Briefings : SDR, Ocean, Arms Sales

• The SDR mayhem continues with the RAF now apparently under threat, according to the mainstream media anyway. Seems like the sort of arguments i read in Warship World last year. According to some sources the UK is preparing to give up having a continuous nuclear deterrent and go for a "cheaper alternative". How many times must we have these arguments?
• HMS Ocean has arrived off Rio de Janeiro to take part in an amphibious operation with the Brazilian Navy and Marines. Ocean will also be taking part in a UK-Brazil trade & industry exhibition. I wonder if they'll try and flog the helicopter carrier off to the Brazilians while they are at it.
• A $60 billion arms deal between the US and Saudi Arabia has been proposed which would include F-15s, Apaches, Blackhawks and all sorts of other gear.
• Portugal could buy 6 of the new KC-390 tactical transport from Embraer. Brazil, Chile and Columbia are also likely to buy the type.
• A recent computer virus is said to have been created by a Jihadist group. A new front in the "War On Terror"?

Briefings : Albion, Cyber Security, Greyhound

• HMS Albion has arrived back to the UK after taking part in the large Auriga exercise off the eastern coast of the US. The amphibious ship and the Royal Marines 42 Commando took advantage of the training opportunities over in the USA.
• The MOD is tightening up cyber security, and as less than half of the 340 laptops lost or stolen from the MOD over the last 2 years are said to have been encrypted you can see why. Unencrypted media is now to be banned and personal data handling to be improved.
• The US Navy are looking into the possibility of remanufacturing its fleet of C-2A Greyhound carrier on-board delivery transports.
• China has launched another surveillance satellite, the 6th this year. Yaogan Weixing-10 has SAR and high resolution optics officially for "scientific experiments and crop surveys" though the satellite along with 2 others form a maritime surveillance formation.
• Kuwait wants to buy 209 Patriot MIM-104E missiles. 
• Scientists have developed an invisibility cloak out of silk. At the moment it only works on light outside of the visible spectrum but they hope one day it can work there too. Its main use will be in medical science however.
• Astute has had to return to port during its sea trials following problems with its anchor.

Briefings : Tornado engines, RAF Jackals, Cyber attack

Rolls-Royce have won a 15 year contract to support the RAF's fleet of Tornadoes RB199 engines up until the planned retirement of the Tornado in 2025. The RAF Regiment meanwhile has taken delivery of it's first Jackal 2 armoured vehicles to replace Land Rovers in Afghanistan.

China is suspected as being behind a cyber-attack on India. Files on Indian missile projects and other military information are said to have been taken in the attack in which a number of Indian military computers and those of related agencies were attacked. The first mission-system equipped F-35 has entered flight testing, though the first flight of this first F-35 equipped with sensors, including APG-81 AESA radar, is a year late.

Briefings : FRES, B-2, Cyber-Warfare

General Dynamics have "sweetened the deal" in it's bid to build special vehicles as part of the British Army's FRES programme. It's ASCOD SV will be assembled locally at Defence Support Group's Donnington facilities. 1000 vehicles are needed for the scouting, command, ambulance and direct fire roles.

RAF pilots have flown the latest upgraded USAF B-2 bombers.

Israel is the latest military to add cyber-warfare capabilities to it's portfolio. The IDF will set up a cyber warfare team. Russia has started building a 4th Borey class ballistic missile submarine despite though the Bulava SLBMs intended for it have caused a lot of trouble with 7 failures in 12 tests.

Briefings : Bambirik, Gripen, Cyber Warfare

The MOD has published a gallery of images from Operation Bambirik, an attack by the Royal Welsh on a Taleban stronghold in Afghanistan.

The UK Hydrographic Office has produced more up-to-date maps to assist the US and other countries in the Haiti relief effort.

Thailand are to order another 6 Gripen fighters and another Saab 340 AEW aircraft plus upgrade some of it's F-16s. The Pentagon's cyber-security strategist says that governments need to improve their cyber defences and not sit behind firewalls. The French Navy have successfully launched their next generation M51 ballistic missile from a submarine for the first time.

Briefings : RAF, Sweden, US Cyber warfare

The chief of the RAF has joined the inter-service debate on the future of the British armed services by saying Britain needs long-term defence plans. Unfortunately politicians tend not to do long-term very well. Sweden's military is also looking at the future and change.

The USAF's cyber warfare unit the 24th air force has become operational.

The Canadian Navy is opting to modernise it's frigates with as much non-American equipment as possible saying that buying American can lead to delays.

Briefings (21/01/10) : Lynx, Submarine accident, Chinese Navy

The first 4 upgraded Lynx AH9A helicopters, upgraded for service in Afghanistan, have re-entered service. Though they are currently in North Yorkshire for training before being deployed.

The Commander of HMS Superb Steven Drysdale admitted failures which resulted in the crashing of the submarine into rocks south of Suez in 2008. Other officers on aboard also admitted failures. You may wonder what the Royal Navy is doing during the Haiti disaster? Well nothing at all so far unfortunately as they have no ships currently in the Caribbean due to cost savings however RFA Largs Bay will be sent.

Following on from the gunsights used by the US Marines with Biblical references on them now it seems the British Army will also have them as they have ordered the sights for their L129A1 rifles.

With the Chinese seemingly having the upper hand in the info-war the US Office for Naval Intelligence (ONI) have not helped matters by accidentally putting a report about the Chinese Navy on a publically accessible website (or maybe it was intentional?) Report can be found here, for the moment anyway.

An Israeli company has created a sonic cannon that can potentially kill if the person is close enough.

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.

Briefings (16/01/10) : Trident, Typhoon engines, JSF

The Conservatives (who are - probably - likely to form the next UK government) say they will delay the Trident replacement by 5 years though this will face resistance from the Royal Navy, UK ship building industry and even the shadow chancellor so things could change. Some Tories want SLBMs replaced with an air launched cruise missile system to maintain the nuclear deterrent. One benefit of delaying though would mean the new boats would come in at the same time as the US' Ohio replacement which could mean we could share some aspects of the design (well we are already).

Rolls Royce have been awarded a 10 year £865 million contract to provide long-term support for the Eurojet EJ200 engines powering the RAF's fleet of Typhoons.

Britain says the European partners in the A400M project remain committed to the airlifter but "not at any price".

The US Navy are now also looking at the rising costs of the JSF with concern and are warning that the F-35B/C are becoming harder to afford citing the JSF will be twice as expensive to fly compared to the Harrier and Hornet. The latest cyber attack is a hacking of the PEO Soldier Army military equipment website though a Lebanese hacker is claiming credit for this one. Meanwhile the US is to set up a cyber defence team to protect the US electric grid from cyber attack.

Japan has ended it's refuelling mission of ships involved with the Afghanistan operation. Japan has supported the US led mission since 2001 but will now concentrate on reconstruction work in Afganistan itself.

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.

Briefings (14/01/10) : Rescue, UAV data, Google-China

The RUSI is warning that the UK armed forces could lose 20% of it's trained personnel because of pressures on the defence budget and rising military costs. The RAF Search & Rescue teams have been busy because of the wintry weather in the UK.

The US are heavy users of drones and that use is going to get heavier but one of the problems they are having is the amount of data being gathered, in 2008 24 years worth of footage was gathered alone! The US is now turning to the television industry for technology and techniques to help them manage and analyse the vast amount of data.

Google's decision to not censor results in China and potentially closing down it's operations in China may have been because of the Chinese government's hacking of the Gmail accounts of human rights activists and other cyber attacks which may be part of a wider spying effort by China on US IT companies. Wikileaks is claiming China was accessing Google's source code and also the US Government's Gmail-intercept system. The always excellent Information Dissemination also looks at this.

Al Qaeda may be linked to a "rogue" aviation network of aircraft which regularly criss-cross the Atlantic laden with drugs and weapons.

Briefings (06/01/10) : UK, Piracy, Cyberwarfare

The UK is incapable of fighting modern wars according to a report written by former commanders. British armed forces are, the report claims, "institutionally incapable of keeping pace with rapid change and the associated willingness to adapt." Meanwhile the UK government is looking at proposals for a national food strategy and how to keep the population fed in future. Dig for victory!

The ELP Defens(c)e blog meanwhile ponders what kind of aircraft the USAF needs in the new decade.  Think Defence meanwhile reports that the UK is an unlikely beneficiary of the piracy problem off East Africa and elsewhere because "most of the P&I Clubs that insure shipping are based in London so War Risks Premiums go straight to the bottom line". Defense Tech asks if the US should start launching pre-emptive cyber strikes against terrorists, especially Jihadist recruiting sites.

Britain under cyberattack daily

Britain is under constant cyberattack mostly coming from China and Russia it has been reported. GCHQ's Office of Cyber Security works around the clock to defend government computer systems and vital parts of the national infrastructure. Over 300 attacks have been recorded on public sector systems over the last year. MI5 believes the attacks are state-sponsored and as well as gathering information they could also be attempts to infect key infrastructure like the national grid with computer viruses to shut them down.

MOD blocks Wikileaks after ...er... leaks

The MOD has blocked access to Wikileaks from 1000s of it's own computers after the website was found to be used to put on military manuals used by troops in the field. Items placed on the website include a 2007 manual for tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan and a handbook on Istar.

The manuals leaked so far are at the low-level of "restricted" but the MOD fears other materials getting onto the site though blocking access would be difficult (and in any event there would be many ways to easily circumvent any blocking such as simply e-mailing the document to someone on a non-MOD computer to upload to Wikileaks for you).

Office of Cyber Security (OCS) to be formed

After much speculation it is now official, the UK will form a cyber-security agency the Office of Cyber Security (OCS). The OCS will draw together what is already being done in the area of cyber-security and info-warfare by the MOD, intelligence agencies and police meanwhile GCHQ will be the base for the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) which will protect critical IT systems. The OCS will look to developing the capabilities for offensive cyber warfare too, including DDoS attacks and spying on "enemy" computer systems.

However offensive cyber warfare will be retained as an option but not used as a first response an unnamed official said.

UK looks to cyber defence

The UK is to develop a "national cyber security centre" to combat the growing threat of state sponsored hacking (and presumably non-state too) of UK government computer systems. The centre will also look at taking the offensive to enable attacks on foreign IT systems. The UK is believed to be working in conjunction with the USA and Canada on cyber defence.



Gordon Brown is expected to announce the UK's plans to combat "e-crime" later this month. Of course with the usual level of investment by New Labour in the military the cyber security centre is likely to be 2 hairy geeks and a ZX Spectrum.

JSF hacked

Hackers have broken into Pentagon computers and downloaded terabytes of data on the F-35 JSF project relating to the JSF design and electronics it has been reported. The most sensitive information on JSF was not on internet connected computers though but the information that was gained could help defend against the JSF. Former US officials say the cyberattack appears to have originated in China though China has denied they engage in "cyber crime" (of course) and it is fairly easy to mask the true location of a hacker anyway. Recently the MOD ordered it's first 3 JSFs for the initial evaluation of the type which will serve with the RAF and FAA.



Recently the existence of a vast underground espionage network called GhostNet which has infiltrated over 1000 computers in over 100 countries has been reported by the University of Toronto. China has been accused as being behind GhostNet though there is yet no proof on their involvement.