Defence news 11/24/2010

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[b]India to built two test ranges of electronic warfare systems[/b]

India would build two ranges for testing radar-based electronic warfare systems as it seeks to strengthen its capability in the field, seen to be vital in war scenarios.

One range would come up in Chitradurga in Karnataka and another in Tandur in Andhra Pradesh, which would test "non-communication" and "communication" EW systems, respectively, a key defence official said today.

These two would be part of the 4,000-acre aeronautical test range in Chitradurga, some 200 km from here, and the 8,000-acre one in Tandur, some 135 km from Hyderabad. At present, EW systems are tested in the IAF range in Gwalior in a limited way.
Once the two new testing ranges (in Chitradurga and Tandur) are operational in 2012-13, experimental and R&D tests can be conducted, said Prahlada, Chief Controller, R&D (Ae & SI), Defence Research and Development Organisation.

Speaking at the India National Electronic Warfare Workshop (EWWI-2010), he said an investment of Rs 200 crore each is expected in the two test ranges.

"Electronic Warfare is becoming a very important area because... You may have all weapons but if somebody jams you (the weapons), you are as good as useless. Before firing the missile, you are already decimated," he said.

"Without electronic warfare, you cannot win a war. Once you have it (EW capability), you have to test it, you can't wait for a war to test it," Prahlada said.

He said the present EW systems have been integrated with MiG-27 fighters and operational flights are slated next year. They would be integrated with MiG-29 fighters and the light combat aircraft next year.

In 2012, Prahlada said India would fly a fourth-generational EW system, which is being developed by Defence Avionics Research Establishment and Defence Electronics Research Laboratory.

He also said the flight-testing of the long-range surface-to-air missile, being jointly developed by India and Israel, would start next year. Ground-testing has just been completed.

Prahlada said DRDO was completely off the US entities list and it is a "big relief". Now US industries were free to do business with India, he said.

DRDO now can source raw materials, software packages, testing equipment, components and manufacturing process machinery, which was a difficult exercise when sanctions were in place.

During times of sanctions, it was also difficult to source such items from even countries such as UK and Germany because they were "aligned" with the US, resulting in some of the DRDO projects being delayed.

Prahlada also said DRDO was expecting a budget of Rs 9,000 crore in 2011-12 in the area of strategic systems and tactical defence.

[bongule]

ee thadu date tho padindi enti.....anni post lu ee thadu lo veyya bothunnada  sCo_hmmthink sCo_hmmthink sCo_hmmthink

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[b]Tatas make first defence purchase[/b]

MUMBAI: The $72-billion Tata Group has made its first acquisition in the defence business . Tata Advanced Systems (TAS), a company set up in 2006 to tap the enormous opportunities in India’s defence sector, has bought a 74% stake in Hyderabad-based HBL Elta Avionics for an undisclosed amount.

The remaining 26% continues to be held by its foreign partner ELTA Systems, a unit of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). TAS has bought controlling interest in HBL Elta from HBL Power Systems , a company listed on the BSE, and the transaction was sealed a few weeks ago, said a Tata group source. The South-based outfit manufactures parts and accessories for defence-related aerospace applications. Mape Advisory , a boutique investment banking firm, advised Tatas on the transaction.

This will be the group’s second JV with IAI. It already has a 74:26 partnership to manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems, missiles, radars and homeland security systems. IAI chief executive Itzhak Nissan and Tata Sons chairman Rata Tata have ambitious plans to build a multibillion dollar enterprise in the defence sector.

The Indian government has been modernizing the manufacturing of defence equipment, opening up the area for private players. It, however, has capped foreign direct investment to 26% and debates have been on to raise it to 49%. For the Tata Group, the acquisition underscores its huge interest in defence—identified as a key business area to its existing portfolio of salt-to-software and tea-to-telecom.

The group expects defence to be more than $5 billion business in the near future. And for that, TAS has struck a few partnerships with foreign companies for technology, among other things.

It has a joint venture with US-based helicopter manufacturer Sikorsy to manufacture cabins for Sikorsky S-92 helicopters. And recently, the company unveiled its first cabin, rolled out from the Hyderabad facility. TAS also has a joint venture with AGT International to provide integrated solutions for homeland security market.

Another partnership is with Lockheed Martin, makers of the legendary F-16 fighter jet, to make aircraft parts for the overseas market. “We are in discussions to sign a couple of more partnerships with foreign companies,” said the Tata group source.

The group has been present in defence, homeland security and disaster management space for several years but in a small way. One of the group companies that laid the foundation for this business was Nelco—a company where group chairman Ratan Tata cut his teeth in business in the ’70s. Today, there are several group companies such as Tata Communications , CMC and Titan Industries which cater to defence and aerospace.

Tata Power Strategic Electronic Division was a successful bidder for the Indian Air Force project involving the upgradate of 30 IAF airfields. Early this year, Tata Motors launched combat vehicles to enhance its participation in the defence sector.

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[quote author=Nemo link=topic=124862.msg1380061#msg1380061 date=1290613066]
ee thadu date tho padindi enti.....anni post lu ee thadu lo veyya bothunnada  sCo_hmmthink sCo_hmmthink sCo_hmmthink
[/quote] @gr33d

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[b]Air Commodore R Radhish takes over as CO of Kalaikunda Airbase[/b]


Air Commodore R Radhish has taken over the charge of AOC,Indian Air Force Station, Kalaikunda from Air Commodore DK Vashisht who has proceeded to College of Defence Management on posting.

Air Force Station Kalaikunda is a premier fighter Air Base of the IAF under the Eastern Air Command, responsible for the protection of the vital areas and vital points in state of West Bengal and surrounding areas.

[img]http://frontierindia.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Air_Commodore_R_Radhish.jpg[/img] Air Commodore R Radhish

Air Cmde Radhish is a fighter pilot who was commissioned in June 1985 after passing out from the Air Force Academy and has flown over 2500 hours. He has flown Ajeets, Mig-23s and Mig-27s.
Air Cmde Radhish is a fighter pilot par excellence who has also been a flying instructor and an examiner on various types of fighter aircraft. He has earlier commanded a fighter squadron in Gujrat and a crucial radar Station in Jharkhand. Air Cmde Radhish has done his post graduation from joint services command and Staff College in United Kingdom. He was also an instructor in military studies at the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington, Tamil Nadu.

For his meritorious service so far he has been awarded the Vayu Sena Medal (2006).

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[b]Boeing Offers F/A 18 Naval Variant for Indian Navy Fighter Jet Requirement[/b]

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/FA-18_Hornet_VFA-41.jpg/300px-FA-18_Hornet_VFA-41.jpg[/img] Boeing India has offered a naval variant of the F/A 18 E/F Super Hornets multi role fighter jet platform to the Indian Navy. The Navy currently has one aircraft carrier (INS Viraat) in service and Russia is expected to deliver INS Vikramaditya by 2012.

India is developing indigenous aircraft carriers and the aim is to have a total of three Aircraft carriers resulting in two fully operational Carrier battle groups and an additional Aircraft carrier eventually in refit making India an operating Blue-water navy.

Dr. Vivek Lall, Vice President, Boeing Defense, Space and Security, India confirmed:
"We have responded to the RFP with our F/A-18 Super Hornet platform. We made a presentation to Navy earlier this year."
-- Dr. Vivek Lall

The Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a twin-engine 4.5 generation carrier-based multi-role fighter aircraft. The F/A-18E single-seat variant and F/A-18F tandem-seat variant are larger and more advanced derivatives of the F/A-18C and D Hornet. The Super Hornet has an internal 20 mm gun and can carry air-to-air missiles and air-to-surface weapons.

Additional fuel can be carried with up to five external fuel tanks and the aircraft can be configured as an airborne tanker by adding a buddy air refuelling system.

The F/A 18's are being operated by the United States Navy -- the Super Hornet achieved initial operating capability (IOC) in September 2001 with the U.S. Navy's VFA-115 squadron at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California.

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[b]DRDO plans a slew of high-profile launches by December[/b]


Two months after its embarrassing failure in the test firing of nuclear-weapons capable, surface-to-surface Prithvi-II ballistic missile from Chandipur in Orissa, the Defence Research Development Organisation officials are planning a slew of high-profile missile launches before the year ends.

On September 24, the Prithvi-II missile with a maximum range of 350 km dropped off a few seconds after it was fired from a mobile launcher from Integrated Test Range in Chandipur-on-sea of Orissa. DRDO so far has been silent on the failure on the missile which has been inducted into the Army.

DRDO sources said that on November 25, the nuclear-capable and surface-to-surface single stage Agni-I missile would be test-fired by personnel of the Strategic Forces Command as part of Indian Army's user-training exercise from Wheeler Island on Bay of Bengal. The missile was last successfully test-fired on March 28. Like Prithvi-II, Agni-I has also been inducted into the Army. The missile which has a range of 700 km, can carry payloads weighing up to 1000 kg. Agni-1, with its rail and road mobility can target most cities in Pakistan without having to be launched from the border. Agni-I is designed to bridge the gap between indigenously built short-range Prithvi, already deployed in the Army, and medium range Agni-II, that has a range of more than 2,000 km.


On December 2, DRDO would test-fire supersonic cruise missile Brahmos that has a range of 290 kms. It was last tested successfully on September 5.

Similarly, the 2,000 km plus range surface-to-surface nuclear-capable missile Agni-II would be test-fired from Wheeler Island between December 8 and 12. The missile was last tested successfully on May 17 this year after two successive failures last year. The 20-metre long Agni-II is a two stage, solid-propelled ballistic missile. It has a launch weight of 17 tonnes and can carry a payload of 1000 kg over a distance of 2000 km. In February this year, the 3,500-km plus range Agni-III was also successfully test-fired.

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[b]Arrest trend of importing arms, says Navy chief[/b]


Favouring self-reliance in military technologies and weapons production, Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma on Wednesday said that India should arrest the trend of importing arms.
"If we aspire to become a strong nation and have the flexibility to choose our own courses of action to deal with internal and external challenges, we need to become self-reliant in critical national security requirements and technologies," Verma said. He was inaugurating the Confederation of Indian Industry-sponsored NAVARMS, a two-day seminar on naval armament technologies in New Delhi

Verma said India had met most of its security requirements over the last six decades as a "net importer" of military hardware. "Considering existing and anticipated orders for aircraft, ships and submarines, our imports may continue well into the foreseeable future, unless concrete steps are taken to arrest this trend. A significant component of the requirement is for upgradation of our existing fleet and inventory of armament and armament stores," he said.

Though its growing economy was "a great national asset" that made the world take notice of India's potential to contribute at the global level, he said the difference between economic progress and strategic self-sufficiency has to be recognised.

The Navy chief said India, having come this impressive distance over the last two decades in developing engineering, technological and industrial strengths, was ready to embark on more ambitious ventures in pursuit of self-reliance and indigenisation. "The field of developing armament and armament systems lends itself to this effort. Developing critical technologies and capabilities is vital to enhancing the nation's strategic flexibility, and developing indigenous armament systems will not only give our armed forces a competitive edge, but also strengthen the nation economically and industrially," he added.

Noting that India was gradually opening the defence industry to private players, Verma said the country should endeavour to make armament production vastly more indigenous and called for increasing ordnance factories' and defence public sector units' procurement of assemblies and sub-assemblies from private sector from the current Rs 3,100 crore.

He said the Navy followed a three-pronged action plan to enhance self-reliance in naval armament -- joint design and development with Defence Research and Development Organisation, transfer of technology to ordnance factories and defence public sector undertakings from foreign manufacturers, and supporting private industry in their research and development efforts and from purchases.
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[b]Intel network planned to keep an eye on sea[/b]

NEW DELHI: Two years ago, Laskhar jihadis exposed gaping holes in India's maritime and coastal security architecture to unleash the 26/11 strikes in Mumbai. After plugging some gaps, the government is now also considering a comprehensive maritime intelligence network to detect, share and neutralize threats swiftly.

Towards this, Navy has submitted an exhaustive technical blueprint on the integrated national "maritime domain awareness (MDA)" project to all the Union ministries concerned and the 14 coastal states and island territories. This detailed project report also came up for discussion during a meeting of the national committee for strengthening maritime and coastal security, chaired by cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar, on Tuesday, said sources.

The 262-page blueprint, accessed by TOI, centres around the high-tech National Command Control Communication and Intelligence Network (NC3IN), already being set up by Navy as the "main backbone" for the national MDA project. While several components are already in place, with the central hub for NC3IN coming up at Gurgaon for instance, the blueprint says an additional Rs 900 crore in capital expenditure is needed to implement the entire MDA project.

The aim is to generate a "common operational picture" of all ongoing activities at sea through an institutionalised mechanism for collecting, fusing and analysing information from technical and other sources like coastal surveillance network radars, space-based automatic identification systems, vessel traffic management systems (VTMS), fishing vessel registration and fishermen biometric identity databases.

The new MDA proposals include "state monitoring centres" in coastal states/UTs to act as nodes for the national MDA network and upgradation of the four existing joint operations centres at Mumbai, Kochi, Vizag and Port Blair as well as creation of a shipping hub and fisheries monitoring centre. There is also the need to set up VTMS at the 56 non-major ports that handle international traffic. While India's 13 major ports either have or are being equipped with VTMS, except for Port Blair, none of the 200 non-major ports have any identification or surveillance systems. It also calls for a VTMS for the eastern off-shore development areas like the one set up for the western ones.

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[b]UK invites Indian army for 2-month-long jt military exercise[/b]

LONDON: Britain has invited the Indian army for the first of its kind joint military exercise here for two months next year, a media report said today.

The exercise would involve a company of Indian soldiers training alongside British troops for two months next summer, 'The Times' daily said.

Liam Fox, the British Defence Secretary, is in New Delhi to offer India joint missile and other weapon technology research programmes and press it to sign a 7-billion-pound fighter jet contract of Eurofighter Typhoon consortium.

Admitting that the Typhoon, which he is trying to sell, was expensive, Fox said the consortium of companies from four nations behind the aircraft -- the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy -- would offer more than "just hardware".

The prospect of India aligning its Air Force more closely with the "battle-hardened" Royal Air Force (RAF) of the UK, with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, was also on offer, he told the newspaper.

Eurofighter is one of the six contenders in the IAF deal expected to be worth over USD 12 billion for procuring 126 fighter jets.

American F/A-18 and F-16, Russian MiG 35, Swede Gripen and French Rafale are the other contenders in the race.

Sir David Richards, Chief of the UK's Defence Staff, and junior Defence Ministers Gerald Howarth and Peter Luff are all due to visit India in the next few months as Britain seeks to broaden its ties with Indian military establishment.

[BommakantiNagalingam]

Endi ba ekkada taggatam ledu gaa
ina nu Army lo vundalsindi
em chestham aa raktham lo ne vundi gaa  sHa_high5ing sHa_high5ing

[robo]

[quote author=BommakantiNagalingam link=topic=124862.msg1380131#msg1380131 date=1290613553]
Endi ba ekkada taggatam ledu gaa
ina nu Army lo vundalsindi
em chestham aa raktham lo ne vundi gaa  sHa_high5ing sHa_high5ing
[/quote] sCo_hmmthink sCo_hmmthink sCo_hmmthink detailed pleeze

[bongule]

[quote author=BENZBABU link=topic=124862.msg1380070#msg1380070 date=1290613124]
@gr33d
[/quote] #$1 #$1 #$1

[Deletedid1]

[quote author=BommakantiNagalingam link=topic=124862.msg1380131#msg1380131 date=1290613553]
Endi ba ekkada taggatam ledu gaa
ina nu Army lo vundalsindi
em chestham aa raktham lo ne vundi gaa  sHa_high5ing sHa_high5ing
[/quote]

raktham lo undi gaani......... medical exam lo fail  sSa_j@il sSa_j@il

[skchinnari]

sCo_hmmthink