Briefings (19/01/10) : New rifle, A400M, Chinese hacking

British troops in Afghanistan are to get L129A1 Sharpshooter rifles. 440 have been bought as part of a UOR. The rifle, which fires 7.62 rounds, will be more useful in long-range firefights.

Flight International look at the A400M project problems and concludes that it is too big to fail.The First Sea Lord warns against spending cuts to the Royal Navy.

In the light of the knowledge security flaws in Internet Explorer allowed Chinese hackers to attack Google the French and German governments have advised it's citizens to not use IE, however the British government and armed forces are to continue using it (IE6 too, blimey!) Meanwhile foreign reporters in China say their Gmail accounts have also been hacked. McAfee say the cyber attack was "ultra sophistocated", the most sophisticated cyber attack outside of the defence industry.

Italy is investigating what caused one of it's Predator A Plus UAVs to ditch in the Adriatic while on a training flight. India are set to buy 29 MiG-29Ks for it's Navy, no doubt for use on an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier India is still yet to receive despite paying billions.