Free Republic

The government plans to equip the Air Self-Defense Force’s F-2 fighters with a new air-to-ship missile from next fiscal year, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. It will allocate several hundred millions of yen in a budgetary request for fiscal 2018 to mass produce the missile, which is currently under development, according to sources. The new missile will be the first supersonic air-to-ship type to be made in the country. It is characterized as being difficult to intercept, the sources said. The introduction of the new missile is aimed at keeping the Chinese Navy — which has been taking high-handed action...

Tuesday July 5, 7:27 PM ASDF to have 1st airstrike drill with live bomb on island off Guam(Kyodo) _ The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force is set to perform its first ever airstrike drill with live ammunition, scheduled to take place on an uninhabited island off Guam, ASDF officials said Tuesday. The drill, in which an ASDF combat aircraft will drop a 500-pound bomb on a ground target on the island some 350 kilometers north-northeast of Guam, will be conducted on the sidelines of a joint exercise between the ASDF and the U.S. Air Force in Guam to begin Monday. The...

Tuesday July 5, 7:27 PM ASDF to have 1st airstrike drill with live bomb on island off Guam (Kyodo) _ The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force is set to perform its first ever airstrike drill with live ammunition, scheduled to take place on an uninhabited island off Guam, ASDF officials said Tuesday. The drill, in which an ASDF combat aircraft will drop a 500-pound bomb on a ground target on the island some 350 kilometers north-northeast of Guam, will be conducted on the sidelines of a joint exercise between the ASDF and the U.S. Air Force in Guam to begin Monday....

ASDF flights into Baghdad put on hold The Asahi Shimbun -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Air Self-Defense Force will bypass Baghdad International Airport and land C-130 transport planes at other airfields in Iraq because of mounting security concerns, sources said Friday. In the latest incident Thursday, a mortar shell was lobbed at a checkpoint near Baghdad International Airport, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding another. For the time being, the ASDF will airlift relief supplies from Kuwait to other airports in Iraq considered safer than Baghdad. The basic dispatch plan agreed to in December listed Baghdad, Balad, Basra and Mosul among locations for...