The Navy may have a new line of defense against a changing threat environment after the successful missile firing from a new multi-role launcher in development. Chemring Countermeasures and Raytheon Missile Systems say they have successfully fired a Raytheon-Lockheed Martin Javelin missile from a prototype multi-role Centurion launcher during testing at the Defence Training Estate on Salisbury Plain in England, where it was able to hit a static target.
“We’re bringing an entirely new dimension to ship self-defense by providing a sea-based, inside-the-horizon platform protection,” said Rick Nelson, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems’ Naval and Area Mission Defense line, in a statement. “Chemring’s Centurion launcher, when coupled with Raytheon’s combat-proven missiles, offers an evolutionary capability to defeat surface threats with this One System-Multiple Missions technology.”
Russia Strategic Missile Force Commander announced that Moscow plans to deploy rail-mounted nuclear missiles as a defensive measure against the United States’ Prompt Global Strike missile program.
The benefits of a rail-mounted program include the ability to camouflage the missiles amidst commercial rail traffic, unlike more conventional silo-based nuclear missiles which can more easily be located and targeted. The START Treaty, signed by the United States and Russia in 2011, does not prohibit the development of rail-based missiles, although the fact that Russia decommissioned the last of its rail-based missiles eight years ago but is now restarting the program again suggests that Russia would be embarking on a nuclear arms build-up.
Russia’s military build-up would be a response to Washington’s plans to complete a project to install a missile defense system in Redzikowo, Poland by 2018 while another ballistic missile defense system in southern Romania is expected to be operational by 2015. Moscow fears that the missile shield is in fact offensive in nature and part of a NATO military encirclement of Russia.
Russia is finalizing an advanced air engagement system combining “fire-and-forget” guidance and “single-shot kill” ability within a single air-to-air missile.
The K-77M air-to-air missile with this advanced guidance system will be fitted on to the fifth-generation fighter jet PAK-FA (advanced frontline aircraft system, also codenamed T-50) and it will start to be delivered to the Russian Air Force by 2017.
The major innovation of the K-77M air-to-air missile is its guidance system, based on an Active Phased Array Antenna(APAA) of its own. With APAA onboard, the missile has zero reaction time to unexpected evolutions of the target, which means that once it locks on an aircraft, it would hit it no matter what aerial acrobatics the target would perform to shake off the inbound killer missile.
An active phased array antenna consists of a large number of cone-shaped cells installed under a transparent-to-radio-waves cap on the nose of the missile. Each cell receives only a part of the signal, but once digitally processed, the information from all cells is summarized into a “full picture,” enabling the K-77M missile to immediately respond to sharp turns of the target, making interception practically inevitable. A similar technology is used in widely known Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, manufactured by Raytheon in the United States.
But the K-77M missile is much smaller, because it is supposed to fit into the interior bays of the PAK-FA fighter jet to ensure its stealth capabilities. Yet for the K-77M missile itself, a stealth aircraft or a UAV is a legitimate target it would track and destroy ordinarily. The advanced missile system is fully compatible with the digital communication system of the fifth generation fighter jet, but also could be used on modernized fighter jets of the previous generation. The Active Phased Array Antenna is the most modern radar technology today, and every such device is extremely expensive to produce. Yet the price of the target a missile equipped with APAA can destroy is much higher, so if the K-77M missile can guarantee hitting the target, it is worth the cost, Aleksandr Khramchikhin, an expert from the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, told Izvestia.
India test-fired its nuclear-capable Agni-III ballistic missile on Monday 23th from Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast with a strike range of over 3000 km. The indigenously developed missile was flight-tested from a mobile launcher at launch complex-4 of the Integrated Test Range at about 16:55 hrs. "It was the second user trial in the Agni-III series carried out to establish the 'repeatability' of the missile's performance," a DRDO official said. This surface-to-air missile is powered by a two-stage solid propellant system and can carry a warhead of 1.5 tonne which is protected by carbon all composite heat shield. With a length of 17 metres, the missile's diameter is 2 metres and launch weight is around 50 tonnes.
U.S. defense officials are saying that China's military has conducted a second flight test of its Dong Feng-41 (DF-41) long-range missile, capable of hitting targets in the United States with a nuclear warhead. When fully deployed, a single one of these missiles will be capable of carrying up to 10 nuclear warheads, each targeting a different location. Nothing new, as-according to a report by the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center-"China has the most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the world. It is developing and testing offensive missiles, forming additional missile units, qualitatively upgrading missile systems, and developing methods to counter ballistic missile defenses. The Chinese ballistic missile force is expanding in both size and types of missiles."
The United States has begun delivery of submarine-launched Harpoon missiles this year, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has said in a report to the Legislative Yuan. The deal includes 32 UGM-84L sub-launched Harpoon Block II missiles along with two UTM-84L exercise missiles and two weapon control systems. (Read more)
Russia is planning on deploying a new type of long range missiles to replace the Cold War missile known as “Satan”.The Voyevoda, which NATO has dubbed the SS-18 Satan, was developed in the 70s and they are reaching the end of their service life. It is said that these missiles were “stuff in nightmares” for the United States during the stand off between the US and the Soviets.
Russia successfully test-fired a Topol RS-12M intercontinental ballistic missile, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
The missile, put into service in 1985 and referred to as a SS-25 Sickle by NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 kilometers (6,125 miles) and can carry a nuclear warhead with a yield of up to 550 kilotons.
The Defense Ministry says it intends to retire most of its SS-18 Satan, SS-19 Stiletto and SS-25 Sickle ICBMs, and replace them with SS-27 Sickle-B (Topol-M) and RS-24 Yars missiles by 2021, RIA Novosti said.
