Free Republic

Moscow (AFP) - Russia has dispatched a new ship armed with cruise missiles to the Mediterranean, the navy announced Saturday, as reports said it is bound for Syria. The Zelyony Dol, a patrol ship armed with Kalibr cruise missiles that only joined the Black Sea fleet in December, departed for the Mediterranean, the Black Sea fleet said in a statement. RIA-Novosti news agency further quoted a security source in Crimea -- where the Black Sea fleet is based -- saying that the ship is bound for Syria and may take part in Russia's campaign to support the Syrian army. "The...

The B-52 had long been one of the Air Force's key weapons, being the first aircraft to attack Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War. But over the past two decades, half of the military's B-52s have been scrapped due to budget constraints, leading several companies to come up with suggestions for a replacement. One of these groups was Boeing, who came up with a plan in the 1980s to turn a 747 into a launcher capable of carrying 70 cruise missiles. The aim was to create a low-cost bomber, at 15 per cent the price of the B-2, but able...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) made his pitch to Jewish leaders Thursday in Washington, vowing that if he’s elected president, he’ll undo the Iran nuclear deal. “ We need to nominate a candidate who has the clarity to stand up and say: If you vote for Hillary Clinton, you are voting for the Ayatollah Khamenei to have nuclear weapons,” Cruz said when wrapping up his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. “ And if you vote for me, Iran will never have nuclear weapons.” In a tailored version of his stump speech, Cruz vowed to “ rip to shreds ”...

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS-DEFENSE/. The performance of the Kalibr-NK system’s (NATO reporting name: SS-N-Sizzler) 3M-14 cruise missile in attacks on terrorists in Syria highlighted the need for the en masse introduction of the type to equip the Navy’s in-service and in-construction surface combatants and submarines, military expert Maxim Klimov writes in the Military Industrial Courier weekly. "Decisive measures are due in order to afford the Navy a real conventional strike capability, with the measures to include a revision of the earlier-made steps (e.g. the governmental armament acquisition program, shipbuilding program, research and development) and modification of the organization and distribution...

The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) has long been a mainstay of the U.S. strike weapon inventory. Launching from ranges out to 1,000 miles and armed with a 1,000-pound warhead, it is the Navy’s “Kick Down the Door” weapon, attacking well-defended high-value land targets. The BLK IV missile is the latest variant in a steady progression of capability, incorporating mission planning, navigation and guidance, and command and control upgrades designed to improve responsiveness and target flexibility. Combat-proven and operationally reliable, Tomahawk remains a weapon of choice for planners and commanders alike. The FY 2016 budget maintains production and inventory levels,...

SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Yonhap) -- The military is reviewing whether it is possible to arm its FA-50 light combat fighters with a new variant of the Taurus air-to-surface missile to enhance combat capabilities, a military official said Thursday. Europe-based Taurus Systems is now developing a new version of the Taurus missile, numbered 350K-2, for possible use for the Air Force and the Army, the official said. The target specifications for the new variant under development are a range of 400 kilometers and a cruise speed of Mach 0.6~0.9, according to the official. The original version, the Taurus KEPD 350, has...

The Navy is investigating adding an anti-ship missile to its submarine force — bringing it inline with the majority of the world naval submarines, the director of Naval Reactors said on Wednesday. In response to a question from the audience at the 2015 Naval Submarine League Symposium, Adm. Frank Caldwell said the Navy was exploring adding the capability to the fleet. “For this audience, I’ll tell you we are considering that and we are taking some some steps to delivering that kind of capability to our submarine force and I can’t really say anymore than that,” he said. The U.S....

On Oct. 7, Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired 26 high-tech cruise missiles at rebel targets in Syria—a staggering 1,000 miles away. The missiles in question, which the Pentagon calls SS-N-30s, were mostly unknown to the outside world before the Oct. 7 raid. Even close watchers of the Russian military were surprised to see them. The missile attack was also highly visible. In many ways, it was an announcement to the world, and America in particular, that the once-dilapidated Russian navy is back in action—and that Putin’s missileers are now among the planet’s most advanced. Planning for the missile...

The Russian navy’s Caspian Sea flotilla launched a barrage of some twenty-six long-range cruise missiles against eleven targets more than 950 miles away in Syria yesterday. While it’s well known that Russia possesses long-range cruise missiles, the fact that the missiles were launched from relatively diminutive corvettes that caught some by surprise. While the roughly 1,900-ton displacement Project 1166.1 Gepard-class frigate Dagestan led the Russian cruise missile strike, the rest of Moscow’s fleet consisted of tiny 950-ton Project 2163.1 Buyan-M-class corvettes. Three of these vessels, Grad Sviyazhsk, Uglich and Veliky Ustyug took part in the attack using long-range Novator 3M-14T...

KUBINKA (Moscow Region) (Sputnik) – Russia is ready to equip the Gepard-class 3.9 frigates for Vietnam with Club-class cruise missile systems, the director of Zelenodolsk shipbuilding plant said Monday. "If the Vietnamese partners want to install Club missiles [on the frigates], we are ready to provide them with these weapons," Sergei Rudenko told RIA Novosti. At present, Gepard-class frigates are equipped with Russian Uran anti-ship missiles. Club missiles are designed for warships to hit both surface and ground targets. Gepard-class 3.9 frigates are an export version of Project 11661 guard vessels, built in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. In 2011,...

I was discussing reports of a new Russian sea-launched cruise missile with my colleague, Nikolai Sokov. He has a number of thoughts about what is going on, so I was delighted when he offered to write them up. There are a lot of really interesting things in Nikolai’s piece. One comment — I remain undecided about the idea that the alleged Russian INF violation arises from a ground-based test of a sea-launched cruise missile. The new information, though, does seem to bolster that case, at least a bit, but my intuition is that it is a new ground-launched cruise missile....

Russia is nearing deployment of a new missile capable of targeting all of Europe with nuclear or conventional warheads, according to defense officials. Disclosure of the new SSN-30A missile threat comes as Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Thursday warned that Moscow under Vladmir Putin is reemerging as an existential security threat. Russia “is a very, very significant threat,” Carter told reporters at the Pentagon. “And I think a point that they’ve made, but I would certainly make: Russia poses an existential threat to the United States by virtue simply of the size of the nuclear arsenal that it has.” Regarding...

Images have emerged on the Chinese internet showing what seems to be a mobile coastal variant of the YJ-18 (YingJi-18 or Eagle/Hawk-18) vertically-launched, long-range, supersonic, anti-ship missile. Two types of vehicles are shown in the recent pictures: a 12x12 chassis acting as the transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicle and a smaller 8x8 chassis that could be the transporter/reloader vehicle (or a different missile as the canisters appear to be quite smaller than on the 12x12). The missile launched from the 12x12 vehicle seems quite large, but one has to remember that a shore based anti-ship variant of YJ-18 could be...

During the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995–96), United States naval dominance was demonstrated through the deployment of two carrier battle groups as a show of force within 100 miles of the Chinese mainland. Then-Secretary of Defense William Perry could state that while the Chinese “are a great military power, the premier—the strongest—military power in the Western Pacific is the United States.” Since then, there has been a steady encroachment on the U.S. Navy’s maritime dominance through the development of technologically advanced and increasingly effective anti- ship cruise missiles (ASCM). While American forces have been focused on irregular warfare operations over...

Poland's Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said on Thursday he has asked the United States whether the European nation could buy Tomahawk missiles for its new submarines. "One of the capabilities we want them (the submarines) to have is cruise missiles," Siemoniak told public radio, following a report by daily newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Siemoniak also said around 10,000 NATO soldiers will take part in military exercises in Poland this year,

DH-10 Launch Xinhui, via China Defense Forum This clear image of a TEL vehicle launching a DH-10 provides us with a detailed look at the cruise missile; while the tailfins have deployed, the air intake and wings have not. The debris is from the breaking open of the canister, while the short cylinder attached to the missile's rear is its integrated rocket booster that brings the missile into flight before the turbofan engine starts. A DH-10 land attack cruise missile (LACM) launches out of its canister, heading for parts unknown. Weighing about 1-1.5 tons (about the same size as the...

One of the many new weapons shown for the first time Airshow China this year was the China Aerospace Science Industrial Corporation (CASIC) CX-1 Mach 3 cruise missile. The PRC’s defense industrial complex has a number of cruise missiles that can be either ship- or air-launched, and each successive show at Zhuhai seems to generate new models. So this missile is not a major breakthrough in Chinese defense technology. What makes the CX-1 unusual is its close resemblance to another missile that is well-known to the rest of the world: the joint Indian-Russian project, the BrahMos. The uncanny similarity of...

The Polish Armed Forces plan to acquire cruise missiles for the new type of submarines. The missiles are to be capable of striking ground targets at distances up to 800 km, and are treated as an indispensable element of the Polish Armed Forces strategic deterrence system. According to MoD secretary of state Czesław Mroczek, the process for the acquisition of these new submarines is to start later this year, with contractor selection to follow in 2015. Minister Mroczek stressed that, while it is certain that the Polish Armed Forces will acquire cruise missiles for the submarines, some issues nevertheless remain...

Lockheed Martin and Turkish missile manufacturer Roketsan signed an agreement Wednesday to produce and sell Turkey's SOM-J air-launched cruise missile for the F-35 Lightning II combat jet, the companies said. The agreement, signed in the Turkish capital Ankara, envisages the development, production, marketing, selling and supporting the SOM-J for internal carriage on the F-35 or external carriage on other aircraft."Lockheed Martin has a long history of partnership with Turkey, and we look forward to working closely with Roketsan on this very important project," said Rick Edwards, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. Edwards also said the...

As part of the EURONAVAL Press Tour, Navy Recognition had the chance to visit the MBDA site of Selles Saint Denis last week. This “missile factory” is the European Missile Integration Center. During our tour, we got the chance to see the production lines of the Exocet family of anti-ship missiles, Mica and Aster anti-air missiles and Scalp cruise missiles. But the highlight of the visit was by far when MBDA showed us two freshly assembled Naval Cruise Missile (NCM or MdCN in French). NCM Programme The ability to strike strategic and military targets with exceptional precision from extended stand-off...