Naval and Defense News

[AlGrant]

Russian AGI sinks after collision off Turkish Black Sea coast.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-turkey-russia-ship-idUKKBN17T1PT

The salvage op could be interesting, I'm sure there are people who would like to have a look around!

[Hongjian]

http://www.janes.com/article/69826/cons ... rges-ahead

Construction of China's Type 055 destroyers forges ahead

Airbus Defence and Space imagery captured on 11 April 2017 showing two Type 055 DDG hulls under assembly within a dry dock at Dalian shipyard in China. Source: CNES 2017, Distribution Airbus DS/2017 IHS Markit

Commercial satellite imagery taken on 11 April shows that significant progress has been made in the construction of the first four Type 055 destroyers for China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

At the Jiangnan Changxingdao shipyard near Shanghai, where construction of the lead ship of the class commenced in late 2014, Hull 1 appears to have all the modules in place and most of the modules for Hull 2 are in position.

In late 2016, hull modules appeared on the side of a graving dock at the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company (DSIC) yard and by 7 March keel blocks were being positioned in the dock to support the construction of two hulls side by side. By 11 April, modules for two Type 055 hulls had been lifted from the dockside onto the keel blocks and assembly was clearly underway.

Measurements from the images indicate that the Type 055 will be about 180 m long and 19 m wide, meaning that it will be significantly larger than the 7,500-tonne Luyang III-class (Type 052D) destroyers (157 m long and 17 m wide). This places the size of the Type 055 between the Republic of Korea Navy's Sejong Daewang (KDX-3) class (166 m/10,500 tonnes) and the Russian Federation Navy's Slava class (186 m/11,700 tonnes).

The images from Changxingdao show the module that will contain the forward vertical launch system (VLS) cells, with a second grid of cells set to be positioned forward of the hangar.

The forward grid appears to be divided into 16 sections, four across and four deep, with overall dimensions of 13 m in length and 10.5 m in width.

Comparison with the dimensions of the two 32-cell VLS grids fitted to the Type 052D suggests that the VLS in the Type 055 will have 64 cells in the forward grid.

[redcoat]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

Nice little update on the F35s in Estonia.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/96 ... nd-critics

Was this a technical deployment? A political deployment? Or both? I think technically, the deployment will have a far more significant and longer lasting impact than any short term geopolitical message it sends to Russia - which it does to some extent.

Kevin

The Aviationist has looked at the F-35s brief visit to Estonia from RAF Lakenheath

Link

[Dysta]

FC-1B, the two-seater variant of JF-17 Block 2, has conducted maiden flight recently:

https://youtu.be/AJr4hBxoVfo

[kevinkins]

ORIGINAL: redcoat

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

Nice little update on the F35s in Estonia.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/96 ... nd-critics

Was this a technical deployment? A political deployment? Or both? I think technically, the deployment will have a far more significant and longer lasting impact than any short term geopolitical message it sends to Russia - which it does to some extent.

Kevin

The Aviationist has looked at the F-35s brief visit to Estonia from RAF Lakenheath

Link

Thanks for the link. Perhaps the unusual use of the RC-135U was to be on station if the Russian's showed their "electronic hand". Will never know if they did I suppose.

Kevin

PS: The RC-135U I see in the database is from 1971. Is that the one to apply to today's scenarios?

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

ORIGINAL: redcoat

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

Nice little update on the F35s in Estonia.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/96 ... nd-critics

Was this a technical deployment? A political deployment? Or both? I think technically, the deployment will have a far more significant and longer lasting impact than any short term geopolitical message it sends to Russia - which it does to some extent.

Kevin

The Aviationist has looked at the F-35s brief visit to Estonia from RAF Lakenheath

Link

Thanks for the link. Perhaps the unusual use of the RC-135U was to be on station if the Russian's showed their "electronic hand". Will never know if they did I suppose.

Kevin

PS: The RC-135U I see in the database is from 1971. Is that the one to apply to today's scenarios?

Yeah this is my guess too. They were listening/watching to see if the RU could see them.

Mike

[mikmykWS]

Just FYI guys. It doesn't actually matter with some of the more secret platforms which one's you use because we don't really have real data on them in most cases anyways.Generic generational models are used for things that. If in when we do get data we do try and incorporate.So as long as an aircraft had advanced ECM or SIGINT you're doing exactly the same job from a modeling standpoint in most cases.

Mike

[kevinkins]

Good advice. Thanks Mike.

Kevin

[Dysta]

ORIGINAL: Dysta

A non-official vote has been raised for naming a near-complete Chinese Type 001A aircraft carrier on china.com. Only for few days, a great majority of Chinese netizens voted "Taiwan" rather than rumored official name "Shandong", suggesting China should follow South Korean and Vietnam's naming to rebuke geopolitical disputes/conflicts.

In contrast however, the least amount of voters chose "Hong Kong" for new carrier name, signaling disfavors against Hong Konger's anti-sovereignty identity:

http://www.iqiyi.com/kszt_phone/wghmqgm.html (simplified Chinese, vote is for Chinese users only)

The non-official vote backfired -- one of a option named "Pipixia" based on the Chinese meme was surpassed the top vote "Taiwan". BBC reported it as China is 'considering' the ridiculous name in favor to Chinese netizens. The official source China Youth Journal immediately reported and curbed the voting as it strongly mentioned it has nothing to do with 001A naming standard at all. Yet, the damage is done and now some Chinese decided to nicknamed the incomplete aircraft carrier as Pipixia.

Not all are taking this joke, though. Many pro-military commenters are seriously disgusted by that meme, like from china.com for instance:

http://3g.china.com/act/military/111729 ... 088_2.html (Simplified Chinese)

[redcoat]

Audacious, the fourth of seven Astute class attack submarines being built for the Royal Navy, has been launched by BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness.

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2017/april/28/170428-audacious-launched

[Broncepulido]

I don't know if this news report was referenced on his day a few months ago, 27 January 2017.
Intrigued by the fate of the upcoming Sea Ceptor naval SAM, no news in a long time.
Looking for it in Internet only found this recent report:
http://navaltoday.com/2017/01/27/hms-we ... jor-refit/

Apparently from October 2016 is finished the refit adding Sea Ceptor launcher and Artisan 3D radar (some of them had it previously, I think) in the frigates Westminster, Montrose and Argyll (the latter designed as test ship for Sea Ceptor), waiting now for the induction in service of Sea Ceptor.

Note Wesminster is equipped with towed Sonar 2087 and the correspondent Merlin helicopter, but Montrose and Argyll are ships with the older towed Sonar 2031, the correspondent Sea Lynx (now retired)/Wildcat and probably previously with Radar 996 (AWS-9) I think initially not to be considered to be updated with Sea Ceptor and Artisan 3D.

[kevinkins]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -ship.html

Not sure how a chopper carrier specifically depends a supply ship except for ASW.

Kevin

[Dysta]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

Not sure how a chopper carrier specifically depends a supply ship except for ASW.

Kevin

Me neither, it's a high speed carrier (32 knots max), and should be incorporate with destroyers.

[redcoat]

ORIGINAL: Broncepulido

I don't know if this news report was referenced on his day a few months ago, 27 January 2017.
Intrigued by the fate of the upcoming Sea Ceptor naval SAM, no news in a long time.
Looking for it in Internet only found this recent report:
http://navaltoday.com/2017/01/27/hms-we ... jor-refit/

Apparently from October 2016 is finished the refit adding Sea Ceptor launcher and Artisan 3D radar (some of them had it previously, I think) in the frigates Westminster, Montrose and Argyll (the latter designed as test ship for Sea Ceptor), waiting now for the induction in service of Sea Ceptor.

Note Wesminster is equipped with towed Sonar 2087 and the correspondent Merlin helicopter, but Montrose and Argyll are ships with the older towed Sonar 2031, the correspondent Sea Lynx (now retired)/Wildcat and probably previously with Radar 996 (AWS-9) I think initially not to be considered to be updated with Sea Ceptor and Artisan 3D.

I suppose the latest news is that the Ministry of Defence has ordered £323 million worth of missiles for the RN’s Sea Ceptor and the British Army’s Land Ceptor. Link.

Westminster, Montrose and Argyll have all had Sea Ceptor installed. HMS Argyll will be the lead trials vessel for Sea Ceptor sometime this year. She is currently alongside in HMNB Devonport following post-refit sea trials. I don't think HMS Westminster and HMS Montrose have yet completed their post-refit sea trials.

[redcoat]

Japan is to expedite a feasibility study on adopting a land-based Aegis missile defence system

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/29/national/japan-expedite-study-adopting-land-based-aegis-system/#.

[kevinkins]

[/quote]

Me neither, it's a high speed carrier (32 knots max), and should be incorporate with destroyers.

Wiki claims 7 ASW choppers. I guess they could, in theory, protect a single supply ship when dedicated to the task. Does NK have quiet subs to be worried about?

Kevin

[Gunner98]

I suspect that the most effective protection it can give is early warning using its sensor suite - which is probably pretty good. The ASW aspect is important because any other protection can fly in from any number of fairly close places to protect against anything else - as long as the threat is detected.

B

[mikmykWS]

The towed array etc. on the other escorts provide the early warning. This ship provides the helo's to help localize and if needed prosecute any contacts.

M

[orca]

Russia EW system in Crimea

https://news.usni.org/2017/05/01/offici ... unications

Not sure if system is in command but would be interesting with the upcoming Command com features!

[redcoat]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

Does NK have quiet subs to be worried about?

Kevin

The North Koreans don’t have much in the way of ‘quiet’ subs – but they do have a large number (50-70+) of ‘noisy’ and ‘rusty’ ones. In the past they have been put to sea in large numbers at the same time – and it has been difficult to keep track of all of them. They would not pose much of a threat to warships (on a war footing), but they would pose a threat to unescorted supply ships – and of course the commercial shipping near South Korean ports.