Russia launches production of new MiG-29M/M2 fighter

The Sokol aircraft plant, based in Nizhny Novgorod, central Russia, is to launch production of the MiG-29M/M2 Fulcrum fighter plane.

The first aircraft to be produced is planned to be completed in the second quarter of 2010.

MiG's general director, Anatoly Belov, said the new aircraft will use the most advanced technology, specifically the Zhuk-M onboard radar and cutting-edge avionics.

The plane's integrated weapon control system is built around the Zhuk-M airborne radar, an IR search and track system and a helmet-mounted target designation system.

The fighter has the capability to detect air targets at ranges of up to 120 km and has the potential to attack four targets simultaneously.

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Battery Activation

The activation of the first Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense interceptor missile unit of the U.S. Army was recognized during a ceremony at Fort Bliss, Texas. THAAD is a missile defense system developed by the Missile Defense Agency, a joint service organization within the Department of Defense.

The ceremony marked the establishment of an operational Army unit that will include soldiers who are undergoing new equipment training on THAAD and who will ultimately work to field the system.

Alpha Battery/4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 11th Air Defense Brigade, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, will receive 24 THAAD interceptors, three launchers, a fire control and communications unit and a radar. The commander of the new battery is Capt. Curtis Zervic. Soldiers in the newly established battery have been training on the THAAD equipment since last month and will continue their training through the middle of 2009.

THAAD has undergone several years of rigorous testing, designed to push the system into increasingly stressful and operationally realistic scenarios. Since the current round of testing began, THAAD has intercepted every target it has flown against. When fielded, the mobile THAAD system will be the only defensive weapon that can destroy incoming ballistic missiles both inside and just outside the earth’s atmosphere.

It will provide protection to deployed troops around the world, and other important assets and population centers against short to medium range ballistic missiles in the terminal, or final phase of flight.

THAAD is an element of the layered, integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System designed to protect the United States, our allies and friends against all types of ballistic missiles in all phases of flight.

The prime contractor for the THAAD missile defense element is Lockheed Martin.

Thales UK Unveils New Lightweight Multirole Missile

Thales UK revealed its new Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) on 2 June, drawing heavily on the earlier Starburst and Starstreak surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to develop a low-cost weapon system aiming to engage a wide range of air, land and sea targets.

The new laser beam-riding missile would be able to defeat a "sensible target set" including rigid inflatable boats (RIBs), jet skis and small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as most targets regularly encountered on modern battlefields, from bunkers and light vehicles up to and including tracked armoured personnel carriers, with a relatively light, flexible warhead.

In essence, the new missile is built within the same basic airframe footprint as Starburst, so it can fit in the same canister as a Starburst/Starstreak missile, and features four flip-out, movable forward fins and four more fixed fins at the back. Unlike the helical-flightpath, fixed-fin concept taken with Starstreak, the point-accuracy that Thales was seeking with the LMM requires the missile to fly a much more traditional path down the centre of the laser beam, steered by the fully controlled forward fins. The control actuation for this uses low-cost off-the-shelf components, brushes and DC motors.

111 Nations Agreed To Ban Cluster Bombs

Delegates from 111 nations agreed May 28 a landmark treaty to ban cluster bombs, Ireland's foreign ministry said, in a deal that lacks the backing of major producers and stockpilers of the lethal weapons.

After 10 days of painstaking negotiations at Croke Park stadium in Dublin, diplomats agreed the wording of a wide-ranging pact to outlaw the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions by its signatories.

It also provides for the welfare of victims and the clearing of areas contaminated by unexploded cluster bombs.

The agreement will be formally adopted on May 30, and signed in Oslo on December 2-3. Signatories would then need to ratify it.

But crucially, the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel and Pakistan - all major producers and stockpilers of cluster bombs - were absent from the Dublin talks, and thus not part of the agreement.

The Irish Department for Foreign Affairs said 111 participating states and 18 observer countries attended.

The treaty requires the destruction of stockpiled munitions within eight years - though it leaves the door open for future, more precise generations of cluster munitions that pose less harm to civilians.

Britain was widely cited by campaigners as being at the forefront of a group of states seeking to water down the treaty.

But in a dramatic move May 28, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced in London that Britain would withdraw all its cluster bombs from service in a bid to "break the log jam" in the Dublin talks.

Brown later said in a statement he was "delighted" with the treaty's agreement, and said it made "the world a safer place."

The draft treaty agreed in Dublin read: "Each state party undertakes never under any circumstances to: "(a) Use cluster munitions; "(b) Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; "(c) Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under this convention."

Much of the wrangling at Croke Park focused on what signatories could and could not do in joint operations with states still using cluster bombs.

The draft text said signatories "may engage in military cooperation and operations".

But the Cluster Munition Coalition, an umbrella group of non-governmental organizations, hopes that the treaty will stigmatize the use of cluster munitions - as the similar Ottawa Treaty did for landmines - and stop countries from helping others to use them.

Hildegarde Vansintjan, advocacy officer for disability campaigners Handicap International, said the convention made states responsible for providing assistance to cluster bomb victims.

The treaty would be a real step forward for the people suffering from cluster munitions all over the world.

The cluster munitions ban process, started by Norway in February 2007, took the same path as the 1997 Ottawa Treaty by going outside the United Nations to avoid vetoes and seal a swift pact.

Cluster munitions are among the weapons that pose the gravest dangers to civilians, especially in heavily bombed countries like Laos, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Dropped from planes or fired from artillery, they explode in mid-air, randomly scattering bomblets. Countries are seeking a ban due to the risk of civilians being killed or maimed by their indiscriminate, wide area effect.

They also pose a lasting threat to civilians as many bomblets fail to explode on impact.

MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) Vehicle ...

The acronym MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) has its origins in a US Marine Corps (USMC) programme established in November 2006 to deliver a vehicle for use in Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' (OIF) and Operation 'Enduring Freedom' (OEF) that offered troops on the ground higher levels of protection from emerging threats than their then current uparmoured versions of the beleaguered High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (Humvee).

From its beginnings as a far lower-profile Marine Corps project, the programme, in fewer than 12 months, had grown exponentially to become the US Department of Defense's third largest acquisition programme behind missile defence and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Such is the global profile of the MRAP programme that it has understandably received extensive coverage across the media. That coverage has seldom been as accurate, informed or as impartial as it could and perhaps should have been.

Prior to the original indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) MRAP contracts that were issued to nine contractors in January 2007, both the US Marine Corps and army had in fact procured, and were using on deployed operations, vehicles of types that are now referred to as MRAPs.

The US Army's preferred choice had been the BAE Systems Land Systems OMC RG-31, and from an initial purchase of three Mk 3 vehicles in 2003, the service would eventually receive 468 vehicles (Mk 3 and Mk 5). The final pre-MRAP delivery order was placed in January 2007 for 169 Mk 5 vehicles. All US Army RG-31 contract awards are to BAE Systems' North American licensee, General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) Canada.

The leading provider of MRAP-type vehicles to US armed forces before the MRAP ID/IQ contract awards was Force Protection. This company had supplied around 400 of its Cougars (4 x 4 and 6 x 6), plus 90 of its Buffalo dedicated mine/improvised explosive device (IED) route-clearance vehicles to the army and marines before January 2007 and, according to the company, these had totalled in excess of 2 million combat hours in Afghanistan and Iraq and had survived at least 2,000 blast attacks. The Buffalo was first deployed in Iraq by the US Army in July 2003, while the Cougar was first used by the USMC in Iraq in October 2004.

The MRAP ID/IQ contracts initially called for four vehicles (two each of Category 1 and Category 2 MRAP designs) from each of the nine contractors involved - BAE Systems Tactical Vehicle Systems (now BAE Systems Mobility and Protection Systems); BAE Systems Ground Systems; Force Protection Inc; General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada; General Purpose Vehicles; International Military and Government LLC (now Navistar Defense LLC); Oshkosh Truck Corporation (now Oshkosh Defense); Protected Vehicles Inc; Textron Marine and Land Systems.

The following vehicles were eliminated from the competition: the Textron M1117 Armored Security Vehicle (ASV), the Oshkosh-offered Thales Bushmaster, the GPV offering, and following small low-rate initial production (LRIP) orders: the PVI-offered Rafael Golan and Oshkosh (PVI-designed) Alpha, would all be eliminated from the competition. The bulk of the 60 Golans and 100 Alphas ordered have since been declared excess property by the marines and will be employed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

RNLAF CH-47F Helicopters Equipped With Missile Warning Systems

Northrop Grumman has been selected by the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) to provide the AAR-54 Missile Warning System (MWS) for its CH-47F Chinook helicopters.

Under the terms of the multi-million dollar contract, Northrop Grumman's Defensive Systems Division will provide eight MWS shipsets and spares, in addition to follow-on support, to the RNLAF beginning in Jan. 2009 and continuing through Jan. 2010.

The AAR-54(V) is a fourth-generation Missile Approach Warning System now in production and available for use on virtually every platform - helicopters, fast jets, tactical and widebody aircraft.

In all applications, this compact, lightweight system provides outstanding clutter rejection, long-range and short-shot missile detection, rapid automatic cueing to the countermeasures system, and increased situational awareness capabilities via heads-up display or radar warning receiver display.

First Unmanned Surface Vehicle to US Navy for Littoral Combat Ship(LCS)

General Dynamics Robotic Systems delivered the first 11-meter “Fleet” class Anti-Submarine Warfare Unmanned Surface Vehicle (ASW USV) to the U.S. Navy on May 2 as part of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mission package. General Dynamics Robotic Systems is a part of General Dynamics Land Systems (Sterling Heights, Michigan), a business unit of General Dynamics.

General Dynamics has worked in partnership with a Navy team that includes PEO-Littoral & Mine Warfare (LMW), PMS-420 LCS Mission Package Systems, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego (SSC San Diego) and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) to design, integrate, test and deliver the USV.

A second USV will be delivered to Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island, in June. These USVs are the first unmanned surface vehicles to ever receive hull numbers from the Navy, and will be known as “11MUC0601” and “11MUC0602,” respectively.

LCS is a fast, agile, focused-mission platform designed for operation in near-shore environments to defeat asymmetric “anti-access” threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface craft. The ASW USV operates and supports payloads and sensor systems, including an unmanned towed-array sonar system and an active multi-static offboard low-frequency sonar system. The General Dynamics-designed vehicle provides a high-speed, high-payload capable craft with excellent sea keeping characteristics, along with a state-of-the-art unmanned navigation and autonomous control capability that includes 360-degree situational awareness.

The USV has a payload capacity of 5,000 pounds, beam length of 11.2 feet and is capable of operating continuously for 24 hours or more. During high-speed transits the vehicle can reach speed of 35 knots or higher. A government-developed bow latch will launch and recover the unmanned surface vehicle from the LCS. As a semi-autonomous vehicle, the USV is capable of way-point navigation, sea keeping and station keeping.

To fulfill its mission, the LCS-based ASW USV performs the Maritime Shield, Protected Passage and Port Reconnaissance ASW missions to protect Navy surface ship battle groups.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 84,000 people worldwide and reported 2007 revenues of $27.2 billion. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies.