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The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Australia of 17 SM-2 Block IIIB STANDARD Warhead Compatible Telemetry missiles and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $46 million. The Government of Australia has requested a possible sale of 17 SM-2 Block IIIB STANDARD Warhead Compatible Telemetry missiles, including AN/DKT-71 Telemeters and assembly kits, spare and repair parts, technical data and publications, personnel training and training equipment, U.S. government and contractor engineering, technical and logistics support services, and other related elements of logistics support. The...

The Royal Australian Navy fired Raytheon Company's warfare missile during recent tests on board the HMAS Melbourne. "With this firing, Melbourne's crew validated the work done to transition warships from SM-1 capability to SM-2," said Ron Shields, Raytheon's SM-2 program director. "This was the first time an SM-2 has been launched by any navy from an upgraded frigate, clearing the way for other fleets to make similar upgrades." As the most widely fielded variant of SM-2, Block IIIA is deployed by the U.S. and eight allied navies. The missile is part of a long-range area air defense capability capitalizing on...

The HMAS Melbourne has demonstrated the navy's updated naval air defense capability with the firing of a Standard Missile (SM-2) off Jervis Bay. Minister for Defense Personnel, Materiel and Science Greg Combet said in a written statement that the SM-2 would be further enhanced throughout 2010. "This missile firing was the first time an SM-2 has been fired from an Adelaide-class frigate," Combet said. "The missile was prepared, launched and supported in flight before engaging a target." Combet said Melbourne is now equipped with two modern missile systems to combat anti-ship missiles and aircraft. "HMAS Melbourne is an Adelaide-class guided-missile...

AN Australian submarine - HMAS Waller - has used a new super torpedo - the Mark 48 - to sink an American warship off Hawaii. The HMAS Waller fired the heavyweight Mark 48 torpedo, which the US and Australian navies say is the world's deadliest, during war games this week. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said the torpedo had been jointly developed by Australia and the United States. The firing occurred during the Rim of the Pacific 2008 (RIMPAC 08) exercise, involving multiple navies off the coast of Hawaii. "This controlled exercise resulted in the planned sinking of a retired US...

AFTER months of gliding silently underwater, stalking imaginary enemies, submarine commander Matt Buckley decided to give his 45 exhausted crew a treat. He ordered his HMAS Collins submarine to surface off the coast of Tasmania and flipped open the hatch. "We were at the entrance to Port Arthur," Buckley recalls. "It was one of those classic misty mornings and we sailed up to the convict ruins. As we glided through the water about 30 dolphins swam alongside us, it was just an incredible moment." It is moments like these the Royal Australian Navy would love to bottle and hand to...

IT has all the makings of a Boy's Own blockbuster: a mass breakout by German POWs from a rural Victorian internment camp; a mysterious dictionary revealing dotted codes of vital military importance; and a body washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island. These events - three of many surrounding the evolving, extraordinary story of HMAS Sydney - continue to fascinate historians, who are now tantalisingly close to solving a military riddle that has haunted the nation for more than 66 years. In the next few days, shipwreck hunter David Mearns and his crew aboard the SV Geosounder will sink...

AN Australian Navy vessel sent to rescue an injured crewman from a Spanish fishing vessel in the Indian Ocean should reach the ship by about midday tomorrow. Search and Rescue Australia based in Perth called on Defence for assistance yesterday after receiving news of the crewman with a badly broken arm. The fishing vessel Illa Gaveira was last positioned about 1400km west of Perth. "After exhausting efforts to have a civilian ship respond to the call for assistance, and finding the vessel is out of range of a rotary wing aircraft, Defence responded," Defence spokesman Andrew Nikolic said. HMAS Warramunga...

AUSTRALIA will invest billions of dollars in a new hi-tech submarine fleet and air force as the Pacific region increasingly becomes a geo-political hot spot. Australia's six existing Royal Navy Collins-class submarines will be retired in 2025, by which time defence experts say the Pacific will be a crucible of competitive global power. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said he had ordered the planning of a new generation of submarines to replace the Collins fleet. "We've always been (militarily) superior to our neighbours to the north, but South-East Asian countries have developed and grown their wealth and now have access to...

THE 66-year search for the wreck of HMAS Sydney is believed to be over. The ship, in which 645 Australians died, is believed to have been found by a group of West Australians using a grappling hook and a camera last weekend. The Sydney sank after a battle with German raider, Kormoran, on November 19, 1941, Fairfax newspapers said. Video film of the find shows tangled wreckage over large, much longer than any other ship known to have sunk nearby.

BLACK Hawk 221 was hovering only metres above the deck of HMAS Kanimbla, a few seconds from landing, when it became clear something was wrong. * Video: Black Hawk crash The helicopter's engines began screaming, its rotors seemed to droop, and the pilots were heard to swear. "It was either 'Oh shit' or 'Oh f..k, then I heard them start talking to each other really quickly and I could tell they were trying to sort it out," one of the Black Hawk's crew yesterday told the board of inquiry into last November's crash off Fiji, which claimed the lives of...

A BRITISH maritime researcher claims to have solved one of Australia's greatest wartime mysteries by locating the wreck of HMAS Sydney. Timothy Akers also says he has discovered the whereabouts of the German raider Kormoran that sank the Sydney off the coast of Western Australia in November 1941, killing all 645 men on board. And the wrecks of a number of Japanese warships and submarines, also believed to have been involved in the battle, are lying on the ocean floor nearby, Mr Akers claims. However, Mr Akers' claims have been rejected by his former employer – now competitor – and...

THE Navy will use more high tech equipment to determine whether it is practical to try to reach the Army Black Hawk helicopter which crashed into the sea of Fiji last month, killing two defence personnel. The Navy has now pinpointed the location of the Black Hawk's locator beacon nearly 3km under the sea. ..... The Navy said a special pinger locating drone, borrowed from the US Navy, was towed by the survey ship HMAS Melville and located the beacon on its first pass over the crash site on Friday. ..... The Black Hawk crashed into the sea on November...

THE Australian Government has despatched a second warship to stand by near Fiji in case a mass evacuation is necessary following fears of a coup. Announcing the deployment of amphibious support ship, HMAS Kanimbla, from Townsville, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson tonight would not rule out military assistance from Australia if the Fijian Government asks for help. Australia sent the frigate, HMAS Newcastle, to waters near Fiji yesterday. The Government also revised its travel advisory to Fiji tonight, warning Australians to exercise "a high degree of caution" ... because of increased tensions between the Fiji government and military, and the possibility...

TWO Australian naval ships, with troops and helicopters, are heading to international waters outside Fiji while extra police have been offered to South Pacific island nation as threat of a military coup escalates. The amphibious warship, HMAS Kanimbla, with an undisclosed number of fighters, left port this evening in the wake of the HMAS Newcastle, which left sometime earlier. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson last night said the the Australian Government was very concerned about the event, while Foreign Minister Alexander Downer conceded a coup was a "reasonable chance". Dr Nelson called on the Fijian defence chief Frank Bainimarama to respect...

THE remains of the unknown sailor believed to be the sole survivor of Australia's most enduring wartime mystery - the sinking of HMAS Sydney off Western Australia - have been unearthed on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The Defence Department last night confirmed that bones had been discovered in the island's Old European Cemetery by a navy-led team of experts and, once removed, would be taken to Sydney for further forensic tests in an attempt to establish identity. The discovery is yet another piece to a puzzle that has fascinated and frustrated historians for more than half a century....

A NEW South Wales Supreme Court judge will sit in Launceston today to hear the opening of a case in which a Tasmanian man is suing the Federal Government over his part in the Voyager naval disaster. Geoffrey Singline, 63, is suffering cancer and is seeking unspecified damages for anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol abuse, and special damages for economic loss following the disaster, his lawyer, David Forster of Hollows Lawyers said. Eighty-two people died when aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collided with destroyer HMAS Voyager, slicing HMAS Voyager in two and sinking it, during an exercise in NSW waters...

TOP secret Cold War missions in which Australian submarines spied on Soviet and Chinese warships and bases are set to be revealed as the submariners demand that their service be classified as warlike. Little has been disclosed about the secret missions in which the now superseded Oberon-class submarines sat watching and listening off installations such as Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, a key Soviet naval base. "Typically we would remain on the horizon about five nautical miles away, submerged at periscope depth, watching and listening. This was cloak and dagger stuff," an unnamed submarine crewmen said in an article in the...