six ex-Royal Netherlands Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16BMs, with the aircraft having left Leeuwarden air base on 28 July for a delivery flight via Aviano in Italy and Souda Bay in Crete. The two-seat aircraft will join the Royal Jordanian Air Force's 1 Sqn at Muwaffaq Salti air base. The delivery forms part of a contract signed between Jordan, Belgium and the Netherlands in 2007 covering the sale of 22 surplus F-16s. An initial four A/B-model fighters were delivered from Belgium's Kleine-Brogel air base last September under the deal.
Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban
Pakistan’s Air Force is improving its ability to pinpoint and attack militant targets with precision weapons, adding a new dimension to the country’s fight against violent extremism, according to Pakistani military officials and independent analysts. The Pakistani military has moved away from the scorched-earth artillery and air tactics used last year against insurgents in the Bajaur tribal agency. In recent months, the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs.
The changes reflect an effort by the Pakistani military to conduct its operations in a way that will not further alienate the population by increasing civilian casualties and destroying property. But they are also dictated by necessity as the military takes its campaign into areas where it is reluctant to commit ground troops, particularly in the rugged terrain of Waziristan, where it had suffered heavy losses. Military analysts say the airstrikes alone cannot ultimately substitute for ground forces or for better counterinsurgency training. But they say the airstrikes have become a valuable tool for Pakistan in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in sometimes inaccessible terrain.
Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said. In conjunction with infantry fire, artillery barrages and helicopter gunship attacks, military officials say, the air combat missions reinvigorated the military campaign in Sw
The air force’s new tools and tactics have several sources. The air force has without fanfare accepted some American assistance,
In the past, American officials raised concerns that Pakistan’s arms purchases and troop deployments were geared mainly to bolstering its ability to fight its traditional enemy to the east, India. “Of course, there is a real threat from India,” Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Pakistan’s air force chief of staff, said in an interview at his headquarters here. “But right now we have to tackle the threat from the militants.” Nearly every day in the past few months, Pakistani warplanes have pummeled militant targets in the contested Swat Valley and South Waziristan. The campaigns are
In advance of the Swat campaign, the air force equipped about 10 F-16s with high-resolution, infrared sensors, provided by the United States, to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the entire valley. The United States has also resumed secret drone flights performing military surveillance in the tribal areas, to provide Pakistani commanders with a wide array of videos and other information on militants, according to American officials. In most cases, officials said, the Pakistani Army provides target information to the air force, which confirms the locations on newly detailed maps. Identifying high-value targets through the use of army spotters or, in some cases, a new, small group of specially trained air force spotters, the air force was able to increase its use of laser-guided bombs to 80 percent of munitions used in Swat, from about 40 percent in Bajaur, Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. Another change was the mass evacuation of civilians.
About two million people were displaced, sometimes with only a few hours’ notice, as part of an effort to get civilians out of conflict areas to reduce their casualties. Some American officials voice skepticism about Pakistani claims of success. “We don’t have access to battle-damage assessment or the information on the actual strike execution, so we cannot make a qualitative comparison of what the intended effect was versus the actual effect,” said an American adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, to avoid jeopardizing his job.Officials of human rights organizations say the military has not been able to eliminate all civilian casualties from airstrikes and ground fire, but they agree that the numbers are down. “Certainly, the level of civilian casualties in this phase of the conflict has been lower than in pr
The air force still operates under limitations. Because the F-16s are equipped to fly only by day, the militants move and conduct operations at night. Indeed, not one of the 21 main militant leaders in Swat has been killed or captured, Pakistani officials acknowledge. In addition, the Pakistani jets cannot be refueled in midair, as American fighters can, limiting how long they can remain over a target area.In South Waziristan, as the army mulls a ground war, the air force continues to attack militants’ hide-outs and training camps as well as storage caves and tunnels with 500-pound and 2,000-pound bombs. “We’re still developing our plans for South Waziristan,” Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. “We are preparing to ramp up. I think Baitullah Mehsud is getting the message, and the message is, if he keeps doing these things, we’ll hit him.”
Gorshkov deal not yet finalised: India
Several controversies and five years after India announced that a Russian sea-based aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, will be added to the Naval fleet, Defence Minister AK Antony today said: “We have not signed any contract (with the Russians) only negotiations are going on.” A final decision on the contract will be taken after we verify everything including the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. Nothing has been decided the minister said as he attempted to put a lid on the controversy which started last week when the CAG “ripped through” the ministry of defence for paying some Rs 10,000 crore more than what was due for the aircraft carrier.Antony’s statement was made to a supplementary question raised by T Shiva of Tamil Nadu in which he also admitted, “I agree Russia has asked for a substantially huge amount.” The CAG report had said that "second-hand" carrier will be 60 per cent costlier than a new one and there is the risk of further delay in its delivery.
In his reply Antony put forward something which may have missed the audit books of the CAG: “Very few countries manufacture such carriers and as per the international relations prevailing in 2004, no country other than Russia was ready to give us a warship of this kind.” Russia agreed to gift the carrier to us. (India had to pay for the re-fit and the fighter jets that would be on the deck of the warship) Russia failed to calculate the cost of the re-fit.In a way Antony may be right the NATO countries have the capability to make such warships and they were not keen to arm India.
Bell Helicopters pulls out of Indian RFP for Gunship helicopter
The American company Bell Helicopters has decided not to participate in the Request for Proposal (RFP) process for acquisition of 22 attack helicopters for the Indian Air Force, sources have confirmed. The RFP, issued in May 2009, was the first RFP to be issued by the new UPA government in its second term in office.
"The AH-1Z helicopter model that Bell was hoping to field for the RFP process is currently undergoing operational evaluation for the US Marine corps. It will not be possible to field it and therefore Bell has decided to opt out of the RFP process. The AH-1Z helicopter model is a new upgraded helicopter and the operational evaluation process in the US is not yet over. So therefore, Bell will not be participating this time," sources said. Sources added that United States embassy in New Delhi would be informing the Indian ministry of defence about the exit of Bell from the RFP process.A fresh RFP was issued in May 2009 after the earlier RFP — issued in 2008 to various vendors — was "withdrawn" by the MoD earlier in 2009 on the grounds that qualitative requirements had not been met.
Interestingly, Bell Helicopters had opted out of the previous RFP process as well since the Indian government had (earlier) insisted on direct sale of the equipment from it. Bell was in a position to supply the helicopters only through the foreign military sales (FMS) programme of the US government since the Bell attack helicopters are being used by the US Navy. Ironically, the government, in the new RFP, is learnt to have permitted acquisition through the foreign military sales (FMS) programme of the US government in case an American vendor is selected after the bidding process. The amendment would have now made it possible for Bell to sell its copters but this time the concerned Bell helicopter model is undergoing operational evaluation with the US armed forces and is hence unavailable.
The fresh RFP in May is believed to have been issued to five vendors, Italian-owned Agusta Westland, American companies Bell Helicopters and Boeing, the European Eurocopter and the Russian Kamov. The other American company Boeing is still in the RFP race.
South Korea and the United States will conduct joint military exercise
South Korea and the United States will kick off their annual computerized joint military exercise aimed at improving interoperability next month, the Combine Forces Command (CFC) here said July 24. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), formerly known as Ulchi Focus Lens, will be held from Aug. 17-27, the command said in a news release.
About 56,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 American troops will take part in the command and control, war-fighting exercise, a CFC spokesman said. The forthcoming exercise will be the second one in which South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff will serve in a leading role with the U.S. Forces Korea serving in a supporting role, in rehearsal training for the planned transition of wartime operational control from the U.S. military to Korean commanders.
Under a 2007 agreement on command rearrangements, the U.S.-led CFC will be deactivated in April 17, 2012. The militaries will then launch separate theater commands. "UFG 09, as with all other CFC exercises, is a defense oriented exercise designed to improve the alliance's ability to defend the ROK against external aggression," the release said. "United Nations Command has informed the Korean People's Army in North Korea about UFG 09 and assured them that this is a defensive military readiness exercise, and that is not meant to be provocative in any way."North Korea regularly denounces joint military drills by South Korea and the United States, calling them as a rehearsal for invasion.
South Korea to develop a cutting-edge digital command-and-control
South Korea will begin developing a cutting-edge digital command-and-control and sensor-to-shooter battlefield system fit for a network-centric environment next year, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) here announced July 28.The plan was approved by an arms procurement decision-making committee presided over by Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee, the agency said in a news release. The development of the Tactical Information Communication Network (TICN) will be completed by 2012, following two years of exploratory development from 2007 to 2008, with the investment of about 181 billion won ($146 million), said Yoon Chang-oak, chief of the agency's tactical communication and control business department. About 4.8 trillion won ($3.8 billion) will be spent over the following eight years to produce and deploy the TICN, replacing the South Korean Army's SPIDER communications system, Yoon said.
TICN is a future tactical military communication information system that will enable precise command and control and decision-making by unifying the diversified military communication network and conveying a broad array of battlefield information in real time. It is designed to advance into a high-speed, large-capacity, long-distance wireless relay transmission system."For the TICN development, we'll make the most of the made-in-Korea WiBro technology and other indigenous state-of-the-art information technologies with the help of local communications systems developers," Yoon said.The SPIDER system can only transmit still images and voice data, but TICN will allow for the integrated transmission of video, image and voice data at more than 10 times the current speed, he added.
The agency will open a bid for the TICN development project in August and sign contracts with final bidders by the end of December, Yoon noted. According to DAPA sources, companies that participated in the exploratory development phase, such as Samsung Thales, LIG Nex1 and Huneed Technologies, will likely be selected as preferred bidders for the full-scale development phase again. The TICN exploratory development was overseen by the state-funded Agency for Defense Development. The network system consists of five subsystems, including High Capacity Trunk Radio (HCTR), Tactical Multi-band and Multi-role Radio (TMMR) and Network Management System (NMS).Samsung Thales was a main developer of TICN, taking charge of the development of NMS and two other subsystems. LIG Nex1 was in charge of TMMR, while Huneed was a main contractor for HCTR.
France Sends 3 Tiger Combat Helos to Afghanistan
France has sent three Tiger attack helicopters to Afghanistan, marking the first operational deployment of the aircraft, the ministry of defense said."On July 26, three Tiger combat helicopters arrived at Kabul airport by Antonov 124," the ministry said in a posting on its Web site.
A deployment of the Tiger aircraft has been long awaited after a deadly ambush by insurgents last August, which brought criticism on the French government for what was seen as inadequate resources for French troops despatched to Afghanistan.The Tiger aircraft, in the hélicoptère d'appui et de protection (HAP) version, will be used for armed reconnaissance and fire support for ground troops, the ministry said. The aircraft are expected to be operational in a few weeks, said a video clip produced by the ministry and ECPAD, the ministry's audiovisual production arm.
The three Tiger helicopters, equipped with a chin mounted 30 mm gun, will boost the coalition air assets, to which France contributes three Caracal EC725 combat search and rescue aircraft and three Gazelle "Viviane" light reconnaissance helicopters, based in Kabul.The 5th regiment of combat helicopters, based in Pau, southern France, will operate the Tigers. France has ordered a first batch of 40 Tigers out of a planned 80 units from EADS Eurocopter. In the Aug. 18 ambush in the Uzbeen valley last year, the French forces relied on air support from U.S. AC-130 and F-16 aircraft, with surveillance from a Predator UAV.
Jordan has accepted six ex-Royal Netherlands Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16BMs, with the aircraft having left Leeuwarden air base on 28 July for a delivery flight via Aviano in Italy and Souda Bay in Crete. The two-seat aircraft will join the Royal Jordanian Air Force's 1 Sqn at Muwaffaq Salti air base. The delivery forms part of a contract signed between Jordan, Belgium and the Netherlands in 2007 covering the sale of 22 surplus F-16s. An initial four A/B-model fighters were delivered from Belgium's Kleine-Brogel air base last September under the deal.
Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban
Pakistan’s Air Force is improving its ability to pinpoint and attack militant targets with precision weapons, adding a new dimension to the country’s fight against violent extremism, according to Pakistani military officials and independent analysts. The Pakistani military has moved away from the scorched-earth artillery and air tactics used last year against insurgents in the Bajaur tribal agency. In recent months, the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs.
The changes reflect an effort by the Pakistani military to conduct its operations in a way that will not further alienate the population by increasing civilian casualties and destroying property. But they are also dictated by necessity as the military takes its campaign into areas where it is reluctant to commit ground troops, particularly in the rugged terrain of Waziristan, where it had suffered heavy losses. Military analysts say the airstrikes alone cannot ultimately substitute for ground forces or for better counterinsurgency training. But they say the airstrikes have become a valuable tool for Pakistan in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in sometimes inaccessible terrain.
Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said. In conjunction with infantry fire, artillery barrages and helicopter gunship attacks, military officials say, the air combat missions reinvigorated the military campaign in Sw
Image by Muhammad Adnan Asim ( linkadnan ) # 1 via Flickr
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Image by Kash_if via Flickr
The air force’s new tools and tactics have several sources. The air force has without fanfare accepted some American assistance,
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
In the past, American officials raised concerns that Pakistan’s arms purchases and troop deployments were geared mainly to bolstering its ability to fight its traditional enemy to the east, India. “Of course, there is a real threat from India,” Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Pakistan’s air force chief of staff, said in an interview at his headquarters here. “But right now we have to tackle the threat from the militants.” Nearly every day in the past few months, Pakistani warplanes have pummeled militant targets in the contested Swat Valley and South Waziristan. The campaigns are
Image by Carl Montgomery via Flickr
In advance of the Swat campaign, the air force equipped about 10 F-16s with high-resolution, infrared sensors, provided by the United States, to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the entire valley. The United States has also resumed secret drone flights performing military surveillance in the tribal areas, to provide Pakistani commanders with a wide array of videos and other information on militants, according to American officials. In most cases, officials said, the Pakistani Army provides target information to the air force, which confirms the locations on newly detailed maps. Identifying high-value targets through the use of army spotters or, in some cases, a new, small group of specially trained air force spotters, the air force was able to increase its use of laser-guided bombs to 80 percent of munitions used in Swat, from about 40 percent in Bajaur, Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. Another change was the mass evacuation of civilians.
About two million people were displaced, sometimes with only a few hours’ notice, as part of an effort to get civilians out of conflict areas to reduce their casualties. Some American officials voice skepticism about Pakistani claims of success. “We don’t have access to battle-damage assessment or the information on the actual strike execution, so we cannot make a qualitative comparison of what the intended effect was versus the actual effect,” said an American adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, to avoid jeopardizing his job.Officials of human rights organizations say the military has not been able to eliminate all civilian casualties from airstrikes and ground fire, but they agree that the numbers are down. “Certainly, the level of civilian casualties in this phase of the conflict has been lower than in pr
Image via Wikipedia
The air force still operates under limitations. Because the F-16s are equipped to fly only by day, the militants move and conduct operations at night. Indeed, not one of the 21 main militant leaders in Swat has been killed or captured, Pakistani officials acknowledge. In addition, the Pakistani jets cannot be refueled in midair, as American fighters can, limiting how long they can remain over a target area.In South Waziristan, as the army mulls a ground war, the air force continues to attack militants’ hide-outs and training camps as well as storage caves and tunnels with 500-pound and 2,000-pound bombs. “We’re still developing our plans for South Waziristan,” Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. “We are preparing to ramp up. I think Baitullah Mehsud is getting the message, and the message is, if he keeps doing these things, we’ll hit him.”
Gorshkov deal not yet finalised: India
Several controversies and five years after India announced that a Russian sea-based aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, will be added to the Naval fleet, Defence Minister AK Antony today said: “We have not signed any contract (with the Russians) only negotiations are going on.” A final decision on the contract will be taken after we verify everything including the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. Nothing has been decided the minister said as he attempted to put a lid on the controversy which started last week when the CAG “ripped through” the ministry of defence for paying some Rs 10,000 crore more than what was due for the aircraft carrier.Antony’s statement was made to a supplementary question raised by T Shiva of Tamil Nadu in which he also admitted, “I agree Russia has asked for a substantially huge amount.” The CAG report had said that "second-hand" carrier will be 60 per cent costlier than a new one and there is the risk of further delay in its delivery.
In his reply Antony put forward something which may have missed the audit books of the CAG: “Very few countries manufacture such carriers and as per the international relations prevailing in 2004, no country other than Russia was ready to give us a warship of this kind.” Russia agreed to gift the carrier to us. (India had to pay for the re-fit and the fighter jets that would be on the deck of the warship) Russia failed to calculate the cost of the re-fit.In a way Antony may be right the NATO countries have the capability to make such warships and they were not keen to arm India.
Bell Helicopters pulls out of Indian RFP for Gunship helicopter
The American company Bell Helicopters has decided not to participate in the Request for Proposal (RFP) process for acquisition of 22 attack helicopters for the Indian Air Force, sources have confirmed. The RFP, issued in May 2009, was the first RFP to be issued by the new UPA government in its second term in office.
"The AH-1Z helicopter model that Bell was hoping to field for the RFP process is currently undergoing operational evaluation for the US Marine corps. It will not be possible to field it and therefore Bell has decided to opt out of the RFP process. The AH-1Z helicopter model is a new upgraded helicopter and the operational evaluation process in the US is not yet over. So therefore, Bell will not be participating this time," sources said. Sources added that United States embassy in New Delhi would be informing the Indian ministry of defence about the exit of Bell from the RFP process.A fresh RFP was issued in May 2009 after the earlier RFP — issued in 2008 to various vendors — was "withdrawn" by the MoD earlier in 2009 on the grounds that qualitative requirements had not been met.
Interestingly, Bell Helicopters had opted out of the previous RFP process as well since the Indian government had (earlier) insisted on direct sale of the equipment from it. Bell was in a position to supply the helicopters only through the foreign military sales (FMS) programme of the US government since the Bell attack helicopters are being used by the US Navy. Ironically, the government, in the new RFP, is learnt to have permitted acquisition through the foreign military sales (FMS) programme of the US government in case an American vendor is selected after the bidding process. The amendment would have now made it possible for Bell to sell its copters but this time the concerned Bell helicopter model is undergoing operational evaluation with the US armed forces and is hence unavailable.
The fresh RFP in May is believed to have been issued to five vendors, Italian-owned Agusta Westland, American companies Bell Helicopters and Boeing, the European Eurocopter and the Russian Kamov. The other American company Boeing is still in the RFP race.
South Korea and the United States will conduct joint military exercise
South Korea and the United States will kick off their annual computerized joint military exercise aimed at improving interoperability next month, the Combine Forces Command (CFC) here said July 24. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), formerly known as Ulchi Focus Lens, will be held from Aug. 17-27, the command said in a news release.
About 56,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 American troops will take part in the command and control, war-fighting exercise, a CFC spokesman said. The forthcoming exercise will be the second one in which South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff will serve in a leading role with the U.S. Forces Korea serving in a supporting role, in rehearsal training for the planned transition of wartime operational control from the U.S. military to Korean commanders.
Under a 2007 agreement on command rearrangements, the U.S.-led CFC will be deactivated in April 17, 2012. The militaries will then launch separate theater commands. "UFG 09, as with all other CFC exercises, is a defense oriented exercise designed to improve the alliance's ability to defend the ROK against external aggression," the release said. "United Nations Command has informed the Korean People's Army in North Korea about UFG 09 and assured them that this is a defensive military readiness exercise, and that is not meant to be provocative in any way."North Korea regularly denounces joint military drills by South Korea and the United States, calling them as a rehearsal for invasion.
South Korea to develop a cutting-edge digital command-and-control
South Korea will begin developing a cutting-edge digital command-and-control and sensor-to-shooter battlefield system fit for a network-centric environment next year, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) here announced July 28.The plan was approved by an arms procurement decision-making committee presided over by Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee, the agency said in a news release. The development of the Tactical Information Communication Network (TICN) will be completed by 2012, following two years of exploratory development from 2007 to 2008, with the investment of about 181 billion won ($146 million), said Yoon Chang-oak, chief of the agency's tactical communication and control business department. About 4.8 trillion won ($3.8 billion) will be spent over the following eight years to produce and deploy the TICN, replacing the South Korean Army's SPIDER communications system, Yoon said.
TICN is a future tactical military communication information system that will enable precise command and control and decision-making by unifying the diversified military communication network and conveying a broad array of battlefield information in real time. It is designed to advance into a high-speed, large-capacity, long-distance wireless relay transmission system."For the TICN development, we'll make the most of the made-in-Korea WiBro technology and other indigenous state-of-the-art information technologies with the help of local communications systems developers," Yoon said.The SPIDER system can only transmit still images and voice data, but TICN will allow for the integrated transmission of video, image and voice data at more than 10 times the current speed, he added.
The agency will open a bid for the TICN development project in August and sign contracts with final bidders by the end of December, Yoon noted. According to DAPA sources, companies that participated in the exploratory development phase, such as Samsung Thales, LIG Nex1 and Huneed Technologies, will likely be selected as preferred bidders for the full-scale development phase again. The TICN exploratory development was overseen by the state-funded Agency for Defense Development. The network system consists of five subsystems, including High Capacity Trunk Radio (HCTR), Tactical Multi-band and Multi-role Radio (TMMR) and Network Management System (NMS).Samsung Thales was a main developer of TICN, taking charge of the development of NMS and two other subsystems. LIG Nex1 was in charge of TMMR, while Huneed was a main contractor for HCTR.
France Sends 3 Tiger Combat Helos to Afghanistan
France has sent three Tiger attack helicopters to Afghanistan, marking the first operational deployment of the aircraft, the ministry of defense said."On July 26, three Tiger combat helicopters arrived at Kabul airport by Antonov 124," the ministry said in a posting on its Web site.
A deployment of the Tiger aircraft has been long awaited after a deadly ambush by insurgents last August, which brought criticism on the French government for what was seen as inadequate resources for French troops despatched to Afghanistan.The Tiger aircraft, in the hélicoptère d'appui et de protection (HAP) version, will be used for armed reconnaissance and fire support for ground troops, the ministry said. The aircraft are expected to be operational in a few weeks, said a video clip produced by the ministry and ECPAD, the ministry's audiovisual production arm.
The three Tiger helicopters, equipped with a chin mounted 30 mm gun, will boost the coalition air assets, to which France contributes three Caracal EC725 combat search and rescue aircraft and three Gazelle "Viviane" light reconnaissance helicopters, based in Kabul.The 5th regiment of combat helicopters, based in Pau, southern France, will operate the Tigers. France has ordered a first batch of 40 Tigers out of a planned 80 units from EADS Eurocopter. In the Aug. 18 ambush in the Uzbeen valley last year, the French forces relied on air support from U.S. AC-130 and F-16 aircraft, with surveillance from a Predator UAV.
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