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The Russian navy plans to purchase a “submarine-killer” version of its Be-200 amphibious aircraft by 2020, an unnamed official said Sunday. President Vladimir Putin has made the modernization of Russia’s military aircraft a priority as part of a larger plan to revamp the armed forces by the end of the decade. The Be-200 aircraft’s anti-submarine version will help to replace the Russian navy’s existing fleet of Be-12 amphibious planes, a decades-old model that officials now consider obsolete, the source told Russian agency Sputnik International News. Current versions of the Be-200 are used to contain fires or transport personnel, with a...

Northrop Grumman has been selected by the Office of Naval Research to develop a new cost-effective atom-based magnetic sensor, or magnetometer, for antisubmarine warfare operations. The highly sensitive magnetometer will be part of a magnetic anomaly detection system mounted on helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles or submarines. Whether in the air above the ocean or underwater as part of a towed array, the magnetometer will sense disturbances in the earth's magnetic field due to metallic objects in the vicinity, indicating a nearby submarine. Under a three-year $1.75 million contract, Northrop Grumman is being tasked to develop a magnetometer that is smaller,...

The first of a dozen anti-submarine aircraft are set to go into service in Taiwan next year, local media reported Sunday, as East Asian governments look to counter an increasingly assertive China. Washington agreed in 2007 to sell the refurbished P-3C Orion patrol aircraft, along with three non-operational machines for spares, and "the first ones will be delivered beginning next year," the Taipei-based China Times said. "The surveillance range of Taiwan's anti-submarine fleet will expand tenfold after the P-3Cs join the navy," it quoted an unnamed military source as saying. Taiwan's navy declined to comment on the report. The P-3C...

South Korea and the United States are expected to fix dates for their joint naval exercises after assessing progress in Seoul's diplomatic efforts to rebuke North Korea at the U.N. Security Council, an official here said Monday. The two countries agreed last month to hold the drills after a multinational team of investigators blamed North Korea for torpedoing a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in the Yellow Sea on March 26. The attack left 46 sailors dead. Seoul has referred the incident to the Security Council, urging its members to punish North Korea. "The dates for the joint exercises are...

South Korea and the United States have agreed to stage joint naval exercises later this month in the West Sea, an official at the Ministry of National Defense said Friday. “We’ve decided to stage joint naval drills in the final week of this month,” the official said. “U.S. warships belonging to the U.S. 7th Fleet, including an aircraft carrier, will join the drills as planned before.” The two governments were originally scheduled to hold naval exercises, including a joint anti-submarine drill, in early June in a show of force against possible North Korean provocation in waters near the sea border....

The night a torpedo-armed North Korean submarine allegedly sank a South Korean patrol ship, the U.S. and South Korea were engaged in joint anti-submarine warfare exercises just 75 miles away, military officials told The Associated Press. The blast that sank the Cheonan, the worst South Korean military disaster since the 1950-53 Korean War, showed how impoverished nations such as North Korea can still inflict heavy casualties on far better equipped and trained forces, even those backed by the might of the U.S. military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that plans for more joint U.S.-South Korea anti-submarine exercises, announced after...

United States and South Korea may hold additional military exercises in response to North Korea's alleged sinking of one of Seoul's warships, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday. US and South Korean officials were discussing possibly holding special exercises, including some focused on anti-submarine warfare, in the aftermath of the sinking of the Cheonan, Gates told reporters on his plane before arriving in Singapore. "The exercises that are being discussed in Washington and between Washington and Seoul would be some additional exercises beyond the routine exercises" regularly held with South Korea's military, he said. Gates said there were no...

Iranian warship the Jamaran on Sunday test-fired a home-built torpedo for the first time as part of ongoing naval war games in the Gulf, state television's website reported. "This torpedo is anti-submarine and when it is fired from the warship, it automatically hunts for the submarine and destroys it," navy commander Arya Hassani was quoted as saying. The report said the torpedo was fired from the Iran-built Jamaran, which was deployed earlier this year. It has a displacement of around 1,400 tonnes and is equipped for electronic warfare. On Wednesday the Islamic republic's navy began eight days of manoeuvres in...

Meanwhile the South Korean military plans to beef up security in the waters near its maritime border with North Korea. Reports indicate the South Korean Navy will conduct more anti-submarine drills in the West Sea where a warship sank in March. claiming the lives of 46 sailors. Seoul's National Defense Ministry also plans to request government funds to improve underwater surveillance by modernizing sonar devices and naval radar systems. And more joint anti-submarine warfare exercises between South Korean and US forces could take place in the East and West Seas. In a report to President Lee Myung-bak South Korean defense...

Boeing Co. said it’s completed a series of tests of its new P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine airplane in Seattle, with tests being described as “a major milestone.” The U.S. Navy is slated to buy 117 of the maritime and patrol aircraft, which are derived from a 737 fuselage. Spirit AeroSystems Inc. in Wichita makes most of the 737 airframe. The P-8A aircraft contains sophisticated detection equipment and weaponry that are designed to find and sink submarines that could threaten aircraft carriers. The complete P-8A program will be worth more than $40 billion. The airplane that Boeing tested in Seattle was subjected...

South Korea has given the production go-ahead for the first 70 Hongsangeo anti-submarine torpedoes for deployment between 2010 and 2012, the government has said. Up to 70 of the long-range ship-to-submarine light torpedoes, called Red Shark in English, will be operational aboard some of South Korea's newest country's destroyers, the KDX-I/II, according to the procurement agency Defense Acquisition Program Administration. After nine years of development, the final tests were completed earlier this year, the DAPA's sister organization the state-funded Agency for Defense Development announced in June. Deployment is in response to a growing threat from North Korean submarines, the ADD...

Russia and China hope to sign a massive arms deal after staging joint exercises for the first time RUSSIA will show off its most modern bombers to its best military customer and China will have a chance to demonstrate that it is a force to be reckoned with when the giant neighbours hold their first joint military exercises this month. The decision to hold the drills off the east China coast in the Yellow Sea came after a disagreement over Beijing’s initial desire for the games to take place further south, opposite the island of Taiwan — which it hopes...

THE UNRAVELING AND REVITALIZATION OF U.S. NAVY ANTISUBMARINE WARFARE hat “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is a truism.1 As Captain John Morgan warned more than five years ago concerning U.S. Navy antisubmarine warfare (ASW), “Acknowledging and understanding ASW’s recurring cycles of ‘boom-and-bust’ can accelerate the awakening that is now underway in the Navy. We need to avoid any further unraveling.”2 The present Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Vernon Clark, has recently taken a number of related steps, most notably the establishment of a new Fleet ASW Command in San Diego, California.3 A central...

IRABU, Okinawa Prefecture-An airstrip on the islet of Shimojijima, far southwest of Okinawa's main island, has been swept up in the United States' geopolitical strategy to transform its armed forces. Besides the U.S. military, the maneuverings involve the Self-Defense Forces, town council intrigue, local fear of Chinese submarines and a mysterious negotiator promising money from the central government. As for the island's strategic value, no one seems quite sure. What is certain is that little progress is being made on construction of an offshore heliport near Henoko in Okinawa's Nago. The facility is intended to replace the U.S. Marine Corps...

China National Offshore Oil Corporation is considering a nearly $14bn (£7bn, €10.6bn) takeover of Unocal of the US. Sinopec, another Chinese state-controlled oil group, has struck a $70bn deal to buy Iranian crude oil and liquefied natural gas over three decades. China has sent $6bn to Rosneft, the Russian company that bought the main production unit of the embattled Yukos oil group, as advance payment for oil supplies. India has just reached a $40bn agreement to import LNG from Iran and develop Iranian oilfields, and is promoting pipeline projects to bring oil and gas across neighbouring countries to supply its...