Briefings (15/01/10) : FIST, Rockets, Bulava

Defence Management asks if the MOD is on track with it's Future Integrated Soldier Technology (FIST) programme, the answer seems more or less. £333 million worth of contracts have been awarded for the Royal Navy's future carriers, the vast majority of equipment for the Queen Elizabeth carriers have now been ordered.

The US could arm A-10s and AV-8s with precision guided rockets. The BAE APKWS II is considered safer than existing munitions like the Hellfire in situations where friendly troops are very close to the target. The US meanwhile is concerned about the build-up of cyber and space weapons by China. Amid all the doom and gloom in the world though the Doomsday clock has been turned back 1 minute back to 6 minutes to midnight.

A design flaw may have caused the latest failure of the Russian Bulava SLBM rather than a faulty component which is probably the worst news. Researchers have identified the command servers between recent espionage and cyber attacks on Google and other US companies and traced them to the Chinese government.