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MARCH 2019 news
Naval Forces, Defense Industry, Navy Technology, Maritime Security |
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China has plans to develop a new island city in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, in spite of the growing international concern and US criticism. China actually aims to transform the Woody Island into a "national key strategic service and logistics base".
The crew of the nuclear submarine Knyaz Vladimir, which is to join the Russian Navy by the end of this year, in parallel with the plant and state trails, has fully mastered the new submarine and passed all the necessary course tasks, Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, Commander of the Northern Fleet, reported to the Minister of Defence General of the Army Sergei Shoigu on March 12.
The overhauled Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier of Project 11435 is to be handed over to the Navy in 2021, but a three-four month delay is possible, United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) CEO Alexey Rakhmanov said.
Two years into the FC/ASW (Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon) Concept Phase, MBDA announced on March 19 the successful achievement of its “Key Review”, jointly conducted with Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) and the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), respectively the British and French armament procurement agencies.
The Russian Navy's Kazan SSGN of Project 885M will for the first time test fire the latest Russian hypersonic Tsirkon missile in 2020, a source in the defense industry told TASS.
The combat-proven Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS®) kits transform standard 2.75” (70mm) Hydra rockets into guided munitions that provide warfighters with a precision strike capability with limited collateral damage. In May 2018, the US Navy already awarded BAE Systems a $US 175 million contract for more than 7.000 APKWS laser-guided rockets. Now, the US Navy has decided to order thousands more.
Russian MoD decided to change the training system of the crews of the latest Borey-A-class SSBN of project 955A and Yasen-M-class SSGN of project 885M. This comes after the president urged to accelerate the construction of nuclear submarines. Previously submariners accepted a U-boat and then began training onboard. Now, the crew members are trained during the construction and trials. Experts believe the new method will accelerate the beginning of the combat duty of new nuclear submarines, the Izvestia daily writes.
US Navy 5th Fleet’s Task Force 55 and commercial shipping industry representatives joined forces recently to complete exercise Lucky Mariner 19, in the Gulf of Aden.
After the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, the Indian Navy had to cut short a leading exercise in the Indian Ocean (the Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise, also called TROPEX) in order to quickly redeploy its war zone assets in the North Arabian Sea. Since then, the Indian Navy maintains this deterrent presence in the area, letting Pakistan know the Indian forces are ready to respond to any further terrorist threat by using its naval power.
A new batch of vessels forming naval sidearm of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary are required to supply both UK’s aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. A £1 billion contract is to be won by companies for the building and procurement of three new support ships for the Royal Navy.
During the beginning of March 2019, Iran decided to dispatch its 61st naval group (consisting of the Sabalan frigate and the Bandar Abbas logistical support ship) to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden), to counter the piracy and thus secure maritime oil shipping in the area.
Project 1124M small anti-submarine ships - the Yunga, the Brest and the Snezhnogorsk - of the Kola Flotilla of the Northern Fleet are learning to search for and destroy the conditional adversary’s submarines at combat training ranges in the Barents Sea, according to the Northern Fleet.
Filin optical disturbance station can blind the adversary at a distance of two kilometers and deny him a chance of precision fire at a warship. Integral Director for quality Vladimir Zharov told the Zvezda broadcaster about the prospective design in the sphere. At present, several models of the blinder are being designed.
Team Leander (BAE Systems and Cammell Laird), Babcock’s Team31 (Babcock with BMT and Thales), and Atlas Elektronik UK in association with Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems have been shortlisted for the building of the UK’s Type 31e frigate.
Russian hypersonic missile, the Zircon, will for the first time be launched from a military vessel at the end of 2019, a source in the Russian military-industrial complex told TASS.
Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Richard V. Spencer has announced the new class of Towing, Salvage, and Rescue ships will be named "Navajo" in honor of the major contributions the Navajo people have made to the armed forces.
The Belgian government has made a decision for the replacement of the Navy’s mine hunters. Didier Reynders, Minister of Defense, announced that the Council of Ministers had endorsed the choice of the French consortium formed by Naval Group & ECA Robotics for the replacement of its mine hunters (six for Belgium, six for The Netherlands).
Raytheon Co., Integrated Defense Systems, Marlborough, Massachusetts, is awarded a $402,658,015 fixed-price-incentive (firm target) modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-14-C-5315 to exercise options for Air and Missile Defense Radar Program (AMDR) low-rate initial production (LRIP).
The French DGA Naval Engineering Department (DGA/TN), an entity specializing in mine warfare experiments, has selected the iXblue Gaps acoustic positioning system for its submarine positioning and tracking applications.
As the Navy faces more complex threats to its manned ships from Russia and China, the service is moving quickly to field an unmanned “Ghost Fleet” — a new breed of armed unmanned surface combatants will add more sensors and weapons to the current fleet.
